I have been working on Flight Training and in particular, Pattern Work. I cannot seem to get out of the 8000s for a score. 89xx being the highest. I am close to perfect on the Downwind and Base. I take a beating on the Final. Its being a stickler for the 65 knots and I wonder if that is being too sensitive. I know 65 should be 65 but it is quick to slow below or go past this number. Also, I have the problem of being lined up on the runway all the way until I actually get to it. Then trying to get and maintain the center line is a challenge. I am trying to use flaps and throttle to stablelize the approach but have not master it.
Any thoughts or recommendations are welcome. I am using the Logitech Yoke, Quadrant, and Rudder Pedals.
Have you watched some RL instructors on YouTube? The knowledge translates very well.
One thing right away: If you slow down too much put in some more throttle. Try to do this in advance. Try to correct early and small, to not overcorrect.
On the end of their upwind leg you are low - you have to reach 5700 ft, you did not. Good job on heading, but may be they want you to be exactly on the marker?
Did you adjust your Mixture to the altitude? For some non-understandable reasons they use a mountain airport with underpowered aircraft for their training missions. Yes, the scenery is beautiful, but this is too rough I think.
On cross wind you are low again - did not reach 6000 ft - and you over speed. Your bank angle… could be not a problem, but you loose altitude and, I believe, because of this you overspeed, I have nothing to say about your bank angle here, but try to limit it ti 20 degree next time. Do you use your pedals to do the turn coordinated? This is not visible in the video because of the control column. Also, your turn was done out of a standard turn rate (a standard rate turn held for 2-minutes would result in a 360° turn) - look at your turn and bank indicator (not AH one, look at your inclinometer) - there are marks L and R for a coordinated turn.
Again - you turn sharp. When you turn 30 degree the aircraft tends to drop the nose. And dropping her nose she tends to accelerate. To avoid this you have to add some power (if you do not adjust your Mixture you may not be able to add enough power flying so high - that is why their decision to use a high mountain airport is strange, usually we do this at about 3000 ft even flying more powerful airplanes) and use your pedals - it is good idea to train your turns in a free flight mode - the idea is to train making your turns an the same speed and altitude.
Turning to base. Again, sharp turn, resulting altitude loss. This time you also started to reduce your power during the turn already - I am not sure this is good. I believe it is better to turn and then reduce the power - but again, this depend on the plane you fly, on Cessna 152/172 it may be better to reduce RPM a beam of the threshold - if you fly in horizon at 80 knots, reducing RPM to 1400 shall give you a proper descent rate at 80 knots, and adding flaps must bring you to 65-60 knots, just do not forget to trim.
How do you use your flaps? I can not hear this because of that music. The first notch has to be by the end of downwind, the second after turning to base, the third on final.
Your turn to final was sharp again, you almost stalled, but this did not happen because the plane dropped her nose aggressively to keep her speed. An this was actually good for this approach as on the beginning of final you were too high. May be because of flaps settings done not in time, I am not able to say this from this video.
On final. You straggle to maintain 65 because initially you were to high and because you use your control column to stay on your glide path. Use your throttle instead. If you are high, drop your power a bit, if you are low - add some power, 100-200 RPM is enough usually. Once you settled on 65 knots and trimmed, the plane will stand there itself, just use power to stay on glide path. Use your control column to maintain your speed. If you are slow - descend, if you are fast - climb. At least when you fly visual. When you land IFR and use your ILS indicators - do the opposite - column to stay on path, RPMs for speed. Train this skill in a free flight.
This is key.
Remember that pitch controls airspeed and throttle controls altitude, which is somewhat counterintuitive if it’s your first time flying.
This says to aim just beyond the threshold, but many other articles, (supposedly by people who claim to know), say to “aim” at the far end of the runway.
Or am I confusing something?
Side note:
I’m planning to re-install FSX on my machine for the sole purpose of enjoying Ron Machado’s excellent training tutorials. My impression of him is that he’s The Real Deal and knows his stuff ice-cold.
If he were to release a 3rd party module for FS2020+ I’m sure it would be a massive hit!
If you land a light Piper Cub on a grass or a just a small strip from a steep “dive”, you aim before its beginning - a length or more of your plane - after landing you are simply not able to look forward form your taildragger to the end of the RW.
If you land C152/172 in this Sedona… there is a lot of space before the threshold, and the airfield is high, you have to train, but I believe it is again before the threshold, and WHEN YOU PASS this point you move your look at the far end of the runway. IRL this depends on are you tall or not. If you are tall, if you seat high, you can see that far end. Otherwise you look slightly -15/20 degrees to the left (if you seat on the left seat) and 15/20 meters far (I do not remember this figures for Cessna).
Actually there are a kind of 2 aiming points, as I explain this to myself - the first one is where you point you plane to start a flare (aim to RW numbers in Sedona), and the second one - at far end - is for your eyes to give you a 3D judgment of your hight above the RW.
Yes, Rod’s tutorial is a genius one. There is also this, if you did not try, try when you have some time - these training flights are based on the flying exercises, from Jeff Van West book: “Microsoft Flight Simulator X for Pilots - Real World Training, Wiley”
That’s why I don’t fly taildraggers (yet). Not being able to see where I’m going weirds me out. Mad respect for all the pilots in WWII who flew high-performance taildragger fighters that had to be travelling well beyond a Cessna’s V1 before the tail lifted!
Ok, I’ll call “Uncle!”. I’m just as confused as I was before!
Of course this makes the idea of being “type-rated” in a particular aircraft make sense as it seems that the differences in flying two different single-engine propeller GA aircraft are more vast than you might think. Moreso than the difference driving a 1978 Chevy wagon, (aka “a tank”), and a VW “bug” with a manual transmission.
Wow, this is awesome and I really appreciate you taking the time.
It will take me some time to digest and implement what you have said. Regarding the mixture, I have not been trained on that in the sim. It’s usually at 75 to 100%. I accidently found out that if it is not high enough the engine dies and will not start.
Regarding trim, I understand what it does but is there a general trim to set when landing? A lot is happening fast when I am trying to land. I know speed and altitude should be steady before triming but this is for level flight so I am not sure regarding landing.
I will back off on thos bank angles when turning. I am using the ruddler when turning.
From what you said, I have been using the flaps wrong. Usually only having flaps 10 and then using flap 20 to control speed on final (maintain 65 knots).
Once again I will work on these and report back. Thanks!
Usually you do not need flaps to take-off on Cessna 152/172 - 10 abeam of the the threshold, 20 on base (you can turn with 30 degrees bank turning base as you have your flaps on 10 already), 30 - on final)
Trim is just to remove forces from your yoke/stick. There are 2 scenarios - if you use a Force Feedback and if you do not use it. If not - when you feel that there is not enough authority for your yoke or it is difficult to you to keep your yoke or stick in its current position. With experience you’ll start to use trim instinctively. In the sim the trim wheel is too sensitive, you can assign buttons or adjust trims sensitivity.
Ok, I have started practicing the techniques you suggested. You and see my latest video here: https://youtu.be/1OtN9qLfGCI
FYI, on the upwind task it is as you suggested, it is not possible to get to 5700 at 75 knots before running out of space. As such I decided to maintain 60 knots to be able to get to 5700 ft and then pitch down some to get to 75 knots before turning on the crosswind.
I am using trim on the take off and downwind. I am now focusing on approach and landing with the PAPI lights.
Let me know what you think. If I can master the approach and landing I can get to the 9000+. Thanks
Well, you score better than I am:))) And believe me, I was flying it more or less properly. I was really good on take-off, heading, speed, landing. I’ve done it 2 times - the first one trying to reach markers, the second one - trying to reach altitudes.
I do not have problems flying 75 knots and reaching 5700. I think, if you learn how to do it, you receive finally more than 8000.
And with all this I scored less than 6000:))) So, this is you who has to teach me:)))
They want us to use only 10 flaps for landing. This is… interesting.
Some notes to your flight:
You loose altitude during your turn after upwind. Try not to loose altitude in your turns, unless it is planned.
During the first part of your downwind you did not keep 80 knots - you accelerated.
Landing on PAPI… PAPIs are more or less for big aircraft. Also in MSFS2020 they often mislead. Try to aim a point on your windglass (for me this is about 50% of that glass’s vertical dimension) at numbers of the RW. If you overshoot - correct your aiming point next time.
To be on centerline I use as a reference point the hole from which the control column comes.
In the real world, the best rate of climb speed (Vy) for C-150 is 68 knots no flaps. The Normal climb speed - 65-75 knots. Normal landing (no flaps) 60-70 knots.
I try to take this exercise more times, and if I find a “golden bullet” I let you know here.
Did you train the elements of this exercise? There elements of this one as separate exercises.
Hi, thanks. Yes, I did all of the exercises leading up to this one. All of them I got to a 9000+. I am going to keep working on this one with the advice you provided.
Kelsey in the YouTube channel “74 Gear” talks about landings a lot, and he has a lot to say about the fact that virtually all flight instructors teach their students to “put it on the numbers”.
He makes the comment that trying to “put it on the numbers” - landing as close to the end of the runway as possible - is actually a bad idea. He says you should always aim to touch-down at the first 1000’ marker on the runway instead of right at the beginning.
Why? According to Kelsey, if you aim for the numbers you’ve already painted yourself into a corner before you’ve even landed because you never really know what’s hiding at the end of the runway, waiting to make your life difficult. A sudden downdraft? A sudden loss-of-power? An aircraft fault that causes something to go all pear-shaped? Maybe you just misjudged your glide-slope angle? A change in the wind direction while you were on final?
He says that if you aim for the 1000’ marker and everything goes right - you’re golden - and if things don’t go right you still have runway under you if you land short.
Of course his BIGGEST beef is lapses in judgement.
If he had HIS way, most flight schools would spend more time training piloting judgement skills than they do.
If they did, the worst that might happen is less content on the blancolirio channel. So many of his videos are of pilots making questionable judgement calls.
Yes, this makes sense. An again, it depends:))) I believe, that in this airport and in this exercise we may have to aim even below numbers, just trying to avoid trees. Because, our airport is high enough in the mountains (yes, there are wind downdrafts in real life on RW21, but we are in the Sim). And also we are obliged to keep 65 knots approach speed.
We know, that the landing distance will increase by the square of the ratio of the touchdown speed to the normal touchdown speed. We fly with flaps 10, what is our actual touchdown speed is going to be if we land with full flaps? Let us say, maximum 50 knots. And what is going to be our speed in this exercise? Let us say, 55 knots. This ratio is 1.1 - this is 10-percent increase in speed. The landing distance increased by the square of the ratio or 21 percent increase in landing distance. What if our actual touchdown speed is 60 knots? 60/50=1.2. square of 1.2 is 1.44 - 44 percent increase in landing distance. So, if our normal landing distance is 1200 feet, 1200*1.44=1728 feet. This is eating 0,3 of our RW in case we have to abort our Going Around (engine failure or anything else) or a take-off after touchdown and land on the remnant of our RW - we are not able here to land outside of the airfield, we are in mountains:). 5132-1728=3404 - that is what we have after landing touchdown. Our Ground Roll to take-off is about 725 ft and our Total Distance Over 50-Ft Obstacle is 1,340 ft. Looks OK, but what do we know about taking off in mountains? 70.7 percent of the liftoff speed. This speed should be obtained at the halfway point to guarantee takeoff in the remaining half of the runway. If you have the speed, continue. If you do not have the speed, abort the takeoff and wait for better conditions, or off-load some weight. Our halfway point after our highspeed landing is in 1702 feet after our touchdown - so, we are still OK. Now, imaging, we are aiming to a 1000 mark. 1728-1000=2728. 5132-2728=2405. 2405/2= 1202,5. Our half of the runway point is at 1202 feet from our 1000-mark touchdown (if we landed at this mark, but we are overflying this mark) and after this mark, if we abort our take-off, we have only 1202 feet. Keeping in mind, that our landing distance is 1200 feet, and imagine, our engine stalls after we started our liftoff. I believe, we are going to miss our 0.33 of the RW we skipped aiming 10 that 1000 mark.
May be I am wrong with calculations, but I will try not leave any feet of the RW landing in mountain airport. And again, IT DEPENDS:))))