What do you do when cruising

[Tropicallion]

I was wondering what you guys do at altitude.

i watch twitch and look at my project fly data

[LHookins]

It might be interesting to read what real pilots do.

Excerpted from Buck, Bob. North Star over My Shoulder: A Flying Life (p. 39). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition.

To a casual observer, an airline pilot has a very easy job: get the airplane off the ground, climb to altitude, set up the autopilot, and do nothing until it is time to descend and land. What the casual observer doesn’t see is the inside of the pilot’s head, where questions constantly present themselves, demanding answers.

A pilot constantly scans, with eyes and mind: a look at the instrument readings, note the position of switches and levers, check the autopilot to be certain it hasn’t wandered off in direction or altitude, scan the distant sky outside searching for other aircraft while at the same time surveying the sky for changes in the clouds that suggest a storm or turbulence ahead.

And the questions: Is the airplane in good form, or is there a slight irregularity of some system that’snot dramatic at the moment, but still bears watching so you’ll know what to do should it get worse?

And that destination weather, how is it doing? How is our fuel use—normal, so we’ll have the proper reserves at destination, or are we using more than planned due to higher air temperatures or head winds?

And in the back of the mind is the “what if” stuff: What if an engine fails? Where’s the nearest safe airport, or do I keep going? What if the pressurization goes sour and we need to descend to an altitude at which we’ll burn much more fuel—what then? These questions don’t make you worried or even anxious, but the good pilot knows the possibilities, however remote, and your job is to keep them all in mind and know what to do if they happen.

This is from an airline pilot who started off in the 1930s flying the DC-2 and DC-3 and retired out of 747s.

Hook

[Tropicallion]

ok thanks

[LHookins]

What we do in FSX probably isn't quite that complicated. :)

Back in 2007, during my first around the world flight, I decided to do the London to Sydney flight that Qantas first did in the 747.

In those days I was still using GPS direct and autopilot and didn't worry about fuel management and just took off with a full load of fuel. I don't use time compression and I don't leave the computer while the aircraft is in flight except to do various caffeine maintenance functions, never more than a few minutes at a time. Since I didn't have to worry about weather, navigation or fuel issues there wasn't much to be done.

So what did I do? I looked out the window. It was a 17.5 hour sightseeing flight. I did keep track of my ground speed and time remaining to fly. I checked the fuel a few times but it was never an issue. Over China I had an incredible tailwind which probably accounted for much of the relatively quick flight, which took 21 hours in the real aircraft.

I left the computer only once: I saved the game and slept for 8 hours, then took up the flight where I left off.

And you know what? I wasn't bored.

Hook

[LHookins]

Compare that to a more recent 8 hour flight in A2A's Stratocruiser.

I took off from San Francisco and flew to Honolulu. I had a full load of passengers and enough fuel to get to Hawaii with a small reserve. I had previously calculated a great circle route and took off on a specified course, turning left two degrees every hour. I used the rudimentary autopilot to hold altitude and course which I set on an instrument with a round dial. Not much computerization in a 1930s era aircraft.

I did not check winds aloft. I had only a vague idea of what winds should be at the altitude I was flying and had adjusted my flight plan accordingly. Not much accurate weather information for the period I was flying either. I was using Active Sky Next for real world weather.

The Stratocruiser has very in-depth systems and I had to monitor engines and other systems continuously. I also had to verify my fuel use. Since I was flying over the ocean the whole time, there wasn't much sightseeing to be done. Only the stars to look at out the window. Maybe a few clouds.

I did the entire 8 hour flight in one sitting, and not only was I never bored, I was quite busy the whole time.

About 2/3 of the way to Hawaii I had a cabin pressurization failure and had to descend from 26000 feet to 10000. Since I'd be using more fuel at that altitude I now had a fuel management problem: would I have enough to reach Honolulu? I decided to cheat the fuel if I had to. I monitored my fuel closely for the remainder of the flight.

I was not using any form of GPS or map. I had to rely on hitting Hawaii close enough to pick up one of two VORs at each end of the island chain. When the VOR came alive it was quite a thrill. And my initial heading was less than two degrees off from optimum. This was the first time since descending to 10000 that I knew I'd have enough fuel to reach my destination.

Meal service had been good as befitting a luxury airliner. None of the passengers complained. It was a good flight.

Hook

[Reese]

Watch movies. Improve my VoiceAttack co-pilot.

[LHookins]

One thing that Bob Buck's account does not mention is that flying gives you plenty of time to think. The best book I've seen to illustrate this is Richard Bach's "Stranger to the Ground" about a single flight. The balance between dealing with the aircraft and flying and thinking about all sorts of other things is just right.

I was about to retire a very expensive payware aircraft because I was growing to hate flying it. I figured I'd give it one more shot and took off on a planned two hour flight. About 15 minutes in I'd had enough and turned back toward my home airport intending to land and uninstall the aircraft.

During that final 15 minutes flying back home I realized that an adjustment similar to one I'd done on another aircraft might tame the undesirable flight characteristics. I made an excellent landing, which helped. I exited the sim, studied the config files and determined the necessary change. I figured I'd simply take off and fly for a few minutes to see if it had much effect and ended up flying the entire original flight plan. It turns out the aircraft is actually very good once you'd fixed what someone else thought might be realistic.

Without that extra 15 minutes of flight time and the time it gave me to think, that aircraft would be gone from my computer, never to be thought about again. Which would have been a shame as the aircraft is very good otherwise.

I will not mention the aircraft's name or developer as I do not wish to incur the wrath of the more fanatical fans or the company. But I will describe the problem: you have to be able to look away from the horizon long enough to tune a radio or adjust the trim without the aircraft banking 30 degrees to one one side or the other and fighting you constantly even if your eyes are glued to the horizon. Increasing roll_stability in aircraft.cfg did the trick. In most aircraft an increase from 1.0 to 1.2 will fix the problem; in this one it was increased from 1.0 to 2.0. For example, pitch_stability up from 1.0 to 1.2 in the stock Grumman Goose was enough to make it a lot easier to hold altitude.

Hook

[Tropicallion]

its funny bc i am trying to learn the dash 8 bc thats my first non fsx plane and i am getting there but its took me a while to learn how to plane and all that

[Tropicallion]

But thanks for all the feed back i wanted to see what other ppl did i i can learn and make my flight feel more real and fun. also what i said i am still new to the flight sims so i want to learn and have fun

[LHookins]

Well, Matt, the best advice I could give you is, if you are having fun, you're doing it right.

I didn't start off flying the way I do now. I used autopilot extensively and the total of my flight planning was setting a direct route in the GPS. Eventually I started using VORs instead of direct, but still setting them in the GPS and using autopilot. Then I started avoiding restricted airspace, then started using real world charts from skyvector.com (originally airnav.com had the charts). Eventually I switched to using the actual VOR signal and instruments. I weaned myself off of autopilot by using only altitude hold and steering the plane manually, and currently I don't use autopilot at all except on very long flights.

Heck, in the earliest days I didn't even land the plane: I'd end the flight still in the air. Eventually I learned to land and got to enjoy it.

At one point I decided that any flight over four hours wasn't that much fun and started limiting myself to shorter flights. That eight hours to Hawaii was a special case, and there are other long flights I'll make occasionally.

A flight long enough to make you want to go watch a movie instead of flying is too long. Plan shorter flights. The Dash-8 is a good regional aircraft for stuff like that. While you don't have to actually hand-fly the aircraft the whole time (real world pilots tend to use the autopilot as much as possible) you should at least be in the cockpit. There should be plenty to do.

I suspect most people in FSX flying airliners don't stay in the cockpit. They're missing 90% of the flight experience.

I have a vague memory of being a passenger on a Dash-8 or similar once. The only thing I remember was when they turned on the air conditioning it produced incredible amounts of fog in the cabin. I wish now I'd paid attention to the aircraft and the flight.

Hook

[TextRich]

I check and double check my fuel to make sure I have enough in my calculations.. Check all instruments to make sure everything is operating normally and maximally. Scan the skies for potential weather hazards and other aircraft. Preview my landing approach using Navigraph Charts. If I have time left over in cruise, I enjoy the scenery. I don't take very long flights and usually don't have to do anything unrelated to simming by the time of my descent. Like one of LHookin's posts stated, I enjoy the view more from inside the cockpit than the external views we often see Twitch streamers do to show off their aircraft's paint job.

[gspectre]

Since I prefer to only fly the Beechcraft Baron 58 (with the G1000), I enjoy the scenery when not looking at the or fuel. I like to look for landmarks in FSX:SE

[LHookins]

Like one of LHookin's posts stated, I enjoy the view more from inside the cockpit than the external views we often see...

When I'm talking about "staying in the cockpit" I mean actually sitting at the computer during the flight. :)

I prefer a cockpit view myself, but I know some people like flying an external view. If nothing else an external view is more scenic than a cockpit view if you're showing off your aircraft. I have a lot of screen shots and most of these are probably external views of the aircraft, others are scenery. One of these usually ends up as my desktop background. Currently it's the Grumman Goose.

I've got one cockpit shot I really like. It's Manfred Jahn's C-47/DC-3 with the high resolution virtual cockpit. The sun was shining on the instrument panel and I wanted to capture the shadows of the needles in the artificial horizon on the background of the instrument. Cool stuff you get with Prepar3D, including cloud shadows.

I'm currently duplicating the flight from the book "Cannibal Queen". Real world charts and dead reckoning navigation. Very little use of the GPS display. I am continuously looking for landmarks and checking them against the charts. Typical flight is under 2 hours.

One thing I thought was cool was seeing a picture of Meteor Crater, Arizona and recognizing it from seeing it in the sim.

Hook

[Kaoz]

I use fs passengers, so I need to scan the system from time to time, I made the mistake to wacht TV once on a trans Atlantic flight, I was pass halfway too and come back to a crash plane, so now I read if on a long haul, having say that I did not do long haul that often, I stick to around 1 to 2 hrs flight.

[Tropicallion]

Originally posted by DrukenNuke:

I use fs passengers, so I need to scan the system from time to time, I made the mistake to wacht TV once on a trans Atlantic flight, I was pass halfway too and come back to a crash plane, so now I read if on a long haul, having say that I did not do long haul that often, I stick to around 1 to 2 hrs flight.

i mostly do small flights so like todays i done 2 1 hour flights

[Tropicallion]

and i am using dash 8 so now i got tons to do in the air