Looking for the best sim out there for instrument proceeder practiceing. I don't care about pretending to fly a lear or something like that. Looking to practise adf, fms and technical stuff like that. Any suggestions would be appreciated
thanks
computer sim
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master switch
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Maybe a bit too simple for what you're looking for, but I've always liked Tim's Air Navigation Simulator for practicing hold entries & intercepts. It's free, and no download required.
http://www.visi.com/~mim/nav/
http://www.visi.com/~mim/nav/
How do I change it so I'm flying a B200 in +TS to the VOR's?chipmunk wrote:Maybe a bit too simple for what you're looking for, but I've always liked Tim's Air Navigation Simulator for practicing hold entries & intercepts. It's free, and no download required.
http://www.visi.com/~mim/nav/
Check out http://www.X-plane.com WAY better than MSFS (IMHO) theres even a version of it now that can be certified for sim time if its attached to an FTU
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Dust Devil
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what makes it better?Walker wrote:Check out http://www.X-plane.com WAY better than MSFS (IMHO) theres even a version of it now that can be certified for sim time if its attached to an FTU
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Holy Magenta
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x-plane RULES!!
It isn't as simple as microsoft, but I would say its faster and more advanced. Its also extremely customizable. I would say the physics modeling is better. It also has 80 gigs of terrain of the earth. Furthermore if you are a bit of a geek, there is a very cool plane builder program, and terrain program too. Anything can be made, and there are some very impressive planes that you can download. Even people building their own planes put them out there for others to try. There is even competitions for certain specs that they ask for, and you try and build a plane capable of it. I know Microsoft lets you down load stuff too, but all I can say is its awsome and check it out. Never really have the time for that of course, but the options are a-plenty and the price is very good too. 59$ US and it was delivered in less than a week.
It isn't as simple as microsoft, but I would say its faster and more advanced. Its also extremely customizable. I would say the physics modeling is better. It also has 80 gigs of terrain of the earth. Furthermore if you are a bit of a geek, there is a very cool plane builder program, and terrain program too. Anything can be made, and there are some very impressive planes that you can download. Even people building their own planes put them out there for others to try. There is even competitions for certain specs that they ask for, and you try and build a plane capable of it. I know Microsoft lets you down load stuff too, but all I can say is its awsome and check it out. Never really have the time for that of course, but the options are a-plenty and the price is very good too. 59$ US and it was delivered in less than a week.
It’s the physics model that sold me on it… when you design a new airfoil in X-plane it actually calculates how it flyes…. Therefore anything you fly in xplane flys like it will in real life, where as a poorly made 747 in MSFS can fly with the same characteristics of a 172… when building a plane in Xplane you don’t set at what speed you want to to stall at, rather it stalls when the aerodynamics of the aircraft will predicate a stall situation.
Also it’s a much more open community, aircraft are free to dl… You can even get into space
FYI flying the Full reentry of the shuttle is HARD; took me close to 5 hrs before I could pull it off
IFR is killer, as is acrobatic flying, you would not BELIEVE what some heavy metal can actually do. You can also bring it online with “squawk box” I think and then have real live people acting as ATC, and vice versa…… have to avoid real traffic, get to fly real approaches on real vectors, go into real holds etc…
http://www.x-plane.org for aircraft / plugins etc....
Any who here’s a brake down of the physics engine:
X-Plane reads in the geometric shape of any aircraft and then figures out how that aircraft will fly. It does this by an engineering process called "blade element theory", which involves breaking the aircraft down into many small elements and then finding the forces on each little element many times per second. These forces are then converted into accelerations which are then integrated to velocities and positions... of course, all of this technical theory is completely transparent to you... you just fly! It's fun!
X-Plane goes through the following steps to propagate the flight:
1: Element Break-Down
Done only once during initialization, X-Plane breaks the wing(s), horizontal stabilizer, vertical stabilizer(s), and propeller(s) (if equipped) down into a finite number of elements. The number of elements is decided by the user in Plane-Maker. Ten elements per side per wing or stabilizer is the maximum, and studies have shown that this provides roll rates and accelerations that are very close to the values that would be found with a much larger number of elements.
2: Velocity Determination
This is done twice per cycle. The aircraft linear and angular velocities, along with the longitudinal, lateral, and vertical arms of each element are considered to find the velocity vector of each element. Downwash, propwash, and induced angle of attack from lift-augmentation devices are all considered when finding the velocity vector of each element.
Propwash is found by looking at the area of each propeller disk, and the thrust of each propeller. Using local air density, X-Plane determines the propwash required for momentum to be conserved.
Downwash is found by looking at the aspect ratio, taper ratio, and sweep of the wing, and the horizontal and vertical distance of the "washed surface" (normally the horizontal stabilizer) from the "washing surface" (normally the wing), and then going to an empirical look-up table to get the degrees of downwash generated per coefficient of lift.
3: Coefficient Determination
The airfoil data entered in Part-Maker is 2-dimensional, so X-Plane applies finite wing lift-slope reduction, finite-wing CLmax reduction, finite-wing induced drag, and finite-wing moment reduction appropriate to the aspect ratio, taper ratio, and sweep of the wing, horizontal stabilizer, vertical stabilizer, or propeller blade in question. Compressible flow effects are considered using Prandtl-Glauert, but transonic effects are not simulated other than an empirical mach-divergent drag increase. In supersonic flight, the airfoil is considered to be a diamond shape with the appropriate thickness ratio... pressures behind the shock waves are found on each of the plates in the diamond-shaped airfoil and summed to give the total pressures on the foil element.
4: Force Build-Up
Using the coefficients just determined in step 3, areas determined during step 1, and dynamic pressures (determined separately for each element based on aircraft speed, altitude, temperature, propwash and wing sweep), the forces are found and summed for the entire aircraft. Forces are then divided by the aircraft mass for linear accelerations, and moments of inertia for angular accelerations.
5: Get Back to Work
Go back to step 2 and do the whole thing over again at least 15 times per second. Aren't computers great?
Also it’s a much more open community, aircraft are free to dl… You can even get into space
FYI flying the Full reentry of the shuttle is HARD; took me close to 5 hrs before I could pull it offIFR is killer, as is acrobatic flying, you would not BELIEVE what some heavy metal can actually do. You can also bring it online with “squawk box” I think and then have real live people acting as ATC, and vice versa…… have to avoid real traffic, get to fly real approaches on real vectors, go into real holds etc…
http://www.x-plane.org for aircraft / plugins etc....
Any who here’s a brake down of the physics engine:
X-Plane reads in the geometric shape of any aircraft and then figures out how that aircraft will fly. It does this by an engineering process called "blade element theory", which involves breaking the aircraft down into many small elements and then finding the forces on each little element many times per second. These forces are then converted into accelerations which are then integrated to velocities and positions... of course, all of this technical theory is completely transparent to you... you just fly! It's fun!
X-Plane goes through the following steps to propagate the flight:
1: Element Break-Down
Done only once during initialization, X-Plane breaks the wing(s), horizontal stabilizer, vertical stabilizer(s), and propeller(s) (if equipped) down into a finite number of elements. The number of elements is decided by the user in Plane-Maker. Ten elements per side per wing or stabilizer is the maximum, and studies have shown that this provides roll rates and accelerations that are very close to the values that would be found with a much larger number of elements.
2: Velocity Determination
This is done twice per cycle. The aircraft linear and angular velocities, along with the longitudinal, lateral, and vertical arms of each element are considered to find the velocity vector of each element. Downwash, propwash, and induced angle of attack from lift-augmentation devices are all considered when finding the velocity vector of each element.
Propwash is found by looking at the area of each propeller disk, and the thrust of each propeller. Using local air density, X-Plane determines the propwash required for momentum to be conserved.
Downwash is found by looking at the aspect ratio, taper ratio, and sweep of the wing, and the horizontal and vertical distance of the "washed surface" (normally the horizontal stabilizer) from the "washing surface" (normally the wing), and then going to an empirical look-up table to get the degrees of downwash generated per coefficient of lift.
3: Coefficient Determination
The airfoil data entered in Part-Maker is 2-dimensional, so X-Plane applies finite wing lift-slope reduction, finite-wing CLmax reduction, finite-wing induced drag, and finite-wing moment reduction appropriate to the aspect ratio, taper ratio, and sweep of the wing, horizontal stabilizer, vertical stabilizer, or propeller blade in question. Compressible flow effects are considered using Prandtl-Glauert, but transonic effects are not simulated other than an empirical mach-divergent drag increase. In supersonic flight, the airfoil is considered to be a diamond shape with the appropriate thickness ratio... pressures behind the shock waves are found on each of the plates in the diamond-shaped airfoil and summed to give the total pressures on the foil element.
4: Force Build-Up
Using the coefficients just determined in step 3, areas determined during step 1, and dynamic pressures (determined separately for each element based on aircraft speed, altitude, temperature, propwash and wing sweep), the forces are found and summed for the entire aircraft. Forces are then divided by the aircraft mass for linear accelerations, and moments of inertia for angular accelerations.
5: Get Back to Work
Go back to step 2 and do the whole thing over again at least 15 times per second. Aren't computers great?
I actually think X-plane's a load of bull from an engineering stand point.
You think you can actually get a 747 feels like a 747 but putting in simple physical parameters? How about some of those new fly by wire aircrafts? Most likely you don't get what a pure 747 airframe feels like because they have that nice little yaw damper and in FBW planes again you don't get the exact feel because of the flight computers.
There's nothing wrong with the tables methods used by MSFS. It's actually in some case a better way to do things. Unfortunatly MS isn't known for doing things right without bugs and so there are some issues with FS.
You think you can actually get a 747 feels like a 747 but putting in simple physical parameters? How about some of those new fly by wire aircrafts? Most likely you don't get what a pure 747 airframe feels like because they have that nice little yaw damper and in FBW planes again you don't get the exact feel because of the flight computers.
There's nothing wrong with the tables methods used by MSFS. It's actually in some case a better way to do things. Unfortunatly MS isn't known for doing things right without bugs and so there are some issues with FS.
The only thing I see so far is alot of eye candy thats going to need the best processor, video card, and the most RAM you can load your motherboard up with... The demo demands XP SP2 which I intentionally avoided as long as I could...
I've been simming since FS98, things have gotten better , but you always need to upgrade hardware to take advantage of the software upgrade...
My 3Ghz and ATI radeon are crawling at 10fps on the RJ900 Caribbean landing with defualt settings...
I've been simming since FS98, things have gotten better , but you always need to upgrade hardware to take advantage of the software upgrade...
My 3Ghz and ATI radeon are crawling at 10fps on the RJ900 Caribbean landing with defualt settings...
Dust Devil wrote:what makes it better?Walker wrote:Check out http://www.X-plane.com WAY better than MSFS (IMHO) theres even a version of it now that can be certified for sim time if its attached to an FTU
