Glider Practice!

[Twelvefield]

Honestly, the default gliders in FSX are pretty damned good! They aren't acrobatic, but they do have a ton of loft. There are some add-on gliders that are better, and there used to be a dedicated glider sim that nailed the flight envelope a bit better than FSX, but for such a broadbased sim, these are great planes to fly.

And people generally refuse to fly them!

Give me my 737, 747, 777 jetliner!, that's what the young whippersnapper flightsimmers say. PMDG or nothing! Years ago I remember reading about a pilot checkride program that forced airline pilots back into Piper Cubs. There was one notable senior captain who didn't know how to read a whiskey compass!

So I say, go back to the very basics and learn to fly the way the birds do it.

1) If you are new to gliding, make sure you set Thermal Visualization to SCHEMATIC. It's in the Customize Graphics option for Weather. Usually, it's turned off. Experienced pilots will have it set to NATURAL. SCHEMATIC will fill the sky with gigantic bedsprings. These are thermals: interfaces between cooler and warmer landforms that create updrafts. Fields by lakes or asphalt by fields are often good. Often enough, FSX will place a thermal at the end of a runway (asphalt + field). The inattentive 737 pilot suddenly has to wrench the controls on final on a sunny day because he flew through a thermal he didn't know existed! (NOTE: FSX also will simulate ridge thermals - thermals generated by wind pushing up and over a mountainside - but these are objects in Missions and cannot be found in the sandbox world without mods).

2) Pick out a glider. You can hook it up to a tow plane like a Maule, or I just use the Map to fix a new altitude.

3) Pick out a place to fly. My favourite of all is Locarno, Switzerland. In real life, it's a world class glider destination: there are always gliders up as long as the sun is out. The ridge thermals are amazing! But not in FSX. Still, there are enough thermals to keep you aloft for as long as you have endurance.

4) Either use a tow plane (CTRL-SHIFT-Y) or choose Map and then set the altitude to somewhere between 4,000 - 8,000 feet.

5) TURN OFF THE AUDIO VARIO! (Variometer). The noise will drive you mad!! It's a button on the lower right of the main dashboard. Use wind sounds to gauge your lift. Also watch the RDI (the variometer dial) with the needle going up or down to show rate of climb or descent.

Enjoy! Fly into the themal to go up, push the nose to go down. When in a thermal, make slow turns, stay in the column. Think of an eagle gliding in circles, that's exactly what you are doing.

Be creative with the flaps. Use full flap to go slow and maximize climb. Use null flap to glide efficiently from thermal to thermal. You can cover a lot of distance this way!

Once you gain some altitude, nose down and pick up airspeed. Now you can pull off some decent aerobatics.

Landing is the hardest part of the glide. You're configured for lift, so the glider will fight you going down. Use the speed brakes and flaps to get your speed to around 50 knots. Make sure your gear is down! "I am a leaf on the wind!" It's a great mantra for glider pilots, unless you happen to be a Firefly fan as well. In which case, don't use that mantra.

[Sokarrat]

I liked the post a lot. I've flow around 5-6 hours with the glider (not serious flight) and now I want to try with 'visible' thermals and 'vario sound OFF'. XD
I will try that location too (even I don't like default scenery very much).

It would be nice if they added some more gliders... or sell as DLC.

[Twelvefield]

The gliders are really good in FSX and their flight envelope is quite lifelike. Weather generation in FSX is not realistic for gliding, though. There are many subtle currents, counter-currents and vorteces that glider pliots encounter that are not modelled. A PMDG pilot would just muscle through them, ironbound and ironjawed, and mutter nonsense about "air pockets".

Unfortunatey, weather generators for FSX like Active Sky still don't do thermals all that well, and they make ridge lift even worse. I've seen but not tried a freeware addon called CumulusX! (yes, with the exclaimation point like it's a Broadway musical...

Cumulus!
Tower, we're on coming in on fi-i-nal
We're flaps down and wheels are out
On runway heading niner-al!
Cumulus!)

Anyways, this thing is supposed to make decent thermals for gliders, and it's supposed to be able to work with or without ASN.

[Thogmar]

Originally posted by Twelvefield:

Honestly, the default gliders in FSX are pretty damned good! They aren't acrobatic, but they do have a ton of loft. There are some add-on gliders that are better, and there used to be a dedicated glider sim that nailed the flight envelope a bit better than FSX, but for such a broadbased sim, these are great planes to fly.

And people generally refuse to fly them!

Give me my 737, 747, 777 jetliner!, that's what the young whippersnapper flightsimmers say. PMDG or nothing! Years ago I remember reading about a pilot checkride program that forced airline pilots back into Piper Cubs. There was one notable senior captain who didn't know how to read a whiskey compass!

So I say, go back to the very basics and learn to fly the way the birds do it.

1) If you are new to gliding, make sure you set Thermal Visualization to SCHEMATIC. It's in the Customize Graphics option for Weather. Usually, it's turned off. Experienced pilots will have it set to NATURAL. SCHEMATIC will fill the sky with gigantic bedsprings. These are thermals: interfaces between cooler and warmer landforms that create updrafts. Fields by lakes or asphalt by fields are often good. Often enough, FSX will place a thermal at the end of a runway (asphalt + field). The inattentive 737 pilot suddenly has to wrench the controls on final on a sunny day because he flew through a thermal he didn't know existed! (NOTE: FSX also will simulate ridge thermals - thermals generated by wind pushing up and over a mountainside - but these are objects in Missions and cannot be found in the sandbox world without mods).

2) Pick out a glider. You can hook it up to a tow plane like a Maule, or I just use the Map to fix a new altitude.

3) Pick out a place to fly. My favourite of all is Locarno, Switzerland. In real life, it's a world class glider destination: there are always gliders up as long as the sun is out. The ridge thermals are amazing! But not in FSX. Still, there are enough thermals to keep you aloft for as long as you have endurance.

4) Either use a tow plane (CTRL-SHIFT-Y) or choose Map and then set the altitude to somewhere between 4,000 - 8,000 feet.

5) TURN OFF THE AUDIO VARIO! (Variometer). The noise will drive you mad!! It's a button on the lower right of the main dashboard. Use wind sounds to gauge your lift. Also watch the RDI (the variometer dial) with the needle going up or down to show rate of climb or descent.

Enjoy! Fly into the themal to go up, push the nose to go down. When in a thermal, make slow turns, stay in the column. Think of an eagle gliding in circles, that's exactly what you are doing.

Be creative with the flaps. Use full flap to go slow and maximize climb. Use null flap to glide efficiently from thermal to thermal. You can cover a lot of distance this way!

Once you gain some altitude, nose down and pick up airspeed. Now you can pull off some decent aerobatics.

Landing is the hardest part of the glide. You're configured for lift, so the glider will fight you going down. Use the speed brakes and flaps to get your speed to around 50 knots. Make sure your gear is down! "I am a leaf on the wind!" It's a great mantra for glider pilots, unless you happen to be a Firefly fan as well. In which case, don't use that mantra.

Nice, I agree. Too many FMC/FMS button pushers instead of pilots.
Also, more sim pilots should get a decent aerobatic aircraft or ten, like those from RealAir or others who have tweaked their product to perform more realistically in FSX. Pilots, actually take some time to learn how to FLY (shocking, I know), and do the various maneuvers including a ACTUAL Barrel Roll, and not just Aileron Rolls.

[Mobiuslau]

Thermals in FSX aren't really that realistic. I've flown several gliders with the origenal FSX thermals and they are way too easy to find and then the amount of vertical velocity often is insanely high. Fear not! There is an addon that will fix this problem. Cumulusx generates way more realistic thermals and even adds ridge lift in a way more realistic way! WinchX can be used to simulate a winch launch (WARNING; Don't use Winchx as a practice method for real life!)