In these videos I went on a flight from 'MiGMan's World Tour' and by chance was asked to effect an air intercept. *** NOTE *** The chances of finding aircraft to intercept depend on your sim traffic settings. They are not programmed as part of the flight plan.
With most of the world's 42,000 airports being modelled in Microsoft Flight Simulator you can see the potential. But where to start? To help you out I have created flights out of and around many of the International Airports and also a good number of flights which either take off from or fly over Bush Strips.
Many of the missions in MiGMan’s World Tour fly past bush strips and grass airfields, giving you the opportunity to practice touch and go’s. Or you can even land there and take a break before continuing your trip. I will personally often extend a flight to several hours this way, having a cuppa IRL with the sim paused. I’ll leave the sim on "Active Pause" and watch the clouds blow across the sky.
FlyingSinger wrote this thorough article in the year 2000 using FLY!. Read on as he ventures back into real flying and sees just how useful flight sims can be as you learn to fly.
Microsoft Flight Simulator gives you a variety of ways to simulate flying a chaseplane in solo flights. Of course in multiplayer you can be a chaseplane to your buddies from all over the globe!
One of the most picturesque and relaxing flights you can take is a coastal flight. Keep the blue on one side and the green on the other and you won’t get lost!
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) in Microsoft Flight Simulator
"The CFD currently proposed uses a default of 20 x 20 x 20 cubic voxels that englobe the aircraft. When enabled, the simulation will then solve a custom version of the Navier Stokes equations that includes upwind advection solving designed to cope with high fluid velocities. The CFD is solved over each of the voxels by the CPU at a rate of 100 times per second with three global passes per iteration. The load is spread over 5 different threads for minimal cpu impact." - MSFS SDK, 2023
Crop Dusting is one of the many demanding and niche activities in the world of aviation. We can simulate this in Microsoft Flight Simulator by using aircraft which have the ability to lay smoke.
IFR actually means 'Instrument Flight Rating', but is a traditional joke amongst pilots to refer to two VFR techniques of navigation:
I Follow Rivers and
I Follow Roads.
IFR actually means 'Instrument Flight Rating', but is a traditional joke amongst pilots to refer to two VFR techniques of navigation:
I Follow Rivers and
I Follow Roads.
Low Speed Handling --/o\-- Test Pilot for a Day in Microsoft Flight Simulator
It's both fun and worthwhile to explore the slow end of the envelope in your favourite aircraft. Worthwhile because you will be in this part of the flight envelope on every single landing.
Open cut mines are a great aid to visual navigation and can even be flown into in a helicopter. It may be possible in a STOL bush aircraft, thought that's something I have not attempted (yet).
It's both fun and worthwhile to explore the slow end of the envelope in your favourite aircraft. Worthwhile because you will be in this part of the flight envelope on every single landing.