On Saturday, after 378 days of solitude, crewmembers Anca Selariu, Nathan Jones, Kelly Haston, and Ross Brockwell emerged from Mars Dune Alpha: a 1,700-square-foot simulated Mars habitat part of NASA’s Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA) program. The yearlong simulation was the first of three planned exercises with human volunteers.

“Hello. It’s actually just so wonderful to be able to say hello to you all,” said Haston, CHAPEA commander, as cameras captured the moment she stepped outside the 3D-printed habitat.

The goal of CHAPEA is to provide NASA data on the effects of long-duration habitation of Mars by putting the crew through the throes of life on the Red Planet: isolation, equipment failures, limited resources, and plenty of work. Selariu, Jones, Haston, and Brockwell entered the simulator on June 25, 2023.

The habitat includes 3D-printed spaces for cooking, medical, recreation, fitness, work, and growing crops, as well as private quarters and bathrooms for each crewmember. Volunteers tested out each of these amenities, grew and ate crops like tomatoes and peppers, and performed simulated “Marswalks,” collecting data on their physical and mental health.

“We cannot live, dream, create, or explore on any significant time frame if we don’t live these principles, but if we do, we can achieve and sustain amazing and inspiring things like exploring other worlds,” Brockwell said Saturday during a press conference.

In conjunction with Artemis missions to the moon, CHAPEA is helping prepare NASA for flights to Mars and beyond without crews having to leave Earth. According to the space agency, 3D printing could become a unique tool in its arsenal when the time comes.

“Future space exploration settlements have the potential to be 3D printed with additive construction technology to eliminate the need to launch large quantities of building materials on multiple flights, which is cost prohibitive,” the agency says on the Mars Dune Alpha webpage.

In February, NASA put out the call for the next group of CHAPEA volunteers, who are scheduled to enter the habitat in spring 2025.

“Mars is our goal,” said Stephen Koerner, deputy director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center, during the media briefing Saturday. “As global interests and capabilities in space exploration continue to expand, America is poised to lead.”

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The post 378 Days of Solitude: NASA Volunteers Emerge From Mars Simulator appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

The story of the F-117 begins in 1964, when Soviet mathematician Pyotr Ufimtsev published the paper, Method of Edge Waves in the Physical Theory of Diffraction. It demonstrated that the radar return from an object depended more on its shape than size. Given the technology at the time, Ufimtsev’s insight was dismissed as impractical in Russia. But by the 1970s, given friendly aircraft losses to SAMs (surface-to-air missiles) in Vietnam and the Middle East, engineers at Lockheed’s “Skunk Works”—famous for designing cutting edge military planes like the P-38 Lighting, U-2 spy plane, and F-104 Starfighter—began taking the idea seriously.

• READ MORE: Reaching Uncharted Corners of the Globe in a Fokker F.VII

One key to minimizing radar return was to replace conventional streamlined, rounded surfaces with flat, angled surfaces designed to scatter radar waves in different directions. The wings would be swept back at a steep angle, like an arrowhead, and the vertical stabilizer (tail fin) replaced by an angled V-tail, all to reduce its radar profile.

The two turbofan jet engines were placed above the wings to shield their heat signature from the ground. The flat, reflective surfaces of the turbofan itself were shielded by an intake grill (to the right).

The engines have special exhaust ports in the rear to shield and minimize the heat released. The F-117 has no afterburners to give it extra thrust, as this would defeat the purpose of nondetection.

Instead of slinging weapons and bombs outside the fuselage, they are stored in an interior bay, safe from radar detection. Even opening the bay doors dramatically increases the F-117’s radar profile, so it must only be done for a few seconds over a target. Additionally, the exterior surfaces of the F-117 are all covered in a special coating, designed to absorb and deflect radar waves. The fork-like prongs jutting from the front of the F-117 are sensors to detect airspeed, angle of attack, and other instrument readings. The F-117 has no radar, which would immediately give away its presence. The glass panel in front of the cockpit is an infrared “eye” that enables the pilot to see in the dark and guide bombs to their target.

The windows of the F-117’s cockpit are ingrained with gold, which allows radar waves in but not out. Examples of the F-117’s cockpit are now on display in museums, and the layout is fairly similar to other single-pilot combat airplanes.

• READ MORE: Exploring the Checkered History of the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter

Initially a “black project” funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), starting in 1975, Lockheed cobbled together two prototypes under the code name “Hopeless Diamond,” which first flew in 1977. Although both prototypes crashed, the project was a sufficient enough success to proceed with a production model, which took its first flight from Area 51 in 1981. The first airplanes were delivered to the U.S. Air Force in 1982.

The radar-minimizing design features of the F-117 make it quite unstable to fly. In fact, it can really only be flown with computer assistance, using a fly-by-wire system derived from the F-16. Because of its difficult aerodynamics, the F-117 quickly gained the nickname “Frisbee” or “Wobblin’ Goblin.”

The shielding of its jet engines, and lack of afterburners, also means that the F-117 is subsonic (it cannot break the speed of sound), making it much slower than most conventional fighters. In fact, despite its designation, the F-117 is not a fighter meant to intercept and dogfight with enemy airplanes. It has no guns, and though in theory it could carry air-to-air missiles, its lack of radar would render them fairly useless.

• READ MORE: The Story of the Schneider Trophy and the Supermarine S.5

The “Stealth Fighter” is actually an attack aircraft or light bomber, intended to be used in covert missions or evade air defenses, mainly under the cover of night. Some say that the “fighter” designation was used to attract pilots to the program who would normally have preferred flying fighters over bombers.

After testing at Homey, the F-117 was assigned to a special secret unit at Tonopah Test Range, also in Nevada. A total of 64 combat-ready airplanes were eventually built. Throughout the 1980s, however, the F-117 was kept completely secret. While rumors and sightings of it abounded, the U.S. government refused to confirm that any such aircraft existed. The first acknowledged use of the F-117 in combat was during the U.S. invasion of Panama to topple dictator Manuel Noriega in 1989.

Before I elaborate on its combat history, I need to land this airplane. The F-117 doesn’t have any flaps or air brakes to slow it down. I pull the throttle back to nearly idle just to descend. The approach speed of the F-117 is really fast—around 250 knots—and it touches down at 180 knots. So on landing I pull a handle next to the landing gear to deploy a parachute, to slow me down in time.

Now let’s talk about the known combat record of the F-117. It’s 3 a.m.  on January 17, 1991. Just over a day since the coalition deadline for Saddam Hussein to withdraw his Iranian forces from Kuwait has expired. An F-117 flies over the desert just south of Baghdad.

F-117s are leading the first strike of the coalition air campaign in the first Gulf War, aimed at taking out key command and control installations in the Iraqi capital. With a radar reflection the size of a golf ball, the F-117 glides silent and unseen over the bends of the Tigris River toward its target. Meanwhile, Iraqi anti-aircraft guns fire blindly into the night sky—a scene I remember watching unfold live on TV as I sat in my college dorm room. Combat losses for the F-117 that first night were projected at 5 percent. In fact, every single one of them came back from their missions safely.

By the end of the first Gulf War, the F-117 had flown 1,300 sorties, hitting an estimated 1,600 high-value targets, with the loss of a single aircraft. Though some of its performance may have been exaggerated—initial estimates of 80 percent target accuracy were scaled back to 40-60 percent—the F-117 became a leading symbol of the U.S. technological edge that helped establish it as the world’s sole superpower going into the 1990s.

• READ MORE: Recreating the Final Flight of the Red Baron

Fast-forward to the evening of March 27, 1999. At Aviano Air Base in northern Italy, an F-117 prepares for another night of bombing Yugoslavia, as part of NATO’s intervention to compel Serbian forces to withdraw from Kosovo. The aircraft, call sign “Vega 31,” is flown by Lieutenant Colonel Darrell Patrick “Dale” Zelko, a Desert Storm veteran. His target is a command-and-control center in downtown Belgrade, the Serbian capital. Along with several other F-117s on similar missions, he will fly east across Slovenia and Hungary before refueling midair and turning south to enter Yugoslav airspace.

I’ve heard the story two ways. The first has Zelko approaching Belgrade from the northwest and being picked up by Serbian radar as he opened his bomb bay doors—presumably before he could hit his assigned target. The second version, which the pilot himself tells, has him skirting Romanian airspace and coming toward Belgrade from the east. He dropped his bombs on target then continued west to head back home. (From what I can gather, Zelko was actually quite a bit higher than I’m portraying here, and there was a cloud layer about 2,000 feet above the ground.)

Just south of the two in Ruma in the countryside west of Belgrade, a mobile S-125 Neva SAM unit detected the F-117, despite its stealth profile, and locked on. Two SAMs were fired. The first missed the cockpit by inches, and the proximity fuse somehow failed to trigger. The second hit one wing and sent the F-117 tumbling out of control. After an initial struggle, the pilot ejected, was able to evade Serbian ground forces, and was rescued by U.S. helicopters. Years later, Zelko met the man who commanded the SAM unit that shot him down, and the two became friends.

Interestingly, the U.S. did not take any steps to destroy the wreckage of the downed F-117. The official reason was that the technology was already out of date, and there was no rationale to fear it falling into enemy hands. While the F-117 Nighthawk was used in 2001 in Afghanistan, and again in 2003 over Iraq, it became increasingly clear that it was nearing the end of its useful days, soon to be replaced by newer aircraft like the F-22 and F-35 that incorporate further advances in stealth technology. In 2006, the U.S. Air Force announced that it was retiring the F-117 and began putting the fleet into storage. A few went to museums, and others began being scrapped.

However, in recent years, there have been a number of sightings of F-117s flying near Edwards Air Base near California’s Death Valley. Some were reportedly painted grayish white, earning them the nickname “ghosts.” It is widely suspected that these F-117s are taking part in exercises designed to train pilots to detect and intercept enemy stealth aircraft. For fans of the iconic “Stealth Fighter,” it’s gratifying to know that some of them still appear to be flying.

In its entire operational life, there was only one known F-117 shot down. Its time may have passed, but that’s a remarkable record.

If you’d like to see a version of this story with more historical photos and screenshots, you can check out my original post here. This story was told utilizing Aerial Simulations’ F-117 Nighthawk add-on to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, along with liveries and scenery downloaded for free from the flightsim.to community.

The post Reenacting Bombing Missions in an F-117 Nighthawk appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

I am fortunate enough to go to work and play with actual flight controls connected by pulleys and cables to a bizjet worth some $20 million. Yet, this career only came after spending the first 20 years of my young adult life behind a computer, seeing the world, learning jet systems, playing the role of airline pilot, and educating myself on everything I could about what a career might be like in this exhilarating world. 

After so many years using Microsoft Flight Simulator (MSFS) 95, 98, and X, and X-Plane, I felt I had a pretty good hand on geography, airport locations around the entire U.S., and almost all of the major landmarks. Indeed, that was the case. As I started my career flying jets around the country in 2004, I definitely had that “I’ve been here before” feeling.

Starting with a good computer is key. MSFS or X-Plane won’t run well on a poorly optimized or weak machine. The good thing is prices have come way down these days, so it’s easy to find a good, solid PC to run either sim. My advice is, as always, get an intel chip base, i7 or i9, with Nvidia GeForce video. MSFS has always been the least hassle with this combination. Also required is a monitor with G-Sync technology, either on the laptop itself or externally on a home desktop system. I tried a non-G-Sync laptop by accident recently and returned it immediately due to screen tearing and artifacts, as well as stuttering in frame rates. Not all gaming machines are G-Sync, so beware and do research. The difference is night and day when using a G-Sync display.

• READ MORE: Setting Up Your Sim

Also, I am here to state (though it goes against many opinions among gamers) that a powerful laptop specifically built for gaming will run any sim phenomenally. Do not believe the naysayers. Yes, a desktop is the most powerful system to run a sim, but the compact technology in today’s top-end laptops is far superior to what it used to be. And trust me, you’ll not notice much of a difference. I like the laptops as they come ready to use, already built with the right components melded together for peak performance and quality. It’s cool high-tech wizardry.
You will never find a “gaming” computer in a Walmart, Staples, or even Best Buy. I highly recommend online purchases from dedicated retailers like, Xotic PC, Jetline Systems, or in some cities the great Micro Center. I bought mine at a local Boston Micro Center, and I love the hands-on shopping and ability to just bring it in for any issues or maintenance.

My mainstay sim gear to complement the laptop is the Thrustmaster TCA Sidestick Airbus Edition, Xbox Elite 360 controller, and Thrustmaster THQ throttle quadrant. All are easily portable and high quality. Our friends at Sporty’s Pilot Shop offer a bundle of these. The Xbox Elite unit can be purchased at most stores and is exceptionally great for programming the autopilot functions that I use. MSFS seems to accommodate an unlimited number of plug-in USB devices, and this inexpensive unit is one I highly recommend.

Twenty years ago, we had flight yokes, rudder pedals, and more. Yet they were quite heavy and extremely expensive. The market is wide open now with many brands to choose from, satisfying everyone from the casual simmer to the home cockpit builder. Military enthusiasts get what they’re looking for as well, with extremely realistic side sticks replicating exact fighter jet models.

Even though I love my portable on-the-road sim setup, when sitting at home, feeling the throttle quadrant in my right hand with the yoke in my left, feet in place, I can forget that this is all simulated. The realism is really heightened when using a 747 and swapping out the normal two-engine jet for the quad jet pieces that come standard with the Honeycomb base throttle unit. Now, manipulating four individual throttles really comes to life. You feel like you’re in command of something big.

A 747 or Piper Cub, it’s all available when using a Honeycomb THQ. The combinations are limitless and the quality is great. It offers precision handling, and all the parts and pieces can be popped off and on easily to turn it into anything you want. Then you just assign each slider to something in the MSFS controllers configuration screens.

The default throttle parts for Honeycomb are great and work the best overall. Recently, a new company called Prodesksim has started making add-on enhancements for the existing Honeycomb throttle quadrant. ProDeskSim attachments  add visual realism, true-size parts, and functionality. However, one issue I discovered is that the overlays, or underlays, of the throttle and speedbrake strips keep popping out of place as they don’t sit tightly enough to withstand the speedbrake or flap levers moving in and out of place.

Each time I use either the flaps or speedbrake axis, the plastic inserts all pop out from the detents being used. You can use the items without the flap tracks certainly, but you lose immersion and the actual detents most of the units use.

To remedy the loose underlay parts, you have to be very careful or kind of hold them in place with an available finger before using the axis. If you’re a cockpit modeler simulating just one type of jet, you could glue these into place, but it would be permanent. 

I have since learned that ProDeskSim has implemented a fix for all future units to keep this issue from occurring (my demo units came out early in 2023). The innovation here is great. I love how the company can make so many options and attachments based on the default unit. You can turn your Honeycomb unit pretty much into any GA or jet aircraft you want, making the possibilities seem endless.

I’m honestly not fond of reassembling each time as I change aircraft often enough to where this would be a big setback. For a cockpit modeler of one particular jetliner, this isn’t an issue. I found myself using the Boeing twin jetliner units the most as they are fantastic and only take seconds to install.

In case you’ve never used rudder pedals, it’s definitely one of those experiences where you don’t know what you’re missing until you try it. Once you set your feet snugly on them, you’ll wonder how you survived without for so long. I can’t bring them in my suitcase or I probably would.

Getting all the right hardware in place is the first step to enjoying your sims. You certainly don’t have to spend a fortune since the basic Airbus stick-and-throttle unit combined is only $199. The quality is precise and solid. There are online folks who have showcased using real aircraft cockpits and even airliners from nose through first-class cabins to run their sims. I can only dream of that for now.

The post All the Right Tools for Setting Up a Flight Sim appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Having been a flight sim enthusiast in the decade before, but inactive since Microsoft Flight Simulator X and X-Plane 9, I decided to launch into building my own home flight simulator with the goal of pairing it with the freshly launched Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 (MSFS2020). My goal was to create a cockpit that featured the avionics equipment that I wanted to learn when I could eventually go back to flying in real life, and I wanted my simulator to replicate all the switches and buttons found in most GA aircraft. After three years of building and customizing, my flight simulator reflects the missions and aircraft I like to fly while also allowing the practice of basic maneuvers and procedures at home. 

When the opportunity came to review the Yawman Arrow, I was apprehensive about an all-in-one hand controller designed for a mobile or minimalist home flight sim setup that seemed a world away from the cockpit I had purposefully built. 

The Yawman Arrow team took on the audacious challenge of condensing all of the major flight controls that flight sim pilots have in their home cockpits down into a single hand-held controller. It features two Vernier-style sliders on the bottom center. On the bottom left of the controller is a trim wheel. All the way to the right side are two conventional throttle sliders. Above them is the “six-pack” of black buttons. On the top left of the face is a thumb stick used for the yoke. Directly below and in the center-left position is a five-button switch, and a multidirectional hat switch sits in the center-right position, directly below the six-pack of buttons. At the very top of the controller is the most novel component of the Yawman Arrow—two rudder controls operated by each of your index fingers that are linked together like the rudder controls of a real airplane. When you depress one side, the other side moves in the equal and opposite direction. Two additional buttons near the rudder controls can be assigned to various tasks like the parking brake or for changing Yawman Arrow menus so that more than one function can be paired to a single button. 

While plugging in the controller and jumping into a quick flight is possible, I recommend spending time getting acquainted with the controller’s default button assignments. The Yawman Arrow website has pre-built these so you can print them out, or you can keep them on a second screen as a helpful reference for your first flight. Note that it is best to double-check the button assignments in the control options menu in MSFS2020 (and the equivalent location in X-Plane 11 or 12). I found that some default control assignments differed from the printable document available on the Yawman website. 

To effectively fly with the Yawman Arrow, I needed to spend time sitting in my home flight sim cockpit seat, looking at my controls and then making a plan to determine what assignment to give the most important buttons and sliders. Sitting in my cockpit allowed me to make a visual inventory of the controls, assign them, and then verify the assignments in the MSFS2020 control options menu to make sure I completed the process correctly. It went quickly once I had determined what controls I wanted to assign to the Yawman Arrow. I kept as many of the default settings as I could, only editing what I needed. 

• READ MORE: Setting Up Your Sim

For my first flight, I loaded into the Cessna 172 at KPWM and planned for some basic maneuvers out over the waters of Casco Bay, east of the Portland International Jetport in Maine. I used standard weather and light winds to minimize external factors influencing the aircraft. Preflight and taxiing were no problem once I set the necessary buttons for wheel brakes, parking brake, and flaps. Taxiing using the rudders was enjoyable. The linked rudder controls were my favorite feature of the Yawman Arrow. As a habit, I squeezed both rudder controls at the same time to bring the airplane to a stop near the end of the taxiway before remembering that I needed to use the braking button I had previously mapped. 

Takeoff proved to be more challenging than I anticipated. As I am used to using a realistic, full-size VirtualFly yoke, I needed to acclimate to the relatively small control deflection offered by the thumb stick of the Yawman Arrow. Add to that the effects of P-factor on the aircraft when under full power during takeoff, and my fingers were dancing between the action of rolling the trim wheel, pulling back the yoke hat switch and moving the rudder controls. It was an exercise in small movement motor control, which didn’t take long to get used to. In subsequent takeoffs, I spent time dialing in the yoke/hat switch control sensitivity settings and keeping an eye on my Air Manager display to double-check how much trim control I was using. I was challenged to find the control harmony on takeoff and believe there is more work to be done between dialing in the default sensitivities “out-of-the-box” in MSFS2020 on the Yawman Arrow and simply spending more time getting used to the way aircraft must be flown using the controller.  

Once airborne over the practice area, the 172 was stable, and I found the control harmony between the yoke and rudder controls on the Yawman Arrow was sufficient for slow flight and recovering from power-on and power-off stalls. Satisfied after completing a few basic maneuvers, I returned to the airport to practice a visual approach to a full-stop landing. I set up for a 5-mile, straight-in approach to Runway 29, having flown it before as an active private pilot in real life. I enjoy coming in over the waterways surrounding the city of Portland and MSFS2020 provides some great visual landmarks. 

On a 2-mile final, I set the power for the remainder of the descent and focused on fine-tuning the pitch using the trim wheel. Backing up my trim inputs again visually using the trim display instrument on Air Manager definitely helped. Setting the trim is a critical ingredient of a stabilized approach, and being able to do this consistently is key to making the Yawman Arrow an enjoyable companion or primary controller. The landing was satisfactory, and I felt that I had adequate control authority. Landing provided a good place to try the controller, as it combines relatively slow air speeds with a need to have your fingers near the trim wheel, on the yoke, on the throttle, and up at the rudder controls. This is easier than it sounds given the controller’s natural position in the hand and the thoughtful location of the aforementioned controls. It made me curious to see what a larger version of the Yawman Arrow would feel like, with just a bit more room for hat switch, trim wheel, sliders, and buttons. 

Yawman Arrow founder Jon Ostrower and I discussed the trim wheel in one of our exchanges, and he recommended using it when flying most GA aircraft but to then map the electric trim controls to the second hat switch if flying an aircraft that primarily uses electric trim controls—such as a Cirrus or any small, medium, or large jet—to better simulate how those controls would be moved in the real aircraft. It didn’t occur to me that the trim wheel could be set as a dial for other control uses, such as changing the settings of the autopilot or tuning radio frequencies. It was a reminder that the Yawman Arrow can be set to control nearly any function you need. Other buttons can serve as menu buttons that can be held so that the same button can have more than one function. Here’s where spending time with the default button layouts from the Yawman Arrow website and manual, watching a few how-to videos for tips, and really working through your own customized setup will pay dividends in terms of finding the correct controls at your fingertips when you need it. 

Since I mainly fly GA aircraft in my flight simulation adventures, I loaded up a few of the landing challenges in MSFS2020 that didn’t feature strong crosswinds, so I could better acquaint myself with the Yawman Arrow as a primary controller for jet aircraft. The Aspen, Colorado, and Jackson Hole, Wyoming, landing challenges are favorites of mine and served as good test flight profiles as controlling airspeed is the primary objective once the aircraft is lined up correctly on short final. If flying jets will be your primary use for the Yawman, be sure to set controls for the landing gear, speed brakes, flaps, thrust reversers, and other key controls that you’ll need to execute your landings.

Final Impressions  

Overall, I believe the Yawman Arrow controller is a good value for the cost—especially if you’re the type of user who must have a minimalist cockpit setup based on your budget, or you’re someone who travels a lot and desires a portable sim solution. Like any new flight sim equipment, I continued becoming more comfortable as I flew with it, even though I wish I had spent a bit more time with button assignments. I never managed to get the takeoff behavior harmonized to my liking, but I recognize that we’re still in the early days of the Yawman Arrow, and I know that the team behind its development and the flight sim community will begin sharing their collective knowledge to help tune the sensitivity of the yoke and trim settings and make it a bit more intuitive right out of the box in MSFS2020. Note that I limited my testing to MSFS2020 as I currently don’t use X-Plane 11 or 12, so controller sensitivity and differences in the aircraft’s flight model behavior can vary widely between both flight sim software titles. 

Although this is just a nitpick, I would have preferred a grippier outer surface and potentially a larger form factor, like an “XL” size. Given Ostrower’s deliberate design choices, I am sure these factors were given considerable weight, and they amount to subjective personal impressions of my time flying with the Yawman Arrow. Also, I suspect that the controller would pair well with popular head tracking units, such as TrackIR or Tobii Eye Tracker, which would allow those small glances around the cockpit to check the trim and flaps settings. Using them compliments a minimalist setup and would increase immersion. I relied on my copy of Air Manager running on an adjacent screen to help me verify my trim wheel inputs. 

Although the Yawman Arrow won’t be my primary controller, it does offer even the most hardware-obsessed among us the chance to break it out for quick, casual sightseeing flights. It also provides a chance to use your flight simulator while you’re traveling and  to do more intense jet flying with it if you’re committed to learning the control bindings. It is priced at $199.99 and available at Sporty’s Pilot Shop. That price is $79 below that of a Honeycomb Alpha yoke and about in the middle of the cost range of popular joystick HOTAS options. 

Default settings for Yawman Arrow can be found here. 

Pros:

• Best feature is connected rudder controls.
• The Trim wheel is  a novel addition to the hand controller. 
• There are two options for throttles (vernier style or slider).
• Basic camera movement and autopilot controls worked effectively.

Cons: 

• Since there is no wireless function, it must be plugged into your PC or laptop.
• Yawman Arrow does not work with Xbox. 
• A grippier outer material and potentially larger form factor would be preferable.

The post Taking a Virtual Flight with the Yawman Arrow appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

1. Learjet 35A by FlySimWare

I think my favorite thing of 2023 was the sudden release of the FlySimWare Lear 35A. This is a humdinger of a masterpiece even if it’s still at the “early access” stage. I can’t recall another aircraft that has been so great right out of the box, with so little wait time or hoopla. I mean, we have the greats such as PMDG and Fenix, but they don’t get dropped suddenly without any long waits. 

The Lear 35A is a fabulous addition to the bizjet genre and one that will be continually upgraded. I have not flown an actual Learjet in real life, but since this product was designed with the input of real Lear 35 pilots, I can safely assume it’s been done well. From what I can see having flown bizjets for 20 years now, it’s spot on. The handling quality is sweet, balanced, and well tuned. Trimming, momentum, and effects of gear and flaps all seem accurate, as well as the feeling of liftoff and touchdown. The amount of float, touchdown quality, and steering on the runway seem good to me as well as the powerful reversers that will do most of the work after landing. 

The only thing is since it’s early access, some of the sounds are still lacking or missing. I would love more of the environmental system sounds, as well as a more robust thrust reverser roar, which would be quite loud. However, the engine spool-up and high rpm harmonic “humming” you’d hear from up front is spot on. Brilliant in that audio regard. 

This aircraft is so beautiful to look at, and all parts externally are replicated to perfect scale. My trained eyes usually find things not designed to scale or size, but in this case, I can’t find anything. It’s a perfect visual blueprint of the real thing. With a product this great, the problem is we wish for the release of many more bizjets immediately. Gimme more now!

Grab your Learjet 35A from the FlySimWare store.

2. Kuro 787-8 Dreamliner (freeware)

This little gem is a remake of the default 787-10 that brings forth the smallest 787 variant, the 787-8. This somewhat stubby-looking (perfect in my mind) version makes for an amazing private jet conversion with beautiful liveries available (any airline you want is an option too). This freebie comes updated with Asobo’s default 787-10 stretch (only in the premium deluxe Microsoft Flight Simulator installation), where service upgrades to panels and systems are already complete. The flying quality is great, and I have been able to perform perfect autolands with this model, a sign of a great build. It comes with its own sound set as well. It’s truly a great add-on and one of my favorites of the entire year.

It’s continually updated and available at the flightsim.to website (the greatest place to get all your MSFS 2020 free items and mods).

3. A2A Piper Comanche

This A2A gem is probably most GA flyers’ No. 1 product of the year for sure. I am not an expert on the smaller things, and haven’t used this enough  to give my expert opinion, but sometimes you need to rely on others. This is a living, breathing airplane that has to be maintained and treated well. 

This is a new function that a lot of designers are bringing into their products and MSFS supports constant-state aircraft that save flight times, wear and tear, health and maintenance practices as you fly. It remembers this so even after flying other aircraft, when you go back to this one, as long as you have a constant state toggled, you’ll be using this feature. Real Comanche pilots are heralding this is the best airplane ever for the MSFS series. Some folks have given up flying anything else. 

In my limited experience, I did enjoy the fact that I damaged the engine by not following procedures, proper warm-up, and fouled plugs. You can use a built-in tablet to view engine health as it runs live. The sounds are great and will accompany any problems with accuracy. A2A is known for top-quality sim aircraft and add-ons, and this one has certainly kept its reputation on the top of the pile. 

4. Carenado Turbo Stationair 207 

Recently released via the MSFS Marketplace is the Carenado Cessna (stretched) 207 Turbo Stationair— a spectacular looking replication of the real-life workhorse. For a mere $14, you can grab this beauty. I loved the appearance, sounds, and feel of hand flying this fabulous, fast-and-furious, do-it-all airplane. From short mountain strips to long-haul journeys, this works. And it kinda has that feeling that “maybe someday I could buy one of these things.” 

The aircraft comes with many fabulous variants, like passenger, cargo, pants or no pants, etc. A good variety of paint jobs, or liveries, are also included. I wasn’t expecting this either, and it’s a great addition to my sim that I really enjoy flying again and again.

5. Black Square (Anything it does is amazing)

Fairly new to the flightsim genre is Black Square. It has been making fabulous enhancements to default aircraft like the Bonanza, King Air 350i, and Baron 58 for a while now, complete with more realistic systems, panels, displays, analogue options (six-pack) with aircraft health and vulnerability built in. 

Just a few months ago, Black Square released its first entire airplane, the powerful Daher TBM 850, to compete with the default Asobo version. Some of us really enjoy the slightly older mix of steam gauges and modern stuff, and Black Square has certainly fulfilled many of our wishes. Everything it does is fabulous, and these products really stand out. The Just Flight store has them all here and here on the website.

6. Felis 747-200 for X-Plane 11/12

In my recent article, I went crazy over this X-Plane marvel. The classic 747-200 is simulated from head to tail in “study level” fashion. This is, by far, the most realistic airliner I’ve ever used for any sim, period. It may have to do with the built-in flying properties of XP itself, combined with brilliant programming and realism put into this production. You can actually feel the momentum, weight, and physics all at work as you hand fly this beast, unlike any other heavy jets I have tackled prior. It’s so good that I would recommend getting XP11/12 just for this. 

However, because of the unrefined status of XP12 currently (graphical and performance issues are still a problem when compared to MSFS), I’d recommend it on XP11 for the smoothest experience. Sometime by March, XP12 will be receiving a graphical and performance fix as noted by developer Laminar Research. This may be the actual piece XP fans have been waiting for to challenge MSFS performance and refined photorealistic visuals. 

7. FSRealistic or XPRealistic for both sims

Anyone who has followed me knows I am a huge fan of XPRealistic and FSRealistic. Both are an absolute must have during sim sessions. It adds everything that was left out of the native simulator versions—both by X-Plane and MSFS default programs—including wind, gear thumps, gear drag, flap noises, speed brakes, prop wash, touchdown sounds, thrust reverser roar, water landing sounds, screaming frightened passengers, turbulence-shaking rattles, and added motion and vibrational effects. All these things and more are now available and customizable by the user. It’s easy to use and I could not imagine sim flights without it. Not sure why base sims don’t include more of this style of immersion, but they don’t. These great add-ons are available from many outlets such as mine. 

8. FSLTL live traffic injector for MSFS

Since getting a new, more powerful laptop to run MSFS, I am now tinkering with live traffic. I had always avoided using any traffic due to the hit on performance and increased likelihood of stutters with such a draw on the CPU. But now it’s no longer really an issue. So after trying the built-in default traffic and getting screen freezes, I kept default traffic off and went to freeware third-party vendor FSLTL. 

FSLTL grabs live ADS-B data worldwide and puts the real traffic in sim with actual visual models of the traffic and their airlines if it is an airliner you’re supposed to see. The visual realism is great, and the immersion of seeing lumbering airliners in cue out to the active runway is jaw-dropping. Then they takeoff with a roar over your head or a trail of water vapor in tow if the runway is wet… wow! Seeing contrails in motion or distant aircraft lighting is very realistic. 

If you’re a fan of traffic watching, you can find out who you’re seeing either from the web, apps like FlightRadar24, or a built-in screen that you can open which shows exactly what traffic is being created, aircraft type, airline, and where they are going. 

All of this creates a performance hit. At large airports, it will take maybe 10 to 20 percent off the frame rate compared to what it would have with no traffic selected. That is far less than the hit from default live traffic by Asobo, because you can really allow a lot more traffic to display at any one time (adjustable). On a fast machine, you won’t care. 

For more information, check out the website.

9. FS-ATC Chatter for both sims

This little program available from Stick and Rudder Studios is available for both X-Plane and MSFS platforms. It will automatically play realistic ATC chatter from around the world, depending on where you are and what your current flight regime is. So you’ll hear accurate accents and dialects in each phase of flight. If you’re in Canada, you’ll hear its controllers. You’ll get accurate ground, tower, departure/arrival, center chatter, etc. The program features regular updates, and voice files are added often so you’ll never be bored hearing the same thing over and over. This is another little gem of a program that adds so much realism for both XP and MSFS.

I could keep going, but these are the 2023 add-ons that stand out to me as being exceptional products. There are many more items in my library that I use daily that could be honorable mentions. And it’s possible I have forgotten something. I am sure that 2024 is going to be another super year for this industry.   

The post Best Sim Add-Ons of 2023 appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

In Part 1 of my series featuring Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 initial setup (May 2023/Issue 937), we discussed the importance of making instant views to use all the time when flying. Positioning yourself and creating the proper “captain’s eye point” is crucial in being able to fly like a real pilot would, as well as correct sight positioning and view toward the runway to enable landing like the pros.

• READ MORE: Your First Sim

For some reason, the default viewing height given is always in error, often too low to see properly over the “dashboard” or glareshield. Unless you’re a 5 year old learning to fly, the default viewpoints are always bizarre to me. After 10,000 hours of flying mostly corporate jets in my career, I can promise you that in order to get the best look and “feel,” please use the photo on the next spread to get a sense of the proper view height.

Whether it’s a transport category jet or Cessna 152,the same principles should apply: See enough of the panel to give you the PFD, or basic instruments such as speed, vertical rate, and some engine gauges, but then cut off the rest. You must see more than 50 percent of your view out of the front, as I have shown you in the image. You can have hot keys set for the rest of the panel or external views as we discussed earlier.

Once this pilot’s eye is set, the rest is not as important and can be anything you’d like to have in a “scan” or button press corresponding to all the 1-9 viewpoints you locked in before. Often people tell me if they set the view like that, they can’t see the primary gauges that well. I tell them, in real life, especially in jets where everything is bigger and farther apart, we can’t either.

Takeoff in jets is done by the nonflying pilot calling out our V-speeds. Same on landing. We actually have to scan down far away from the view outside to see our speeds and instruments. Thus, the nonflying pilot is again calling out everything we need to hear. I actually don’t see the airspeed indicator much at all in a jet on landing—or takeoff for that matter.

The Keys to It All

Onward to the important “key bindings” you’ll need to perform next in order to run your cockpit efficiently. Now, my key assignments are only an example, but they have worked great for me for more than 20 years in all simulators—and have never changed. Now with more hardware, these key assignments can be brought over to the Honeycomb system or whatever you may have at hand.

Let’s start with your keyboard F key row. I assign F1to 4 as some external lights.

Options/Controls Options/Keyboard/Filter All/SearchBy Name (insert “landing light” for example)/Toggle Landing Lights (then insert your key you want like F1)/Save And Exit

Continuing on, assign the following necessary key commands:

F5 Flaps Up/F6 Flaps Up A Notch/F7 Flaps Down ANotch/F8 Flaps Full Down

Recommended Autopilot Functions

I set up my system to actuate the autopilot using these key settings:

F9: Decrease autopilot reference airspeedF10: Increase autopilot reference airspeed

F11: Decrease autopilot reference altitude

F12: Increase autopilot reference altitude

V: Toggle autopilot V hold

Z: Toggle autopilot master

H: Toggle autopilot heading hold

L: Toggle autopilot flight level change

Ctrl-A: Toggle autopilot approach hold

Right Ctrl+=: Increase autopilot reference Vs

Right Ctrl+-: Decrease autopilot reference Vs

S: Autopilot airspeed hold

T: Arm autothrottle

[: Decrease heading bug

]: Increase heading bug

F: Flight director toggle

I have other controllers using the same commands, as often I may use a combination of keyboard and various controllers depending on if I am at home or on the road. Naturally these are just my personal choices that have worked well over the years for me. Once comfortable setting these up, you can choose anything you want. It will be easy and fast to configure.

Perhaps the most important buttons to assign in the entire program are “pitch trim up and down.” I use two buttons on my joystick for that, simulating the electric trim rocker found in most general aviation and jet aircraft of today.

Whether or not you have a simple or complex set of actual hardware to use, I would recommend attaching an Xbox 360 or Elite controller to the mix. It’s an inexpensive but very effective piece of hardware that in my case becomes a portable autopilot unit. The sim will take any number of hardware pieces running in harmony. This simple device can be used for basic flying, but I chose to disable all the default flight functions on my Xbox controller and have introduced many of the autopilot functions I just spoke about (see sidebar below).

Amateur, But It Works

In addition to either my joystick (THQ Airbus side-stick) or the Honeycomb yoke, I have my landing lights, strobes, nav lights, and taxi lights assigned for quick access. Speed brakes can be assigned to a joystick traditional throttle slider or fancier throttle quadrant unit.

Once you purchase your first set of controllers, MSFS2020 will by default load many of the most common functions, especially if using a name-brand throttle quadrant with panels and buttons built in. The Honeycomb system does just that, with obvious systems, such as landing gear, already mapped properly.

Now that hopefully you have set up your controls and views the way you like them, you are indeed ready to fly and explore the entire world in minute detail. Be sure to be safe, plan, and treat it like it is oh-so-very real.

One last necessary item I’d recommend is the added immersion you’d get by purchasing FSRealistic, available online. It adds the necessary vibrations, noises, head-shaking motions, and so on, that I myself as a real pilot find extremely necessary when flying the sim. By default, MSFS2020 is not that animated, but this add-on takes care of the necessary things I feel that I can not live without in a realistic flight sim environment. Give it a try.

Recommended Autopilot Functions On an Xbox Controller

On my Xbox controller, I have assigned the following:

LEFT FORWARD BUMPER: Flaps up a notch

LEFT STICK PUSH DOWN: Lower flaps a notch

RIGHT FORWARD BUMPER: Reduce throttle (used for engine reversers on jets if you don’t have a throttle system that specifically does this—normal throttle forward from any device will remove reverse thrust)

PLUS PAD UP: Heading hold

PLUS PAD RIGHT: Increase heading bug

PLUS PAD DOWN: Altitude hold

PLUS PAD LEFT: Decrease heading bug

RIGHT STICK PUSH DOWN: Gear toggle

Other buttons I have are dedicated to Autopilot master toggle, Flight director toggle, etc.

This article first appeared in the July 2023/Issue 939 print edition of FLYING.

The post Setting Up Your Sim appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Claude Dornier, born in 1884, was the son of a French wine merchant and his German wife. Dornier grew up in Bavaria and graduated from engineering school in Munich. He went to work for Ferdinand von Zeppelin at his base in Friedrichshafen and soon rose to become the count’s top technical adviser, helping design dirigibles and airplanes. In 1914, Dornier formed his own airplane company, also based in Friedrichshafen. A museum is located on the site today.

After Germany’s defeat in World War I, all aircraft production in the country was prohibited. Dornier continued to design aircraft but had to produce them in Italy. The Dornier Do J flying boat represented his first major success.

The Do J was powered by two piston engines placed in tandem (front and back) over the wing. A variety of different types of engines were used, depending on availability and needs. These are British-made Napier Lion 12 cylinders, putting out 450 hp each. The engines were accessible via a ladder on the platform behind the cockpit.

The floats on either side of the fuselage, supporting the wing struts, are Dornier’s patented “sponsons,” which made it more stable in the water than the more common side pontoons.

The cockpit itself was completely open and exposed to the elements. Keep that in mind during the long journey ahead. What’s more, sitting in the cockpit, that big propeller is turning right above your head.

Inside the cockpit, the main pilot’s seat is on the right, not the usual left. The throttle and fuel mixture levers for both engines are on the pilot’s right side. Note the mechanical wires and pulleys connecting the controls to the control surfaces. The position of the instruments, directly behind the “wheel,” makes them a bit difficult to see.

The Dornier Do J made its maiden flight in 1922. The nickname “Wal” means “whale” in German.

The specific airplane we’re looking at right now was called the “Plus Ultra.” And we’re joining it just as it prepares to take off from the Rio Tinto in front of Palos de la Frontera in southern Spain for a historic flight on January 22, 1926.

The pilot was Captain Ramon Franco, brother of future Spanish dictator Francisco Franco. Both were officers in the Spanish army, though in 1920, Ramon had joined the country’s new air force. The co-pilot was Captain Julio Ruiz de Alda, who later helped found Spain’s fascist Falangist movement and was executed by anarchists in the Spanish Civil War. There were also two more crewmembers, a lieutenant and a mechanic, who I presume were located inside the hull.

Their goal was to fly from Spain across the south Atlantic to Buenos Aires, Argentina, in a series of stages. Their point of departure, Palos de la Frontera, was symbolic because it is where Christopher Columbus sailed from on his first voyage to the Americas.

Rio Tinto is also the name of a large British mining company that operated the famous copper mines here, just outside of Huelva, starting in the late 1800s. These were its loading piers below me. At the very tip of the peninsula, where the rivers converge, is a monument to Columbus’ voyages.

“Plus Ultra” means “further beyond” in Latin and is the national motto of Spain. The first leg of this journey was 1,300 kilometers to the Canary Islands, all by sea. Weight is everything on a journey like this. Before departing Spain, they actually discovered a stowaway on board—a newspaper reporter—who could have ruined their plans.

The journey to the Canary Islands took eight hours. Consider that’s an awfully long time to be in an open cockpit, completely exposed to the elements, over the ocean.

We’ve arrived at the port of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. The Plus Ultra landed a bit farther south along the shore, at the Bay of Gando, where Gran Canaria’s modern international airport is located.

On the 26th, they took off from Gran Canaria on the second leg: 1,745 kilometers to Cabo Verde, off the western tip of Africa. This time, the journey lasted nine hours and 50 minutes over the ocean before reaching land. I’m arriving at Praia, at Cabo Verde, just as the sun is setting.

From Cabo Verde, the Plus Ultra took off for the third and longest stage across the Atlantic to Brazil. On this leg, the airplane ran into serious headwinds that slowed its progress considerably and pushed it off course.

Almost out of fuel, they fortunately came across the tiny islands of Fernando de Noronha, 350 kilometers off the northeast tip of Brazil. It must have been an extremely welcome sight. Today the islands are still very remote and mainly popular for ecotourism. They had traveled 2,305 kilometers in 12 hours and 40 minutes.

I have no idea how they refueled here, but somehow they did, and by January 31 were ready to depart on their next stage. You’d think that the next leg, 540 kilometers to Recife on the mainland coast of Brazil, would be easy by comparison. In fact, the rear propeller broke and had to be fixed in mid-flight. Unless they landed in the ocean, I assume they had the mechanic climb up there while still in the air. I tried it, and the plane can still fly on one engine—barely. After three hours and 38 minutes, though, they made it safely to Recife.

From here it was a matter of following the coast for 2,100 kilometers to Rio de Janeiro, which took 12 hours and 15 minutes. They arrived in Rio to a rapturous welcome on February 4. The crew of the Plus Ultra were not, in fact, the first pilots to fly across the south Atlantic to Rio. Two Portuguese aviators had done so, from Lisbon, in 1922. But they had used three different airplanes. This was the first crossing in a single plane.

From there, another 2,060 kilometers to Montevideo, Uruguay, greeted by another huge crowd on February 9. And, finally, across the River Plate to their destination: Buenos Aires, Argentina. It had been a journey of 10,270 kilometers in 59 hours and 30 minutes in the air, at an average speed of 172 km/h.

Their arrival in Buenos Aires on February 10, 1926, was a major news event in Spain and throughout Latin America, which was now linked to Europe by air. The Argentinian songwriter Carlos Gardel composed a popular tango to celebrate the flight of the Plus Ultra, “La Gloria del Águila” (Glory of the Eagle). The Plus Ultra itself is preserved in a museum just outside of Buenos Aires. The crew returned to Spain as national heroes.

• READ MORE: A Fanciful Flight in the ‘Spruce Goose’

Ramon Franco’s subsequent story is a curious one. Far from sharing his brother’s right-wing politics, he entered that realm as a left-wing republican anarchist, involved in conspiracies to overthrow the monarchy. But blood proved thicker, and he sided with his brother Francisco in the Spanish Civil War. Ramon was killed in 1938, when his seaplane crashed during a bombing mission against Valencia.

The journey of the Plus Ultra was not the only famous voyage undertaken by the Dornier Do J. Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen attempted to fly two of them to the North Pole in 1925. Amundsen took off and landed them directly on the polar ice sheet but unfortunately landed somewhat short of his goal. Their plan was to fly two (N24 and N25) to the North Pole, transfer the fuel, and fly only one of them (N25) back, which they did. Their failure to reach the North Pole opened the door for the American Richard Byrd’s attempt the following year, which I covered in another post on the Fokker F.VII.

Like the Fokker F.VIII, the Dornier Do J also served as an airliner. The passenger versions had a cabin in the front of the hull, pushing the cockpit back a bit behind the front propeller. Here’s a look at the interior of the Dornier Do J’s passenger cabin.

Passengers and mail would arrive on other airplanes down from Europe, transfer at Bathurst to the Dornier Do J for the ocean crossing, then once in South America, catch yet another airplane to their final destinations.

Lufthansa competed with the predecessor of Air France on what became known as the “Southern Mail” (from Europe to Latin America), though the French did not fly Dorniers. Antoine de Saint-Exupery, famous for writing The Little Prince, flew this route for the French rival to Lufthansa. His books imbued the Southern Mail with an aura of romance and daring.

Initially, the Dornier Do J couldn’t make the crossing in one go. It has to land in the ocean midway to meet up with a prepositioned ship to refuel. However, landing and taking off in the deep ocean swells proved hazardous and also consumed a lot of fuel. So by 1934 they were making the flight directly, though the airline maintained support ships if needed.

Claude Dornier went on to build even larger seaplanes, including the 12-engine Dornier Do X in 1929. Dornier also built bombers and other aircraft for the new German Luftwaffe, including the Do 17 “Flying Pencil” that took part in the Spanish Civil War and the Battle of Britain. In contrast to Hugo Junkers, who opposed the Nazis and lost his company to them, Dornier joined the Nazi Party in 1940 to secure his aircraft contracts. 

Dornier escaped prosecution as a war criminal but was classified as a Nazi “follower”—an ignominious end to his career. He died in 1969, but his company still exists in various forms, as subsidiaries of larger firms, including EADS Group.

I hope you enjoyed the story of the Dornier Do J Wal, an airplane whose bulky, boat-like shape belies its pioneering role in the history of early aviation.

If you’d like to see a version of this story with many more screenshots and historical images, you can check out my original post here.

This story was told utilizing the Dornier Do J Wal add-on to MSFS 2020, along with sceneries produced by Romantic Wings, as well as by fellow users and shared on flghtsim.to for free.

The post Simulating the Voyage of the Plus Ultra appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Hazy Skies

Let’s start with my favorite on X-Plane 11 (XP11) that concerns the never-ending “hazy sky” issue that has plagued the sim forever. Now, you can purchase some great weather add-ons that will enhance sky and cloud quality, but I wanted to share a two-second fix that can bring back bluer skies easily.

Even by manually setting the weather and associated visibility sliders to well above the default of 10, XP11 is still too hazy. Just go to the “Developer/Sky Color” tabs and select the bullet for either orbit or hialt to get a rich, blue sky. Done! It will stay that way until you exit and restart. Just note that at sunset you must go back to the bottom bullet point to get back to default. Otherwise the night texturing will get strange, so this tip is a daytime-only feature. 

Landing Stutters

Now in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 (MSFS2020), I kept noticing a stutter or pause when touching down or about to land. This annoyance was occurring randomly in spots and with any aircraft. I read on some forum that MSFS2020 loads in external “extras” such as tire smoke, skid marks, etc., that can actually stop the sim while loading. This is a painful reality I had thought was gone years ago, but apparently not. I tried out this tip myself and it works like a charm. 

First, locate your “Asobo/Base” folder using Windows Internet Explorer. Then find two lines to edit—the “SmokeLanding” small and large effects. From there, simply enter with a mouse click and add something in front of each effect name, such as, in my example below, “off_”.

Next, find your “Legacy/Effects” folder and do the same for three more entries concerning touchdown effects. Name them “OFF_” as shown in the yellow highlight box below.

Once all of this is accomplished, you should not have any more touchdown stutter or pausing. I was astounded by how well this worked for me, even flying various aircraft where it had previously been a problem. One caveat, however, is that on external views you may no longer see smoke, dust, or snow kicked up while landing. If you have a powerful system, you won’t have to use this trick, but for those who have an annoying pause on touchdown, this is well worth sacrificing that visual effect.

Settings to Tweak for General Smoothness

I’m not entirely sure if this is “snake oil”, but I have been running the sim on my laptop in “Developer Mode” for quite some time now. It seems to produce far fewer sudden slowdowns or frame-rate reductions than when I don’t have this option enabled. I am not alone, as many on forums have seen this too. It absolutely doesn’t harm or reduce performance, so why not?

Also, no matter how powerful a system you have, it seems everyone is advising sliding back the “Terrain Level of Detail” and “Objects Level of Detail” sliders to 100. In addition, after somewhat exhausting tweaking comparisons, I have found some performance enhancement by reducing “Buildings, Trees and Grass and Bushes” to “Medium.” They all look just as good as on “Ultra” but knock frame rate down quite a bit in crowded, urban, or perhaps very woodsy backcountry locations. Try it!

You may notice somewhat slightly blurrier panels and CRT fonts on the instrumentation, but things run smoothly and slightly faster than on the max quality “Anti-Aliasing” modes. Asobo really put a lot of work into this mode, and it makes everything run quite blazingly fast on my laptop. A powerful desktop PC can probably just use TXAA at the maximum toggle for absolute clarity and quality.

Simulating Realistic Consequences

I found out that enabling “Crash Damage” and “Aircraft Stress Damage” provide more realistic consequences for poor piloting or ignorance. If you should make a rough, off-airport landing, or actually crash your airplane, it will remain in place, skid, roll off a mountain, etc., in a much better fashion than just receiving an annoying message saying you crashed and instantly forcing a reset of your flying session. This keeps the sim running and is a lot more useful when it comes to visualizing the mess you’ve gotten yourself into. I have made some horrendous mountainside “crash” landings in small bush airplanes, only to have gotten blown upright by the winds near summits, and was able to fly again. With crash enabled, you won’t get an unrealistic second chance to fix that kind of mistake.

Controller Options

Assigning common autopilot commands, such as “Hdg Sel,” “Heading Knob,” “Alt,” “VS,” “On/Off”, etc., to an Xbox 360 or Xbox Elite controller is easy. I also have flap handles and gear attached to buttons. This is all in addition to the primary joystick and throttle quadrant I carry with me or the fixed hardware at my house.

Viewing Height

Proper viewing height, “pilot’s-eye view” or pilot’s chair height, is my biggest pet peeve among flight simmers! In order to properly see the world outside, you must readjust the default “far too low” views that the developers have set. I cannot figure out for the life of me why all these sophisticated developers place the default viewing height as if it’s seen from the perspective of a 6-year-old. The fix is very simple, and I have discussed it in previous articles.

You must assign a keyboard key function to “Increase Cockpit View Height,” and “Decrease Cockpit View Height” in the “Cockpit Camera” section. I like “[RIGHT SHIFT] + [UP]” and “[RIGHT SHIFT] + [DOWN].” Just like in any real aircraft, a proper seat height that allows you to see over the panel and down to the runway is the best for flaring. Unfortunately, in a flight sim we don’t get the full 3D effect, so we must compromise a bit by fiddling with the viewpoint before locking it into a memorized viewpoint you can refer to instantly via a keyboard or controller button. I usually base it all on being able to see a small portion of the VSI unit to aid in takeoff and landing. This pretty much lines up with my real eyeballs.

I hope you’ll find these tips and tricks handy and helpful. As always, no flight is complete without using a great set of controls. I would recommend the folks at Sporty’s Pilot Shop, with my first choice being the “flight sim starter set” featuring HoneyComb hardware. 

Also, check out my beginner’s guide on setting up your simulator for the first time.

The post Tips and Tricks for Flight Sims appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

The restrictions to this airport are many—and for obviously good reasons. No night ops, no tailwind arrivals over 10 knots, which is standard for most jets. You land on Runway 9 and depart Runway 27. The box canyon at the end of 9 makes the departure path pretty scary at best. And landing on 27 would be equally risky. 

During my trip, my hotel balcony was perched at Mountain Village, high up, overlooking the valley and runway. I was on the approach path to 27, and I watched Pilatus PC-12s and Citation CJ3s or -4s going onto 27. In fact, the day we arrived, we couldn’t land, as a Gulfstream GIV in front of me went missed because of the tailwinds on its final approach to 9. We followed his diversion to the alternate—Montrose Regional Airport (KMTJ).

I wanted to showcase this neat place in both X-Plane 12 (XP12) and Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 (MSFS2020). They both accurately replicate the excitement and experience along with the terrain. The runway dip and odd slope are also recreated well in both sims. Coming in for a landing the normal way on 9, you’ll be riding down an open canyon with high terrain on either side. The steep valley below is home to the main highway to Telluride. The airport sits on a bluff on a dramatic 1,000-foot cliff above the road below. This is stunning and hard to not stare at while piloting. 

Coming in over the sudden rise to the runway can cause some ground proximity warning systems to go crazy, or in our case in the real jet, suddenly go from “500” to 50, 40, 30, 20, 10 like that in a flash. The floating sensation is real, as you’re above a downhill runway at first, then if you don’t get it on soon enough, it’ll turn into an uphill run on the far end. 

I fly a Bombardier Challenger 300 in real life—sadly none exist currently for XP12—but the HotStart CL650 is the greatest corporate jet ever modeled for any flight simulator platform, in my opinion. Its was great fun operating this airplane in and out of KTEX. You can get the amazing add-on here.

The density altitude is well replicated in both sims. As long as you’re flying a quality add-on that simulates good engine realism in props or jets, you’ll be able to notice the lack of air compression in a prop, weak acceleration, etc. In the jets, takeoff numbers will grow and the FADEC-controlled engine settings will reflect the performance limitations, plus the more sluggish reactions. 

Even in the default Longitude in MSFS2020, there was a “cabin high” warning as we had in real life. Most bizjets don’t like cabin altitudes greater than about 9,000 feet msl. Certainly our Challenger 300 didn’t, and this is simulated on both the aircraft I tried in XP12 and MSFS2020. I even tried a Boeing 737-800 to see how it handled into KTEX and, performance wise, it had no problem. KTEX is not necessarily too short for an airliner—it’s mostly the altitude that affects everyone, and high terrain makes maneuverability an issue in the box canyon to the east, preventing landing on 27. 

Squeezing a 737-800 into KTEX was not overly difficult at all. The parking area was only a little small. It had just rained a bit, with the XP12 puddling and water shine looking amazing. 

XP12’s blowing dust simulation was great, powering up the CFMs to takeoff thrust on Runway 27. The box canyon towering over the town to the east has walls of rock that rise to above 12,000 feet in the distance. A go-around off of 9 could be deadly, as well as an approach to 27. Density altitude is a factor for any aircraft at this high starting point. 

The MSFS2020 Longitude sitting in the same position to compare sim versus real in these pictures taken together.

A real NetJets Longitude showed up as well, adding to the comparison fun in this photo with the MSFS2020 Longitude shown above. 

The XP12 CL650 looks realistic too in the same parking perspective. 

As you can see, the scenery in both sims does a great job in giving you the feel of reality and what the actual airport has in store if you fly there. If an engine should fail on a turbojet on the way out of 27, we would basically follow the canyon and highway out without much worry. It’s a visual maneuver and not one you can do legally IFR, unless the aircraft manufacturer allows it or you have a predetermined “escape path” on a chart or performance-based document that is legal for your operation. Common sense throws out any IFR operation to and from here. Flying a light twin, you would probably lose some altitude on takeoff before feasibly climbing out of the canyon below on the departure corridor of 27. It’s definitely a place to set up unpredictable emergencies into either sim for some fun and fright. 

I could easily spend most of the day doing multiple takeoffs and landings in and out of KTEX. It is so much fun—and what a challenge. I am only showcasing bizjets and a 737, and can only imagine how different this would be in a piston single. 

Recently, a fatal accident occurred in a Beechcraft Bonanza from a summer sightseeing trip. The airplane went down near the town over the box canyon to the east in an accelerated panic stall, spin. The density altitude was high, a result of the summer temperatures combined with the high field elevation. It’s something to consider re-creating in either sim and testing yourself on the outcome or factors leading up to the unfortunate ending. 

The post Navigating Telluride’s Box Canyon Runway, Virtually appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Introduced in 1940, the A6M was dubbed the Navy Type 0 carrier fighter or Reisen (零戦, “Zero Fighter”) for short, in reference to the Imperial Year 2600.

To set the scene here, I’ll be taking off from the Japanese aircraft carrier Akagi and flying over Midway Island, recreating the first wave attack in the Battle of Midway on June 4, 1942.

The paint scheme on this particular airplane shows it belongs to a fighter squadron on the Akagi, as it would have looked during the attack on Pearl Harbor, and—very likely—during the Battle of Midway just six months later. While it may look white or light gray from a distance, the color is actually a kind of greenish-cream color. It’s not for naval camouflage—it just happens to be the color of the special coating used to protect the aluminum from corrosion, especially at sea.

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Later in the war, camouflage from U.S. air attacks became more important and many land-based Zeros were painted green on top. The paint tended to flake off, however, and left the airplanes more vulnerable to corrosion. But that wasn’t their main priority anymore.

Inside the cockpit, the main instrument panel is topped by the breech and charging handles of twin 7.7 millimeter machine guns that fire over the nose. I’ve tried to find out, but I’m not sure what the characters, which seem to be numbers (736 and 245), signify and would love to know.

On the left side of the instrument panel, from left to right, are the heading indicator, clock, and airspeed indicator on top, and the vertical speed indicator, magneto switch, and altimeter on the bottom. On the right side of the panel are the engine gauges. The top left is rpm, and the bottom left is manifold pressure. (The Zero has an adjustable-pitch, constant-speed propeller). 

Typical of most World War II-era fighters, the power controls are to the pilot’s left-hand side. The black metal lever on the wooden throttle fires the airplane’s guns. The two red-knob levers below them are bomb releases.

On the pilot’s right-hand side are levers for the flaps and landing gear, operated by hydraulics. Unlike the American F3F and F4F fighters, the gear didn’t have to be cranked by hand, but the pilot did need to switch hands on the stick to operate them. The cockpit is a tight fit, designed for smaller-stature Japanese pilots, who at this early stage of the war were extremely well trained.

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Japanese aircraft carriers didn’t have catapults, so it’s just a straight run down the deck at max throttle to pick up enough speed.

The A6M Zero was designed in 1937 as a replacement for the A5M. Contrary to many movie portrayals, it was the A5M (aka Type 96) that participated in Japan’s initial invasion of China. It also was an all-metal monoplane but had fixed landing gear and an open cockpit.

When the design competition was announced, Japan’s navy set such high standards for climb, speed, size, and range that manufacturer Nakajima considered the task impossible and dropped out, leaving only Mitsubishi’s team.

Mitsubishi’s lead aircraft designer, Jiro Horikoshi, believed it was possible to meet the demanding performance specifications and set out to prove it. The key was to reduce weight to the absolute minimum. To do this, the Zero was constructed from a top-secret aluminum alloy, which was very strong but very thin.

As a result, the Zero had a range of more than 1,900 miles with a single drop tank, the longest range of any single-engine fighter of WWII and ideal for a carrier-based striker. It also had an astounding climb rate and was extremely maneuverable. This lightweight design also came with vulnerabilities: The Zero had no armor. In fact, that red square on its wings, above the flaps, is actually a no-stand zone because the skin is so thin that it can’t support the weight of a person.

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Check out the Akagi below me. Originally designed as a battlecruiser, it was converted to an aircraft carrier after the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 with the help of Japan’s then naval allies, the British.

Akagi means “Red Castle” and was named after a mountain in Japan. Modernized in the 1930s, it could carry 66 airplanes, including 18 to 21 Zero fighters. The decks are slanted to a peak to slow aircraft on landing and help accelerate them on takeoff.

Nearby, I fly over the Kaga, the Akagi’s companion carrier at both Pearl Harbor and Midway.

The Kaga will be sunk by sundown, and my own carrier, the Akagi, will succumb to damage and slide beneath the waves the next morning. The attack fleet’s other two carriers, the Soryu and Hiryu, will also be sunk in this battle. But I get ahead of myself.

It’s time for me to head to Midway. The Japanese strike on Midway in June 1942 was an attempt to lure the U.S. carriers not destroyed at Pearl Harbor into a fight. However, the Americans were able to decode Japan messages that gave them prior warning of the plan, enabling them to position their three available carriers (USS Hornet, USS Enterprise, and USS Yorktown) for a surprise counterattack.

The Japanese opened with a carrier-based air attack on Midway itself, believing any U.S. aircraft carriers must still be far away. Time for me to drop my drop tank.

Midway consists of two islands. The larger Sand Island to the west hosted a naval base, seaplane harbor, and fuel depot.

The smaller East Island hosted an airfield with fighters and long-range bombers.

The Zero was armed with two 7.7 mm (approximately 30 caliber) machine guns in the nose, plus two 20 mm cannons in the wings. That was some pretty strong firepower, compared to comparable Allied fighters early in the war.

Now here’s an interesting tidbit: The Zero’s engine is basically a copy of the Wright Cyclone and Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp engines. The Japanese had licenses to produce the Douglas DC-3, including engines, before the war, and reengineered those R-1820/R-1830 engines for the A6M.  They produced 950 hp and were basically identical to the versions of those engines used in the B-17—so much so that restored Zeros that fly today typically use the Pratt & Whitney engine, which fits perfectly.

In early dogfights with the Zero, Allied aircraft were completely outclassed. In China, Zeros boasted a kill ratio of 12-to-1. However, in July 1942—a month after Midway—a Zero crashed in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands and was recovered and brought to San Diego for study, revealing some of the airplane’s hidden vulnerabilities.

For one thing, to save weight, the Zero eschewed the heavy rubber, self-sealing fuel tanks that were becoming common in other fighters. This led to a tendency for it to catch fire and explode when hit. For another, the large ailerons that made the Zero extremely maneuverable at low speeds made it harder to turn at high speeds because of the airflow it had to deflect.

Engineers also learned the Zero had a poorly designed carburetor that caused the engine to sputter in a dive.

All of these secrets helped the Americans design tactics to exploit the Zero’s weaknesses (diving, high-speed turns, no armor) and overcome its strengths (climbing, low-speed maneuvers).

In another sense, the Zero was a victim of its own success. Because its designers had so creatively pushed it to its limits, there was little room for improvement in future models to keep pace with new developments. It was as good as it would ever be. While U.S. aircraft—notably the P-38 Lightning, F6F Hellcat, and P-51 Mustang—either made or represented major improvements on previous designs, the Zero remained unchanged and continued in production through 1945.

The initial Japanese attack on Midway was largely successful, seriously damaging the U.S. facilities on the two islands and setting the oil depot ablaze. However, it wasn’t enough. The raid leader reported back that a second wave would be needed to finish the job.

This news led to a series of delays at the Japanese carriers that made them easy prey for the surprise counterattack that was coming from the American carriers quietly lurking nearby. While all but one of the U.S. torpedo bombers were shot down, and every one of them missed their targets, the Americans’  dive bombers caught the Japanese carriers with fully fueled and loaded aircraft on their decks, setting off a chain of devastating explosions. By the next day, all four Japanese carriers had been sunk.

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Right now, I’m ready to land back at the Akagi, not knowing what fate has in store.

The destruction of the Akagi and three other Japanese carriers dealt a severe blow to the Japanese Imperial Navy, mainly because so many experienced pilots were lost. It’s one of the reasons that many consider the Battle of Midway to be the turning point in the Pacific war.

Here I am coming in at around 70 to 80 knots to hit the arresting wires on the Akagi.

Even though it was outclassed by later U.S. airplanes, the Zero could hold its own in a dogfight—so long as it was flown by a capable pilot. The problem was most of those pilots had been killed at Midway. By war’s end, the mighty Zero was relegated to serving as a flying bomb in the hands of relatively untrained pilots, as kamikazes on a one-way trip to take out U.S. ships. Out of the nearly 11,000 Zeros produced, only two are still flying, along with a handful of airframes on display in various museums.

Thanks for joining me on this flight. If you’d like to see a version of this story with more historical photos and screenshots, you can check out my original post here.

This story was told utilizing the A6M5 Zero add-on to MSFS2020 from Romantic Wings, along with sceneries produced by fellow users and shared on flightsim.to for free.

The post Flying Over the Pacific in a Japanese ‘Zero’ appeared first on FLYING Magazine.