Hi all, I have the most basic question – when I try to take the starting plane (the one from the first batch of tutorials) on a free flight, I can’t seem to get it up to that 5500 level that the tutorials are at – I just can’t seem to get enough … speed? I don’t actually know? … to go forward and up without stalling.
Thanks for the help! I’m reasonably sure I just need to flip a switch or do something very simple slightly differently, but I can’t figure out what.
You are climbing at a steeper climb angle than the plane can handle (it sounds like). In most of the information areas in the hanger, you should see something like a climb rate if you click the “Y” button (select the Cessna 152 first then hit the Y for specifications). If you’re using an Xbox controller, it will take some practice to get the take-offs to be smooth. One of the things everyone told me is to do circuits, just take off and land. Eventually, you’ll get better. I hope this helps.
You also need to be adjusting your mixture as you get higher.
Thanks. Is it supposed to be a 10+ minute process to get up to that elevation? If so, I’m guess it’s fine and I’m just impatient 
skypilotYTS, mixture of … ?
Thanks!
Ratio of fuel and air entering the engine. At altitude there’s less air, so you need to reduce the amout of fuel correspondingly.
Pull the red lever a bit and notice the engine note rise.
The in game Training Missions, while helpful, leave something to be desired. I have completed them but I am furthering my training with YouTube videos. Some from licensed pilots and some from sim pilots. I have referred back to Squirrel’s Getting Started on Xbox video a few times. Very good information to help you get flying.
I’ll check that out, thanks, I’ve seen it referred to a few places and that seems good. So far this has been wildly frustrating – all I can do in-game is crash and die, and getting set up here to get support isn’t exactly user friendly (although the community itself has been great). I’m holding out faith that eventually there’s an upside.
I suggest not worrying about how long it takes you to climb to 5500 feet for now. Just try and do it safely. When you get more familiar with the plane and it’s capabilities you will get faster at climbing. If you are losing speed and haven’t reached the preferred altitude yet, level off for a while to get some speed back. There is a direct relationship with speed and altitude. If you raise one, the other lowers and vice versa.
The Cessna 152 is not a fighter jet, it’s the base model Honda civic of airplanes. That being said climbing to altitude is going to take a minute, just be patient.
If you climb too steeply you’ll make poor progress - the plane won’t be able to make much progress so after a while the rate of climb will fall quickly, the plane will start to lose height and also speed up because it’s descending - so then you pull the nose up and repeat the cycle, which is called porpoising. All planes have an optimal climb rate is normally documented. I didn’t find those lessons very helpful frankly. I learnt more from various Youtube pilots - in particular this guyhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q25qBNsSGoU&list=PLOSDJGeXALqpkcXhqnrNauO8rCerrqgk8
So the solution I found was “use the external camera so you can adjust the climb rate with more precision than you can from the internal view.” I assume that there is an instrument that would help, but the issue seems to just have revolved around not being able to see how steep my climb was from the cockpit and therefore end up in wild positions - jumping from 1st to 3rd and back I saw that flying in 1st was consistently ending up with me badly positioned.
So, yes, it is a small plane. That noted, it’s still not supposed to stall and fall out of the sky nor is it supposed to be unable to climb past a thousand feet in > 30 minutes. So I don’t think that was the issue, @Fafner314.
Thanks for the video links essentially everyone, they’re also incredible, but boy the “try the third person camera” got me 90% there.