In a media preview that took place in early September, journalists were given a few hours of early access to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 (MSFS2024) to see just how much more is coming to flight sim pilots on November 19.  

Important to know is that MSFS2024 is a brand-new software entity, designed from the ground up built by more than 800 developers. MSFS2024 will be expandable and more user friendly, with many software components streamed from the cloud, greatly reducing the glacial loading times experienced with MSFS2020. 

With improved aircraft flight models, better aircraft systems modeling, and many other must-haves, here is just a partial summary of the new features, improvements, and systems coming to MSFS2024:

New Aircraft

Returning to your virtual hangar will be all of the aircraft from MSFS2020 but upgraded to take full advantage of the new flight model in MSFS2024.

The development team also added the new aircraft, which have been divided into different packages and available for purchase on November 19. 

New General Aviation Aircraft

• Beechcraft King Air C90
• Cessna 404 Titan
• Stemme S12G
• Cirrus Vision Jet G2
• Mike Patey’s Draco X
• FlyDoo Hot Air Balloon
• Aero Vodochody L39
• Pipistrel Taurus M
• Airship Industries Skyship 600 
• Grumman Hu-16 Albatross
• Air Tractor AT-802
• Archer Midnight
• Cessna C188B Agtruck
• Cessna 400 Corvalis (TTx)
• Aviat Pitts S1S
• DeHavilland CL-415
• DeHavilland Twin Otter
• Dornier SeaStar
• Joby S4
• MX Aircraft Company MXS-R
• Cessna 408 SkyCourier
• Saab 340D
• Pilatus PC-12NGX
• Pilatus PC-24
• Zivko Edge 540
• Zlin Savage Norden

Helicopters

• Erickson S-64 Aircrane
• Robinson R66
• Airbus H125
• Airbus H225
• Boeing Chinook

Airliners and Military

• North American T-6
• Boeing 737 Max8
• Airbus A321 
• Airbus A330
• Boeing 747 DreamLifter
• Boeing 747 Global Supertanker
• Boeing C-17
• Airbus A400M
• Airbus Beluga
• A-10 Warthog
• North American P-51 Mustang

New Aircraft Systems Modeling

To build the most realistic piloting experience possible, all included aircraft underwent extensive system upgrades, including:

• New hydraulics system modeling 
• Electrical circuits with many working circuit breakers
• Mechanical systems, such as engines, will experience oil burn 
• Tire wear 
• Braking system wear 
• New EFB (electronic flight bag) tablet built into every airplane

The systems are not yet persistent across the flight simulator, meaning every time you load into a new free play flight session, the aircraft will be starting as new. However, wear and tear is modeled in parts of the new career mode.  

New Flight Simulation Environment 

Avionics weren’t the only simulator components improved in MSFS2024. The dev team had the goal of “making the ground in MSFS2024 as detailed as the air.”

This improvement began with increasing the ground modeling (or “polygon count” in the language of flight simulation) to be of such high resolution as to allow for undulations in pavement, uneven surfaces and surfaces of different grip level. The result is that aircraft tires will now have higher fidelity interactions with surfaces as varied as sand, pebbles, rocks, boulders and trees, bringing a more varied experience to bush pilots landing on unimproved areas such as river beds, fields, and mountain sides.

Some other detail improvements: 

• New weather engine with new storms and cirrus clouds at high altitude
• Smoke from the ground or engine fires 
• Updates to how standing bodies of water are modeled like lakes and oceans
• Soft surface modeling for full-airframe parachutes and hot air balloons
• Lift in ground effect
• Wake turbulence 
• Snow and snow amounts remodeled
• Fields now grow crops and the vegetation height changes based on the season
• New tree varieties populate the land
• New animal model generates hundreds of species placed in correct regions around the world

Airports and Lighting, Helipads and Gliderports:

As the Microsoft development team continues to bring its focus to details large and small, a total of 160 major airports have been upgraded from their MSFS2020 versions to include:

• Correct line markings on the ground and taxiways
• More variety and regionally corrected on-airport ground vehicles
• New pavement textures
• Airport lighting updated to feature more realistic brightness, intensity, warmth and color, especially at night
• Additional liveries and aircraft types added  
• 100 different airliner models make up the AI-controlled traffic
• All ships around the world that operate transponders on waterways across the world in MSFS2024, updating their position every 30 seconds
• 80,000 official helipads around the world 
• More than 2000 glider ports added

New Career Mode

The MSFS2024 development team built a comprehensive career mode with the goal of lowering the barrier to entry.

For casual enthusiasts who have never been to a real-world flight school, a small airport, or have never sat in a real GA airplane, this mode serves as an introductory pathway to flight training and then the chance to go deeper into a digital flying career.

For example: 

• Careers start at a flight school location of the pilot’s choosing and progress through flight school activities and short practical exams that open the pilot into wider career choices driven by selecting different available missions.
• Training is led by a virtual flight instructor. 
• Once the minimum training is completed, pilots can select varied missions, such as banner towing, aircraft ferrying, crop dusting, search and rescue, executive transport, and cargo flights. 
• Used airplanes in the career mode will feature wear and tear and require occasional repair paid for by successfully completing missions. 
• There are over 3 million different potential missions in career mode, and missions change every day, keeping the game mode very fresh.
• A new challenge mode will offer pilots the chance to compete against each other with an emphasis on fun and performance, with short two-to-10-minute engagements designed to be fast and interesting. 
• A new world photographer mode offers the chance to try your hand as an air-to-air photographer with your images scored based on how many requested elements make it into your photo submission. 

MSFS 2024 Packages

Much like MSFS2020, sim pilots will have the option to purchase the following packages that come with different loadouts of new aircraft, upgraded aircraft, MSFS2020 payware aircraft, and upgraded airports. The higher-end packages will be available in a physical game box.

• The standard package includes 70 aircraft (30 new MSFS2024 aircraft and 40 upgraded MSFS2020 aircraft) and 150 upgraded airports. 
• The deluxe package includes 80 aircraft (35 new MSFS2024 aircraft and 45 upgraded MSFS2020 aircraft) and 155 upgraded airports. 
• The premium deluxe package includes 95 aircraft (45 new MSFS2024 aircraft and 50 upgraded MSFS2020 aircraft) and 160 upgraded airports. 
• New for MSFS2024, the aviator package includes 125 aircraft (45 new MSFS2024 aircraft, 50 upgraded MSFS2020 aircraft and 30 payware aircraft that were available for MSFS2020) and 160 upgraded airports. 

The MSFS2024 development team built features for all flight sim pilots, allowing the experienced users to go deep into the virtual world, and provided engaging flight sim experiences for the pilot who wants the structure and excitement of career mode, letting them choose their own adventure.

And casual users can enjoy the simulator by doing short sightseeing flights and using the new photography mode.

MSFS2024 seems to have effectively lowered the barrier to entry as well, funneling new users into the career mode to help them have fun and learn more about real-world flying. 

With meaningful improvements made to the user experience, pilots will have interactions in the air and on the ground that should feel more real. Forcing bush pilots to really evaluate their landing zone for large objects and modeling the real-world hazard of wake turbulence has appreciably increased the realism. 

It is easy to forget how far and how fast technology has moved in the years since Microsoft Flight Simulator’s launch in 1982. But based on the leap forward that is MSFS2024, the Microsoft leadership team has shown that it is prepared to do even more, bringing the digital world of flight even closer to the real one.

The post ‘Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024’ Preview: Advanced, Audacious Leap Forward appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

As little as a few hundred dollars can build a basic flight sim at home with a set of controls and a computer program. A lot more money can outfit an airline with a full-motion simulator to train pilots to fly without leaving the ground.

Somewhere in between the entry-level system and the airline training simulator, the ultimate personal flight sim setup provides a realistic flying experience from the comfort of your own home.

There are many benefits to flight simulators, whether they are FAA approved for loggable flight hours or not. Inclimate weather, maintenance delays, and operating costs can keep pilots grounded when they’d rather be working or training in the air.

Flight simulation is a way for pilots and enthusiasts to sharpen their skills at any time and in any virtual location or aircraft type they want.

The Ultimate Home Flight Sim

Creating the ultimate home flight simulator setup requires investing in premium gear for an immersive experience. A sense of realism can be achieved at home by prioritizing a few key elements.

Craig Fuller, CEO of Firecrown (which owns FLYING Magazine among other aviation media brands), recently shared his complete flight sim setup in a post on X (formerly Twitter). It’s a setup that will make any pilot proud. 

“I recently upgraded my home simulator to teach my kids to fly,” Fuller wrote.

In a thread, he details the premium components he chose for his simulator and why. We’ll highlight some of his picks, as well as other industry favorites and recommendations.

Essential Components

Essential components for any home flight sim setup include the frame, visual displays, computer, flight controls, and software.

In a sea of endless options and customizations, we’ve rounded up our favorite flight simulator components in each category to help you build the ultimate home flight sim. 

Cockpit Frame

The frame is the foundation of any flight sim setup. A simulator frame is a structure that contains all of the essential parts like the monitors, computers, and controls.

It’s important to have a well-constructed frame to mount rudder pedals, yokes, and seats to hold them in place and allow for more realistic feedback and control inputs.

Most premade simulator frames are aluminum or steel. Many include a seat that is either already attached or can be easily installed by the user. 

Frame Recommendations

Craig’s pick: Boeing Commercial Edition From Next Level Racing

• Highlights: This officially licensed Boeing rig comes complete with a faux wool-lined seat embroidered with the Boeing logo and royal blue accents. According to Fuller, it’s “sturdy and looks amazing.” Compatible with any leading brand of flight controls, this cockpit frame is the perfect foundation for a serious home simulator.
• Price: $775

Also check out:

• Single monitor mount: RealSimGear Flight Sim Seat & Frame Bundle
• Triple monitor mount: Volair Universal Flight or Racing Simulation Cockpit Chassis

Computer

Without a powerful computer, even the best cockpit frames, seats, and flight controls will be lacking. “The PC is the most important piece of hardware,” says Fuller. “Don’t skimp on this.”

For the most realistic experience, you’ll need a computer that can keep up with the demands of your flight simulation software. Programs like Microsoft Flight Simulator rely heavily on processing power, graphics capabilities, and memory.

A high-performance PC ensures smooth graphics, quick response times, and the ability to run complex scenarios, making your simulation feel as close to real flying as possible.

Computer and Console Recommendations

Craig’s pick: Doghouse Systems FLYING Edition

• Highlights: Doghouse Systems teamed up with FLYING to create this gaming PC specifically designed for use in flight simulators. “I run three 65[-inch] 4K monitors in 4K with zero issues,” Fuller says. Further customize your computer build with upgrades to the memory, video card, and more.
• Price: $4,695

Also check out:

• Best gaming console: Xbox Series X

Visual Systems

Most home flight simulator setups use monitors or VR headsets to display the visuals that are essential for flight simming. Some larger systems utilize projectors for a different experience.

Projectors tend to require a lot more space and perform best in dark, windowless spaces like a basement or garage.

For the best at-home visuals, a large curved monitor or multiview display delivers quality graphics and a wide field of view, making your simulation sessions feel truly immersive and realistic.

Visual Display Recommendations

Craig’s pick: Multiview display of three Sony 65-inch 4K Ultra HD TV X85K Series

• Highlights: The smooth, clear picture on this display keeps pace easily with the fast-moving simulation graphics. Use a single monitor for a focused display, or mount a series of three for peripheral viewing.
• Price: $898 each

Also check out:

• Curved monitor: Samsung 55-inch Odyssey Ark 4K
• VR headset:- Meta Quest 3

Flight Controls

Flight controls are what most often come to mind when thinking about building a flight simulator. Even the most basic home setups have at least a stick and rudder. 

When it comes to building the ultimate home flight sim, the sheer volume of flight control options can be overwhelming. Rudder pedals, yokes, and switch panels can be found in a wide array of price points, designs, and materials. Control panels can be exact replicas of a specific airplane cockpit, or a loose interpretation of the real thing.

For Fuller’s home flight sim, he chose a Boeing-branded yoke to match his sim frame. “Thrustmaster makes the best controllers on the market,” he says.

The throttle he chose is a replica of the A-10 Warthog throttle quadrant, also from Thrustmaster. Constructed primarily from metal, it’s a sturdier replacement for the plastic Boeing throttle quadrant that comes included with the Boeing-branded yoke.

Yoke

Craig’s pick: Thrustmaster Yoke Pack Boeing Edition

• Highlights: As official Boeing-licensed gear, this yoke and throttle quadrant bundle are ergonomic replicas of controls found on the iconic 787 Dreamliner. Compatibility with both Xbox and PC, automatic integration with Microsoft Flight Simulator, and a sturdy metal internal yoke structure make this set a no-brainer.
• Price: $499

Also check out:

• Best PC compatible: Honeycomb Alpha Flight Simulator Yoke
• Best Xbox compatible:- Turtle Beach VelocityOne Flight Universal Control System

Throttle

Craig’s picks: Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog Dual Throttle and  ThrustMaster TCA Yoke Pack Boeing Edition

• Highlights: The ultimate flight sim should have the coolest details possible, and what could be cooler than a replica A-10 Warthog throttle? With 17 action buttons, dual levers, and primarily metal construction, this throttle not only looks great but feels precise and enjoyable to use. Fuller also recommends the ThrustMaster Boeing Edition. “I bought it and love it, and it matches my cockpit,” he says.
• Price: $329

Also check out:

• Airbus throttle and stick bundle: Thrustmaster TCA Captain Pack – Airbus Edition
• PC compatible universal controls: Honeycomb Bravo Flight Simulator Throttle Quadrant

Rudder Pedals

Craig’s pick: Thrustmaster Pendular Rudder

• Highlights: A unique pendular design on these rudder pedals give realistic feedback and precise control. Weighing in at over 15 pounds, these pedals are constructed entirely of metal and provide excellent stability with or without mounting to a sim frame.
• Price: $599

Also check out:

• Best for Xbox: Turtle Beach VelocityOne Universal Rudder Pedals

Software

Selecting the right flight simulation software is crucial for creating the ultimate home flight simulator experience.

Your software choice will directly impact how immersive and realistic your flight simulator will be, so it’s important to choose wisely. With a range of options available, the choice depends primarily on your personal goals.

When choosing software, consider factors such as the accuracy of the flight models, quality of the graphics, availability of updates and community support, and system requirements. 

Flight Simulator Software Recommendations

Craig’s pick: Microsoft Flight Simulator

• Highlights: Beloved by home flight simmers around the globe, Fuller agrees MSFS is unmatched: “Microsoft Flight Simulator blends gaming with real-world scenarios and integrates Bing real-world graphics into the experience.” The much-anticipated new release of MSFS is expected to drop in November 2024.
• Price: $60-$120

Also check out:

• For excellent flight dynamics: X-Plane

Advanced Features and Customization

While advanced features like sound systems, motion platforms, and environmental feedback are not required to run an effective home simulator, they can certainly add depth to the experience.

Motion Platforms

A motion platform is a powered base that simulates movements like pitch, roll, and yaw, adding a tactile dimension and realism to a flight simulator.

Chandler Welling, co-founder and president of Podium1 Racing and home sim expert, says “[a] motion platform alone can be up to $28,000 for the top line, and that’s before any software or controls.”

According to Welling, when it comes to home flight simulators, “it’s important to know what you want to get out of it. A great system can be under $10K.”

While a motion platform is typically a pricey upgrade even in the lower price ranges, it’s a modification that can take your home sim to the next level. Motion simulators in the neighborhood of $28,000 are priced that way for a reason— they’re precise, quiet, and deliver a range of motion only otherwise achievable by actually flying an airplane.

Check out:

• Qubic QS-320 3DOF Motion System
• Next Level Racing Motion Platform V3

Haptic Feedback

Haptic feedback adds another layer of realism to the home flight simulator experience by providing tactile responses that mimic real-world sensations.

Through vibrations and force feedback in controls like yokes, rudder pedals, and throttles, haptics can simulate the feel of an aircraft’s controls during various flight conditions.

Check out: 

• Next Level Racing Haptic Feedback Gaming Pad
• Buttkicker Advance BK4-4

Best Turnkey Flight Simulators

If you’re less of a DIYer and looking for a bundle that has it all, a turnkey simulator may be right for you.

All-in-one bundles have the added benefit of guaranteed compatibility. Companies that offer turnkey simulator solutions have tried and tested different combinations of gear to find the best solutions.

Based on what works best and what their customers love, they’re able to put together complete rigs to meet different needs and price points.

Best Customizable Turnkey Flight Simulator

Podium1 Racing – Latitude Flight Sim

Highlights: The makers of custom sims for celebrities like Joe Rogan and Snoop Dogg have the market cornered on the coolest all-in-one racing and flight simulators. While Podium1 has focused most of their energy on building and marketing the best sims in racing, their expansion into flight simulators shouldn’t be overlooked. From fixed wing to rotorcraft, the variety of customizations they offer is only limited by your imagination.

Price: $12,999

Best FAA-Approved Turnkey Home Flight Sim

RealSimGear – Cessna BATD

Highlights: This turnkey simulator isn’t just for fun; it can also be used for instrument currency and logging certain types of flight time. Not all simulators are approved by the FAA for logging hours, so for some pilots, this is a strong selling point. RealSimGear also has FAA-approved Piper, Diamond, and Cirrus simulators.

Price: $21,795

Get Ready to Build Your Home Simulator Setup

Creating the ultimate home flight simulator requires thoughtful planning and consideration of each key component.

The best approach is to determine your goals and priorities before you begin crafting your setup to be sure you hit all of the elements that are most important to you. Home flight simming is not only a great way to stay sharp as a pilot, it’s also incredibly fun.

By investing in top-of-the-line gear and software, you can build a simulator that meets all of your personal sim goals and creates a realistic and immersive flight experience.

FAQ 

What is the best flight sim set up?

The best flight sim setup includes realistic flight controls, powerful computers and visual displays, and simulation software. Advanced systems often include add-ons like motion feedback and sound effects.

How to build a flight simulator setup?

Flight simulator setups can be pieced together from different brands and systems depending on the user’s preferences. There are also turnkey systems that require minimal assembly from the user and come mostly pre-built.

What equipment is needed for Microsoft Flight Simulator?

The minimum equipment required to run Microsoft Flight Simulator is an Xbox or PC and a gaming controller or set of basic simulator flight controls.

The post Building the Ultimate Flight Simulator Setup at Home appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

According to Sporty’s, the partnership integrates Infinite Flight’s scenario-based training with Sporty’s Learn to Fly Course, which bridges the gap between online aviation training and advanced flight simulation.

When paired with Sporty’s online ground schools, Infinite Flight allows the users to practice concepts “in the virtual cockpit.” The scenarios presented are those used in the training environment. With the push of a button, users can transition from watching instructional videos to flying a maneuver in a virtual Cessna 172 Skyhawk.

The system includes an evaluation of the user’s performance and also offers feedback.

Infinite Flight allows users to virtually fly to and from thousands of airports around the world while integrating popular electronic flight bag apps like ForeFlight and Garmin Pilot just as they would in an actual aircraft. The platform also gives users the ability to experience varying weather scenarios and aircraft performance.

For the learner who is struggling to keep up in the cockpit, or who is apprehensive about getting lost during cross-country flights, Infinite Flight allows them to “practice” the flight before they get near an aircraft. 

The post New Sim Partnership Blends Virtual Ground School, Flight Training appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Thirty years later, as I have racked up thousands of hours flying business jets, fulfilling my cloud-popping dreams, I get to do the same on my home flight sim thanks to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 (MSFS2020).

In the four years since MSFS2020’s release, so many improvements and features have been added to make its visual world more realistic. The weather modeling seems to improve almost daily. 

• READ MORE: Launch Date Set for ‘Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024’

MSFS2020’s live weather feature has always been fabulous and seemingly accurate. Yet with all its improvements, I still have an affinity for manually setting up the sky. I call this “skyscapes.”

Creating Skyscapes

I make my own skyscapes all the time now—and you can too. Or you can download them from others. It’s easy to do, tons of fun, and has become an artistic way of enjoying the sim.

It’s perfect for making coffee-table-perfect screenshots and also allowing overriding the live weather in case it’s interfering with your plans on that day. 

I enjoy modeling convection. The visuals of the cumulus clouds against a deep blue sky is intoxicating to me. Up until recently the cumulous model or thunderstorm was dead, with little or no turbulence. I would have to turn to X-Plane 12 storm modeling to be challenged. 

X-Plane has always done a superior job in convective modeling. But in the last two months until now I have noticed something in MSFS2020 has changed. 

Recently, I took a sim flight around Thailand testing out the new incredible PMDG 777-300 (pmdg.com), using my self made tropical skyscape. I programmed cumulus clouds with tops exceeding 30,000 feet, which suddenly started to upset the mega airliner as I flew traffic patterns. 

Near the cumulous, there were sudden upheavals, airspeed changes, and shear. It was rough. Some clouds did nothing, while others had winds gusting to over 50 knots in spots, varying on the direction, creating shear and moderate turbulence.

I tried numerous circuits around the area, with some 30 miles around the airport intentionally penetrating and circumnavigating the cumulous, some of which had grown to thunderstorms with lightning bolts. Adjusting the manual slider for customization I increased the lightning percentage and rainfall rates. The visual effect was spectacular, with visible rain shafts, downbursts, and rainbows.

Creating Sim Weather Themes

Creating your own weather themes is a breeze.

To get started, just untoggle the live weather button then manually tweak clouds, wind, visability, and temperature. Use the little icon to the upper-right corner to give it a unique name. That’s it, and it is saved forever for recall or to share online with others. I have started making many, based on real-world location and with the typical weather. 

Using manual weather offers the ability to deepen the blue sky to accurately represent areas that don’t have pollution, like the Pacific Islands or the Rocky Mountains in the U.S.

To do this, drag the humidity slider fully to the left. Moving it to the right creates more humidity, leading to a reduction in visibility or even fog if you keep going full right into a zero/zero type of world.

Temperature is self explanatory. Lightning is fun to tinker with, as is precipitation. By having high bases and no precipitation, you can simulate typical high altitude Rocky Mountain-style convection.

Throw in gusty winds in varying degrees with altitude or shear to simulate a day filled with thermals and convective winds. Dry base storms in the Rockies can be deadly, even without any precipitation falling. By adding a lot of precipitation you’ll get intense rain shafts and flooding.

By lowering clouds to under 3,000 feet msl, reducing visibility, and having intense rains, you’ll be creating a typical tropical-style setup. Make the winds light. The combinations are endless. 

The PMDG 777 is the epitome of a realistic, study-level aircraft. I am currently using an Asus ROG 18 (i9, GeForce 4090) laptop for all my flight simming sessions. 

As I fly the heavy jumbo, which in itself is a task, I wondered how the effects would affect a Cessna type aircraft. I booted up a brand new late model  Carenado Cessna 182T and flew over the intermountain western U.S. for testing using a similar weather model but raising the CU bases to about 7,000 agl and tops to near FL 400. 

It’s a random occurrence, but climbing near the bases resulted in some light chop and shear, though not as much as expected. After adding in more lightning and rainfall, I experienced some massive vertical spikes with winds gusting to almost 50 knots while in cruise at some places near clouds.

In preparing this article, I used a recently released add-on called SimFx by Parallel 42. It is available here, and includes other visual aircraft effects like wing fogging, tire spray, rubber trails, dirt, and much more. Some pretty cool premade “skyscapes” are included as well. 

Your home sim may not be able to replicate everything, but the amount it can do is staggering. The lack of motion is really about the only thing that stands out. Visuals are better than FAA-level D sims—and sound better too.

Hopefully you too will try making some of your own “skyscapes” in MSFS2020 and discover the fun of doing so as I have.

The post Skyscapes for Simmers appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Born in 1882, Geoffrey de Havilland was the second son of a village pastor. At an early age, he displayed a mechanical interest and pursued a career as an automotive engineer, building cars and motorcycles. Frustrated at work, in 1909 he received a gift of 1,000 pounds from his grandfather to build his first airplane, just a few years after the Wright brothers had made their first flight.

By World War I, de Havilland was working for Airco, where he designed a number of early warplanes, which enjoyed varying success, and flew as his own test pilot. In 1920, with the support of his former boss, de Havilland set up his own independent company and embarked on a series of aircraft named after moths, inspired by his love of lepidopterology, or the study of butterflies and moths.

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

In 1932, he introduced the DH.82 Tiger Moth, a variant of earlier aircraft designed specifically as a military trainer for the Royal Air Force (RAF), as well as other air forces. Like many aircraft at the time, the Tiger Moth’s fuselage is constructed of fabric-covered steel tubing, while its wings are made of fabric-covered wooden frames. I’ve seen a single person lift a Tiger Moth by the tail to take it out of its hangar. The Tiger Moth was powered by a de Havilland Gypsy air-cooled, 4-cylinder in-line engine which produced 120-130 hp, depending on the version.

Like most trainers, the Tiger Moth had two seats, each with its own set of controls, with the student in front and the instructor or solo pilot in back. One of the major changes introduced to the Tiger Moth, at RAF insistence, was folding door panels that made it easier to enter and exit both cockpits. The feature was absolutely essential when a student or instructor needed to quickly bail out wearing  heavy parachutes.

The silver knobs on the left control throttle, fuel mixture, and aileron trim. The knob on the right enables “auto slots,” slats on the wings that automatically deploy like flaps to provide additional lift at low speeds and high angles of attack. Notice that there is no artificial horizon. However, there is a turn indicator (in the center) as well as a red column that indicates the aircraft’s pitch. It is currently showing nose-up because the plane is resting on its tailwheel.

The compass, situated just in front of the stick, is a bit tricky. You can either keep it pointed toward north and look to where the line is pointing, or you can rotate the compass ring to show the current heading at the top and follow that by keeping it centered.

• READ MORE: Reenacting Bombing Missions in an F-117 Nighthawk

In addition to the cockpit gauge, there’s also a mechanical airspeed indicator on the left wing. Red shows typical stall speed range (below 45 mph).

I’m at England’s Upavon Airfield, a few miles north of Stonehenge, which was home to the RAF’s Central Flying School, founded in 1912, and where the first Tiger Moths were delivered. It is now a small army base (hence the vehicles) and is also used as a glider field. With no electrical starter, the Tiger Moth is hand-propped to get it started. The turning of the propeller, by hand, engages the magnetos that send charges to the spark plugs, starting the engine.

This particular Tiger Moth, N-6635, is based on the one on display at the Imperial War Museum at RAF Duxford, near Cambridge. It’s actually a composite that was put together with parts from different Tiger Moths.

The engine is modeled realistically. If you overstress it on full throttle for more than a few minutes, it will overheat and conk out. If you let it idle for too long, the spark plugs will foul up. With a small engine like this, the left-turning tendencies are not pronounced. However, the trickiest part of takeoff for most tailwheel airplanes is still when the tail comes up. The descent of the rotating propeller causes a gyroscopic precession to the left.

The Tiger Moth gained immediate popularity as the RAF’s primary trainer—the first airplane a would-be pilot learned to fly after ground school before moving on to more advanced fighters or bombers. It gained a reputation for being “easy to fly, but difficult to master.” In normal flight, it was forgiving of mistakes. On the other hand, the Tiger Moth required great precision from a pilot to learn aerobatic combat maneuvers, without going into a spin. However, it recovers easily from spins, which meant it highlighted a student’s shortcomings without (usually) putting them at fatal risk. Though I did notice that when flying upside down (or going through a roll), the engine sputters, probably because gravity messes with the fuel flow.

During the 1930s, between world wars, students selected by the RAF took about nine to 12 months to earn their pilot wings, building up about 150 hours of flight time, about 55 with an instructor and the rest solo. Their instruction included night, formation, and instrument flying, along with gunnery and aerobatics (for combat).

The Tiger Moth was sold to 25 air forces from different countries and proved popular to private buyers as well. It was a big commercial success for the company. A total of 1,424 Tiger Moths were produced prior to the outbreak of WWII, most of which were manufactured at the de Havilland factory in Hatfield, north of London.

Slowing down while descending to land can be difficult. I found I usually needed to cut the power to idle and glide in. Power-off landings were a very typical method in that era. It’s nearly impossible to see forward in the Tiger Moth, especially when landing. It’s best to lean your head out the side, while keeping one eye on controlling the airspeed at around 60 mph (about 15-20 mph above stalling).

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

There are also no wheel brakes. So once you do land, you just have to let friction slow you down. It’s easier in a grassy field like this.

The success of the Tiger Moth led to Geoffrey de Havilland being awarded the Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1934. But its story was only just beginning.

Welcome to Goderich Airport (CYGD) in Ontario, Canada, about 2.5 hours north of Detroit on the eastern shore of Lake Huron. In 1928, de Havilland set up a subsidiary in Canada to produce Tiger Moths to train Canadian airmen. This Tiger Moth, #8922 (registration C-GCWT), is based on a real plane that belongs to the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum in Mount Hope, Ontario, and is in airworthy condition.

With the outbreak of WWII in 1939, the British government realized that Britain itself was an unsuitable location for training large numbers of new pilots. Not only is the weather often poor, the airspace over Britain was quickly becoming a battleground between the beleaguered RAF and the German Luftwaffe—the last place you’d want a student pilot to learn how to fly.

Canada, in contrast, offered vast areas far from enemy activity, where pilot training could be conducted. To take advantage of this, the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP) was created to instruct thousands of airmen from Britain and across the Empire in safer locations like Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Bermuda, and South Africa. The yellow “training” livery was typical of the BCATP, though the real-life airplane was also equipped with a plexiglass-enclosed cockpit to permit winter training.

Many of the small airports dotted across Canada from east to west—as well as some large ones—got their start as part of BCATP, commonly referred to as “the Plan.” I selected Goderich to fly from because after it was built in Canada in 1942, this plane, #8922, was used to train pilots here at the No. 12 Elementary Flying Training School (EFTS), as part of the BCATP. The same airplane later went to No. 4 EFTS at Windsor Mills, Quebec, an airfield that no longer exists.

Eventually, there were 36 elementary flight schools across Canada, in addition to dozens more devoted to training bombardiers, navigators, and gunners. At least 131,533 Allied pilots and aircrew were trained in Canada under BCATP—the largest of any country participating in the Plan—of which 72,835 were Canadian. The program cost Canada $1.6 billion but employed 104,000 Canadians in air bases across the land. De Havilland produced 1,548 Tiger Moths in Canada, by war’s end, to help stock these flight schools with aircraft.

While training pilots in Canada was safer than in Britain, lives were still lost. From 1942 to 1944, a total of 831 fatal accidents took place, an average of five per week.

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BCATP training was by no means limited to Canada. I’m here at Parafield Airport in Adelaide, Australia, which was home to that country’s No. 1 Elementary Flight Training School and received its first Tiger Moths in April 1940. This particular Tiger Moth, A17-58, was built by de Havilland in Australia in 1940 and apparently still continues to fly. Australia eventually had 12 elementary flight schools (plus a host of other schools) as part of BCATP, which was known there as the Empire Air Training Scheme (EATS).

Prior to BCATP, the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) only trained about 50 pilots per year. By 1945, more than 37,500 Australian aircrew had been trained in Australia, though many then went to Canada to complete their more advanced training before going into combat. Most Australians in the RAAF went on to fight in the Pacific Theater, though some joined the RAF to fight over Europe. De Havilland built a total of 1,070 Tiger Moths in Australia and even exported a few batches to the U.S. Army Air Forces and the Royal Indian Air Force.

The BCATP was one of the largest aviation training programs in history, providing about half of the airmen who flew for Britain and its dependencies in WWII. The ability to train in safety, away from the combat zone, gave Allied pilots a crucial advantage over the Germans, who typically went into combat with roughly half the training hours of their  counterparts. The program was so important that President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who called the U.S. “the arsenal of democracy,” dubbed Canada “the aerodrome of democracy” as a result of its contribution to training Allied airmen—many of them in the Tiger Moth.

Tiger Moths were not only used to train pilots during WWII. Some were deployed for coastal patrols. I’m here at Farnborough, Britain’s former center for experimental aircraft development (southwest of London), to investigate another interesting purpose they served.

No, it’s not a mistake—there’s a reason why there are no pilots visible in either cockpit. This aircraft, LF858, was what was known as a “Queen Bee.” British anti-aircraft gun crews needed practice firing at real targets. But flying an airplane with people shooting at you is, well, rather dangerous. So de Havilland figured out a way to put radio equipment in the rear cockpit that could receive messages for an operator on the ground and work the aircraft’s controls accordingly. In other words, it was the world’s first “drone” aircraft.

Besides being able to fly by remote control, the main difference between a regular Tiger Moth and a Queen Bee is that instead of metal tubing for the fuselage frame, the latter used wood (like for its wings) to save money. The objective wasn’t to shoot down the Tiger Moth—that would be wasteful. Gunners used an offset to hopefully miss, so the airplane could land and be used again. But if they did hit, no pilots were at risk.

About 470 Tiger Moth “Queen Bees” were built during WWII. The term “drone” for a pilotless airplane derives directly from the Queen Bee program and refers to a male bee who flies just once to mate with a queen then dies.

By the end of WWII, nearly 8,700 Tiger Moths had been built, 4,200 of them for the RAF alone. It continued to be used by the RAF for training until it was replaced by the de Havilland Chipmunk in the 1950s.

The fact that so many people across the British Empire had learned to fly in a Tiger Moth made them immensely popular after the war, among private pilots and enthusiasts. An estimated 250 Tiger Moths are still flying, including this one based out of the small airstrip near Ranfurly on the southern island of New Zealand.

A number of Tiger Moth clubs exist around the world. The late Christopher Reeve, of Superman fame, once joined one of these clubs and learned how to fly the Tiger Moth. Reeve even made a movie about it, which you can find on YouTube. He said it took some time getting used to how slow they approach and land.

Tiger Moths have appeared in several films, often disguised as other biplanes. For instance, the plane in Lawrence of Arabia (1962) was a Tiger Moth, decked out to look like a German Fokker. The silver biplane in The English Patient (1993) was a Tiger Moth (the other, yellow biplane in that movie was a Stearman). It’s worth mentioning that the biplane in Out of Africa (1985) was not a Tiger Moth, but the earlier and very similar Gypsy Moth, also built by de Havilland. Apparently there was even a movie in 1974 called The Sergeant and the Tiger Moth (1974) about a guy and his girlfriend who aren’t even pilots but build and fly one anyway. I have no idea if it’s any good, so please find and watch it for me.

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 Ant’s Airplanes Tiger Moth add-on to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, along with liveries and scenery downloaded for free from the flightsim.to community.

The post Recreating the de Havilland Tiger Moth appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Innsbruck is one of the most beautiful and spectacular places on earth with an airport that can support a variety of airline equipment up to a small widebody such as the Boeing 767-300ER. I have traveled to LOWI for my entire “sim life” but sadly haven’t been able to see it in person yet.

To demonstrate this magnificent place, I chose horrendously gusty winds by manually editing the weather in both X-Plane 12 (XP12) and MSFS2020. I wanted to test terrain-induced dangers with modeled shear, downsloping, thermals, and maybe some rotor effects. 

The results were good and depicted simulated wind over steep peaks equally well. Both sims have enhanced their ability to handle wind flow over terrain and objects, such as buildings. Each will delight and tantalize you into taking risks you would not in real life. However, if you find yourself in a real-world situation that demands all your wind-battling skills, I am confident some, if not most of which you experience in either sim, will translate to useful skills. 

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I started this exercise using the closest thing to a large bizjet I could find, which in MSFS 2020 is the Aerosoft CRJ 550 series with corporate livery. I enjoy this model and use it often, as I have seen these converted to private use in the real world.

I began and ended all my flights at LOWI to test terrain, feel out the winds aloft, as well as terrain-based wind flows and shear. 

The CRJ is interesting to fly with a lot of trimming required as it’s a long-bodied jet with a large swing either side of the CG. I have not flown one in real life, but I find flying pitch with stab trim almost entirely while hand flying. I mean, all jets I have flown are like that, but this is fairly sensitive to pitch, power, and flap configuration—all requiring lots of trimming. Taking off in violent winds was a task. The small aileron “tabs” were not doing a great job in crosswind ability.

Using live weather in my first view patterns was wild enough. On the downwind to the westerly runway at LOWI, I experienced a lot of up and down drafts, shear, varying winds, and sloppy controls. Even some unstable virga bursts were in the valley, corresponding to the actual METAR at the time. 

Snow cover is supposed to be realistically placed, and if it was, the coverage seemed quite believable. Snow still was deep in most elevated regions and spotty in the valley floor by the airport. Also visible was green grass and flowering trees. 

For the final approach, I calculated V_REF of about 128 was fought with much shear, with airspeed variances of up to 20 to 30 knots, providing a wild ride. In the CRJ you can not hear any engines from the cockpit, making for an odd audio sensation. You must look at your power settings only. This makes it easy to get behind the “power curve,” and often I found myself overcorrecting or undercorrecting on speed control. 

I imagine this is how a real CRJ pilot must feel. To me, engine sounds are extremely useful and one of the senses you can not operate without. I imagine MD80-style pilots are used to the same sensation.

I love comparing sims, so I loaded up manual weather in XP12 to mimic the same windy conditions, as live weather in the sim works well. 

I wanted unlimited visibility and no rain. Live weather in XP12 has a defect where it rains all the time, regardless of actual METAR. With a lighter corporate jet, that is powerful. As is often the case with swept-wing jets, sometimes extra drag is required beyond gear and flaps. In this case, I ran the speedbrakes often on final, as gusting winds often increase speed and put you high on the glideslope. 

It definitely was a jarring trip and was often violent with bank angles going beyond 40 degrees. Landing was wild, leading to the aircraft’s big wings striking the ground at times in the crosswinds approaching 35 knots. Its powerful reversers worked great, and slowing down was not an issue. The same monster engines worked great on climbout also, blasting through the shear layers.

Lastly, I tried the heaviest aircraft I could use at LOWI that I had in my library: the 737-700 BBJ models from PMDG and LevelUP for XP12.

Using 130,000 pounds as my test weight, I kept the same weather parameters going, with equally set manual weather in both sims, featuring the same winds. Hand flying the circuit, I blasted through the shear with ease, but the big wings made it even more noticeable in rolling motions and aileron slop.

I have noticed when flying big jets in my sims, the longer wings and winglets of newer airliners tend to “right the jet” quickly as it creates a stable platform in roll. However, it often results in necessary “tugging” or more force to start or end a bank. Older jets without winglets or shorter wingspans are much faster in roll and lack some stability in bank.

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I only have my real-world corporate jet experience to draw upon, but I do believe this is true. I have flown “wingleted” Challenger 300s and non-wingleted Falcon 2000s, Hawkers, and Beechjets. Of those, I found the Challenger 300 has a more stable roll and is more sluggish as well in that axis. When I flew Beechjets, with short stubby wings and no winglets, I realized it would simply roll off into oblivion if pushed more than 30 degrees over. There was no inherent stability. 

Some circuits were done taking off downwind. I could actually feel the requirement to push forward on the yoke, keep the stab down, and “dive away from the wind.” That technique works here as well. By neutralizing the yoke, I lost the ability to steer and attack whatever crosswind component was evident. Pushing too far down made steering overly sensitive, but pulling toward takeoff made steering impossible. It was a battle and balance that is realistically conveyed in both sims. 

Initiating the PMDG 737-700 BBJ was equally satisfying in XP12, with more fantastic weather modeling. The “violence” was real, and two landing attempts were met with sudden go-arounds as crosswinds, sudden sink rates, and warnings were severe. 

After a 50-degree sudden roll over at 500 feet, I was done and practiced wild go-arounds. This was in XP12. In both sims, if your sound settings are accurate, you can really hear the gusts on the windscreen on final as power is relatively low. This is something that is present in the real jet I fly.

Once again, I must tout the amazing XP-Realistic Pro, available at www.x-plane.org, for XP12, or the FS-Realistic Pro for MSFS2020. Both enhance and add necessary sound and visual effects for each sim.

Unexpected rolling motion hit me in XP12—and I loved it. Downwind washing wind flow is the reason I suspect, but I can imagine how nauseating this would be in real life. As a captain of jets for many years, I am OK while up front, but as soon as you make me a passenger, all bets are off for my stomach.

Even in the default XP12 scenery you do get the feeling of new worldly locations, with the local-style architecture and buildings changing. The European look is quite evident in Austria, creating an immersive experience, although not quite as dramatic as in MSFS2020.

Doing multiple takeoffs and landings to and from such a beautiful place is fun and satisfying to watch on the replay mode of XP12. I hope Asobo Studio will include replay into future versions of MSFS2020. You can learn a lot from sims, and being able to watch every aspect of it over and over during challenging situations is a great tool. 

The post Simulated Austria Is Wild, Wonderful 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Anthony Fokker was Dutch, born in the colonial East Indies. In 1910, at age 20, he moved to Germany to pursue his interest in aviation. He soon founded his own airplane company there, and during World War I it designed a number of successful and famous fighter planes for the Germans. Fokker himself was an accomplished pilot. I wrote a previous article on the Fokker Dr.I triplane, which you can check out here.

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After losing WWI, Germany had to surrender all its warplanes and aircraft factories, including Fokker’s factory, under the Treaty of Versailles. Fokker, however, was able to bribe railway and border officials to smuggle some of his equipment back to his native Netherlands. That equipment allowed him to reestablish his company in Holland and design the Fokker F.VII, a single-engine transport for the fledgling postwar civilian market. I’m in one of those models here, in KLM colors, at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport (EHAM).

The F.VII’s fuselage was fabric stretched over a steel-tube frame. Its wings were plywood-skinned. The original, single-engine version of the F.VII was powered by a variety of different models of radial engines, which ranged from 360 to 480 hp. Inside there was room for eight passengers, as well as a bathroom (the door to my right here).

The cabin was connected to the two-man cockpit by a little door under the fuel tank and starter switches. On the instrument panel, from left to right: oil pressure and temperature, altitude, another oil temperature gauge, air speed indicator (with a turn indicator below it), clock, and rpm tachometer. Around the cockpit you can see all the wires and pulleys connecting the controls to the flight surfaces outside. Turn or push the yoke and they quite clearly move. Fly by wire, indeed. The compass is basically a bowl with a magnet floating in it.

The designer of the initial F.VII was Walter Rethel, who was later hired by Willy Messerschmitt and went on to design the famous Bf 109, the main German fighter at the start of World War II.

With a single engine, even a fairly powerful one for its time, the Fokker F.VII didn’t exactly spring off the ground. It lumbers into the air and climbs gradually. Nevertheless, in the early 1920s, the F.VII became a successful early passenger transport for early airlines such as Dutch KLM and Belgian Sabena. Here I am flying over the historic center of Amsterdam.

In 1924, the F.VII even introduced flights from Amsterdam to the East Indies. Needless to say, it wasn’t nonstop and could take many days.

In 1925, automakers Henry Ford and his son Edsel began the Ford Reliability Tour, a challenge for aircraft to successfully complete a 1,900-mile course across the American Midwest with stops in 10 cities. To compete in Ford’s challenge, and make the airplane more reliable in general, Fokker had the F.VII redesigned to have three engines, adding two mounted on the side struts. The new F.VIIb/3m, decked out here in Sabena colors and flying over Brussels, became immediately popular, with 154 built. Each of the three engines was a 200 hp Wright J-4 Whirlwind.

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Belgian tycoon Alfred Loewenstein, calculated to be the third-richest man in the world at his peak in the 1920s, even owned his own private Fokker F.VII. Flying over the English Channel in 1928, he had one of the most unfortunate bathroom breaks in history. You see, the door to the bathroom (left) is directly across from the door to the outside (right). It seems Loewenstein opened and walked through the wrong one and fell to his death in the water below. Though to this day, some still suspect it was murder. There’s even a book about this incident, The Man Who Fell from the Sky by William Norris.

If that were the sum of the F.VII’s history, it might be pretty uninspiring. But to tell the rest of it, I’m here at Spitsbergen in Norway’s Arctic archipelago of Svalbard for Byrd’s flight to the North Pole. Richard Byrd was a U.S. naval officer who commanded air patrols out of Halifax, Nova Scotia, during WWI. He played an active but supporting role in the first attempts to cross the Atlantic by air, and in 1926 had his big shot at fame. His Fokker F.VIIa/3m, mounted on snow skis, was named the Josephine Ford, after the daughter of Edsel Ford, who helped finance the expedition.

This was a two-man expedition, with Byrd accompanied by Navy Chief Aviation Pilot Floyd Bennett. The passenger seats were torn out and replaced with extra fuel tanks and emergency supplies.

The inside of the cockpit is quite similar to the one-engine version but with three separate throttles and tachometers (showing rpm). There was no airport in Svalbard at the time, so they had to take off from a snow-covered field—hence the skis. Byrd’s flight, from Svalbard and back, took 15 hours and 57 minutes, including 13 minutes spent circling at their farthest north point, which Byrd claimed, based on his sextant readings, to be the North Pole.

Did he really reach the North Pole and become the first to fly over it? This remains hotly disputed to this day, with some researchers claiming that he faked his sextant readings and fell short of his goal. In that case, the true prize would belong to Norwegian Roald Amundsen, already the first to reach the South Pole by land, in his airship Norge.

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A few observations about flying the Fokker F.VII, at least in the sim. First, it’s not very stable, in the sense of wanting to correct back to straight and level flight. It’s sensitive to being loaded either nose-heavy or tail-heavy and requires a lot of control input. Second, that big wing really likes to glide. To descend without overspeeding, I basically have to put all three throttles back to idle and glide down.

Last, there are no differential brakes and no tailwheel. That makes the F.VII extremely hard to control on the ground, even just to taxi. That’s especially true on snow skis.

Whether Byrd truly did reach the North Pole or not, he became a huge national hero when he returned to the U.S. Byrd and Bennett were both presented with the Medal of Honor by then-President Calvin Coolidge at the White House.

The following year in 1927, Byrd outfitted a new Fokker F.VII/3m, named America, to bid for the Orteig Prize, promising $25,000 for the first nonstop flight from New York City to Paris (or vice versa). Anthony Fokker himself had recently moved to the United States and was part of the team preparing Byrd and his crew—the odds-on favorite—for the Atlantic crossing. During practices, however, America—piloted by Fokker himself—crashed, injuring both Byrd and Bennett and postponing their attempt. As a result, while America was being repaired, Charles Lindbergh—an unheard-of underdog—made the flight solo in the Spirit of St. Louis, becoming an aviation legend.

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The Fokker F.VII would still achieve fame, though, crossing a different ocean at the hands of Australian pilot Charles Kingsford Smith in 1928. If you’ve ever passed through Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport (YSSY) and wondered who it’s named after, you’re about to find out. (If you’re an Australian, you already know).

Movie star handsome Smith, known as “Smithy,” fought as a combat engineer at Gallipoli in WWI but soon joined the Royal Air Force as a pilot. He was shot down, injured, and returned to become a flying instructor in Australia. From that day, Smith had a dream to cross the Pacific Ocean by air from the U.S. to Australia. By 1928 he was ready to try to achieve that goal. That’s why I’m here at Oakland Municipal Airport (KOAK) in California, where he took off in his Fokker F.VIIb/3m Southern Cross. Not unlike Byrd’s airplane, the inside has been altered to make space for extra fuel tanks.

At 8:54 a.m. on May 31, 1928, Smith and his four-man crew lifted off from Oakland on the first leg of their journey to Hawaii. At the time, flying to Hawaii, much less Australia, was an extremely daunting prospect. While they had a radio with limited range, there were no radio beacons to guide them. They could only estimate a course based on the latest, often inaccurate, weather reports over the Pacific and hope that unexpected winds wouldn’t blow them off course and make them miss Hawaii entirely. As they flew over the Golden Gate— the bridge hadn’t been built yet—they knew that several aviators before them had estimated wrong and simply vanished into the vastness of the Pacific.

The first stage from Oakland to Hawaii covered 2,400 miles and took 27 hours and 25 minutes (87.54 mph). It was uneventful. But one can only imagine their joy as they arrived here over the northeast shore of Oahu.

They landed at Wheeler Army Airfield in the center of Oahu. The Southern Cross was the first foreign-registered airplane to arrive in Hawaii and was greeted at Wheeler by thousands, including Governor Wallace Rider Farrington. Smith and his crew were put up at Honolulu’s pink Royal Hawaiian Hotel to rest for the next stage.

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The runway at Wheeler was too short for the Southern Cross to take off fully loaded, so they flew to Barking Sands on the west coast of Kauai, where a special runway had been constructed. They took off from Barking Sands at 5:20 a.m. on June 3, bound for Suva in Fiji.

The journey from Hawaii to Fiji was 3,155 miles—the longest flight yet over continuous seas. It lasted 34 hours and 30 minutes at an average speed of 91.45 mph.

Halfway across near the equator, the Southern Cross encountered a tropical thunderstorm. Keep in mind, the crew did not have the benefit of an artificial horizon. The only way it could keep level, flying blind, was keeping a close eye on airspeed, altitude, and the inclinometer (or turn indicator). Somehow, the crew weathered the storm and kept going.

The crew undoubtedly felt great relief when it spotted the green landscape of Fiji ahead. There was no airport at that time, so the Southern Cross landed on a cricket field. Once again, it was far too small to use to take off again, so after a few days’ rest, the crew relocated to a beach from which to depart for the next and final leg of the journey. Leaving Fiji on June 9, the aviators embarked on their final 1,683-mile stretch home to Australia.

Once more they encountered storms, which blew them nearly 150 miles off course. Even when the weather was clear, the unrelenting and trackless ocean must have been overwhelming.

The Southern Cross reached the Australian coastline near Ballina, well south of its intended target, and turned north toward Brisbane. As the crew reached Brisbane, it was greeted by an aerial escort. The goal was Eagle Farm Airport northeast of the city—now the location of Brisbane’s main international airport.

The Southern Cross had flown 7,187 miles (11,566 kilometers) in 83 hours and 72 minutes. The Pacific Ocean had been conquered by the air for the very first time. A crowd of 26,000 greeted Smith and his crew when they touched down at Eagle Farm.

Smith died in 1935 at 35 when his airplane disappeared over the Indian Ocean while attempting to break the England-Australia speed record. His career was filled with both triumph and scandal, but he is still considered Australia’s great aviation hero. If you visit Brisbane’s airport, you can still see the real Southern Cross on display in a dedicated hangar.

The Fokker F.VII continued as a popular airliner into the 1930s. However, the vulnerability of its fabric-and-wood construction became apparent following a 1931 TWA crash that resulted in the death of famed University of Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne. As a result, the Fokker F.VII gave way to all-metal airliners such as the Boeing 247, Lockheed L-10 Electra, and eventually the DC-3.

One of the most popular early successors to the Fokker F.VII was the Ford Trimotor, basically an all-metal version of the F.VII. For all their sponsorship, the Fords seem to have gotten something out of it in the end. Anthony Fokker, nicknamed “The Flying Dutchman,” lived most of the rest of his life in the U.S. and died at  49 in New York in 1939 from pneumococcal meningitis.  

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 “Local Legend” Fokker F.VII add-on to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, along with liveries and scenery downloaded for free from the flightsim.to community.

The post Reaching Uncharted Corners of the Globe in a Fokker F.VII appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Redbird Flight Simulations asked questions along these lines for its annual report on the state of flight training.

Redbird’s 2024 report was culled from survey responses that included questions about the frequency of training flight, use of a syllabus, and how busy flight schools are to name a few.

The report consulted CFIs who work at flight schools from the mom-and-pop variety with a handful of “seasoned” trainers to the larger academy style with 20 or more later model aircraft.

• READ MORE: EAA Education Center Continues to Expand with New Investment

This year 1,701 people responded to the survey, representing a 57 percent increase over 2023.

Student pilots were put into three categories: active, lapsed (have not flown within three months), and prospective. Active pilots were defined as a certificated pilot who has flown in the past 12 months but isn’t receiving training toward a new certificate or rating.

The survey took information from student pilots, lapsed and prospective pilots, flight instructors, and designated pilot examiners.

Among the findings, according to the 27-page report, are that flight schools are busier than they have been before—so much so that some have waitlists. Of those surveyed, 70 percent received flight training, 49 percent received ground training, and 18 percent received a new rating or certificate.

The survey found the cost of training has increased—you’re looking at $14,000 for a private pilot license (PPL), taking an average 24 weeks. Last year, training costs for a PPL averaged $12,500. According to the report the most expensive certificate is the commercial pilot license (CPL), costing $15,000 and requiring an average training time of 18 weeks.

According to the survey, 48 percent of the pilots flew one to 50 hours in the past year, and 28 percent 50 to 100 hours.

At least 83 percent of the active students did their training at one flight school with more than one primary CFI, and 57 percent were on the professional pilot track.

• READ MORE: FLYING’s Flight School Guide

When asked to rate their CFIs on a scale of 1 to 5, the average rating was 4.3 while the flight schools received a 3.6.

The survey also asked about the use of simulation technology for flight training. According to respondents, students and prospective students placed a higher value on its use than many instructors.

The survey also took note of the challenges facing flight training. Both flight schools and independent CFIs noted they had concerns about aircraft insurance, maintenance challenges, and pilot examiner availability. The schools also reported some concerns about finding and hiring qualified flight instructors.

• READ MORE: What Is the Right Age To Start Flight Training?

The report did not address CFI turnover. This can have a dramatic impact on the quality of instruction given, as it takes awhile to learn to be an effective teacher. According to the Society of Aviation and Flight Educators and the National Association of Flight Instructors, many CFIs actively teaching have less than a year of experience as flight instructors. 

The Redbird survey also determined that getting CFIs to use a syllabus is still a challenge as 32 percent of the learners surveyed said their CFI didn’t use one.

Designated Pilot Examiners (DPE) were also included in the survey. The average number of applicant tests conducted in one year by full-time DPEs was 245, while part time DPEs did 130 tests. When asked about the quality of applicants as compared to five years ago, 45 percent of the DPEs stated the applicants were worse and cited a lack of preparation of the applicant followed by a lack of skill as the dominant factors in check-ride failures.

More information about Redbird’s “The State of Flight Training” 2024 survey and report may be found here.

The post Redbird: Learning to Fly Has Gotten More Expensive appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

The audience for the virtual aviation experience—I hesitate to call it a ‘game,’ and more on that later—was both aviation enthusiasts and certified pilots, as MSFS 2002 had been developed to be “as realistic as possible.” I promptly tested this assertion by rolling a virtual Cessna 172 inverted and keeping it there. As the fuel tanks on the 172 are in the wings and the aircraft has a gravity-fed system, going upside down means the fuel doesn’t reach the engine. In real life, you expect it to stop—and quickly. I silently counted alligators as I held the aircraft inverted—there was the sputter and cough as the engine quit approximately 15 seconds into the maneuver.

The MSFS representative looked awfully proud as he told me that the development team included pilots who took great pride in crafting this realistic virtual aviation experience.

Kit Warfield was one of these pilots. It is Kit’s voice you heard on your virtual check ride. Now a retired commercial seaplane pilot from the Seattle area, Warfield was the content lead on Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000, 2002, 2004, Flight Sim X, and all three versions of Combat Flight Simulator.

“The tagline at the time was ‘as real as it gets,’ and we took great pride in trying to replicate the aircraft aerodynamics, the weather, and the scenery and so forth,” she says. “To call it a game seemed to trivialize that, but officially and formally, the category that Microsoft Flight Simulator fits into is a game, as it is entertainment software.”

The Fun and Fantasy Factor

Simulation games allow you to fly anywhere in the world in a variety of airframes—from gliders to commercial jets—and you can do silly things that you would never, ever do IRL, such as landing a 172 on the deck of an aircraft carrier.

According to Warfield, the MSFS developers went looking for ‘fun’ approaches to build into the experiences.

One of these is the approach into Hong Kong Kai Tak Airport (VHHX), known as the Checkerboard Approach or Hong Kong Turn, created by a retired Northwest Airlines captain turned programmer who had flown the approach in real life. The approach put aircraft very close to high-rise buildings.

“He knew the [Boeing ] 747, and he knew that approach, and he knew it in enough detail that he would take off and fly the Checkerboard Approach inverted,” says Warfield. “I’ve heard the airport is closed now, but from people who have been in there, I asked, ‘How close did they get to the buildings?’ And I was told, ‘You could see people cooking in their kitchens.’”

Go Anywhere

With aviation simulation, you can virtually fly an aircraft any place in the world—feeling homesick for NewYork? You can take off from LaGuardia. Have a hankering to fly up the Vegas strip at night? Or around the pyramids of Egypt? That can be done.

There are some areas where game designers won’t cross the line into absolute fantasy, says Warfield, “You’ll never be able to take your general aviation aircraft into space.” Also, there will be no dramatic and frighteningly realistic crashes in MSFS because, for all the attention paid to making sure the virtual aircraft fly as close to the real thing as possible, the developers have agreements with aircraft manufacturers if the virtual aircraft crashes, the simulation simply ends or the aircraft bounces back into the air.

Getting Started

There doesn’t have to be a steep learning curve with the games, says Michael E. Puochi, a game developer who has been tinkering in virtual aviation since 1987 when he played Maverick in Nintendo’s Entertainment Systems Top Gun. He’s also a student pilot IRL.“Most modern sims will let you fly in a few different modes from a ‘simple’ flight model that may have things like auto trim, auto rudder, self-righting, unlimited fuel, so the non-pilot can just experience flight with very little instruction or understanding of flight dynamics and basic pilot instruction. You can also go full realistic or ‘advanced’ where the aircraft will not fly itself and requires full input from the virtual pilot. The games are made to be accommodating to all skill levels.”

Puochi notes the sim creators use the pilot’s operating handbook for the aircraft and rely on the guidance of subject matter experts (SMEs) such as pilots, aircraft designers, and mechanics to get the most accurate information for the aircraft’s performance. They use laser scans of the cockpit and thousands of photos, videos, and recordings of various operating envelopes to get the virtual aircraft as close as they can to the real thing.

The Cost of the (Virtual) Cockpit

The price of virtual flight depends on how elaborate as setup the pilot wants. There are some who are content with a small control device and a laptop screen, while others will spend thousands of dollars on building a cockpit with rudder pedals, a yoke or stick, and even a VR panel.

“The more modern sims on the market you can spend upwards of thousands to tens of thousands of dollars. Some people have full motion flight platforms, scale pits that are fairly accurate to the actual aircraft in real life,” says Puochi.

The interest can start young.

“About one-third of my students have a flight simulation set-up at home,” says Robert Prosch, aeronautical lead instructor at the Museum of Flight in Seattle. The museum offers a Pathway Program for highschool students, several who developed their interest in aviation through games. The Pathway program uses light simulation to reinforce classroom concepts, such as basic flight and aircraft handling and instrument interpretation, and helps students develop hand-eye coordination and aviation communication skills.

Prosch and his students assert that middle school is a good age for students to be exposed to flight sims, as this is the time in their life when they develop interests in things that often carry into adulthood.

“Start out with simple ‘sandbox’ type games, many of which are free or relatively inexpensive,” suggests Prosch.

Top Gun for Fun

Would you like to be a Top Gun? There are virtual scenarios where each player is part of a squadron. Puochi, call sign ‘Puffin,’ is a regular participant in Virtual Naval Air Operations (VNAO), which celebrates its 15th anniversary this year.

According to Puochi, the premise of the group is emulating procedures used by the U.S.Navy, which means using the same methods as Naval Air Training and Operating Procedures Standardization. Participants become members of a squadron.

The group includes formally-trained military and civilian pilots who impart their extensive training and wealth of knowledge to the participants who are looking to learn as much as they can from the mentorships. The virtual pilots learn how to fly in formation, do inflight refueling, navigate, and practice launch and recovery off a virtual aircraft carrier.

“Taxi instructions, launch orders, and handoffs are done to the best of the ability of those involved in as realistic fashion as possible,” says Puochi, who also has logged several hours as a private pilot candidate. “The mission commences, and then the recovery phase proceeds, probably one of the most fun parts because we have trained live LSOs (landing signal officers) in the sim on the LSO platform waving in recovering aircraft. It’s really stressful and very fun at the same time, especially when you snag that third wire.”

It can get complicated quickly, says Puochi, as the mission requirements of a multiplayer game often do. The virtual pilots need to understand procedures and their role in the mission. The pilots choose their own level of training and involvement, says Puochi, “from the casual pilot that just wants to know what it is like to do recovery and launch operations aboard the U.S. Navy’s aircraft carriers, to the extreme enthusiast that wants to learn everything about how to fly and strategically use these study-level aircraft.”

SIMS as an Aviation Gateway

At CalPoly Humboldt in Arcata, California, a homebuilt simulator is a favorite of library patrons. Humboldt is the northernmost campus in the state university system, located on the rugged north coast.

In 2019 the PC gaming club built and installed the simulator, which consists of a non-moving platform, a gaming chair, and a console with toggle and rocker switches and appropriately colored knobs for throttle, propeller, and mixture. The aviation club took over operation of the simulator in 2022.

The simulator runs X-Plane. The sky and airplane are projected on a curved wall of video screens. The instrument panel is digital and correct. When the simulator was built, professor David Marshall, who holds both remote pilot (drone) and private pilot certificates, was the advisor to the club. Today, the aviation club, also advised by Marshall, takes care of and oversees the simulator, which is located on the second floor of the library in the area designated for collaboration. The space has whiteboards, desks, a VR setup, and a classroom-sized manual E6B.

Because the simulator is out in the open, posters are mounted over the screens providing instructions for its use.

At this time, the university doesn’t have an aviation program per se, but the simulator is proving to be popular with students looking for a way to have some fun and explore aviation without making a big investment of time or money. They are learning that flight sims can be just as enjoyable as flying IRL, and as it is much less expensive, is an activity in reach of many.

This article was originally published in the April 2023, Issue 936 of  FLYING.

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