Solo Flight Lesson Climb Altitude Conflict

Do you have any add-ons in your Community folder? If yes, please remove and retest before posting. No

Are you using Developer Mode or made changes in it? No

Brief description of the issue: Attempted (multiple times) to complete the solo flight challenge and was penalized for minute deviations from course (1-2deg) and airspeed (<5kts).

Provide Screenshot(s)/video(s) of the issue encountered:


Detail steps to reproduce the issue encountered: Complete Challenge very carefully

PC specs for those who want to assist (if not entered in your profile)

Build Version # when you first started experiencing this issue: 1.18.14.0

Are you on the Steam or Microsoft Store version? MS

Did you submit this to Zendesk? If so, what is your ticket #? No

OK–so after further testing, there is at least one bug with this training. In the briefing screen, the objective is to reach 5400ft at 75kts following departure. This is attainable. However, once the training is launched, the objective in the scenario is 5700. Even with a full throttle start from the parking brakes, this is impossible to achieve while keeping a steady 75kts.


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Similarly badly designed training challenge

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If you lean the mixture a little bit more, you should be able to manage the climb. From the start of the lesson, the mixture is just too rich for the altitude…

The lessons don’t mention leaning the mixture. They should. In fact, nothing in the lessons goes over what an airplane is, and how it works.

It seems to me SOME kind of flight ground school lesson on the engine of this airplane, and what fuel mixture is, and how to set it would be good.

In addition to this lessons often have completely stupid directions visually. The requested 41 degree heading in the first VFR lesson is not anywhere close to where the stupid arrows show you flying.

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Yeah, it’s funny, back in the 90’s, the sim didn’t have the much to offer in graphics (compared to today) but it had tons of great learning and analytics content. Today the graphics are unbelievable, but there’s hardly any content (ground school, POHs, etc.) or analytics (post-flight statistics, visualization of landing/flight path) without using an external EFB. I hope that improves over time, because I’ve spent a lot of time and money (and patience) in using this simulator.

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I gave the mixture a try, and I do believe I made 5700ft, but it was about .05 NM after where you are supposed to turn for the crosswind leg. They dinged me for that. I was able to make 6000ft on that leg no problem, but the speed was hard to keep at 75 kts. The downwind was easy.

I think that they have it very difficult but hell its not going to be easy when you are getting flight checked for your license. I just think in some of these a couple things are not attainable. I have A’s or mastered on all the other ones but this one flipping task.

I guess all that matters is I can do it in a real plane. Most of the other features are very real like. Well except when the flight controls (logitech) just stop working. But that is another story. Good luck all!!!

Leaning the mixture helps a little. Even more power can be gained by turning off the carb heater. It’s on by default because it’s part of the startup procedure, but there’s no icing risk at 2000+ RPM in the Arizona desert. Still, they need to adjust the tolerances for the activity. When it says to maintain 65 kts on approach, I find it only turns green at 66, then at 67 it turns gray again.

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Hi all ,Just for the heck of it i am doing these lesson carb heat off , mixture lean , even backed all the way off the run way to start , still can not reach 5700 feet , and I have real life flying , and 20 plus years in the sim flying
If any of you have made 5700 ft before turning onto cross wind like they want us to, please share with me how you did it and i maintain the 75knt and correct heading , they still only give me half score for the upwind leg , I did finally manage to get a A but it is a low A
Thanks

Just want to let you all know I made it to 5700 ft , found a problem with my Saitek throttle quadrant so between getting that working , carb heat off , and leaned way out lol more then it should be, I made it
thanks , hope what little info I added helps some one

Hi
Carb Heat off
Mixture adjust (2350 RPM is best I could get)
Taxi back and start on grass as close to fence that you can
Brakes locked
Add 10 deg flaps after 40 kts Reduce flaps asa airborne
Climb at 75KT and hit 5700
Hardly the procedure for a rookie on his/her solo go round!

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It’s actually pretty hilarious that Sedona and Flagstaff are the places they chose to do these lessons… in a 152. :crazy_face: And there’s no discussion of density altitude at all. I have some minor gripes with various things in the sim, but the “lessons” are where I go, just… no.

Looks pretty, though.

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Hi. I got very angry on the first solo flight because of this altitude conflict between the briefing and the practice.
Finally I succeeded by starting with the flaps at 10° to gain altitude easily while maintaining a good speed. Then halfway through the climb I pitched up to the limit of the stall (so nothing very practical) to reach 5700 at 0.90NM. So for the rest I stabilized my altitude and my speed at 75Kn

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Real pilot here (for context). Yes, the solo flight is ridiculous and you’re set up for failure right from the start. I’ve not received an A on this particular flight either.

You never use carb heat when you need max power yet the sim has carb heat on at the beginning…make sure you check that. The procedure that pjb10111946 suggested above is a textbook short-field takeoff configuration and will get you started in the right direction. It’s been a very long time since i’ve been in a Cessna 152 but if I recall, 75 kts is Vy for the plane not Vx so again the requirements are tying an arm behind your back. If you could make the climb at Vx (about 65 if memory serves) this is easier to attain. In the real world, however we typically would not climb at Vx for much longer than it takes to clear obstacles. I think it’s likely a CFI did NOT write these lessons. Rod Machado is a career CFI and contributed greatly to MSFS in the old days. Sure would be nice to have him back.

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Vy is 67 at sea level, but that will decrease to around 64 at Sedona’s 5000’ pressure altitude. Taking off with the carb heat on, without doing a high-altitude/mountain takeoff (static takeoff power, lean for max RPM, accelerate in ground effect) is absolutely asking for trouble. The decision to do these lessons in Sedona in a 152 was not an aeronautical one.

Has anybody checked the outside air temp during these lessons? I’ll bet it’s not ISA (around 5°C), adding to density altitude issues as well.

If there’s one thing that has taught poor habits and soured a lot of people from the sim, it’s the setup of these lessons. I’ve watched people get absolutely frustrated on their Twitch streams, to the point where they quit the sim. It simply should not take as much effort to fly a 152 as the situation creates. And there’s no explanation: “well, this is going to be more difficult because of our density altitude, so let’s talk about a few important things.” Instead, the learner is being left completely in the dark. Poor educational decision.

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If you REALLY want to get into the weeds, you can modify the activity file to make this more reasonable.

Find the following folder: ~\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache\Packages\Official\OneStore\asobo-flight-tutorials-firstsoloflightpattern\Missions\Asobo\Tutorials\TrafficPattern\FirstSoloFlight

Open the file “08_FirstSoloFlightPattern.FLT” with WordPad

Here you can modify the default settings for the flight. In this case, you can default the Carb Heat off and alter your weight & balance.

Look for the group labeled [Engine Parameters] and change CarbHeat/DeiceSwitch=True to False.
Then go down to fuel and change LeftMain and RightMain to 50 (this reduces weight).

Finally, scroll down to the [Payload] group and you’ll see the one line PayloadList= 170.0, 170.0, 0.0, 0.0. That second 170 is the weight of your right seat passenger…which in the case of a solo flight wouldn’t be there. Change the second 170.0 to 0.0 being careful to leave the spacing. This configures the aircraft for what would be much more reasonable for the flight and the speed/altitude requirements MUCH easier to attain. After making this alteration, I attempted the flight again and easily passed the minimum altitude with more than enough speed.

I might go do the same to some of the landing challenges simply because no pilot worth their weight in smoke would attempt many of those landings without some sort of pre-sets in the avionics which are also editable in these files.

For what it’s worth, I got a C rating after attempting this because I was too fast and too high…expecting the activity to be as hard as it was before I made these changes.

There is a line toward the top of the file for [Weather] that points you to “UseWeatherFile” and upon looking at that file, (Weather.WPR in the same folder) I don’t understand the programming to alter density altitude. I found simply configuring the aircraft in a more realistic fashion worked just fine and the altering of density altitude is unnecessary.

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Nice catch with the weight. That’s just as much a killer as density altitude, and with the two combined… sheesh. Been there, got the t-shirt.

Also, there’s an almost 2% downslope on runway 21, which will mess with ya on landing if you’re not aware of the illusions and landing performance hits.

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Took about 30 atempts but got in the end…

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Just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone who posted here.

This tutorial was driving me mad. I think it’s really ridiculous and speaks volumes about how little Microsoft seems to care about its customers. What’s even worse, it would be SO easy to solve.

Special thanks to “pjb” (sorry, too many trailing numbers). I leaned the mixture to about 53%. In case anyone wants to try.

I also went back to start where the runway meets the grass. Didn’t need to leave the tarmac though.

Finally got the A, even if it’s only to have the full 100% on the tutorial. (Yes, I have OCD.)

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