How to gain aviation, aircraft, and sim knowledge?

User Support Hub Aircraft & Systems
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Amazing, aviation as a whole. Amazing how so many smart people can create airports, landmarks, and planes in the sim, and do so with great accuracy. Amazing how so many of you know so much about planes, proper procedures, etc…

But it’s frustrating that I cannot fathom how you get so smart with sim/plane/aviation knowledge.

I’d love to be there but I have no comprehension of where to start and how long it’d take to be half as knowledgeable as many of you are currently.

I’m very much considering purchasing one of the FS Academies, probably the VFR. Any feedback on that or perhaps maybe some good YT channels that can educate a noob?

Also, to go along with “Amazing”, I just watched this video on how they do some of the testing for the Sukhoi-57 and I highly(see what I did there) recommend you watch it.

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I can say I really enjoyed FS Academy VFR from start to end. I’m currently finishing IFR, which is a little tougher. I also bought Voyager but all bush trips are broken since SU6. All three are worth buying IMO.

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I care more about learning than the extra missions/bush trips. How do you rank the ability to teach a noob?

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Have you participated in all the tutorials built into MSFS 2020? I suggest you go through those, then move onto third-party lessons. Enjoy everything available.

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Simple yet good suggestion. I had done the tutorials a long time ago but didn’t really bother with any of the updated ones they added. That’s 100% on me for not thinking about that.

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They’re basically the same just cut into smaller chunks

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The FS Academy products are great, but beyond that I would recommend getting a copy of The Airplane Flying Handbook from the FAA (I think it may even be available in pdf for free on their website) and enrolling in one of the free online ground schools.

There are several online ground schools that allow you to take the course for free, unless you intend to take the real test for credit toward a PPL.

There are also thousands of good videos on YouTube covering every aspect of flying.

The other thing which I would recommend, though it is probably a matter of personal preference, is to treat every flight in the sim as a real flight, including flight, weather and fuel planning, etc.

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8

Watch the show Air Disasters it will give you real life examples of what not to do. I found that the Airplane Repo show you can pick up a few things from that. I used to love that show WINGS on mil channel. They went over all the aircraft mil wise that were historic and the the things that they do / did to become historic. Oh and that other show WINGS…okay not that one they dont teach you nothing about planes LOL!!!

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I hate to recommend this, but: for $25 you can download FSX from Steam, which has excellent tutorials and training. Perhaps it is a step backwards, but think how much more you will enjoy MSFS graphics after a few hours with FSX.

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As a former instructor the built-in flight lessons makes my toes curl. They are truly awful and I don’t understand how someone is supposed to learn the basics from that.

There are a lot of false theories and information out here on the forum, SKYbrary is an excellent source if you are doing research. I have no experience with FS academy, for practical flying I don’t know if there is something good.

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I’m probably going to take some heat for this but, for a real noob who wants to get up to speed quick, I would recommend heading down to your local FBO and take a long discovery flight.

Explain to the instructor your goals and be honest. Explain what you want to learn. And I can say the lessons are not cheap but this is an experience you will never forget and you will be able to apply the knowledge you learned simming immediately.

You don’t have to sign up for the PPL curriculum.

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YouTube: Absorb everything you need to get a private pilot license.
Everything you need is there.

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I can recommend the FS2004 tutorials. I once started with this and it gives you a perfect overview of the theory. Every flight session starts with theory. After you complete the theory stuff you can directly apply it in the flight lessons.

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@JoylessTunic738 if you’ve passed the tutorials and maybe did the FS Academy, which is really good, you can create a VatSim account and there is a wonderful Wiki. Its a lot of reading, but that’s how it works.

  1. Reading
  2. Pen and Paper
  3. Try it our in the Sim

You will proceed step by step and there is no limit. You can always learn something new.

If you move on too fast, it’ll be frustrating. But don’t worry, if you’re mistaking something. It’s still a Simulation. If you step into the real world, reading and practicing is way more important.

Have fun!

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VATSIM home pages (per country) will have ‘howto’ manuals

it takes a while

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Well I suppose everyone learns very differently but for me it was mostly trial and error …but you sure need the passion to be oke with that.

I’m trying to remember how I went about when I started flight simming 21 years ago, aged 14. I thought I knew quite a lot back then, using my keyboard arrows, taking off the default 737 in FS2004. …I didn’t know anything though, but I only learned that later went I finally hooked up with PMDG. Haha.

I’d recommend to follow the rule of thumb in aviation: Aviate, Navigate, Communicate. So take off with your Cessna 172 and fly those patterns around the field, do you go arounds, “feel” the airplane. I’d say a lot of aviation comes down to sophisticated gut feeling and well trained instinct. Meaning that you fly it from the seat of your pants, even that 777, but it adds up with all the knowledge in your head as you go along. That does take time though. Trial and error.

Anyway, once you feel your plane, make it go somewhere. Make a one hour vor-to-vor route, operate your navigation radio’s, learn how to use your HSI (to make it follow a course to a beacon), pass your beacon, quickly have the next one ready and repeat and repeat. I’ll promise you this is a quick way to understand the fundamentals of navigation. To take your plane somewhere and see that practice follows theory. Keep doing this for a while and you’ll get comfortable with it. Screw GPS-navigation, that doesn’t learn you anything. Anyone can flip a few buttons and follow a magenta line: that doesn’t mean you understand anything about it.

After all that, learn and understand about procedures with ATC, patterns and so on. Once you got the first two, the last one will make a lot more sense as you understand why and how they are designed as they are, to what purpose.

…Finally. Moving over to sophisticated jets eventually. Well, back at PMDG, I just started to read the manual and slowly understanding what makes a jumbo jet a jumbo jet. It’s not so much one integrated machine as you might see 'm at first glance. They’re more of a collection of systems and machinaries coming together on that flight deck. Just learn 'm one by one and you’ll eventually get the cohesion between all 'm.

After you get those basics: go to youtube and see very passionate people talk about their planes and the procedures they find themselves in. You can’t ever grow bored from that once you get that bug. :wink:

Have a great ride! This hobby sure never bored me these past 21 years.

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17

Awesome to see you are on a quest to learn more. Aviation is a lifelong of learning and experiences. I’d recommend avoiding anything “education” related in the sim and focus on getting real-world general aviation learning content. There are reputable things that are free from the FAA (or your local aeronautical agency) and other sources, and, things you can purchase like the “King” series on Sporty’s.com.

Whether or not you intend to fly real-world, it will be a huge benefit to learn how things actually work. It will even make you a better sim pilot as you’ll have an understanding of how things are supposed to work and can better spot a bug or problem vs calling something out due to a lack of understanding. Your satisfaction level will increase as well.

There’s nothing wrong with getting your insight from multiple sources. My thoughts however are if you do YouTube, watch channels of actual pilots flying actual airplanes. Those learnings will translate to sim flying. And if they don’t, then you know you’ve reached a limitation in the capability of the sim.

I’m also happy to help so PM me if you’d like some recommendations on sources.

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18

This….there are no shortcuts in flying. Sure you can just light up the sim and have fun. But if you want to really learn and understand “why” you do what you do in aviation, you need to study it. “Feel” and emotion are there but they have absolutely nothing to do with the basics of what you need to know to safely pilot an airplane. Plus, you can’t “feel” anything in a sim.

It’s one of the reasons translating from a sim to the real airplane is so different. ALL of your senses are engaged in ways you’ll never experience in a desktop simulator. But real-world procedures can be studied and practiced for free all day long. Spend time doing that and it will help immensely.

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Yeah until you come across this clown on Youtube, some real world pilots and even instructors don’t always know what they are talking about:

The aircraft weathervanes into the wind while in flight, yeah right. Add some asymmetric thrust to yaw further into the wind. The aircraft experiences a lower crosswind component when “weathervaning into the wind”. I hope nobody takes this nonsense serious.

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Yep. Caveat Emptor. You can literally access all the material you would find to take an actual ground school either online, or order.