Getting Started With Flight Simulator X Part 1: Filing a flight plan

[Big Tex 0]

Hi,This is for people who have just purchased Flight Simulator X and are a bit confused. This tutorial will cover creating an IFR flight plan.First start up FSX. After you get the opening screen take a look at it. There is a menu on the left that will take you to different pages within FSX. At the top center and right there are 4 areas with change buttons they are: 1. Current Aircraft; 2. Current Location; 3. Current Weather; 4. Current Time and Season.Right now, we are interested only in 1, 3 and 4. Click the Change button on number 1. After a few moments a window comes up with all of your aircraft available. Next to details check the box that says show all variations.You should see 6 variants of the default Cessna C172SP. Click on any of them except the one that is the glass cockpit version if in doubt pick the orange variant. Once it is highlighted, click OK.Look at #3, if it says Weather Theme: Fair Weather, leave it alone, if not click change and check the circle next to weather themes. Highlight Fair Weather. Click OK.Using #4 you can set the time of day. I would recommend setting the time to about 10:00 am. Now we skipped #2 because we are going to set it using the flight planner. Find the button that says Flight Planner and click on it. Click Select next to Choose departure location. Under airport By airport ID type KSWO in the box. Highlight Stillwater Mun KSWO. Next to clear filters note the dropdown under choose runway....open the dropdown and choose PARKING 5 -- RAMP GA SMALL. Click OK. Now in area 2 click select and type KAMA into the middle box at the top. Our flight will be from Stillwater, Oklahoma to Amarillo Texas. Click OK. In Area 3, Choose flight plan type choose IFR. Area 4 choose low altitude airways, then click Find Route in Area 5. You will see a map of your flight plan in the center of the screen. At the right A list of waypoints starting with KSWO and ending with the destination KAMA. Under the map change your cruise altitude to 10000 and click OK at the bottom. You will now see a page to save the flight plan, click save to save it under the default name or change the name. I usually save flight plans with the ICAO code for departure and destination airports ie: KSWOKAMA. Then click save. You will then see a window that asks if you want FS to move your AC (aircraft) to the departure airport....click yes. You are bnow back at the main screen. Area 2 at the top has changed to show your Current Location as Stillwater Mun. Click the button that says Fuel and Payload, make sure your fuel is at 100% in both wing tanks. 318 pounds or 53 gallons. You can click Change Fuel to verify 100%. Click OK. Then click FLY NOW! at the bottom of the window.This is the end of Tutorial 1. Look for Tutorial 2 shortly for instructions on getting off of the ground.By,Rick Faulk

[Big Tex 0]

Getting Started with Flight Simulator X: Part 2Okay, your flight has loaded and your are parked on the ramp at Stillwater Municipal Airport in Stillwater, Oklahoma. I am going to assume that you have a joystick or yoke for the purpose of this tutorial. I will tell you what keys to use when I can. I am also going to assume that you know the following guages, airspeed indicator, attitude indicator,altimeter, inclinometer (sometimes called the turn coordinator), heading indicator and the VSI (vertical speed indicator). These are the 6 guages in the middle of your panel. We are here in Stillwaterbecause it is a relatively small airport but still has all of the amenities such as ground control and a tower. Now there are a number of things to do, before we take off.PreflightCold and dark cockpit refers to an airplane which is completely unpowered. Engines are off and electrical power is off. If your aircraft is in this state thencontinue here. If your AC is powered and the engines are running skip everything that has to do with start up and only concern yourself with ATC comms and pushback. If you start in the virtual cockpit press F10 to switch to the 2D cockpit. Look at the panel. Along the bottom you will see some switches. There are two red switches labeled MASTER. Turn both of these on. The left switch will turn them both on with one mouse click. If you turn on the battery first you will need to push the left switch too. Under lights turn on your NAV light, this signals your AC is under electrical power. Then turn on your AVIONICS switch, this powers your instruments and radios.Now we must contact a controller for IFR Clearance. `You can call up ATC in one of two ways, click the panel icon that shows the headphones or push the ~ key on your keyboard. You will have 2 options. 1. Contact Stillwater ground. 2. Tune Automated weather. Push 2 on your keyboard or mouse click on line 2 of the ATC window. You will hear a robotic voice telling you about weather conditions and see the text scrolling across the top of the screen. Not the altimeter setting...if you selected fair weather earlier this should be 2992. This means the barometric pressure is 29.92 inches of mercury. Set your altimeter to this setting with the knob on the altimeter or you can do it automatically by pressing B on the keyboard.Now tune Stillwater ground, and request IFR clearance. You will hear your pilot voice doing that and Clearance Delivery will contact you back with clearance information. It should be to fly runway heading, your cleared altitude and a squawk or transponder code. Read back clearance information, this sets your transponder automatically to the squawk code, and confirms that you are ready for takeoff.On the right side of the panel is your radio stack. Don't worry about the radios at the top as they will be set automatically when you talk to ATC.At the bottom of the radio stack is a component where you will see two lines of text ALT 00000 above VS 00000. This is your autopilot. Set your cleared altitude into this by using the up buttons or by holding the cursor over the 00000 next to ALT and scrolling your mouse wheel. Check your ATC screen for your cleared altitude if you forgot. Don't push and buttons on the bottom row of the AP until you are airborne. Now we will use the ATC window to Request Taxi IFR but pusing 2 on the keyboard or clicking with the mouse on line 2. Listen to ground clear you to a runway which will probably be runway 35. Now push or click on #3 this turns on progressive taxi which will give you a path to follow while taxiing. Then push 1 to acknowledge taxi clearance. Now you can close the ATC window for a while. Push button 2 on your controller (usually the trigger button) to change to an external view or push 'S' on the keyboard. Use the the hatswitch to rotate your view around your AC. You should see your parking place. A fueling station and the terminalwill be to the right of your AC. A series of yellow arrows will lead from the rear of your plane. If you don't have a joystick you canuse the NUMPAD keys to view your plane from different angles, you might have to push theNUM LOCK key for this.Change your view to the front of your AC so you are lookingfrom nose to tail.If there is a red tape at the bottom of the screen showing PARKING BRAKES, push the '.' key on the keyboard to turn them off. Now hold SHIFT and press'P' to start pushback. Your AC will start rolling backwards.When you near the point where your yellow arrows turn left push the '1' key to turn your plane to the right.'2' will turn itto the left. Press SHIFT 'P' again to stop pushback.Hold CTRL and push '.' to set your parking brakes again. Now push button 2 or 'S' to change yourview to the cockpit again.Once in the cockpit find the big red knob and use your mouse to push it forward unless you have a mixture control set to your joystick or controller. You might also have automixture set in your realism options. If so, don't worry about the mixture. Turn on the FUEL PUMP and turn the key on the bottom left to start by clicking the right side 4 times. Your plane should start right up. Turn off the fuel pump and turn on the Beacon BCN light, because your plane's engine is started also turn on your taxi lights because you are about to taxi.When taxiing you steer with your rudder controls. If you have a joystick, most joysticks rotate left or right to control the rudder. If you use the keyboard to fly look up the controls I don't know them. Turn off your parking brakes again, then use the throttle on your controller or the keyboard keys for throttle F3 to give your plane a little gas. Always taxi slowly. Planes are tricycles on the ground so turning at high speed can tip your plane and damage the wing. My advice here is to press button 2 on your controller or the 'S' key move the view to the rear of the AC and taxi from an external view much easier. If you want to taxi from inside the cockpit, you might want to press the 'W' key until you have just a few guages at the bottom of the screen. Follow the yellow arrows until they end at four lines across the taxiway, before you get to the runway. Stop behind the lines, 2 are solid closer to you 2 are dashed lines on the other side of the solid lines. The 2 solid lines towards you are the same as a stop sign when driving a car, you must stop. Enter your cockpit again (button 2 or the 'S' key). Turn on your landing lights and strobe lights and turn on PITOT HEAT (This is generally a good idea). Adjust your heading indicator now.It is the instrument in the middle of the panel with a little airplane and the word VACUUM.Press the'D' key to make sure it is properly aligned. Then use the knob on the bottom right of the heading indicator to adjust the heading bug (orange thing that looks like a lobster claw) to the heading of your runway. If your runway was 35, set it to 350, there is a tool tip that pops up if your hover the cursor over the knob. If you were sent to runway 17 set it to 170. Open your ATC window again. '~' key or the headphone icon on the panel. Use option 1, Tune Stillwater tower. Then select option 3 Request Takeoff Clearance. Listento your request, the ATC's clearance, then choose acknoledge clearance. There is a small chance if you have traffic set in your display options that you might be told to hold for an arriving AC. (This is why I picked Stillwater because that shouldn't be an issue.) Close theATC window it will pop upautomatically the next time ATC contacts you.Once you have received clearance and acknowledged it, taxi out onto the runway, once again i suggest using the external view. Try to center yourself on the center stripe of the runway. Use the F7 key, the mouse and flaps handle on the panel,or the assigned button on your controller to set one notch (10 degrees) of flaps. Back in the cockpit, you should see the runway stretching out ahead of you. Slowly if using a controller advance the throttle, if on keyboard press the F4 key. Your AC will begin to accelerate down the runway. At about 60 knots on the Airspeed indicator gently begin pulling back on your joystick or yoke (if on keyboard use your up elevator key usually the down arrow key) (flying on keyboard is very difficult, many seasoned Flight Simmers refer to it as using the "Arrow Keys of Death".) As you leave the ground, look at your Attitude indicator (Top row center, blue and brown resembling the sky, the ground with an artificial Horizon. Raise your nose to the second small black stripe above the ground. When you get to 400 feet AGL (Above Ground Level), (here your altimeter will read 1,400 feet because Stillwater Muni is exactly 1000 feet elevation) find your Autopilot at the bottom of the radio stack and push the AP button, this powers the autopilot. Then push the HDG and ALT buttons, this locks your plane to match the orange heading bug on the heading indicator and to fly to the altitude you dialed in back after receiving clearance.At 500 feet AGL the controller should tell you to change frequencies to Kansas City Center. Acknowledge and use option 1 until you contact Kansas City center. The new ATC will acknowledge then contact you to change your heading and probably tell you to resume own navigation, and to continue climbing to your cleared altitude. If he does not tell you to resume own navigation adjust the heading bug on your heading indicator to your new course. Your AC will immediately begin turning to that heading. If and when he tells you to resume own navigation you have two choices. You can fly headings all the way to Amarillo based on ATC instructions or you can let the autopilot and GPS fly you there. To use GPS, Look at the top of the radio stack and find a button that says NAV/GPS, push it. Now below on the autopilot push the NAV button your plane will fly itself to Amarillo. This is the option we are going to use for this flight. Now you can relax a little. Look to the right of the Altimeter and note the VOR 1 indicator. It has a vertical and a horizontal bar which move based on input from the GPS or from your NAV 1 radio. Since we are flying on GPS the horizontal bar will be centered but the vertical bar will be angled left or right, probably to the left it you flew out of runway 35. As your AC corrects to fly the GPS that bar will move toward center. Once you are on your GPS track it will stay centered until you come to your next waypoint then your AC will automatically make the turn to follow the new track. If you would rather handfly your plane all the way to Amarillo turn of the NAV button and fly your route by trying to keep the vertical bar centered. Always turn toward the bar.When you near your initial cleared altitude, ATC will contact you and tell you to climb to a new altitude probably 10000 feet which we filed for in the flight plan. This will take a little while in the C172, because the default climbrate in the autopilot is 700 feet per minute which you can see below your selected altitude in the AP. It should say now NAV VS 00700. You can adjust this with your mouse by hovering the cursor over 00700 and scrolling the mouse wheel. I would not recommend changing this setting in this AC. *NOTE* If you don't have automixture set in the realism settings, you will have to lean out your engine as you climb, by using the mixture knob on the panel or by using your controller if you have something set to control mixture. under the clock is an instrument which says EGT on the left and FUEL FLOW on the right. You want to lean your mixture so that your EGT (exhaust gas temperature is at its highest point)When you reach 10000 feet relax a bit. One thing to do hear. Open your GPS by clicking on the icon that looks like a radar dish. You will see a lot of information on your GPS. You will see a map of your route. In the upper right you will see a button that says says RNG with up and down arrows, you can click on those arrows or scroll you mouse wheel here to change the range of the map. Top right of the GPS screen tells you how far you are from your next waypoint. Bottom right, under ETE, gives you the remaining time to reach your waypoint. Bottom Left under GS tells you your groundspeed, which will almost alway be different from your airspeed because of prevailing winds.This ends part 2 of my tutorial, save your flight by using the ';' key. Look for part 3 here.

[iGuest 3]

I found these instructions via a google search. I'm new to flight simulation, and this was exactly what I was looking for, help in getting into the details of things like handling yourself around the airport, using IFR (my first time) and working with the autopilot. Thanks for the tutorial, I learned a lot!

[iGuest 3]

can we save while in the middle of a flight??????? new player please helpGetting Started With Flight Simulator X

Hi to all, I am new to flight simulator and wanted to do a flight from england to america but it takes a long time can you save when ever you want if so please let me know how to!

Many thanks

 

luke /txtmngr/images/smileys/smiley1.Gif

-question by luke