Flyday Night Flights - 2/17/23 - VFR Flight Planning Basics
Lately I’ve run into quite a few folks new to the sim asking about VFR Flight Planning. One of my missions and joys in streaming is helping people get the most out of the sim using elements of real-world aviation, so tonight’s stream will be devoted to developing the flight planning process in your sim flying. This will be a multi-part mini-series within my Flyday Night Flights, and we will build upon tonight’s stream over the next few weeks with reviews of prior material and increasing depth.
Tonight’s preflight session will cover some
of the basics of flight planning: VFR aeronautical charts (including looks at SkyVector and LittleNavMap), course selection and plotting (we will use pilotage tonight - visual navigation using landmarks), basic weather forecasts, and basic aircraft performance. We will choose a route (about one hour of flight time) at the beginning of the stream and walk through those planning elements step-by-step.
After the preflight session, we will fly the route we planned, covering elements of position and speed checking, maintaining course, with some additional focus on traffic pattern operations when we arrive.
All are welcome to join, whether you are interested in learning, wanting to brush-up, want to offer your own insight, or just want to hang out with a bunch of fun-loving, passionate aviation nerds! I will fly the steam-gauge “classic” Cessna 172 with the WBSim realism mod. The major takeaways will be applicable to both Xbox and PC users, and you do not have to have this or any mod to participate - the stock 172 will give the same overall performance. As always, you are more than welcome to fly along in whatever you like, or just chat, lurk, etc.
See you there!
- Stream begins: 7p PT/10p ET (0300z)
- Start Location: TBD (somewhere VFR)
- Aircraft: Cessna 172 “classic” (steam gauge) with WB realism mod (or similar)
- Server: US East
- Streaming Channel: Twitch