So you wanna be a pilot?

I had always wanted to be a pilot. Now I am one – and not just on Flight Simulator. I have a license from the FAA, and I really think that Flight Simulator saved me many hours of training time that would have been around $100/hour.

This program has been around for a long time – like 20 years. Every two or three years they update the program with something new. It started out as a black and white thing where you could fly around Chicago. Then they raised the bar by letting you fly to New York and adding some colors. This version (2004) added dynamic clouds and radio functions. This is one excellent program – I would say that if you want to be a pilot you should purchase this before any Gleam book, and even before your FAA medical. The program will give you some practice, and you can get a feel for the sky. I give it five stars for being as realistic as you want it to be.

The Game

First, although it is in the “game” category, I can’t really consider this to be a game. There are people who play this like World of Warcraft – they have a second job flying fake planes around the world. You’ve got to be pretty into airplanes to do that.

Beyond that, this is not so much about playing. You can fly around the world and see a simulated version of, for instance, Paris, but at the same time it is much prettier and more realistic to go there with Google Earth. The game comes with a few challenges of skill: for instance you can “earn” your private Microsoft pilot license (not endorsed by the FAA) by taking some training classes and flying around within a certain tolerance. You can make the weather rather challenging to see if you can land somewhere. Still, this is not nearly as interesting as the games of skill available on, perhaps Grand Theft Auto, so I don’t really consider this a game.

Overall it is a great practicing tool. If you are like me and really enjoy flying, it is also a cheap way to at least pretend to fly. Flying a Cessna 152 will cost you $70/hour, one hopes that with the new Sport Pilot rules, eventually sport planes will be in the $30/hour range. Tomorrow, however, you can fly as much as you want for $30 just by installing this program.

Earning your FAA-endorsed pilot’s license through FS 2004

The FAA will allow you to have a certain number of hours count towards your pilot’s license in an FAA-approved Flight Simulator as long as you are with an instructor and doing specific tasks. FAA-approved flight simulators, however, are much more complicated than this $30 program you can buy at Wal-Mart. Thus, Microsoft Flight Simulator is not an approved FAA simulator, and any time you log on it does not count towards any type of FAA-endorsed certification. You can fly FS 2004 all you want; the FAA will not recognize it.

On the other hand, the program is $30. Even if you use am FAA-approved simulator, you can expect to pay at least $20/hour and usually more then that. For $30, you can fly wherever you want and whenever you want, and yes, it is pretty darn realistic.

I currently have a Sport Pilot license. To get this license, you need a minimum of 20 hours in an aircraft: 15 with an instructor and 5 solo. This is a minimum, most people will not get there that fast. I was endorsed by my instructor to take the test after 23 logged hours, although I decided to solo a bit more to practice things like S-turns. The reason I was able to test after 23 hours is Microsoft Flight Simulator.

Every exercise they give you in the sky can be practiced on this simulator. Having problems with S turns? Set the simulator with 30-knot crosswinds and work on a few. You’ll really begin to get a feel for them. Then the next time you solo in your real aircraft, it will be much, much easier.

The simulator will also allow you to practice emergencies. In a real airplane you probably don’t want to practice an engine out at 400 feet during take-off. With Flight Simulator – no problem. A real aircraft you don’t really want to lose all of your instruments. With FS – no problem. A real aircraft you don’t want to learn what happens when you have no gas and suddenly the ground below you is fogged in. With FS – no problem. A real aircraft you don’t want to practice unusual attitudes or spins. With FS- no problem.

On the ground:

The FAA ground test has about 5-10% of questions based upon markings on the ground. In the Gleim practice book, you will see all of them. In FS 2004, you will see these on the ground. Taxiway signs are yellow, runway signs red, and there are the proper markings on the ground for all of the different signals. There are chevrons and arrows on the ground at certain airports, although I don’t remember any “X’s”. When you dial in ground control, they’ll tell you to take, for instance, “taxiway Alpha to Charlie, exit at Charlie 8” Sure enough as you are taxing down the taxiway, there is Alpha, and there is Charlie – just like the real thing.

The Radio

One of my fellow students always had trouble with the radio. We fly out of Zephyrhills (KZPH), which was a busy class E airport. For whatever reason he couldn’t remember crosswind, downwind, short final, long final, or any other words of this nature.

FS 4 has a rather realistic radio. There are two major differences between FS 2004 and the real world. The first is that with a real radio you have to know the frequencies before you fly. With FS 2004, as you fly a list is created of the nearest airports. So if you are landing at KZPH, you press ֿ” and the radio is automatically dialed for you. Then the FS gives you a list of your options, such as declare position, announce downwind, announce final, etc. When you press one of these, the FS will announce in perfect radio-talk (including the right words for the letters, which will be on all of your FAA tests) what you would say if you were actually landing.

The second difference is that in the real world you press a button and say what you need to say, with FS 2004 you press a button and the computer says what you need to say. Still, it is rather useful. Need practice on your radio? You don’t need to fly a pattern at 1000 ft in a 152, you can sit back and fly in your armchair at home, say what you think you should say, and then see if you were right

The radio also works on towered airports. Want to fly to Class C Palm Beach? The radio gives you the option of Palm Beach Approach. You call them up “Palm Beach Approach, Cessna 7 3 4 Charlie Mike (you can set your call sign to anything you want, by the way, including whatever airplane you have at your pilot school) is 31 miles north of Kilo Whiskey Papa Bravo, Six-Zero hundred, to land”. Then Palm Beach Approach comes back “Cessna Charlie Mike squawk three one two five”. The computer automatically sets your transponder, and then Palm Beach Approach comes on with “Cessna Charlie Mike is 30 miles north of Kilo Whiskey Papa Bravo fine-nine hundred. Enter left traffic runway nine. Altimeter three zero zero three” Once you get to the end of the runway on your downwind leg, you’ll either hear “Cessna Charlie Mike, please follow Baron Alpha Bravo on final”, or “Cessna Charlie Mike clear to land, runway 9”.

As if that is not enough, the program provides flight following, just like real life. For instance, on a flight to the Bahamas, after you leave Ft Pierce, you dial in Miami Center. FS announces for you: Miami Center, Cessna 456 Charlie Mike, requesting flight following”. Miami tower will respond with a transponder signal that FS4 automatically dials for you, and then if another plane gets close to you, you’ll hear “Cessna Charlie Mike, traffic is 10 o’clock at six zero hundred, advise that you have traffic”. And if you go from one airspace to another, Miami Control will hand you off. “Cessna Charlie Mike, contact Freeport Approach at 121.3”. After you respond, the computer automatically changes the radio to 121.3, and now you get flight following from Freeport Approach.

By the way, this stuff will be on the ground test, too. You’ll also be asked this by your FAA examiner during your practical. If you’ve played FS 2004 enough, answering these questions will be like answering the question “what color is this orange”? Again, this is good practice, and waaaaay cheaper then the $70/hour you’re going to pay for a Cessna 152. It’s cheaper then the $20/hour you’ll pay for ground school, too.

With radio communication, FS 2004 is better practice then any Gleim handbook. With FS 2004, you actually do it.

Navigation:

FS 2004 comes with a cheat-sheet – a GPS unit that has all of your airspaces and airports preloaded. That makes it nice and easy to chart direct course to, say, Phoenix. In your preflight activities (where you can set the weight of your aircraft, all the things that go wrong, where you start, the weather, etc.), you can set up a GPS flight or a navigation route flight (low altitude and high altititude). The GPS will then show you exactly where you need to fly.

On your practical exam, however, you are not going to get to use your GPS unit. Instead you will have to use ground references and dead reckoning. FS 2004 comes with all of the landmarks on any sectional, including towers and lakes. That means before your practical, you can take off, and just like the practical you can say “ten minutes, passed landmark one – twin lakes”. You’ll getter better landmarks using Google Earth, but FS 4 is good about being able to see all landmarks that are marked on the sectionals. At 6,500 feet, towers don’t show up but lakes do, and this will give you a good idea of what you will really see during your practical.

Roads are a bit of a problem with FS 2004. You can see roads, but they are not as visible as they are from the sky. And roads like I-4, that are clearly I-4 even if you are at 35,000 feet, do not show up like I-4, but rather as a gray line that may be I-4 or any two-lane country road.

Also included in navigation on FS 2004 are radios. I’m not yet an IFR-rated pilot, so I can’t tell you precisely how accurate the IFR landings are. I can tell you that the VOR and NDB stations are exactly where they are supposed to be according to the sectional. They also have the same frequencies, so if you want to practice a flight from Orlando to Miami, and use the same VORs that you would use going to Miami, you can do that, too.

I am quite certain that when I try to get my IFR rating, I will definitely spend many hours on Microsoft FS. It is so much cheaper then the real thing, and safer, too. Of course it is not the real thing, but for the price, it is almost as good.

One thing you should note is that this is Flight Simulator 2004, so it will be based on 2004 sectionals. You might remember from your FARs that you are supposed to carry the most recent sectional with you (within six months), and FS 2004 will not be the most recent sectional. This is especially important with some airports – KMCO (Orlando International), for instance now has two runway 17’s – in FS 2004 there is only one.

Restricted airspace

On a sectional you will find information about class B through D restricted airspace, along with other restricted airspaces that is closed at various times. All of these restricted airspaces are present within FS 2004. The main difference is that in real life they are altitude (and sometimes day) dependent. In FS 2004 these airspaces are treated as restricted from the surface to infinity.

West Palm Beach Class C airspace, for instance, only extends to 6,000 feet. In FS 2004, though, you fly through it at 12,000 feet. And the upside-down cake effect doesn’t work, either – even though the “upside down cake” is marked on the GPS, you still don’t fly under Class B airspace 10 miles from the airport.

Getting permission to transit the airspace is very simple. You just dial in the local tower and request transmission through their airspace. If you are on a VOR radial, following a IFR flight plan, or if you have flight following, I suppose it is assumed that you have permission to transit through the restricted airspaces.

On the other hand, you won’t be fined for flying into restricted airspace, either. I’ve practically landed at KMCO without clearance, and then when I ask for it the tower says “cleared to land, runway 17”. No harm, no foul, I guess.

Also in real life, Class B is class B because there are many, many planes inside of it. In FS 2004, there are never that many airplanes no matter where you are. What airplanes that are there are not really headed to the Class B airports, they are headed to random airports, such as Ft. Pierce or Daytona Beach.

The other thing you won’t find are NOTAM’s – if an airspace is class E, it is always class E. And if it’s class B, it’s always class B.

On traffic

Traffic on FS 2004 is much lighter then in real life. I can say that only a few times when I’ve taken off or landed at, say KMCO (Orlando International), I’ve had to wait on a plane. In real life the planes are lined up 5 deep to land and they’re using all four runways. I think FS 2004 just doesn’t have the memory for this.

FS X apparently has more realistic traffic. However, it also runs choppy (or at least the trial version ran choppy and other Epinioner’s say it ran choppy on their machines), and I don’t think that is a decent trade-off.

On your aircraft

FS 2004 comes with a wide assortment of aircraft from which to choose. The standard Cessna 172 has a both a retractable gear and regular version. There is also a helicopter, the Wright Brother’s flyer, a biplane, the Piper Cub, some twin, and a bunch of jets to choose from. Each flies like the original, and the graphics are pretty similar to the interiors of each. The difference of course is that in real life you have some sort of plane-dependent yoke, and in FS 2004 you have a joystick. In a real airplane the dials are also spread about a bit more, in FS 2004 they are stuck in the bottom half of the screen.

Otherwise the planes act exactly the same as their real-life counterparts. They have the same take-off roll and important velocities as their real-life counterparts.

One thing about FS 2004 is that it has been around for a very long time. The program allows you to make your own aircraft, and many people have programmed their own aircrafts into the machine. You can download these from all over the place – just Google “FS 2004 airplane download” for a list. FS 2004 does not come with a Cessna 152, for instance, or with any sport plane, but you can probably download a version off the internet somewhere that will have the same flight characteristics as whatever trainer you are learning on.

On the flight experience itself

In the end you are flying in an armchair, and your window is your computer screen. In real life, you have a sphere around you to put all of the visual aids such as the outside, instruments, and control surfaces. On FS 2004, however, there is only so much crap they can put on your computer screen. While all the important instruments are there, you are rather restricted on where you can look. This is probably the most unrealistic part of the simulator.

When you are practicing, however, you can put the computer on “cockpit mode”, which is like real life in that you are looking in some direction, and then you use the hat on the joystick to move your view. I find this to be similar to the viewpoint in real life, only in real life I can turn my head much quicker then what the computer does. Still, it is somewhat realistic – if you need to look left, you turn your head to the left, and there is what you would see out of your left window.

As for the armchair, this is the other critical difference. In a real airplane, when it goes up, you feel it. When you are banked, you can usually feel it. When you hit a thermal, you feel it. These are sensations you are not going to get in FS 2004, and another major difference between the real thing and flying a computer. That actually makes a real airplane easier to fly, although the first time you sit in one you’ll be reading the instruments rather then feeling the plane. That’s something to get used to in real life.

In the real thing you also get feedback from the controls: when you approach a stall the stick goes dead. You can’t turn a yoke full deflection during flight because there is too much resistance. These are the sort of things you can feel in a real aircraft that you won’t be able to feel in this one.

For newbies and gamers

I talk on this review about the realism of FS 2004. Things like radios and navigation may appear to be complex. In real life, it will take you around 100 hours of studying to pass your ground exam. On FS 2004, you can just take off and fly around London without knowing anything. You can set the traffic to nothing, you can ignore airspace rules, and you can land at will without respect to other pilots. You can fly through clouds without an IFR rating or plan, you can ignore medical conditions, and you don’t have to worry about weight. Even if you don’t have enough runway, you can turn crashes off and take off through trees. I haven’t set my transponder on 7700, but I suspect you can do that, too, without having anything interesting happen.

Thus the program allows you to be as realistic as you want. You can get true, real practice for your FAA practical simulation, or you can get a game of sorts, where you fly around the world to see what sort of graphics the computer can generate.

System Requirements

I should mention here some system requirements. You can fly this with only a keyboard – that is rather challenging and not very fun. Much better is with a joystick, especially one that has enough controls on it to give you three ranges of motion. My joystick rotates for the rudders, and then goes up and down and left and right for the yoke. My joystick also has a throttle on it, but that is not really important. A hat on your joystick will be very useful to change your view as you fly.

You can buy yokes and rudder pedals up in the $100 range, but I don’t really think they’re worth much. Most sport planes now come with a joystick-type flight control anyway, and even if you have the realistic flight controls, you won’t have realistic feedback, which lowers the value of realistic flight controls in my opinion.

As for hardware, you’ll need around 5 gigs on your hard drive and a Pentium over 1 GHz. I now have a duo running at 900 MHz and I get all of the graphics this has to offer.

Summary

Flying a real airplane is currently around 70$/hour for a Cessna 152. After you buy it, this program is free, and it allows you to do just about everything that the 152 will allow. I give the program 5 stars for being extremely realistic, and the cheapest training platform in aviation.