It’s been the catch phrase used everywhere the last few years, and it has become the gold standard of top quality aircraft or those so realistic and so well designed that you could study them to obtain actual type ratings and pass an initial course.

Most add-ons are of simpler design and varying levels of quality, but over the years, these study level aircraft for the Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 (MSFS20) and X-Plane 12 (XP12) platforms have grown in numbers.

I am old enough to remember the old fighter sim called Falcon 4.0 in the late 1980s and early ’90s. It came with a thick paper manual that felt like a novel. I miss those days of real boxes, manuals, and reading material.

Some of the most detailed aircraft add-ons come loaded with PDFs to study, and some have nothing at all, leaving it up to the customer to go online or just obtain the actual real aircraft’s study manuals. It seems lazy to not bother to publish a manual for an aircraft release, but then again, if it’s so realistic that the only PDF says “go obtain a real Airbus A320 POH” for more information, I’m sold. If something is that good and complete, then I think the developer is allowed to be lazy, or perhaps a bit big braggish.

Most commercial pilots, or experienced aviators in general, were dismissive of flight sims at home. Twenty years ago, I was embarrassed to come out of the sim closet for I’d be a victim of skepticism or at least a target of laughter. “No flight sim can do anything close to what ‘real pilots’ deal with in Level D sims,” I was often told. Or, I’d hear, “Oh, yeah, that little Microsoft Flight Simulator, I played with it once. It looked like a cartoon, so that won’t help anybody.”

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This is what every older-and-bolder, gray-haired retired airline pilot said when seated to my left.

Now that I have gray hair, I am all too happy to encourage the younger generation to get active with sims when they aren’t flying the real thing. It’s also accepted among almost all real pilots I know as a really useful tool now that photorealistic graphics are everywhere and far exceed the quality of a $20 million sim the FAA approves. For as little as $2,000, you can rival those simulators at home.

I am not going to mention every study level aircraft available—that would require a book.

Yet over the years before and even right through MSFS2020 and XP12, several come to mind and most are quite famous and have been around for a long time:

Precision Manuals Development Group

The company has been around since the early 1990s. It’s the longest add-on group ever for any sim, and in my opinion, the finest. Everything about it is study level.

Its entire Boeing products are the gold standard of what an add-on should be, and nobody has rivaled it in producing a Boeing 737NG, 747-400, or 777. Now since the release of MSFS2020, we have been enjoying the entire 737NG set, including BBJ. Almost every system, failures, controls accuracy, autopilot, performance, switchology, sounds, visuals, etc. have all been reproduced perfectly.

• READ MORE: The Art of Simulated Long-Haul Flying

Years of development for just one airframe. You’d ace a type rating in the real aircraft after spending time with PMDG products. I wish I could go get a 737 type rating just to test this theory myself. I feel I know no other aircraft as well as this one, due to my years with PMDG 737s. Now, we are about to get its 777 finally after years of waiting patiently. It will be released this year and continue the outrageous quality and realism we all crave from a company that really only releases masterpieces.

Fenix

This company is a new entrant that stormed onto the stage just last year with its completely detailed A320 for MSFS2020. Upon release, it quickly became accepted as the most detailed Airbus for any sim platform.

In my opinion, the early release suffered from performance and frame rate issues as it couldn’t compare to the smoothness and fidelity of the PMDG lineup. But a year later, with all the refinements and the recent release of the update or Block 2, it is now a masterpiece. Detailed systems right down to individual circuit breakers are modeled. Engine modeling and accuracy is key. All that has been done, and now the IAE version is included, each with its own systems, sounds, and realistic performance.

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Some say it has blown past the PMDG. Whatever the opinion, I share the zeal. It’s smooth, precise, and many real airbus pilots online tout it as basically perfect. A true study level that you’d absolutely use during type rating school. I’ve enjoyed flying it now, as much as I have over the years with the PMDG lineup.

SimMarket

This company sells the Maddog MD82 for MSFS2020. I am not as familiar with the older airliners, so I will defer to the majority of sim fans online holding this up to the level of the Fenix.

For MD fans, this is also a real keeper. It represents a blend of systems modeling and accuracy all from the later ’70s to later ’80s replicated at a high level. In a battle for the top, this is often referred to as the best airliner ever made for MSFS2020. I’ll have to learn it better to give my own opinions, as I have used it little, never being a Maddog fan. But I see the reviews touting it as in the top few airliners ever released.

X-Plane

It has the outrageously in-depth Felis 747-200 series for the X-Plane sim. It is one of the most complete jetliner simulation add-ons I have ever used—from nose to tail. This is one of the reasons I still use XP12.

I cannot say enough about this masterpiece other than I wish it was available on MSFS2020 as well. You need to be three pilots at once to handle this beast. Setting up view points is key, as you’ll not only be pilot and copilot but flight engineer as well, often manipulating the systems as you sit sideways. You can feel the quality, heaviness, and momentum.

X-Aviation

The company sells the most renowned and sought-after bizjet for any sim, the Hot Start Challenger 650. This completely study level jet is once again simulating entire circuit breakers from head to tail. Setting the bar so exceedingly high, it’ll be what all future bizjets are compared to.

Sadly, only X-Plane 12 has it, but again, that’s another reason I still use it. The accuracy, realism, handling, etc. is all spot on. I fly a similar aircraft in real life and find this exceptionally close to the real thing. Again, it’s a type rating quality example to learn from. Many have called it the best jet ever designed for any sim, and it’s impossible to disagree. It certainly rivals the airliners above in total quality and experience.

Flysimware

It has a Learjet 35A that was recently released in “early access.” I have featured this in many an article so far, and it is well on its way to what I would call an honorable mention study level aircraft.

Its blueprint quality visuals, scaled parts, and cockpit clarity make this a winner right out of the gate. I’ve never seen such a beautiful reproduction in an early access or beta-style release. The flight quality, accurate avionics, sounds, and more make this a really promising product when the final version comes out.

It is the best pure bizjet built specifically for the MSFS2020 lineup so far. Let’s leave the jetliners behind now, as accuracy and study level can go down a category and be just as advanced.

A2A Simulations

The company has the 1960s Piper Comanche 250 featuring its coveted Accu-Sim 2.0 technology to bring a living, breathing aircraft to your desktop. This example must be run as gently as a real one, maintained and babied, or else face what real owners face: expensive repair bills.

You can damage and destroy the airplane if you’re a ham-fisted pilot. The aircraft requires a full preflight and walk-around inspection. You can test the fuel and do everything a real pilot would during a flight.

Continually monitoring its wear and tear, systems, and cleanliness is all part of this intensely realistic model that keeps its constant state alive, meaning it will remember its health on a continual basis, even if you fly something else in between on different days. You even get to perform an overhaul and other yearly tasks.

This airplane has quite a following and has been labeled by many as the best general aviation aircraft ever designed for any sim. I believe A2A is leveraging its AccuSim technology to future releases, and it certainly has captured the immersion of owning, operating, and maintaining a personal airplane like no other.

Conclusion

These are all my experiences with what I own and fly in the sim world. Your opinions may vary, especially when you get into the smaller airplanes as it’s much easier to simulate a simple single-engine in study level than an airliner.

In some ways, many of the default or add-ons for GA are close to this namesake already. A basic default Cessna will accelerate any new student pilot right to the top. The graphics of MSFS2020 and XP12 aircraft are good enough and photorealistic enough to permanently lodge in the brain of anyone learning to fly and stay current.

It’s a great time to study and learn in today’s flight sim environment. Compared to what we had in 1981, everything now is study level.

This feature first appeared in the Summer 2024 Ultimate Issue print edition.

The post Ultimate Issue: Taking Sim to a New Level appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

In 1935, the major airlines in the U.S. had a problem. They had contributed $100,000 each for Douglas Aircraft to develop a four-engine successor to the two-engine DC-3. But it was clear that the new DC-4 had problems and would be delayed. So they dropped out of the program and TWA (Transcontinental & Western Air) approached Boeing Corp. to see if it could adapt its promising new B-17 bomber into a passenger plane.

Keeping the B-17’s wings, tail, engines, and landing gear, Boeing designed a new cigar-shaped pressurized fuselage, and the result was the Boeing 307 Stratoliner. I’m here at Chicago Midway Airport (KMDW) in June 1940, where one of the five brand-new Stratoliners just delivered to TWA is preparing for the next leg of its regular service from New York to Los Angeles.

For anyone acquainted with the silhouette of the famous B-17, the Stratoliner should look strikingly familiar.

Because of its wider fuselage, the Boeing 307 has a slightly larger wingspan (107 feet, 3 inches versus. 103 feet, 9 inches), with exactly the same length (74 feet, 4 inches). The wings are metal and contain three fuel tanks each, carrying a total of 1,700 gallons. The flaps are also metal and powered electrically. The ailerons, however, are fabric over a steel skeleton to reduce the physical force the pilot has to exert to move them. The elevators and rudder are the same. They are all entirely mechanical controls that rely on the pilot’s physical strength to manipulate—no hydraulics.

The prototype of the Stratoliner actually stalled and went into a spin in March 1939, crashing and killing 10 aboard. The problem turned out to be the tail, which was redesigned and incorporated into all subsequent B-17s from that point on.

The landing gear—the same as on the B-17—are raised and lowered by the hydraulics system, which also powers the brakes. When raised the wheels still protrude enough from the bottom side of the wing to cushion a belly landing.

Just like the B-17, the Stratoliner is powered by four Wright GR-1820 Cyclone air-cooled 9-cylinder radial engines with a supercharger to perform at higher altitudes and variable-pitch propellers. They produced slightly less horsepower (1,100) than the variant used on the B-17.

The Stratoliner’s five-person crew consists of a pilot, copilot, and flight engineer, along with two flight attendants. There is also a fourth seat for a navigator in the cockpit. Directly in front of the pilot and the copilot is a typical “six-pack” of instruments, though the arrangement is not yet standardized. To the left is a radio altimeter to gauge agl—helpful when flying over mountainous terrain.

On the overhead panel are radio navigation instruments and the switches for starting the engines and turning on lights. At bottom left, an anachronistically modern autopilot had been installed. We won’t be using the modern autopilot, but instead the Sperry Gyropilot appropriate to the period, located in the center of the center panel. Above it are the engine gauges showing manifold pressure and rpm, and below are the engine temperature gauges.

The power controls—in fours, one for each engine—are on the central pedestal, where both pilots can reach them. Black is throttle, red fuel mixture, and blue propeller rpm. The large white knob locks the tailwheel in place, and the small white one turns on the Sperry Gyropilot.

The Stratoliner was one of the first civilian planes to have a dedicated flight engineer. His panel allowed him to monitor the engines, regulate the flow of fuel from different tanks (to prevent the aircraft from becoming unbalanced), and control the climate in the pressurized cabin.

The cabin could maintain a pressure of 8,000 feet—similar to a modern airliner—up to 16,000 feet. It gradually increased, however, to the equivalent of 12,000 feet when cruising at 20,000 feet—not as comfortable as today’s airliners but enough to avoid the need for supplemental oxygen.

The Stratoliner’s pressurized fuselage required extensive testing. Designers would gradually increase the pressure, covering the outside of its metal skin with soapy water and looking for bubbles indicating a leak.

Now that we’re all checked out, we can head to the main terminal to refuel and load our passengers.

This is TWA Flight 7, the “Super Sky Chief,” with cross-country service from New York LaGuardia (KLGA) to Union Air Terminal (KBUR) in Burbank, California, with three stops along the way. The entire cross-country journey takes about 15.5 hours westbound, 13.5 hours eastbound, depending on winds—about two hours faster than previously in a DC-3.

It was an overnight flight, but I’m doing it during the daytime to enjoy the scenery. It’s midmorning, and we’ve reached Chicago after starting out early from New York.

In theory, a fully fueled Stratoliner could fly a maximum range of 1,300 miles. In reality, a Stratoliner filled with passengers and luggage could only take on half that amount of fuel, significantly reducing its range. The fuel is 100-octane gasoline, exactly like a GA plane uses today.

Passengers boarding the Stratoliner enjoyed unprecedented luxury.

The sound- and vibration-proof cabin was furnished by Marshall Field’s and featured reading lights and call buttons. Separate men’s and women’s washrooms had hot and cold water. A galley in the back served hot food.

In 1940, a one-way ticket from New York to California cost $149.95, equivalent to $3,363.90 today. But a seat in one of these alcoves, which folds down to a sleeping berth, cost an extra $119.95, which works out to a total of $6,054.80 today.

Once everyone is on board, we’ll use an external power unit to start the engines one at a time to avoid draining our own battery. One by one, they roar to life.

The runway in this 1930s version of Midway is 4,925 feet long—but only half of its length is paved. At full throttle, I’m going to need almost all of it to reach my 100 mph liftoff speed. A fully loaded Stratoliner, weighing in at 45,000 pounds (20.5 tons), doesn’t soar into the air—it lumbers, not unlike the heavy bomber it’s based on.

Setting the four throttles back to 30 inches of manifold pressure and the prop levers back to 2,250 rpm, I settle in for a sustained climb. At lower altitudes, in denser air, I can maintain a climb rate of 1,000 feet per second.

The Sperry Gyropilot is simpler than a modern autopilot, but once in a climb (or in level flight), I can set to hold it. I can also indicate a desired heading and instruct the plane to bank toward it. This is the same autopilot used in the B-17 that could be linked to the bombardier’s Norden bomb site to guide the plane to its bombing target.

My target cruising altitude is 20,000 feet. As I climb in altitude, the air thins. Normally this would reduce the power produced by my piston engines, but the supercharger compresses the air to give them a boost. But the supercharger can’t completely compensate, and I begin to notice the manifold pressure, even under full throttle, starting to weaken above 10,000 feet.

I have to pull my climb rate back to 500 feet per minute to avoid a stall. I was unable to find any detailed instructions on how to lean the fuel mixture of a Stratoliner—or a B-17 for that matter—so I left the handles on “auto-rich.”

The Stratoliner is capable of climbing up to 24,000 feet, but at that altitude it would be unable to maintain a comfortable cabin pressure and passengers would need supplemental oxygen. So I’m leveling off at 20,000 feet and pulling the throttles back to 23 inches of mercury and rpm back to 2,000. At first I’m a little perplexed by the indicated airspeed—just 160 mph. But then I adjust for air pressure and temperature, and my true airspeed is 225 mph—right on target.

Technically, the Stratoliner didn’t reach the stratosphere, a layer of the atmosphere that begins around 33,000 feet above the continental U.S. But it flew a lot higher than previous airliners.

Without a pressurized cabin, a DC-3 carrying passengers could only cruise at 8,000-10,000 feet above sea level. At twice that altitude, the Stratoliner was able to avoid much of the turbulence encountered flying so low over the Rocky Mountains. Even so, the Super Sky Chief followed a southern route that avoided the highest mountains.

Our course is set for 240 degrees west southwest—next stop Kansas City, Missouri.

It’s midafternoon now, and after stopping at Kansas City we’re on our way to Albuquerque, New Mexico. We’re back at 20,000 feet above sea level, but the land below us has risen several thousand feet in elevation. We’re comfortably above the summer rain clouds that have formed over the plains of eastern Colorado. A DC-3, in contrast, would find itself flying right through them—a jostling experience.

The Stratoliner can’t fly over all weather—major thunderstorm clouds can rise to 30,000 or 40,000 feet. But since we can easily fly over the relatively lower mountains on this southern route, we don’t have to fear that the mountain passes a DC-3 must take will be blocked by storms.

At 7:30 p.m. local time, with the summer sun nearly setting, we reached the outskirts of Los Angeles with the Pacific Ocean visible in the distance. We’ve flown for 15.5 hours but gained three hours heading west.

I pull back the throttles to descend, while pushing the prop levers full forward, in case of an emergency go-around. My target approach speed is 140 mph. Putting in the flaps reduces my stall speed, so I can land at around 90-100 mph. But it also adds a lot of drag, as does lowering the landing gear. I find I need to add back significant throttle to maintain speed.

Over the runway, I pull the throttles back to idle and flare to a gentle three-point landing. I make sure my tailwheel is locked, so I don’t wobble all over the runway. I’m landing on the modern runway at Union Air Terminal, now Hollywood Burbank Airport (KBUR), and it’s 5,800 feet long. I need almost all of it for my brakes to bring me to a complete stop.

As I mentioned, TWA bought five Stratoliners for service. Howard Hughes, the aviation-obsessed oil and Hollywood tycoon who bought control of the airline in 1939, purchased another Stratoliner all for himself for a reported $315,000 ($6.5 million today’s). It was actually the first Stratoliner delivered to a customer in July 1939.

Originally Hughes planned to use it to beat his own record flying around the world, set the previous year in a Lockheed Super Electra. But the outbreak of war in Europe scuttled his plans.

Hughes put the plane into storage, and then after the war—on the advice of actress-girlfriend Rita Hayworth—converted it into a private luxury airliner, the first of its kind, dubbed The Flying Penthouse. He tried to sell it to another tycoon, but the deal fell through and Hughes ended up stuck with it.

The cabin of The Flying Penthouse was luxurious, the forerunner of today’s private airliners owned by Arab oil sheiks. However, as Hughes drifted into eccentricity, the plane was rarely flown, and in 1965 it was damaged in a hurricane. Someone bought it for $69 and turned the fuselage into a boat.

Eventually a Florida man ended up living in it as a houseboat, dubbing it the Cosmic Muffin. In 2016, the houseboat owner donated the fuselage to the Florida Air Museum in Lakeland. But plans to refurbish it ran into difficulties, and it is currently still looking for a home.

Besides TWA and Hughes, the Stratoliner had a third buyer. Pan Am ordered three Boeing 307s to augment its “Clipper” service across Latin America. While Pan Am in this era is famous for its “China Clipper” flying boats across the Pacific, the core of its business stretched across the Caribbean, Central America, and South America, as this colorful route map from 1940 illustrates.

The toughest parts of the network involved flying (via Lake Titicaca) to La Paz on Bolivia’s high plateau, and the link between the two southmost destinations (Santiago, Chile, and Buenos Aires, Argentina) over the Andes.

We’re taking off from the modern-day airport at Santiago to find out what made that latter route so challenging.

There were three Pan Am Stratoliners: the Clipper Rainbow (NC19902), the Clipper Comet (NC19910), and the one we’re flying, the Clipper Flying Cloud (NC19903). These three Pan Am Stratoliners, along with TWA’s five, Hughes’ personal plane, and the original prototype that crashed, make for a grand total of 10 Boeing 307s ever produced.

Why so few? Well, as we’ll see, first of all World War II intervened, disrupting civilian air travel and creating new, competing priorities. But even before the U.S. entered the war in December 1941, the Stratoliner was running into trouble.

For all its advantages, the Stratoliner was expensive. It cost three times as much to buy as a DC-3 but could only carry a handful more passengers. TWA actually defaulted on its initial order for six, which is why the deliveries were delayed until 1940. The financial dispute actually contributed to Hughes snapping up the airline cheap and keeping one of the six planes for himself. 

Once purchased, the Stratoliners were expensive to maintain and repair. Their advanced systems were new and complex. They guzzled fuel. It cost a fortune just to insure them. Even though TWA saw a 50 percent increase in passenger traffic in 1940, and won headlines setting speed records with its Stratoliners, it still lost money on the service.

Dutch airline KLM considered buying as many as 18 Stratoliners but ultimately declined due to cost. Then the war broke out in Europe, and sales there were off the table completely. Pan Am initially planned to buy six Stratoliners, which it dubbed “Strato-Clippers,” but the shift to military production by 1940 made that impossible. It received just three.

Pan Am had a real use for the Boeing 307. The lowest pass between central Chile and Argentina reaches 12,566 feet and is flanked by peaks reaching 22,841 feet and 21,555 feet, respectively. No unpressurized airliner could cross this range without passengers facing serious discomfort.

The superchargers on the Pan Am Strato-Clippers were only single-speed, compared to the two-speed versions on the TWA versions, making it more challenging to reach and maintain 20,000 feet. Even at that altitude, my clearance above the peaks below is only a few thousand feet.

This would be more reassuring if I wasn’t being constantly buffeted by strong updrafts and downdrafts from the powerful winds winding their way around the mountains. I have to hand-fly the whole way, because the Stratoliner’s autopilot isn’t responsive enough to make all the quick adjustments needed to prevent a stall.

Even in a pressurized cabin, I wouldn’t want to be a passenger on this flight. 

Fortunately, we’re over the mountains and descending toward Mendoza. The airport there is at 2,310 feet, which means I need to lose a lot of altitude pretty quickly. Still, I saw I was coming in high and fast, and had to circle once to slow down and descend farther before I could make a proper approach.

The trip has taken a little over an hour and just 143 miles as the crow flies. But for all the plush furnishings, I doubt any of the passengers will be eager to repeat it anytime soon.

When the U.S. entered WWII, Pan Am continued flying its Strato-Clippers on strategically important routes in Latin America but under the direction of the U.S. military. TWA, in contrast, sold all five of its financially struggling Stratoliners to the U.S. Army Air Forces, where they were redubbed the C-75. The airline then operated them under contract for the Army.

The planes’ cabin pressurization system was removed to save weight. The expensive furnishings were torn out and replaced with simpler bunk beds and work tables. Extra fuel tanks were added to almost double their range to 2,400 miles.

Early in the war, with these modifications, the C-75s were the only planes the U.S. possessed capable of crossing the Atlantic Ocean carrying any significant payload, Tough to carry passengers in any comfort, they’d have to cruise at a lower altitude. 

In February 1942, the newly converted C-75 made its debut, flying to Cairo via Brazil to deliver ammunition and spare parts to British forces fighting German general Erwin Rommel in Egypt. In March, a C-75 flew top U.S. generals, including George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower, across the North Atlantic to London and back to begin planning Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of North Africa.

Over the following months, C-75 flights over the North and South Atlantic picked up pace, ferrying VIPs and urgent cargo where they were needed overseas.

The heavier loads that the C-75 was expected to carry in military service—up to 56,000 pounds gross weight—further reduced its climb performance and put great strain on the engines, sometimes sparking fires. By 1944, the U.S. had developed newer four-engine aircraft—the C-54 (DC-4) and C-69 (Constellation)—that could do the same things, but better.

No longer needed, the Stratoliners were sold back to TWA, which refurbished them back to their luxurious former state.

After the war, however, the airlines discovered the same thing—that there were new airliners available that could fly farther, faster, and cheaper than the Stratoliner, which had shown the way. In 1951, Pan Am sold one of its Strato-Clippers, the Comet, to a local airline in Ecuador, AREA, which renamed it the Quito, to provide service between Ecuador and Miami. It later sold it to Quaker City Airlines in the U.S. for unscheduled charter flights. Plagued by maintenance issues, it was being converted to a crop duster in 1958 when it caught fire and was destroyed.

In 1951, French airline Aigle Azur bought the Pan Am Strato-Clipper Rainbow and all five TWA Stratoliners to service routes in the Mediterranean and Indochina. We’re taking off from Nice in southern France, reregistered as F-BELU, after it was assigned to the Aigle Azur subsidiary Airnautic in 1955.

Aigle Azur removed some of the fancier fittings to increase the Stratoliner’s passenger capacity from 33 to 48. While the surroundings may have been glamorous, by the late 1950s the planes were handling mainly chartered flights.

Flying conditions in Southeast Asia, as the Vietnam War raged, were dangerous and difficult. One by one, the once-glorious Stratoliners fell prey to crashes and mishaps, and were put out of commission.

Finally, there was just one.

In 1954, Pan-Am sold the Clipper Flying Cloud, which we flew over the Andes, to Haiti, which used it as its president’s version of Air Force One. Later it hauled freight back in the U.S.

In 1972, the National Air and Space Museum bought it and Boeing helped restore it. But it nearly didn’t make it to the museum. In March 2002, it ran out of fuel during a test flight and ditched in the bay off Seattle. No one was injured, and the airplane was repaired.

Today you can see it on display at the Smithsonian’s Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles International Airport (KIAD)—the last intact survivor of the 10 Stratoliners built.

If you’d like to see a version of this story with more historical photos and screenshots, you can check out my original post here.

This story was told utilizing the “Local Legends” Boeing 307 Stratoliner add-on to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, Red Wing Simulation’s “1935” series of airports and sceneries, airport add-ons purchased from Orbx, LVFR, and Vuelosimple, and liveries and scenery downloaded for free from the flightsim.to community.

The post The Bomber That Created a Bridge to Modern Airliners appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Since I got back into home flight simulation, I look forward to the winter as the cold weather guarantees a few more weekends that I get to spend indoors, guilt-free. The winter makes it easier to schedule a weekend afternoon flight in my flight simulator, no matter what the real weather is doing outside.

One goal I set was to begin the BVARTCC WINGS series of training flights, which are self-paced and available to be flown whenever there are live air traffic controllers from the VATSIM service controlling the Greater Boston airspace online.

To help complete the WINGS program, I set the secondary goal of learning to use the G1000 for IFR flying, with the BVARTCC WINGS flights serving as an ideal live training environment. The volunteer VATSIM air traffic controllers watch and assess each WINGS flight and issue a pass or fail rating at the end, turning each into a mini-check ride, all from the comfort of your home  simulator. The WINGS flights also require that pilots follow the correct communication and navigation procedures for transition in and out of the airspace in the Greater Boston Class Bravo.

Although many sim pilots have flown the full series of BVARTCC WINGS flights, I am always surprised at how few real-world pilots are aware that this program exists and can be completed with only a basic flight simulator.

The BVARTCC WINGS training program is broken down into six VFR flights, typically flown first, and then 24 IFR flights, all designed to be flown sequentially. As stated in the introductory reading, a BVARTCC club member may fly the flights in any order, and skip flights, but you must eventually fly all 30 flights to become a WINGS graduate.

In summer 2022, when I began the WINGS VFR flights, I decided to fly each of them in order, predicting that I would enjoy the learning and preparation required to successfully pass them. Each flight features increasing levels of difficulty requiring some studying and preflight planning before launching on them.

I found that the WINGS VFR program was an enjoyable way to knock the rust off my VFR Class D, C, and B airspace and communication skills as I prepared for the start of the WINGS IFR program. My relatively slow pace fit my learning goals and available free time, but if you take up the challenge of the WINGS program, you can choose the speed that works for you, provided you fly each flight when there are controllers actively managing the airspace.

BVARTCC publishes a schedule of controller coverage and updates its discord channel when volunteer controllers are working the airspace so you can plan ahead for your flights. When flying in the BVARTCC, you are expected to set your simulator to the live weather conditions.

Microsoft Flight Simulator (MSFS) and X-Plane (XP) will reference current METARs based on your departure airport, which are updated roughly every 15 minutes, and will build the weather conditions in the simulator to match the real world. Each flight simulation program has its strengths and weaknesses concerning the execution of live weather in the simulation. Your experience will vary.

• READ MORE: Here Are 2 Quick VFR Flights to Try on Your Home Flight Simulator

However, one benefit of METAR-based live weather is that you can use ForeFlight or Navigraph on your tablet or secondary screen to check the weather at your departure and destination and have confidence that you’ll experience those conditions when you are flying in-sim. Accurate winds and barometric pressure settings are important components to using live air traffic control services like VATSIM so that weather conditions you’re experiencing in the sim are the same as the controllers are referencing when assigning runways for takeoff and landing.

I also set the simulator to the current time of day so that daylight changes realistically over the course of my flight. There are some additional basic hardware and software items you should have on your PC to get the most out of flying in the BVARTCC with live air traffic control. See the “Introduction” and “Getting Started” tabs of the WINGS section of the BVARTCC website for more information.

WINGS IFR 1: Introduction to IFR

The WINGS IFR 1 is aptly titled the Introduction to IFR flying. It is the IFR equivalent to a trip around the traffic pattern at KBOS.

To successfully pass the flight, one must file and fly the LOGAN4 departure, with vectors expected to bring the aircraft around to intercept the ILS approach back to the active runway for landing. All of the taxiing and ground movement must be done correctly as well, requiring full attention from startup to shutdown. Making a major taxiing mistake would fail the flight, so my iPad running ForeFlight was prepped with the aircraft checklist, map (zoomed in for taxiing) and the ILS chart for the active runway preloaded onto the “Plates” tab.

KBOS ranks well within the top 10 busiest airports in the VATSIM system measured by total aircraft movements per year. In the real-world, KBOS is typically just inside the top 30 for all international airports, but in VATSIM, KBOS is well-liked for its dynamic New England weather and challenging wind conditions.

It also is a popular destination for sim pilots who depart from Europe and fly across the Atlantic ocean and time their flights to conclude when there’s live ATC coverage from VATSIM controllers at KBOS. Someday I hope to make that cross-ocean journey, once my IFR and widebody jet operational knowledge is at the requisite level for the undertaking.

• READ MORE: Our Pilots of the Future May Share Sim Stories

With cross-ocean goals in the back of my mind, my journey into IFR flying began at the Signature Flight Support ramp on the northwest side of KBOS as it is the main parking area for general aviation aircraft. The winds were 19kts, gusting 28kts (above my personal minimums in the real world) and the Cessna 172—the recommended aircraft for this flight—was rocking in its chocks when I began the engine start procedures.

MSFS models wind noise, and I could hear the wind blowing and the airplane creaking while I started working through the checklist. With the engine running, I checked the ATIS, dialed in the correct frequency to request my IFR clearance and patiently waited my turn to key the mic.

The volunteer controllers do a great job managing “the weekend rush” of flight sim pilots seeking to fly while the airspace is live and I did my best to bide my time between the pushback requests, taxi instructions and other sim pilots opening their IFR flight plans. There aren’t always enough volunteer controllers to completely staff a given airport or airspace, so we all do our part to share this valuable resource as the controllers often have to stretch themselves across the clearance, ground, and tower communication roles.

Sometimes there are waits to get started but I’m always comforted by the fact that no real avgas is being burned. The busy communication frequencies offer the added challenge of being succinct on the radio when it is your time to push to talk.

After 10 minutes, I found my opening, asked for and then nervously read back my clearance, certain that all the other sim pilots could hear how green I was. As instructed, I filed my flight plan before starting my flight so that the controllers had my virtual flight strip on their display ahead of time. Soon I was following the taxiing toward Runway 9 following at least six aircraft taxiing ahead of me, holding at various intersections, with more sim pilots receiving their permissions for pushback from their respective gates. I could see three aircraft in the air on final for Runway 4-Right.

Until this point, I had never experienced such a busy live flight sim environment, and it was really exciting and immersive. The frequency was jammed with controllers conducting the symphony of aircraft movement, and from listening I could tell that there were pilots from all across the world taking part in this flight simulation experience.

• READ MORE: Highlights From FlightSimExpo 2024

Accents from the United Kingdom and the southern United States mixed in with pilots from New England, the Midwest, Latin America, and Germany as well. The international and domestic mix of pilots felt and sounded just like the real KBOS on a normal day.

Passing intersection Charlie on taxiway Bravo, my Ground controller offered me a takeoff from Runway 4-Left. I fumbled for the LOGAN4 departure chart on ForeFlight to verify the amended takeoff instruction, a quick reminder that the simulated IFR flight environment can be dynamic and that I must also be ready for a change of plans.

The 4L takeoff prevented me from waiting in the growing line of airliners cueing for Runway 9. Soon I was cleared for takeoff and lifting off from 4L, fighting the gusty conditions, keeping focused on my departure heading and altitude while awaiting my first turn to heading 090. Being vectored through the busy airspace was even more exciting than my usual flight sim adventures as I could hear and see the aircraft I would be joining shortly on final approach.

The visual resolution of other traffic is not what you are accustomed to in real-world flying. Still, it is usually easy to see the navigation lights and a distant but somewhat blurry shape of the aircraft near you making see-and-avoid relatively easy. I had been handed off to Boston Approach and was soon given my final vectors to intercept the localizer for 4R.

Switching back to Boston Tower, I received my clearance to land and tried to keep my approach speed up to minimize the impact of the traffic needing to slow behind me. On short final, I could see one airliner in the air and three aircraft waiting to takeoff on Runway 9.

There would be a small audience for my landing, but I needed to shift my focus to the lateral and vertical guidance of the ILS on my G1000 PFD while trying to maintain the centerline amid a blustery winter afternoon. Although it wasn’t the smoothest landing, I was happy to be back on the ground and safely clear of 4R. Departures on Runway 9 resumed and the controller let me know I had passed the WINGS IFR 1.

Being careful to follow the taxi instructions back to the ramp at Signature, I was excited and relieved to have my first IFR flight in the books. The busy and short flight in the IFR system required my full attention, and was a fitting introduction to IFR flying. I was grateful the live weather was VFR and not at minimums.

I couldn’t have known at that time, but my next IFR flight, the WINGS IFR 2, was going to be flown in actual instrument flight conditions and would really test my rookie IFR flying skills and sim pilot decision-making.

WINGS IFR 2: VOR Navigation

To begin the WINGS IFR 2 flight, I loaded into my Cessna 172 G1000 at the Signature Flight Support ramp at Boston Logan where my WINGS IFR 1 had concluded. The weather for the afternoon flight was 3 miles visibility, light rain and ceilings around 1,000 feet, with winds at 16 knots, gusting 27 knots.

Today’s flight would take me from Boston to Providence, Rhode Island (KPVD), via the TEC route found in the FAA’s preferred route database. The purpose of the flight was to build experience navigating with the VOR radio and then land at Providence using the ILS approach onto the active runway.

Per the instructions, I filed the LOGAN4 departure, received my clearance and began my taxi. Preemptively this time, I asked the tower controller if I could depart off 4L, which would keep me out of the snarl of airliners waiting their turn for takeoff. I quickly double-checked the departure instructions, received my takeoff clearance and was soon climbing up into the soup, fighting to stay on the correct heading while being pushed around by the winds.

After a few vectored turns I was given the ATC instruction “Direct to PVD,” and turned the CRS knob on my G1000 PFD to select a radial to follow to the PVD VOR. The CDI “needle” allowed me to finetune my course to the PVD VOR, and I was on the way to Providence.

Climbing to 4,000 feet, my filed altitude, I was mostly in the clouds, occasionally getting glimpses to either side or a quick look at the sky above. It was an airborne mess of conditions I had heretofore avoided as a private pilot and as a sim pilot. The late afternoon winter sun was breaking through the clouds and the light rain on the ground at KBOS had turned to freezing rain.

I made small lateral changes to try and avoid going through thick clouds where I anticipated the rain becoming more intense. There was turbulence to contend with, and it moved the airplane around a lot, but I decided to keep hand-flying the 172 for the practice of juggling the simultaneous responsibilities of aviating, navigating and communicating with ATC.

The westerly winds I was flying against were slowing my groundspeed and the freezing rain was starting to adhere to the outside of my 172, creeping up onto the windscreen and attracting my attention. I switched on the cabin heat and pitot heat and thought about what options I had if the icing proceeded to get worse.

With the sunlight changing the color of the clouds above me, I estimated the top of the broken layer to be at 4,500 feet and figured I was one request away from a climb out into clear air, which represented my best chance for the ice to sublimate off the surfaces of the 172. ATC surprised me, letting me know there was traffic transitioning at 5,000 feet and I would need to manage at my current altitude.

I knew I had the option to declare an emergency but that would have concluded my WINGS IFR 2 flight early, without a passing grade. The icing had covered about 50 percent of my windscreen, but it was not immediately getting worse. Looking left and right, I couldn’t see a significant amount of buildup on the leading edge of the wing and still had normal control authority, so I decided to hang in there, hoping that the forecast of 5 miles visibility and a 3,000-foot ceiling at Providence was going to hold up.

The ride was not improving, and I was constantly chasing my heading and altitude in moderate turbulence. No physical discomfort in my sim cockpit, but the aircraft was moving around a lot, more than I had seen before. Having never flown in clouds for an extended amount of time, I was keeping focused on my basic instrument scan of the G1000 PFD, which included watching the attitude indicator, the altitude, the vertical speed tape, the turn coordinator arrows, and the CDI/needle of the VOR. Coming in and out of the freezing rain and into the momentary gaps of sunlight made for dynamic visuals and enhanced immersion caused by the high-fidelity winter weather modeling.

After about 30 minutes en route, I had flown over the Providence VOR and was now south of Quonset State Airport (KOQU). I was out of the cloud bank now and being given vectors to intercept the ILS for Runway 5. I had the chart loaded onto my iPad and I switched my nav radio to the correct frequency. I was vectored back to the ILS about 12 miles south of KPVD and used the extra time to think ahead of the airplane and I quickly briefed the anticipated turns and descent required to pick up the final approach course.

ATC cleared me onto the approach and then quickly cleared to land since I was the only aircraft in the area. With clouds behind me, and a low cloud deck over the Providence Airport, it got significantly darker and the wind blew my 172 all over the approach. Although the freezing rain had stopped, the cloud deck over Providence was lower and the visibility was less than what the METAR had reported before I left Boston.

The icing on my windscreen hadn’t melted and turned the approach lighting to Runway 5 into a fuzzy blur ahead of me. Fighting the wind gusts, I kept my focus on the localizer and glideslope, with occasional visual checks through the windscreen ahead.

On final approach 1.5 miles out and 500 feet above ground, I kept my speed up and my flaps at 20 degrees as I encountered low-level wind shear causing large changes on the vertical speed tape and my aircraft to shudder noticeably. Clearing the “fence” just before Runway 5 at Providence, the gusty surface winds pushed the 172 back and forth across the centerline as I tightened my grip on the yoke and worked corrections on the rudders. 50 feet above the runway, I pulled back on the throttle and tensed for a brisker than normal landing.

Once I made contact with the surface, it took a lot of rudder input to keep the airplane on the cement as I had a roughly 30-degree crosswind and wind gusts that threatened to push me into the grass. Finding an opening on the frequency, I made my clear-of-the-runway call and the controller let me know I had passed the WINGS IFR 2.

In my parking spot on the ramp in front of the Atlantic Aviation FBO building, I reflected on the strain and challenge of the 40-minute flight from Boston as the wind whipped over the control surfaces of the just shutdown 172. It was my first short cross-country flight in the IFR system, my first encounter with simulated icing conditions in the clouds and it was a challenge from start to finish with the moderate turbulence and gusty winds. Also, I was challenged to rely on VOR navigation as my main navigation source, not having done that since my private pilot training.

Admittedly, the G1000 PFD in CDI mode offered some additional situational awareness compared to a traditional steam gauge instrument and I was also running ForeFlight on my iPad.

I justify the ForeFlight map as it really aids in situational awareness since my flight simulator is connected to a single 4K TV and does not provide the peripheral vision you have in a real airplane. I use the moving map in ForeFlight to help supplement what I would normally see outside the airplane. I had made the flight more challenging by deciding to hand-fly it but I wasn’t confident that I could manage the automation provided by the autopilot and the other variables.

In future WINGS IFR series flights, I’ll need to be able to use the autopilot proficiently, so I noted this as an area for additional practice. It is one of the many features of the G1000 that I will need to better understand before getting deeper into the WINGS program.

The weather en route provided the biggest challenge, and I now had my first minutes of simulated IMC under my belt. I also contemplated how close I came to a very serious icing situation in the 172, knowing that it had no Flight-Into-Known-Icing capability. I’d like to think that I would never have found myself in that situation in a real airplane, but I was glad to have experienced it in my simulator first. Also, I’m careful to make sure the experience doesn’t build any false confidence, the images I have seen of the real icing lead me to believe that I narrowly avoided a situation that could have doomed my flight.

The MSFS2020 experience was all in the digital world, but the fidelity of it was impressive and the decision- making it prompted resulted in real stress and discomfort from the task saturation I encountered.

This feature first appeared in the May 2024/Issue 948 of FLYING’s print edition.

The post Earning Your Winter WINGS appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Using live weather was easy enough, but I wanted to test the extremes of heat to see what would happen to the typical GA aircraft under these conditions. In keeping with the theme of how it affects most GA pilots, I chose a late model Cessna 172 featured in both sims, one that many real-world pilots perhaps own or rent from a flying club.

The aircraft is a late model but not too modern, which meant it came with some GPS add-ons but kept with a traditional “six-pack” of instrumentation. I used the WB-SIM Cessna 172 enhancement from Just Flight available here.

This plane is an enhanced version with realism improvements, flight physics, systems, engine wear and tear, and much much more. The sounds are improved too, replicating them well.

The First Test

My first test was to see what takeoff performance was like in the 172 at a typical East Coast airport near sea level in believable, accurate weather conditions. I chose Eastern Slopes Regional (KIZG) in Fryeburg Maine. We were having record heat in the high 90s in New England on the day I was doing my test, so it’s an accurate sample.

The constants I have chosen for each sample takeoff test are:

• Full fuel
• Two pilots weighing 170 pounds each
• Flaps up
• Time in seconds after full power brake release to obtain a rotate of 60 knots
• Runway distance measured to that 60 knots liftoff point
• One takeoff run in one direction and another the other way to compensate for slope, etc., to obtain the proper average
• Temperature in Fahrenheit that is accurate with real locations or actual record highs to keep it realistic
• Winds calm each takeoff

KIZG / 700 MSL / 95 F / FULL FUEL / FLAPS 0

The takeoff run here was 22 seconds to 60 knots at 1,000 feet ground run one way, and 22 seconds exactly again, yet 1,500 feet the other way (slope was the issue).

I then cranked the temp up to 100 degrees and that added another two seconds to each ground run and another 300 feet in distance too. It is awesome to see how MSFS2020 is simulating the heat and air density. It really works.

I then tried the test in XP12 with the default Cessna 172. I found it pretty close with a ground run of 21 seconds one way, 25 the other. Distances were 1,300 feet and 1,800 feet, respectively. 

Which Cessna is more realistic? I am not sure, so I’ll just say both are. They clearly are affected by their simulators’ weather modeling, which is great in both sims. Climb rates at 100 F in both airplanes did hit 1,000 feet per minute, which kind of surprised me initially. I have never flown a late model 172. All the 172s I flew in college were worn-out wrecks. Maybe new ones are really superior.

I then wanted to try the famous “hot-and-high” scenario, so I chose Mammoth Lakes, California. Mammoth Yosemite Airport (KMMH) sits at over 7,000 feet msl and gets extremely hot as it’s near the deserts on the Nevada border. A major highway runs alongside the runway, so I figured that’s handy if something should go wrong. Also, the huge skiable mountains reaching toward 14,000 feet to the west are scenic.

KMMH / 7m000 MSL / 101 F / FULL FUEL / FLAPS 0

Takeoff was very sluggish at over 36 seconds—well over 10 seconds longer up this high at a ground run of almost 3,000 feet. That was about double the ground run of the Maine test conducted some 6,000 feet lower. In the XP12 Cessna 172, I hit 44 seconds on each run. Distances were a bit farther.

I then went to the granddaddy of all “hot-and-high” airports—Telluride Regional (KTEX) in Colorado. The airport sits at more than 9,000 feet and is the highest commercial airport in the U.S.

I had the joy of flying a Challenger 300 into KTEX last fall in real life. It was a gorgeous destination, with a deep blue sky, pine smell, and noticeable reduction in performance even in the jet, where more thrust is required just to taxi. You can really feel it even in colder weather.

So how did the 172 do now on a roasting high-altitude day of 91 F —about a realistic max for that area?

• READ MORE: Navigating Telluride’s Box Canyon Runway, Virtually

KTEX / 9,100 MSL / 91 F / FULL FUEL / FLAPS 0

On Runway 09, it took 35 seconds in the XP12 Cessna 172 to reach 60 knots at a ground run of 3,000 feet once again. That is a slight uphill angle. On Runway 27 it went down a bit and used up only 2,200 feet of pavement at 26 seconds.

The MSFS2020 Cessna 172  had nearly identical ground runs at 39 seconds uphill and 37 seconds downhill. Acceleration was slower in the MSFS2020 plane this time. At lower airports the XP12 Cessna was more sluggish, but performed better up high in this scenario.

Once airborne, the climb rates again hit close to 1,000 feet initially but not for long. I was barely able to get around the pattern at all, with no more than 500 fpm to 10,000 msl for the pattern. Takeoff was a fully leaned event  prior to brake release.

L06 / MINUS-210 MSL / 131 F / FULL FUEL / FLAPS 0

For the last test,  I tried the lowest airport I could find in the hottest-sounding place in the U.S.— Furnace Creek, California. The name fits for good reason.

At minus-212 msl I don’t think I have ever used a flight sim plane that low before, and it sure looked odd on the altimeter. At a temperature this high, I imagined the tires melting into the pavement or my hands being burned on seat belt buckles. It would be insane to even attempt this without an air conditioned aircraft. 

At this temperature, it took 20 seconds to reach 60 knots with a ground run of 1,500 feet. This is just like my first sample in Maine. It is about 1,000 feet lower, with the advantage of being so low that your density altitude would be to some advantage even in the heat. The temperature, however, was so high it negated that advantage.

This was a fun experiment. As usual it opens the door to so much more. How does winter compare? How does a Cessna fly in Alaska at minus-60 F. (I have done it in sim, and this is where I learned that Cessnas make contrails during taxi.)

How about trying this hot stuff in a shorter, more dangerous tree-lined airport where a crash is more certain? What if you loaded up with rear passengers too? How about some tailwinds?

In the real world of business jets, we let our handy FAA-approved iPad performance calculations do all the work now on hot and high. At recurrent, all I do is fly single engine missed, V₁ cut and takeoffs, climbs out of terrain, wind shear, and more all while being above ISA. Even in powerful jets, where one engine performance is almost a nonevent, combining heat and altitude together can be a real nail-biter. 

The real-world implications of all these things are something to practice and consider from the safety of your armchair at home. This unscientific experimentation can be tucked into the back of your noggin for some thought-provoking recall in real life. Anything that does this is another feather in your cap of aviation safety.

The post Turn Up the Heat in Sims With Density Altitude Games appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Over 2,000 simulator enthusiasts, a new attendance record, gathered in the comfort of the air conditioning inside the Rio Las Vegas Hotel & Convention Center while near-record heat scorched the city’s world-famous strip and surrounding desert.

Here are the news highlights from FlightSimExpo 2024:

Flight Simulation Software

Development teams from the two most popular flight simulator software titles provided updates on their current and future development schedules, outlining new features:

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 (MSFS2024): MSFS2024 will be a new, stand-alone, flight simulator—not an update to the current MSFS software, with a planned launch date of November 19. Jorg Neumann and Sebastian Wloch, who together head up the development of the MSFS software titles and represent a worldwide workforce of 800 employees, took the stage on Saturday afternoon and shared some key highlights about the upcoming 2024 release:

• Airliner news was the main focus of the new aircraft updates, with the development team confirming that the Airbus A330, Boeing 737 Max, A400M, Twin Otter and Stemme S12 glider will be new aircraft expected at launch. Also announced were real airline liveries, adding to the overall realism and immersion in-sim. 
• Approximately 30 different types of ground vegetation will enhance the ground scenery and the changes of season, a new feature in MSFS 2024.
• Improved and more accurate flight dynamics, including aircraft wake turbulence, which will disperse in-sim after six minutes. New to MSFS 2024, the improved CFD model will cause trees and vegetation to bend and move in reaction to jet wash.
• Improved cloud modeling, which will include cirrus clouds and improved cloud lighting
• A working replay function, allowing users to capture video replays from in-sim will make its debut in MSFS2024, a sorely missed function of the current MSFS software
• A team from Microsoft will be back at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh in 2025. The company has attended the last few years of the show, exposing real-world pilots and aviation enthusiasts to the flight simulation experience. They will miss Oshkosh 2024 due to its proximity to the MSFS2024 launch.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 (MSFS2020): The team recapped a few highlights about MSFS 2020. In four years, the development team issued 48 updates, had over 15 million unique members, and over 1 billion total flight sessions—all since the August 2020 launch. Community developers and members have built over 5,000 add-ons, including aircraft, features, challenges/events, airports, and other scenery. These items have helped to enrich the experience and speak to the dedication and passion in the flight simulation community supporting MSFS. Calming the flight sim community’s concerns that MSFS 2020 would not be supported after the launch of MSFS 2024,  Neumann confirmed that MSFS 2020 will continue to be updated monthly until 2028.  Watch the full update video here. 

• READ MORE: Taking Risks at a Trio of Mount Rainier Airstrips, Virtually

X-Plane 12 (XP-12): Sim pilots of the popular flight sim title can expect performance updates as early as Q3/Q4 of 2024. These will be driven by structural updates to the software, allowing XP12 to utilize multicore CPU processing, providing better overall sim performance. The development team at X-Plane is also working on a user-tunable visual improvement to the light exposure in the cockpit, allowing a greater degree of detail in the cockpit in sunny conditions. The X-Plane store is being updated to be fully integrated into the XP12 software. It has always been a separate marketplace, found on the web, and will now offer the X-Plane developers greater control over the quality of third-party add-ons and will benefit developers with increased digital rights management controls.

Artificial Intelligence

AI was a main theme of the expo presenters, as software developers were keen on incorporating the technology’s advanced learning capabilities into new applications for use in flight simulation. Falling costs for premium AI services allowed some developers of AI-driven software products to lower their monthly subscription fees, drawing enthusiastic applause from the audience. 

Development in the flight simulator industry occurs at an extremely rapid pace as evidenced by a new category of software add-ons providing AI-powered air traffic control services to flight sim pilots looking to replace the “stock” ATC that comes with popular flight simulation software titles.

• SayIntentions.AI is a service that works for both MSFS and X-Plane 11/12, offering full VFR and IFR AI-powered ATC services and new functions, including a flight instructor whom users are encouraged to have a conversation with while flying. Other new features include a tour guide for sightseeing and three versions of AI cabin crews for sim pilots flying airliners. With a touch of showmanship, the chief technology officer of the company happily announced a new lower monthly subscription price of $19.95, down from an earlier price of $29.95.
• FlyShirley.com is an AI service paired with X-Plane 12 that was described as an AI-powered coach, copilot, and guide for all of your flight simulator adventures. Interestingly, you can ask “Shirley” to tell you the weather ahead or recommend a nearby airport with favorable winds. See if this AI companion is for you with a free trial available at the company’s website.

Hardware

Hardware updates were the second most popular category of announcements at FlightSimExpo 2024:

WinWing: It drew big applause from the crowd by announcing new and lower priced EFIS and CDU controls to be paired with popular A320 and 737 aircraft in both MSFS and X-Plane 11/12. The company also teased a full set of fighter jet controls, avionics, throttles, and switch panels in an impressive launch video. Check out the WinWing hardware on a new flight simulator chassis called Dogfight Dynamics—also new to Flight Sim Expo 2024 (see photo below).

FliteSim.com: The new entrant to the flight sim hardware market announced the successful completion of its recent Indiegogo campaign and the shipping dates for its first production run of a competitively priced force feedback yoke. Two models are available, offering different strengths of resistance.

The base CLS-60 comes with a yoke design modeled after the C172, with a 737 yoke available for purchase as a do-it-yourself upgrade. Also available is a stronger 120N motor that can also be replaced if the user wants more force feedback offered by the stock 60N unit.

• READ MORE: Remembering the Most Successful Carrier-Based WWII Fighter

The CLS-60 offers a maximum pitch force of 13.5 pounds, and the CLS-120 offers a maximum pitch force of 27 pounds, which company founder Fabian Lim, an accomplished real-world pilot, equated to “a real workout.”

Both the CLS-60 and 120 yokes offer tunable behavior for all envelopes of flight, so the user can dial in the realism for the aircraft they fly. Units are available to order now (see photo below).

New Aircraft

No flight simulator expo would be complete without a quick update from flight sim development studios announcing new aircraft launching into MSFS and X-Plane.

Building airliner-sized aircraft can be a multiyear undertaking involving small teams dedicated to getting the flight model and all the complex systems right. Many developers work with real-world pilots of these aircraft to make sure they are authentic representations of the real-world machines. Thousands of hours of software development and thousands of photographs combine into models that are highly accurate.

• Bluebird Simulations announced a new Boeing 757 model coming to MSFS later this year, with a Boeing 767 and 787 to follow. It shared photos of measurements being taken on the flight deck of a real aircraft and that laser scanning was done to increase rhetorical accuracy. Committed to unparalleled visual and systems accuracy, the yoke is modeled to be accurate down to a few millimeters in size. 
• For those pilots wishing to experience the golden age of jet airliners, Nimbus Simulations announced the Boeing 707 being developed for X-Plane 12, complete with full working systems and modeling.

The team here at FLYING will continue to bring you updates from the world of flight simulation, including news and flight sim hardware reviews. 

The post Highlights From FlightSimExpo 2024 appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Just a few days before, on October 20, General Douglas MacArthur waded ashore on the island of Leyte to the south, fulfilling his pledge to “return” to the Philippines and liberate it from Japanese occupation. That summer, the U.S. Pacific carrier fleet had met the remaining Japanese carriers off the Marianas Islands.

In the “Great Marianas Turkey Shoot,” U.S. pilots had wiped out their Japanese counterparts in the air. With its carriers denuded of aircraft, Japan now looked to its surface fleet based in Singapore, including its two mega-battleships the Yamato and Musashi, to sail to the Philippines and obliterate the American landing force on the beaches.

• READ MORE: Adapting to the Jet Age in a Fouga Magister

Off the east coast of the Philippines, Task Force 38, under the command of Admiral William Halsey, consisted of nearly a dozen full-size fleet carriers plus a score of smaller escort carriers, assigned to provide air cover for the landing. On the morning of October 24, planes aboard the Essex were fueling to take part in a strike on the advancing Japanese battleships, which had been detected by American submarines steaming toward the landing beaches through the archipelago south of Luzon.

In the starting days of WWII, the U.S. Navy’s main carrier-based fighter had been the Grumman F4F Wildcat. The creator of the Wildcat—and later the Hellcat—was Leroy Grumman, who headed a relatively modest aircraft company of the same name based on Long Island, New York.

Grumman began his aviation career as a naval pilot during World War I. Though he failed his medical exam due to flat feet, a clerical error allowed him to get through flight training.

Grumman was assigned by the Navy as a test pilot to help assess aircraft produced by Grover Leoning, a German immigrant who graduated from Columbia University with the world’s first degree in aeronautical engineering and then learned his craft working for Orville Wright. Grumman became Leoning’s protege and worked for him as a designer and floatplane test pilot after the war for the Navy.

When Leoning’s company was acquired in 1929, Grumman formed his own, retaining his focus on naval aviation. By the time the U.S. Navy adopted the Grumman F3F biplane as its main carrier-based fighter in the years immediately prior to WWII, Grumman was well established as a go-to supplier of combat aircraft to the Navy.

The F4F Wildcat (the F3F’s successor) came into service a year before Pearl Harbor. It was not as maneuverable as the Mitsubishi A6M “Zero,” and the cockpit had poorer visibility. But it could outdive the Zero and could also take a lot more punishment than its fragile Japanese rival. Overall, the Wildcat and the Zero were fairly evenly matched, each with its own strengths and weaknesses.

As the early war in the Pacific unfolded, Grumman sent its designers to the field to talk with pilots flying the F4F Wildcat against the Zero in combat. They asked veteran F4F aces like Edward “Butch” O’Hare (for whom Chicago’s O’Hare Airport is named) what kind of improvements they needed to defeat the Zero.

The result was the F6F Hellcat. Superficially, the Hellcat looks a lot like the F4F Wildcat, and at first glance can be hard to tell apart. But there are a few telltale differences. First of all, when lined up next to each other, it’s clear that the Hellcat is longer, larger, and taller than its predecessor, earning it the nickname “the Wildcat’s big brother.”

The most obvious difference, once you know where to look, is the landing gear. The F4F’s gear could be retracted into the fuselage but had to be cranked by hand—not the easiest task just before or after landing on an aircraft carrier. The Hellcat’s gear, in contrast, could be raised and lowered automatically, using hydraulics. Because they retracted into wing wells, the wheels were wider apart, making them more stable to land on without tipping over.

One of the most distinctive features of both Grumman fighters was their foldable wings, which saved deck and hangar space, making it possible for a ship to carry a third more airplanes. (In contrast, Japanese Zeros did not have folding wings). When lowered for flight, the wings were locked into place with a big hydraulic metal bolt—the white circle you can see next to the red hook.

The Hellcat’s flaps have only one setting, up or down. The outer flap section is canvas-covered, the inner one is metal, so the pilot can step on it to climb into the cockpit. A major innovation on the Hellcat is spring-loaded flaps. If lowered at too high a speed, the air current would push them back up again. That meant pilots didn’t have to be distracted worrying about exceeding the maximum flap speed (170 knots), either when dogfighting or coming in to land.

Of course, the Hellcat has a tailhook for catching a wire on the carrier deck, allowing it to come to a quick stop. The rear wheel is made of solid rubber to put up with the pounding and abuse typical aboard cramped aircraft carrier decks.

• READ MORE: Recreating the de Havilland Tiger Moth

Both the Wildcat and Hellcat were built like a stubby beer barrel—there was no competing with the sleek elegance of a British Supermarine Spitfire or American P-51 Mustang. The F6F replaced the F4F’s single Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp 1,200 hp engine with a Double Wasp capable of producing 2,000 hp. For perspective, that’s more than 10 times  the horsepower of a Cessna 172. 

Though they used the same powerful engine, the Hellcat’s nose was much shorter than the U.S. rival F4U Corsair and angled slightly downward, making it much easier to see during carrier landings. This is a major reason why the F6F became the Navy’s main carrier-based fighter, while the otherwise fast and powerful F4U was relegated to the Marines, who were mostly based on land.

The main armament of the F6F Hellcat was three 50-caliber Browning machine guns on each wing (vs. two per wing on the older Wildcat). I’ll talk more about combat tactics in the Hellcat when we’re in the air.

And we’ll be in the air soon, because this morning we’re joining David McCampbell, commander of Fighter Squadron 15 (VF-15) aboard the USS Essex, as he refuels for a strike mission on the Japanese battleships. To the right of the cockpit are our lights and radio switches, as well as our engine gauges. To the left, as usual in a WWII fighter cockpit, the throttle, mixture, and prop controls, trim wheels, flaps, landing gear, etc.

While McCampbell is fueling, word comes in over the flight deck loudspeaker: A wave of land-based Japanese planes is inbound from the Philippines to attack the American carrier fleet. The planned mission is scrubbed—all fighters must get into the air to meet them. McCampbell disengages the fueling, with his tanks only half full, and immediately readies for takeoff despite the crowded deck.

At this point in the war, some carriers did have catapults, but many takeoffs took place without them. Flaps down. Brakes on. Rev to no more than 2,000 rpm—any faster and the Hellcat will tip over. Release brakes and put in full throttle.

There’s a slight lurch as we leave the flight deck, then steady climb. Gear up. Flaps up. And we’re off to meet the incoming Japanese planes. The flight control officer that just launched us from the Essex was Lieutenant John Connally Jr., the future Secretary of the Navy and governor of Texas who, not quite 20 years later, would be wounded sitting in the car in front of John F. Kennedy when the president was assassinated in Dallas in 1963.

As we level off and search for the Japanese planes, I bring the throttle back to 44 inches manifold pressure and reduce the prop to 5,500 rpm. These are the Hellcat’s cruise settings, and if I go higher in altitude (up to a service ceiling of 37,300 feet), I can engage the supercharger to keep the manifold pressure up.

While the Wildcat was roughly matched to the Zero, its strengths compensating for its weaknesses, the Hellcat completely outclasses its opponent, which was designed to its limits and has not been improved since the war began. McCampbell has already shot down 21 enemy planes, many of them during the “Great Marianas Turkey Shoot” that summer.

• READ MORE: Recreating the Final Flight of the Red Baron

This morning, he and his wingman Roy Rushing get separated from the rest of his squadron. They’re on their own, looking for enemy planes. Suddenly, in front of them they see a host of nearly 60 Japanese planes, a motley mix of fighters and bombers thrown at the U.S. fleet from land bases in Luzon.

Without a second thought, outnumbered 30-to-one, the two Hellcats engage. I put my throttle full to nearly 48 inches manifold pressure and put the prop to max 7,000 rpm for full combat power.

The Hellcat still can’t outturn the Zero in close combat, but it doesn’t need to. It uses its superior power to hit fast and hard from on high. Its superior armor allows it to shrug off stray enemy bullets as it plows through enemy ranks. Speed was another crucial factor. The F6F had a maximum speed of 391 mph, compared to 331 mph for both the F4F and Zero.

From the day it was introduced in 1943 to war’s end, the Hellcat racked up a kill ratio of 19-to-1 (19 Japanese planes shot down for every Hellcat lost). Against the Zero it was 13-to-1. This ratio was partly the result of the Hellcat’s innate superiority but also the result of severe losses among trained Japanese pilots and the inexperience of the pilots who replaced them.

On this morning—October 24, 1944—McCampbell shot down nine enemy planes, seven Zeros and two Nakajima Ki-43 Hayabusas, or “Oscars,” setting a U.S. single-mission aerial combat record. His wingman shot down another six for a total of 15.

McCampbell soon realized, though, that having taken off on only half-filled tanks, he was quickly running out of fuel and needed to land as soon as possible. The flight deck of the Essex was full, so he was waved off and had to land on the escort carrier USS Langley (CVL-27) instead. (I only have the USS Essex, so I’ll have to make due.)

When McCampbell landed on the Langley, he discovered that he had just two bullets left in his magazines, and the engine gave out immediately for lack of fuel, even before they could push him off the landing wires. McCampbell received the Medal of Honor for his actions that day. He downed a total of 34 enemy planes by the end of the war, making him the U.S. Navy’s all-time leading ace. He survived the war and lived until 1996.

But the battle that day was far from over.

In the air above the same carrier task force, the Hellcats of VF-27, each painted with a distinctive “cat’s mouth” nose, were on the hunt. VF-27 was based on the light carrier USS Princeton (CVL-23). Hellcat No. 7 (aka Paper Doll) was normally flown by Ensign Robert Burnell, who came up with the idea to paint the unconventional  color scheme on each of the squadron’s planes. On this day, however, Paper Doll was being flown by Lieutenant Carl Brown Jr. of Texarkana, Texas. Hellcat No. 17 was flown by Lieutenant Richard Stambook, of Kansas City, Missouri, already a double ace who had earned the Silver Star during the Marianas Turkey Shoot.

That morning, the squadron engaged another large group of 80 Japanese planes heading from Luzon to attack the American carriers. Between them, the cat’s mouth Hellcats shot down 36 of them. Brown shot down five of those, making him another “ace in a day” and earning him the Navy Cross.

Meanwhile, some of the Japanese planes made it through. Shortly before 10 a.m., a single bomb hit the flight deck of the Princeton, setting it on fire. The cruiser USS Birmingham (CL-62) came alongside to fight the fire and render assistance. Then at 3:24 p.m., a huge explosion—probably the detonation of stored bombs and torpedoes—ripped through the Princeton, doing severe damage to the Birmingham alongside, killing 233 and injuring 426 on the latter.

Stambook and most of VF-27 were on the Princeton refueling when the attack came. When the secondary explosion occurred, he and others jumped overboard and were rescued. Their planes were obviously lost. At 5:49 p.m., a third even larger explosion blew apart the front section of the Princeton and it sank moments later. Surprisingly, due to daring rescue efforts, only 108 aboard were lost, while 1,361 were saved.

Elsewhere, Brown and a handful of other VF-27 pilots were able to land on the Essex, where apparently their non-regulation cat’s mouths drew some raised eyebrows. That reaction didn’t last long as the squadron’s Hellcats had to be pushed off the Essex’s overcrowded flight deck to make room for ongoing operations.

When VF-27 later received a new home and new Hellcats aboard the USS Independence (CVL-22), it was without their signature cat’s mouths. Overall, though, the squadron claimed 136 enemy aircraft shot down before the Princeton was sunk, plus one more before the war’s end.

Not all the Navy’s Hellcats played defense that day.

Recall that McCampbell was fueling up for a strike on Japan’s super-battleships when the word came that the enemy’s planes were inbound. A third carrier in the same task group, the Lexington (CV-16), launched a strike force that included F6Fs armed with 4,000 pounds of bombs. We join them now, flying across the southern isthmus of Luzon to attack their Japanese targets.

This particular Hellcat, No. 99, known as Hangar Lilly, was flown by the commander of Lexington’s VF-19 fighter squadron, Theodore “Hugh” Winters of Society Hill, South Carolina. Winters had already flown in the Allied invasion of North Africa before switching to the Pacific in 1943. He shot down several Japanese planes over the Philippines the month before in preparation for the U.S. landings on Leyte.

Time to jettison our drop tank and begin our attack run on the Japanese fleet trying to sneak its way through the Sibuyan Sea. Winters led his squadron of Hellcats, along with dive bombers and torpedo bombers from the Lexington, through a rain of enemy anti-aircraft fire to hit the Japanese fleet, including the battleship Musashi.

Two Japanese battleships and four cruisers were severely damaged in the attack, including the Musashi, which was sunk. Winters continued flying through withering anti-aircraft fire to gather critical intelligence on the damage done to the Japanese fleet, for which he was awarded the Navy Cross.

U.S. commanders wrongly assumed that the sinking of the Musashi had stopped the Japanese fleet. So Admiral Halsey sent his carriers (including the Lexington) in pursuit of a group of Japanese carriers to the northeast. That next day, October 25, Winters again helped lead the attack, contributing to the sinking of one fleet carrier and two light carriers—for which he received his second Navy Cross in two days.

But the Japanese carriers were meant as a diversion. They hardly had any planes and posed no real threat. Halsey had been fooled into leaving a critical strait unguarded. The rest of the Battle of Leyte Gulf unfolded farther to the south. The U.S. Navy emerged victorious, and the landing beaches were protected, but Halsey still experienced fierce criticism.

The U.S. was not the only Allied navy to rely on the F6F Hellcat. Britain’s Royal Navy received 1,263 F6Fs under lend-lease. Initially redubbing it the “Gannet,” the British quickly reverted to the popular Hellcat name for simplicity.

The Pacific was a carrier-based naval war. In the Atlantic, in contrast, the Hellcat had fewer opportunities to go head-to-head with the German Luftwaffe. We’re joining the HMS Emperor in the North Sea for one such episode. Operation Hoops, in May 1944, was a carrier-based operation launched from Scapa Flow to harass German coastal shipping off the coast of occupied Norway. This particular aircraft was flown by Lt. Blythe “Jock” Ritchie of No. 800 Squadron.

Just the previous month, the squadron had escorted a bombing raid that had seriously damaged the German battleship Tirpitz (sister ship of the Bismarck) as it hid in a Norwegian fjord. Now they were back, hitting oil tanks at Kjen and a fish oil factory at Fosnavaag.

Suddenly the Hellcats came under attack from a group of German fighters. Ritchie succeeded in shooting down a Focke-Wulf Fw 190—his fifth kill and his first in a Hellcat. His mates shot down two Messerschmitt Bf 109s, at a loss of one Hellcat. But the defeat of the formidable Fw 190 in a head-to-head dogfight showed that the F6F could compete with the best the Germans could throw at it.

Many British pilots preferred the F6F Hellcat to the sleeker Supermarine Seafire (a version of the Spitfire adapted for carrier operations), in large part because it was easier to land safely. The wider undercarriage and slower approach speed of the Hellcat made it much simpler to land on a carrier deck without tipping over.

A few months later, in August 1944, the HMS Emperor and No. 800 Squadron’s Hellcats had relocated to the Mediterranean coast of France to support the Allied invasion there, Operation Dragoon. This particular F6F, painted with “invasion stripes” for the operation, was flown by a Dutch pilot, Charlie Poublon. It was forced to ditch off the Spanish coast after being hit by flak.

British F6F Hellcats also flew in the Indo-Pacific Theater, like this one from No.1839 Squadron from the HMS Indomitable, patrolling over the coastal jungles of Sumatra in early 1945. Overall, British Hellcats claimed a total of 52 enemy aircraft kills during 18 aerial combat missions from May 1944 to July 1945. After the war, they were rapidly phased out in favor of British aircraft.

Meanwhile, Grumman kept churning out F6F Hellcats for the U.S. Navy by the thousands in its factory in Bethpage, New York. In May 1945, the 10,000th Hellcat was delivered to Bombing Fighting Squadron VBF-87 on the USS Ticonderoga (CV-14). It was flown by the squadron’s commander, Porter “Maxie” Maxwell of Charleston, West Virginia, a 1936 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy.

VBF-87 was created to conduct air support and bombing operations aimed at Japan’s home islands in preparation for an expected invasion landing—including attacks on the massive naval yards at Kure, where the super-battleships Yamato and Musashi had been built.

But this was no victory lap. On July 24, Maxwell and his squadron were flying near Kure, seeking out air bases where Japanese kamikaze aircraft might be hiding, when suddenly Maxwell’s wingman saw his tail disintegrate, most likely from ground fire. Maxwell tried to bail out at the last moment, but his parachute didn’t open and he hit the water next to his plane and perished at age 31.

Less than a month later, the war was over.

A total of 12,275 F6F Hellcats were produced in just two years during the war. They flew 66,530 combat sorties for the U.S. Navy and Marines and claimed 5,163 kills—over half of all U.S. Navy/Marines air victories in the Pacific—with only 270 Hellcats lost in air-to-air combat and 553 to ground fire. The F6F produced the most aces (305) of any aircraft in the U.S. inventory.

The top ace, McCampbell, called the Hellcat “an outstanding fighter plane. It performed well, was easy to fly, and was a stable gun platform, but what I really remember most was that it was rugged and easy to maintain.”

After the war, the Hellcat’s job was not quite over. In summer 1946, the U.S. tested two atomic bombs on an armada of surplus vessels at the Pacific atoll of Bikini in the Marshall Islands. To help evaluate the tests, the U.S. military assembled a small fleet of pilotless drones, consisting of F6F Hellcats and B-17 bombers. The Hellcat drones took off from an airfield on Roi Island off Kwajalein. Within hours of the detonations, the F6F drones were flown by remote control over the test site, collecting information on radiation, air pressure, and physical damage.

The Navy continued to fly Hellcats drones for research well into the 1950s. It also experimented with using unpiloted Hellcat drones as “suicide” bombs against hardened targets during the Korean War. That effort was largely unsuccessful.

The drone program gave rise to at least one crazy incident in 1956 where a Hellcat drone went rogue and circled over the heavily populated Los Angeles area for several hours, while jet fighters scrambled to try to shoot it down safely. The jets fired 208 missiles at the Hellcat, and all missed. Eventually it ran out of fuel and crashed, lighting a brushfire. You can read about the so-called “Battle of Palmdale” here.

A bit more inspiring postwar role for the F6F Hellcat came about in early 1946, when it was chosen as the aircraft for a new U.S. Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron. Its first aerobatics display took place at Jacksonville, Florida, to celebrate the opening of the city’s new municipal airport. Decked out in navy blue with gold letters, the team of Hellcats soon became known as the “Blue Angels.” Needless to say, the Navy Blue Angels continue to perform (now flying FA-18 jet fighters) to this day.

Most wartime F6Fs, however, were sold for scrap. A handful continued to serve in combat, such as the French Hellcat based at Tan Son Nhat outside of Saigon (in French Indochina) in 1952, fighting the Viet Minh. The last country to fly the Hellcat was the Uruguayan Navy, which used them until the 1960s. Today, worldwide, out of over 12,000 produced, there are only five F6Fs still capable of flying.

I hoped you enjoyed this brief glimpse into the story of the Grumman F6F Hellcat, the most successful carrier-based fighter plane in WWII. If you’d like to see a version of this story with more historical photos and screenshots, you can check out my original post here.

This story was told utilizing FlyingIron Simulations’ F6F-5 Hellcat add-on to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, along with liveries, scenery, and ships downloaded for free from the flightsim.to community.

The post Remembering the Most Successful Carrier-Based WWII Fighter appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

The news announced Sunday marks the most recent update to the massively popular Microsoft Flight Simulator (MSFS) that came out in September 2020. 

The release, which is set for November 19, is a few months later than initial speculation that pointed toward a potential September launch. Given all of the improvements that are coming in the new title, there is a lot to look forward to. 

In 2020, MSFS captured the imagination and attention of real-world pilots, flight simulator enthusiasts, and aviation fans around the world during the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic when many were still on lockdown and were drawn to the title’s sophisticated graphics and renewed offerings. 

• READ MORE: What Is the Best Flight Simulator?

Earlier this year, the Microsoft team reported that 12 million unique users have played MSFS since its launch nearly four years ago and that streaming game service Steam is reporting a consistent and strong monthly user base. 

In addition, the flight simulation community has developed hundreds of free or low-cost aircraft, airports, and components of the flight sim to further improve upon the basic or premium content packages and functionality offered in MSFS.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is expected to build on the success of MSFS, improve upon some of the weaknesses, and grow the overall offerings within the sim:

New Aircraft 

Building on the wide range of aircraft in MSFS, pilots will be able to fly many commercial airliners and a variety of specialized mission-specific airplanes. Hot-air balloons were an eye-catching part of the new trailer. 

New Career Path Functionality

MSFS2024 will introduce a new set of aviation career modes to pair with the new aircraft offerings. These will include aerial firefighting, search and rescue, Red Bull air racing, air ambulance services, and cargo transport by fixed wing aircraft and helicopters. New career modes and objectives will more closely resemble real-world civil aviation activities.

New Weather Conditions

The weather system in MSFS 2024 will receive a major overhaul and include additional  conditions for pilots to manage, including tornadoes, large storms, and dynamic seasons—a long-awaited feature not available in MSFS2020. 

Failure, Wear & Tear

In addition to new, more dynamic weather conditions, new aircraft failure modes and a wear-and-tear system in MSFS2024 will provide deeper immersion as sim pilots will need to properly manage these aircraft systems

Cloud-Based Data Storage, Shorter Load Times

Any current MSFS user has gotten used to the annoyance of the long wait required before the sim is ready for flight. Using cloud-based data storage and other technical performance improvements should shorten the title’s load time.  

The MSFS2024 development team is expected to provide additional details during Flight Sim Expo 2024 in Las Vegas from June 21 to June 23.

The post Launch Date Set for ‘Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024’ appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

I remember buying sets of highly decorated various airliners with probably just 2D cockpits. We could get everything back then in the mid 1990s, when airlines around the world were still flying everything from 727s and DC-8s to 747 Classics.

I remember dying to fly the Hong Kong International Airport (VHHH) checkerboard approach with world scenery starting to appear all over, but I refused to break the “flight simmers code of conduct” set forth by none other than myself. This code followed one command: In order to fly to some distant part of the globe, you must fly there in real time on a “real” flight. 

Selecting a menu or instant positioning to any airport was strictly against the code. I would cringe at all my fellow flight simmer friends who just subscribed to a “go-there-because-I-can” type of mentality. My attempts at encouraging them to punish themselves for their acts went mostly ignored. 

The first amendment of the primary code is that you can only be in one part of the globe at any one time. If you took 14 hours to fly to Hong Kong, then you’re not able to join a friend in Florida to fly in formation on the same day. Forget about it. This harsh way of enjoying the hobby is the only way to go.

To conduct these long flights today, we finally have a sim that does it without issue. It used to be that Microsoft Flight Simulator (MSFS) would slow down in performance over time, often reaching half of its normal performance at takeoff. To finally make it halfway around the world, often flying overnight to a horrible, jerky, stutter-filled mess was a real killjoy. But now with the more powerful machinery and a far advanced and updated MSFS over the last year, we can enjoy a 14-plus-hour trip with our computer keeping up just fine.

There are some great new add-on aircraft available to make these journeys both realistic and reliable. Most recently I purchased the great new quad-jet A340-300 from the in-sim marketplace developed by LatinVFR. While not advertised as a “study level” airliner, it is a real beautiful, solid, and realistic rendition of one of my favorite heavy jets. It also has the complete passenger cabin modeled, which I am in favor of.

Being able to “walk” around the interior to stretch your legs or take in the view from numerous hotkeys is a great feature we are seeing from many more big jet manufacturers in MSFS. It really adds to the immersion factor to be able to do this.

• READ MORE: What Is the Best Flight Simulator?

It’s important to save views in all locations. 

• READ MORE: Your First Sim

After testing the A340 for a few short flights I have concluded she’s a good solid addition to my fleet. I ended up at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (PANC). 

However, some errors or incomplete items exist in the flight management system (FMS) programming, affecting autopilot functionality in general. There are some bugs with auto throttle and airbus logic as well. So consider this a fun, stable, nice hand-flying beast with the well-known A340 sluggishness it’s famous for. 

Four small CFM A320 engines slung under the huge airframe is certainly odd, although I love the look. It’s graceful and sleek, and the big titling gear makes for some incredible butter-smooth touchdowns that almost anyone can perform.

The sound set provided is nicely done, with a great harmonic hum being heard at takeoff and during climb power, similar to exactly what you hear on a CFM-modeled A320, which makes sense as that is basically what is propelling the monster. The 340 takes some time to get used to and has its quirks and flying quality habits, but that is part of the fun as it represents what the real jet feels like in a good way.

The BravoAirspace sim company released its newest offering—a 787—in May. In order to try out the new 787-8, I first ran a series of tests around PANC. It was a real joy to fly, just as good as any 787 I have used in the sim. 

All the 787s available, including the default Asobo-stretched 787-10, are very well modeled now and have pretty complete simulations with FMS and other systems. However, this one features an entirely modeled cabin that is the best one I have seen to date of any sim jet. It’s second to flight modeling, and this one flies well. It is rock solid on autopilot, stable on autoland, and wonderful to hand-fly.

The FMS programming, along with a built-in flight pad of sorts, helps speed and performance programming. All the parts externally are executed perfectly in scale and placement. My only gripe is that the designer chose to go with the worn-out dirty look, rather than a newer or cleaner appearance. I like both options. Hopefully, someone will soon upload a brand-new clean paint for me to enjoy too.

The real thrill of long-distance globe hopping to me is seeing the new scenery the world provides along with local immersion factors, such as structure styles, foliage types, road traffic, and potentially new weather special to that area. I also love that I am storing away all this visual and local airport knowledge in my head, so that someday if I ever end up in these faraway places, I may feel like it’s déjà vu. Once arriving into faraway locations in heavy jets, I’ll grab a smaller GA plane to really see the local area, backcountry strips, or coastal resorts accessible by floatplane only.

Some sim pilots only care about the flight deck in detail, without any concern for the cabin to be modeled at all. I am a firm lover of all the immersion we can have, and if the cabin is modeled well without any hit on PC performance, then let’s have it. I love placing passenger views. It’s fun to “walk” around the cabin at random times just taking it all in, making it  complete.

The BravoAirspace 787 add-on really boasts the best airliner cabin I have ever seen in MSFS. The plush curtains and individual seat back video screens that are custom to the airline livery are a great visual. And the mood lighting that many new airliners have now is modeled to change with the time of day simulated.

I was excited to suddenly see the vapor trails and fogging being modeled on engine compression on takeoff, wings, and drag surfaces. This is based on moisture simulated at the time, and Asia was moist. Landing in the predawn hours, seeing it all from a passenger window, was super. The fogging was well done, intermittent and seemingly based on control movements, pitch and power, just like real life as far as I know, including my only experience as a passenger on a Dreamliner near the wing a couple of years ago.

After the long leg to Malaysia, I next flew the one and only Boeing Business Jet (BBJ) to other Pacific Islands to the east, such as Palau, where they once filmed Survivor TV episodes.

I love the PMDG BBJ model. It’s easy to get up and running, perfectly modeled visually, and a ton of fun to hand-fly. I see many BBJs everywhere I go in real life, as they are the epitome of a private jet. Certainly larger than any bizjet built specifically for that purpose, it towers over most on any GA ramp, yet can easily operate to and from at a 4,500-by-100-foot runway.

BBJs come with “short field options” added to the stock 737-700 base unit, allowing slower takeoff and landing speeds and additional flap degrees for departure. It’s all included in the many options found within the PMDG FMS unit in the virtual cockpit. With all the details maximized, it’s a treat to see zero performance decrease on a PC, when compared to a default Cessna. 

I recently subscribed to Navigraph and have been slowly learning how to use it. I am still a complete novice but have figured out how to get it showing on the EFB in the PMDG BBJ.

Once breaking clouds over Palau, I was stunned at the mirror imagery as the cumulus  fully reflected off the blue waters below. With calm winds, nothing but a mirror lay below, matching the sky condition and reflecting the image above and below the horizon, a very odd yet realistic vertigo challenge.

I am so excited you could honestly practice vertigo awareness in MSFS. It is another reason manually setting weather is so pleasing in the system, as you can really produce great visuals and “skyscapes” that can make colors and details pop. 

The post The Art of Simulated Long-Haul Flying appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

If you haven’t yet explored this sector of the flight sim world, there are some intriguing options for developing skills, such as communications and procedures, from home. Among them is PilotEdge, a company that aims to provide a virtual air traffic control (ATC) network that is accurate and professional enough to be used for real-world pilot training.

Origin and Expansion

Founded in 2008 by Keith Smith, PilotEdge officially launched in 2011, offering service for the area covered by the Los Angeles Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC). According to Smith, the platform drew on early work done by hobbyists, building it out to form a network of controllers who operate almost exactly like their real-world counterparts.

• READ MORE: Survey: Home Flight Sim Helps Prepare Real-World Pilots

PilotEdge added support for the Oakland, California, Seattle, Salt Lake City, Denver, and Albuquerque, New Mexico, ARTCCs in 2016. Over the past decade, it has also expanded its feature set with highlights such as an ATIS engine based on real-world weather (which correlates on PilotEdge’s ATC scopes), the ability to trigger remote failures in X-Plane, and high-fidelity controller pilot data link communications (CPDLC) for clearance delivery.

In addition, the company has developed a way to mimic VHF radio interference based on line of sight, terrain, and signal modulation. “Never has so much work been done to make a radio sound so bad,” Smith said.

Rules of Engagement

To get started on PilotEdge, users need a compatible flight simulator such as Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004, Microsoft Flight Simulator X, Prepar3D, or X-Plane 11 or 12, a headset, and a broadband connection. A PilotEdge account is required—monthly plans run from $19.95 to $34.90—and once an account has been set up, there is software to download. From there, log in, set the real-world frequency for the facility you want to contact, and communicate your intentions just as you would for an actual flight.

When it comes to operating in the PilotEdge environment, there are some rules in place to keep the experience realistic. Smith emphasized that the company’s virtual airspace is not designed for inexperienced flight simmers to test out unfamiliar aircraft. It is, fundamentally, a space for those who are comfortable with their simulator and aircraft model they will be flying to build proficiency.

• READ MORE: Flight Sims for the Win: It’s All About Repetition and Drill

“Contrary to what a new client might think when signing up, PilotEdge is not…designed for pilots to give it a try and see how it goes,” Smith said. “Filing IFR from LA to [Las] Vegas, direct, in a Boeing 737 that you don’t know how to fly, without any working knowledge of IFR procedures, is going to work out about as well as it would in the real world.”

For those who don’t or can’t fly at a realistic level for the type of operations they are simulating, the company focuses on providing education. This includes encouraging the use of its library of training programs.

Training Scenarios and Benefits

By simulating real-world scenarios, PilotEdge seeks to address some common challenges faced by newer pilots, such as mastering the nuances of navigating different types of airspace and proper communication. It also provides an environment where more experienced pilots can improve their skills without the cost of fuel and aircraft rental.

Not getting into the myriad scenarios that are possible on the network, there are two main ways to make use of the space. First, you can just fly your own flight, be it VFR or IFR, communicating with appropriate ATC facilities or via CTAF frequencies as applicable. Again, the whole point is for it to follow the same flow as any similar real-world venture.

• READ MORE: Healthy Obsession: What Flight Sim Has Done for Me

Second, for those looking for a more structured challenge, PilotEdge offers a series of 31 graded training flights. Covering both VFR and IFR skills, each flight is designed to build upon the previous ones. For those looking for encouragement and support while attempting to grow their skills, there is an online community where training scenario results can be shared and discussed.

“PilotEdge’s IFR training programs are known to offer considerably more exposure to a wider range of procedures than is found in traditional real-world training,” said Smith. “Pilots who have completed their IFR training in the legal minimum time have reported to us that their CFII and DPE wanted to know ‘their secret’ as to how they managed to learn so much about IFR flying. These are not isolated incidents either. They are almost becoming the norm on the network. This speaks to the fundamental benefits of self-paced training that offers a high volume of exposure to flying in the system rather than any abilities of any specific pilots.”

That said, Smith acknowledges that those looking to use their simulator-learned skills in the air should pay close attention to where sim training shines—areas such as procedures and communications—and where it differs from real-world flying.

“The secret to getting the most benefit from a simulator is realizing that it’s not your airplane,” he said. “The controls will not feel the same since there isn’t 100-200 mph of wind blowing over the control surfaces, and the visuals are different in a number of ways. As such, even though flight models have come a very long way, and graphics are constantly improving, it’s important to realize what tasks are well practiced in a sim versus what is best left for the airplane.”

Controller Training

PilotEdge brings in its controllers from a variety of backgrounds. Their ranks include real-world controllers alongside those with virtual-only experience. Everyone controlling for the company goes through an 80-plus hour training program that pairs them with a trained PilotEdge controller. The purpose of the program is to refine any previous experience they might have, fill any gaps, and teach how to apply it all on the network. The company uses real-world FAA procedures and manuals as the basis for its controller training.

Unexpected Applications

Like all the best training environments, PilotEdge is far from being serious all the time. It regularly hosts workshops and events, not the least of which is its annual SimVenture. As the name might imply, SimVenture simulates arrivals to the yearly EAA AirVenture fly-in convention in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. The experience allows pilots to practice event arrival procedures before attempting them in person and getting a feel for what’s in store when flying into the extremely busy airshow environment. Much like the real deal, the company reports that it has had more than 100 aircraft show up to fly into KOSH.

There have also been a few unexpected uses of the PilotEdge network, one of which involved a short field landing competition. It was won by a 737-200, which raises a whole host of questions perhaps best left for future exploration. Another is that the network has been used by an aerospace manufacturer for human-factors testing on new aircraft designs as part of FAA and European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) certification processes.

“Of late, we’re even seeing applications within avionics manufacturers who are now able to more thoroughly test new designs before the real hardware has even been finalized,” said Smith. “We hope to be able to speak less generically about these events in the future.”

Looking to the Future

While it has expanded quite a bit since launch, PilotEdge isn’t done yet. The company is actively developing its services and hoping to announce its newest project later this year.

This feature first appeared in the April 2024/Issue 947 of FLYING’s print edition.

The post PilotEdge Offers Opportunity to Hone Key Flight Skills From Home appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

I’ll start the story at Toulouse-Blagnac Airport (LFBO) in southern France. The French company Établissements Fouga & Cie had its aircraft production facilities here, which were eventually folded into larger companies and are now the main assembly plant for Airbus.

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The company was founded by Gaston Fouga in 1920 in the southern French city of Béziers, where it originally produced railway cars. In the 1930s, Fouga acquired the talents of aircraft designers Robert Castello and Pierre Mauboussin, whose initials CM served as the basis for the firm’s aircraft model numbers.

During World War II, Fouga designed several aircraft for the French military, including various assault gliders. The Fouga CM.170 Magister reflects this heritage, and its elegant design—a pencil-like, streamlined fuselage with wide, thin wings—was originally based on that of a glider.

The Magister, which means “schoolmaster” in French, is an all-metal aircraft with a wingspan (almost 40 feet) wider than its 33-foot length. One of its most distinctive and innovative features was its V-tail, which the designers found gave it better aerodynamics at faster speeds but also introduced new challenges for control and stability in flight. The V-tail was a popular innovation in the late 1940s and early 1950s, which also found prominent application in the Beechcraft Bonanza.

To improve stability, Fouga designers added a “keel” under the tail. This downward-facing vertical stabilizer also has a small tailwheel on it, which allows the pilot to pull the nose up after landing to help brake by increasing drag, without damaging the tail.

The CM.170 has two turbojet engines capable of producing 880 pounds of thrust each, which is quite modest, even for its time. (In contrast, the twin engines of an F-22 Raptor today produce 35,000 pounds of thrust each, with afterburners). The engines are both placed very close to centerline, so if one fails, there is not much asymmetric thrust.

Inside the cockpit, the devices on either side that look like desk lamps are, in fact, lamps to illuminate the instrument panel at night. On the main instrument panel, on the top left is mach-meter, top right is the fuel gauge. Next row, left to right, is tachometer (engine RPM), airspeed, heading, attitude, and acceleration. Below that is engine temp, altitude, vertical speed, turn indicator, and radio direction finder.

On the throttle, there’s a button that pops open these speed brakes on the upper and lower side of each wing to help slow the aircraft down quickly. Each wing has a teardrop-shaped tip tank as a standard feature to carry additional fuel.

The CM.170 is designed primarily as a trainer, so it has two seats. The instructor sits in the rear seat but has an obstructed view. To solve this, the rear seat has a periscope to look up and over the front pilot.

Some points about the nose: The metal hoops are not antennae but handles to help crew maneuver the airplane on the ground. The glass tip of the nose isn’t a camera; it’s the landing light.

The Fouga Magister first flew in 1952 and is considered a later first-generation jet (Second-generation generally had swept—not straight—wings). It joined the French Air Force in its assigned training role in 1956, helping French pilots transition to the new age of jet combat aircraft.

While not particularly powerful or fast, the Magister quickly gained a reputation as an elegant and well-behaved airplane, agile, and easily controlled. Its dual cockpit was pressurized and air conditioned, giving it a ceiling of 36,000 feet. Its top speed is 386 knots (well below the speed of sound) and it has a range of 750 miles (2 hours and 40 minutes of flying) with external tip tanks.

We should take a moment here to enjoy the views of Toulouse, dubbed France’s “rose city” for its red brick architecture, situated along the Garonne River. The city, which dates from Roman times, is the center of France’s air and space industry, in no small part due to founding companies like Fouga.

The CM.170 can take off from a runway as short as 3,050 feet (930 meters), and can land on unimproved grass runways. Of course, that won’t be an issue here at Toulouse. Its stall speed is 78 knots with full flaps, hence a recommended approach speed of 110 knots or so. You can lower landing gear below 215 knots. I can only imagine that after spending their careers flying tailwheel high-powered piston planes with crazy torque, landing on a tricycle gear jet must have been a dream for pilots in the 1950s.

From the very start, France treated the Fouga Magister as a major export opportunity. In the 1950s, lots of countries in Europe and elsewhere were eager to train their pilots to enter the new jet era. West Germany placed an initial order for 62 Magisters directly from Fouga.

I’m here at Landsberg-Lech Air Base (ETSA) in Bavaria, where this particular plane (AA-134) once flew. Landsberg served as a major center for retraining the Luftwaffe after West Germany joined NATO in 1955. Of course, the Germans weren’t complete newcomers to jets after producing the first jet fighters near the end of World War II. As a result, a consortium, Heinkel and Messerschmitt, was given a license to manufacture 188 Magisters in West Germany. The French produced 576 Magisters themselves, both for their air force and for export. Production in France halted in 1962, but licensed manufacture abroad continued for several years.

The Magister became the backbone for many air forces adapting to the jet age. The agility and ease of control of the Fouga Magister made it a favorite among aerobatics teams, such as the Belgian Air Force’s “Red Devils.” The team started flying Magisters in 1965 and continued until the oil crisis of the 1970s led to drastic cutbacks. France, Brazil, and several other countries similarly adopted Magisters for their national aerobatic display teams, for many years. They’ve all been replaced by newer planes now.

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While mainly designed and used as a trainer, the Fouga Magister could be armed for combat. The French found them useful in strafing insurgent positions during the Algerian War for Independence. And the Algerians admired them so much, they bought several after they won. In addition to hard points on the wings for attaching bombs and rockets, the Magister could be equipped with twin 7.5 mm or 7.62 mm machine guns in the nose.

This particular aircraft, used by separatist forces in Katanga (a breakaway region in southern Zaire/Congo), has an especially interesting story.

In 1960, a few weeks after the Belgian-ruled Congo became independent, the mineral-rich southern region of Katanga, backed by Belgian mining interests, launched a revolt to break away as a separate country. Feeling snubbed by the West, Congo’s first prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, turned to the Soviets for support. A coup led by Mobutu overthrew Lumumba and turned him over to the Katanga separatists, who executed him.

In support of the Katanga rebels, the CIA arranged to supply them with an odd assortment of planes to form an impromptu “air force.” The prize of the bunch: nine Fouga Magisters set aside from a Belgian order to serve as ground attack aircraft. Only three of the Magisters were delivered to Katanga, however, in February 1961. They were flown into combat by foreign mercenary pilots.

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Meanwhile, the United Nations intervened by sending peacekeeping troops into the Congo to suppress the separatists, including foreign mercenaries, in Katanga. Among them was a small 155-man unit of Irish soldiers posted to the mining town of Jadotville, now Likasi, which I’m flying over here. The Irish troops established along the main road south of the golf course, immediately below me. (I was able to piece this together from various maps, then and now).

In September 1961, they were surrounded and came under attack from a 3,000-man force of Katangese forces. They held out for five days while a UN relief force of Irish, Indian, and Swedish troops tried to reach them. During this time, the besieged Irish troops came under aerial attack from the Fouga Magisters, owned by the Katangese Air Force. Despite suffering no casualties, the Irish UN troops were eventually forced to surrender after they ran out of ammunition. They were held as POWs for a month.

The day after the Irish troops surrendered, a DC-6 carrying UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld, coming to deal with the crisis on the ground, crashed in the region and he was killed. Rumors abounded that his plane was in fact shot down by one of the Fouga Magisters flown by mercenary pilots for the Katangese rebels. These suspicions, however, were never confirmed.

The story of the “Siege of Jadotville” and Hammerskjold’s death is told in the Netflix film of the same name. The film was accurate enough to portray an actual Fouga Magister (instead of some other random type of plane) attacking the compound.

The story of the Katanga Magisters doesn’t end there, however. The separatists were eventually defeated, and two of the three Fougas were seized by the Irish and brought back home to Ireland. There, they were refurbished and joined four more Magisters purchased second-hand from Austria to become part of the Irish Air Corps.

All six were based at Casement Air Base (EIME) just southwest of Dublin, where they formed a light strike squadron. Four of them also participated in Ireland’s “Silver Swallow” national aerobatics display team. The Irish Air Corps started flying the Fouga Magister in 1975. The Silver Swallows flew them from 1982 to when they were finally retired in 1998.

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Israel started flying Fougas in 1957 and shortly later local license-manufacturing was started by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), with the aircraft named the Tzukit. The Israeli Air Force used the Tzukit for primary and advanced training through the 1980s. Overall, 36 were produced in Israel and another 8 were purchased from abroad.

During the 1967 Six Day War, Israel’s Magisters were assigned to a reserve squadron, which was used to provide close air support during initial attacks against Egyptian forces in the Sinai. The Magisters were used to hit Egyptian ground forces, while more advanced combat aircraft were used to target Egyptian air bases. After Israeli forces successfully seized the Sinai, the Magisters were shifted to the West Bank, where they confronted advancing Jordanian forces. The Fougas reportedly destroyed over 50 tanks and over 70 other armored vehicles, helping to hold back the Jordanian advance toward Jerusalem. Seven Magisters and six pilots were lost in combat during the Six Day War, but they played a key ground support role in Israel’s campaign in and around Jerusalem.

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The small Central American country of El Salvador acquired nine former Israeli Magisters and three from France for its air force in the 1970s. They were used both as trainers and to strafe and bomb guerillas during that country’s civil war against Communist insurgents. Morocco also used Magisters against insurgents in the Western Sahara. In Southeast Asia, the Royal Cambodian Air Force’s training Magisters were captured and used by the Khmer Rouge in their air force.

By the 1970s and 1980s, Magisters became a popular choice for African countries that were unable to afford more expensive, modern aircraft. Here I’m flying a Senegalese Magister over downtown Dakar, after taking off from their main air force base at the older Léopold Sédar Senghor International Airport. Other countries that flew the Magister include Algeria, Cameroon, Gabon, and Uganda.

The Fouga Magister was attractive to these countries because it could be easily swapped between training and low-intensity combat roles. Even for these countries, though, the Magister has since been replaced by more modern aircraft.

One of the last Western countries to fly the Magister was Finland. I’m flying here over the lake district around Jyväskylä, the site of Finland’s main training airbase. Starting in 1958, Finland acquired 18 Magisters from France. The Finnish manufacturer Valmet then acquired a license to produce 62 more in Finland.

The Magister was attractive to Finland because its number of combat aircraft was limited by a treaty with the Soviet Union, but these trainers could be swapped into a combat role in an emergency. Finnish pilots nicknamed the Fouga Magister the “Kukkopilli”, because the noise of the jet turbines reminded them of the sound of this traditional variant of flute.

Finland continued flying the Magister as its main trainer until 1988, when it was superseded by the BAE Systems Hawk. Today the Fouga CM.170 Magister is retired from military service around the world, but is still flown by private owners who find its elegant appearance, agility, and ease of control has an enduring appeal.

If you’d like to see a version of this story with more historical photos and screenshots, you can check out my original post here. This story was told utilizing Azulpoly’s Fouga Magister CM.170 add-on to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, along with liveries and scenery downloaded for free from the flightsim.to community.

The post Adapting to the Jet Age in a Fouga Magister appeared first on FLYING Magazine.