The beauty of FSX is that there’s no need to worry about making mistakes because there are no consequences. While learning the PPL through FSX this is a vital tool because it means that rather than get bogged down with a lot of theory I can get out there and put it into practice. That’s exactly what I decided to do!
After departing from YSTH St Helens in Tasmania, Australia, I headed up the coast. I read a little bit about Trim (the next post will go into it more) so on my climb-out I tried to use it to ease the strain of holding back on the yoke. I found it very difficult to feel when it was properly calibrated but I eventually got the plane climbing at a steady 70 knots.
It felt very good to level the plane off and reduce the throttle at 2000 feet. Having a complete hands-on approach is new to me and it was very fulfilling when I didn’t bust my chosen altitude by more than 20 feet or so. Being VFR I had a general flight plan – follow the coast all the way around until I see the mouth of the Tamar River and then look out for Devonport Airfield.
The Cessna settled into a 95 knot flight. I was using FS Flying School for the first time, to get some idea of how I am doing. I had to laugh out loud when the instructor told me that something smelt in the cabin. I don’t know what it was, but I cracked the window open and turned on the cabin air.
The mouth of the river Tamar and time to focus on finding the airfield. I found that the C152 tended to roll ever so slightly to the left throughout the entire flight (no winds) and I am left wondering if having to compensate slightly and constantly is a quirk of the aircraft or if I am doing something wrong. If someone can comment and help me out with that I’d be most grateful. It was hardly noticeable, but then I’d end up a few degrees off my chosen heading.
When landing I found I was about ten knots too fast and a little low but I touched down smoothly enough albeit not on the centre-line. When I shut down the engine I felt great. It was very rewarding flight and seeing my report was even better:
Flight commended in the following areas:
- Smooth turns.
- Nice banking.
- Correct matching of flaps to speeds.
- Comfortable G forces.
- Smooth pitch control.
- Flown within aircraft’s maximum speed limit.
- Gentle taxi turns.
- Good take off steering.
- Appropriate position of flaps during taxi.
- Safe taxi speed.
- Smooth braking during taxi.
- Smooth climb during takeoff.
- Wings level near ground.
- Well coordinated turns.
- No stalls.
- No flying dangerously close to stall speed.
- Smooth comfortable descent rate.
- Pitch not too high.
- Pitch not too low.
- Approach speed not too fast.
- Low altitude speeds not too fast.
- Good clearance of obstacles.
The previous weeks I have been focusing a lot on the flight controls and keeping them all co-ordinated so seeing a report like this (taken from FS Flying School) was very fulfilling. Also a few things for me to work on (late rotation, poorly trimmed aircraft because I took a long time to get it right), but not bad all in all for my first proper flight in the C152.
I really enjoyed this post. I literally lol’ed when you said you had to crack the window. Very, very funny!
The fact that you are getting a slight left turn is probably due to P-factor. You can turn this down in your realism settings. Half way or even easy should do the trip. (I’m pretty sure there’s a setting for this)
If that doesn’t work, you might want to look into calibrating the flight controls.
Also, I’ve noticed that if I put the flight controls through the full range of motion on the ground then I tend to get rid of most of these little issues.
Hope this helps!
Throttle on!
Thanks Chris. I check the flight controls everytime before I taxi. I’ll check the settings as you suggested. I flew the return trip last night and saw a definite improvement. I’ve never had so much fun on flight sim.
Glad you enjoyed the post!