Using Flight Sims for IFR Practice

Chuck Forsberg caf@omen.com

Left: Cockpit view from X-Plane 5.60.
Click on the picture to see the full panel.

Flight simulators running on personal computers are useful to the IFR pilot.

The FAA gold standard for training devices is fidelity. Unfortunately, only a full motion simulator or an airplane in actual instrument flight conditions has adequate fidelity for some things that must be learned. Forget the former, flying a Cessna is cheaper. ASF suggest three hours' night instruction in aircraft. Frasca express concern that PCATD training is no substitute for training in aircraft or in their high end devices. It just happens that Frasca do not manufacture a PCATD. AOPA's ASF has an excellent overview of PCATDs.

Personal Computer Aviation Training Devices (PCATDs) come with a number of expensive amenities that increase their cost. The most important of these is a real live CFII (Certified Flight Instructor, Instrument). Thirtysome years after Elisa ("The Doctor in In") was running on timesharing systems we still do not have a virtual CFII. At least I haven't come across one. Only an ex Air Force CFII would tell me to squawk 0187 just to see if I were awake (I wasn't). (Actually there is a CFI in some of the MSFS adventures, like the one who told me I was too high just before I splashed into Lake Michigan while on approach to Meigs Field.)

PCATDs come with high quality yokes, pedals, throttle quadrants, and avionics panels meant to simulate an aircraft and avionics stack. I'm not convinced all of that is necessary or even useful, let alone cost effective for training.

The flight dynamics and instrument displays should be accurate, to help the student learn how to handle the real aircraft. When homing in to a VOR, it would be nice if the VOR CDI (Course Deviation Indicator) responded to twisting the OBS knob the way real ones do. I get by with pausing the emulation while zeroing the CDI.

In real IFR flying, radios must be retuned in real time. Sometimes there isn't a lot of spare time to do this. You can't pull over and stop while you twiddle knobs. (But you may be able to activate an autopilot, which is almost as good.) Very high end sims have radios that work just like the radio stack in a real airplane. PCATDs come with tabletop panels with knobs that can be twiddled while the student watches the results on a display. With either of these, your CFII can insist you twiddle the radios in real time, without pausing the sim.

In MSFS one pulls down menus to retune the radios. This creates an artificial separation between flying and adjusting radios that does not exist in real life. Beyond that, I question the value of fidelity in how the radios are tuned in. It may be sufficient that the pilot know which frequencies to enter into which radio. Real radios can be dialed in so quickly that it is acceptable to simply pause the sim while new frequencies are entered with the keyboard or mouse. On the Jepp FS-200, turning knobs quickly gives erratic results. I don't see much point in paying thousands for a fake radio rack that doesn't work like the real thing. Not to mention that not every cockpit is equipped with KX-155s.

Inevitably the question of turbulence comes up. This is difficult to simulate without artificial gravity. Time in a full motion simulator may not be cheaper than wet rental in a 172. The current approach of making instruments twitch in response to turbulence works better in Flash Gordon than in IFR cyberflight. Perhaps the panel itself could be made to jump around a bit while displaying accurate information on the instruments themselves.

It is paradoxical that IFR flying involves decoupling your thought processes from your senses, yet sims that don't give a good control feel detract from the training effect. I was taught to make small course corrections with the rudder pedals to keep the CDI centered. When the wind is calm this trick works wonders in my real Skylane. But not with any computer pedals I care to afford. CH Pro pedals with the mechanical interconnect are better than cheap pedals designed for automobile sims.

If you fly a sim using a Sidewinder Pro 3D, you may not have as much trouble learning to fly right seat. (Forget about the force feedback version, it does not resemble aircraft controls in any meaningful way.)

This page used to be somewhat coherent. Then I came across some new sims, and learned some things in my IFR training. You may have to go over this page a few times if you don't want to miss anything.

CONTENTS

[Following comments were made near the beginning of my IFR training.]

I'm working on my flight training for the IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) rating. I own and fly a 1964 Cessna Skylane, N2469R. To fly on the gauges one must be able to hold a course and altitude solely by reference to instruments as a matter of habit, requiring little conscious thought, much as one drives a car without thinking about it. This skill is commonly called "instrument scan and interpretation". Unless this skill is developed (and maintained), the pilot will not have sufficient "spare time" to deal with navigation, procedures, communications, and other requirements of IFR flight.

I've been playing with Microsoft Flight Simulator for years. The first time I fired up FS95 I flew the virtual Skylane into a virtual Sears Tower and was rewarded with an awesome crash. I still remember parts of the plane floating down to the street in silence, in a virtual out of body experience. (Or would that be out of virtual body?) I've flown Wart Hogs up the Columbia River at 500 feet, ferried jet airliners from Troutdale to PDX, and launched Air Force One from the Carrier Enterprise. For my private pilot ground school I put together a video with internet crash files interspersed with FS95 exploits including crashing Klatuu's Spaceship (UFO2) into the building where the ground school was being taught.

I figured I could use my copy of Microsoft Flight Simulator 98 to improve my instrument scan.

Many dismiss Microsoft Flight Simulator as little more than a kinder and gentler home computer arcade game. I've received countless emails telling me to bug off, FS98 only costs $20. (I've paid ten times that for various versions of MSFS over the years.)

Microsoft advertising insists FS98 is "As Real as it Gets."^TM Microsoft claim Cessna approved the flight models for their virtual Skylanes.

Microsoft's web page promotes FS98 for IFR training with an ad for Flight Safety Aviator Pro 98. Flight Safety promote their product as Bringing the realism of flight to your P.C.. on the Avweb pilots' web site. (The Flight Safety product uses the Microsoft flight models without modification.) Microsoft say their product is suitable for IFR training: is it Truth or Clinton?

Does the reality approach the hype?? Should it?

Simulators are usually cheaper than the real thing, and one can practice maneuvers that would be too dangerous, too tedious, or too expensive to do in real life. The concern is that the techniques and responses you learn in simming may not work in real life. It's a given that a PC based flight simulator is not going to recreate the tactile sense of motion. But that's no excuse for the simulator that proudly proclaims itself "As Real as it Gets"^TM not to accurately model basic flight dynamics and instrument displays of the target aircraft.

I encountered a show stopper defect when I fired up Microsoft FS98 for IFR practice. The Microsoft 182 and 182RG aircraft supplied with FS98 have defective Attitude Indicators. The AI displays a representation of the horizon outside. Controlling the aircraft in IFR flight is difficult if the AI is wrong. Airplane crashes have been caused by faulty attitude indicators. The attitude indicator in the FS98 Cessna singles is way off. The Microsoft Attitude Indicator has a superbly rendered adjustment knob that does absolutely nothing but waste memory and CPU cycles. I have not been able to get Microsoft to address this bug.

To get around this defect, I tried user written aircraft. I figured Klatuu's spaceship, the Goodyear Blimp, and anything with jet engines was not a good candidate for simulating my Skylane. That left quite a few planes to look at.

I found a user written DeHavilland Twin Otter. This plane does not fly well when converted to FS98 but at least the AI was set correctly.

The Twin Otter does not resemble N2469R, my 1964 Skylane. The Twin Otter has five times the power and grosses several times as much. It climbs at 1600 fpm. The virtue of the Otter is that it was the first plane anything like a Cessna that worked with FS98 and flew straight and level when the Microsoft attitude indicator said it should.

I then found a user written Feissler Storch (storch.zip) that also flew level when the AI said it should. This file has been converted between different versions of MSFS. Apparently something was lost in the translations. It's flight characteristics can best described as strange. The joystick has to be turned up to control this plane. If you enjoy adverse yaw, this is your plane. It takes full rudder input to make a standard rate turn (3 degrees per second, not much of a bank in a bugsmasher). Landing the Storch is a trip in itself. If the landing gear of this WWII tailwheel STOL plane were accurately modeled I would have had nothing but spectacular ground loops. Sometimes an inaccurate simulation has its advantages. Despite these faults, the virtual Storch responds to turbulence in a way that reminds me of my real life Skylane.

Then I found a freeware IFR control panel for the 182RG (cessnifr.zip). My plane does not have a standard instrument panel layout, so I hacked the layout to resemble its instrument panel. A quick examination of panel.cfg should give you plenty of ideas on how to hack it to match a particular plane. The three numbers on each line represent X, Y, and size in pixels. (Hint: do not delete items. If you wish to "delete" an item, just move it off screen.) You are welcome to use this hacked panel.cfg file as you wish. I flew this contraption for several hours, practicing holding course and altitude in light turbulence, and shooting the odd approach. As I got better I threw in more wind and turbulence. My instrument scan was much better in my next real life lesson.

I then found a virtual Cessna Aerobat with 150 HP engine (c152hp.zip). It's a recently written plane that has not suffered so many translations. It is overly sensitive to turbulence, but so is a real 152. (I've never been in one, it's just too small.) The virtual 152 doesn't have a constant speed prop, but that's actually an advantage because Microsoft's simulation of a constant speed prop is so poor.

But, the Internet doesn't sit still, even if Microsoft product support does. Brian Kostick read my flames about MSFS and wrote an attitude indicator with an adjustment knob. This gauge is included in bckatti1.zip, available at Flightsim. With this gauge I hacked up a copy of the Microsoft 182S with a panel that resembles N2469R. Yes, the Microsoft 182S is closer to my Skylane than the 152hp is.

Below is a list of inaccuracies in FS98 that detract from its usefulness as a training aid for IFR flight.

Defective attitude indicator which indicates a pronounced climb during level flight. Just below the artificial horizon display Microsoft draws a superbly rendered adjusting knob which does absolutely nothing. In a real plane the knob can be adjusted after transition between cruise and approach/holding speeds. It took the Internet to fix this one, Microsoft couldn't be bothered.

The elevator trim in FS98 is quite unlike to the real thing in my Skylane. In the real plane one uses trim to relieve pressure on the controls. Once the desired flight profile is obtained using the yoke, one can set the trim very close to the needed setting in a matter of seconds. The FS98 trim setting mechanism does not give good feedback, requiring a prolonged period of trial and error to get the desired setting. To be fair, I should mention that other sims I've used aren't much better in this respect. ASA's OnTop has an auto-trim button that is a step in the right direction. I don't think low end hardware will ever properly simulate how trim works, so simply automating this task makes sense.

The operation of a constant speed prop is poorly emulated. In my real Skylane, subtle changes in timber and sound give a pilot information about flight conditions. In fact, a real constant speed prop doesn't quite run at a constant speed. The one in my Skylane is merely more nearly constant speed. It behaves somewhat like an automobile transmission. Enter a climb and the engine labors slightly, just like a car starting up a hill. Most of the engine cues I hear in my Skylane are absent in FS98. The nearly illegible manifold pressure gauge compounds the problem.

Navaid signal coverage is grossly inaccurate. This is bad enough that some procedures simply cannot be flown as they are in real life. The Farmington-3 departure from HIO Runway 20 calls for a left turn to a heading of 120, then intercept and proceed via UBG 346 degree radial (course 166) to the Newberg VOR. The Newberg VOR is perched on the summit of Ribbon Ridge overlooking the airport from 11 miles south and 1200 feet higher. Planes at the airport can receive the VOR on the ground.

In the picture at right, the course track in black shows how the Farmington-3 departure from Runway 20 is flown with real VOR reception. The 166 course to the VOR is intercepted almost immediately. The Microsoft VOR is not received until reaching 2000 feet. The delayed reception of the Microsoft VOR results in the path shown in red. The plane has flown way past the intercept and continues to the bottom right of this map before the Microsoft VOR is received. You have to double back to intercept the VOR. This is not "As Real as it Gets"^TM. It is somewhere between unreal and just plain wrong.

Beyond textbook basics, Microsoft VORs do not behave like the real thing. The FS98 Newberg VOR does not wander back and forth as the real one does in flight. Finding a VOR radial in FS98 is little like the real thing.

In addition to VORs that don't work right, Microsoft forgot the marker at the ARTTY intersection used with the Salem Oregon Localizer back course approach. I wonder how many other navaids are missing or wrong. If Microsoft can't be bothered to fix their navaids, at least they could provide an editor so users could correct Microsoft's errors.

The FS98 turn indicator is rather twitchy compared to my Skylane. This makes it difficult to control the airplane in partial panel (vacuum failure) situations. If turbulence is set to minimum, it is possible to shoot an ADF approach in calm wind. The severity of this problem varies with the particular aircraft. On some virtual airplanes the turn indicator appears to be sending Morse Code. The turn indicator in my Skylane gives a smooth indication that makes it easy to execute standard rate turns (the basis of many IFR maneuvers). In my limited partial panel (gyros INOP) practice, I haven't had any problem keeping the plane under control using the turn coordinator. (I'm still working on accurately holding a course with partial panel.)

The stock panel does not include a timer. What appears to be a timer in the Microsoft Skylanes is merely an indicator of the simulation rate. Admittedly a user supplied stopwatch/timer can be used, but some of the considerable expense that went into making a "cool" looking cockpit could have been used to make it correct. The user written IFR panel includes a working timer, but I find it easier to use a real timer set on the desk. In my real airplane, I use the timer function in my KR87 ADF.

I've never heard of anyone getting vertigo using Microsoft Flight Simulator. To be fair, I haven't heard of anyone getting vertigo in any other PC based sim, or even under the hood in a real plane. I have no problem getting vertigo when flying in actual. Some newly minted IFR pilots, who never flew in actual, have lost it and crashed when they encountered actual Instrument Meteorlogical Conditions. If you get IFR instruction, make sure some of it is in actual IMC. Otherwise, the first time you fly into actual IMC may be your last.

The shame of all this is that Microsoft could correct their attitude indicator and turn indicator without straining their resources one whit. Unfortunately Microsoft has not even bothered to respond to my bug reports, let alone fix the bugs. Why can't Microsoft straighten up and fly right? Why such an attitude?

X-Plane is currently on sale for $50. The newer versions use the OpenGL graphics interface. The display is smooth and clouds are well rendered using a Diamond Viper 550 AGP with a 450 MHz Pentium III. The visual display of an ILS approach to minimums flowed smoothly and the way the runway appeared as I broke out was convincing. Not all graphics boards have good, fast OpenGL drivers. An ATI All-In-Wonder Pro PCI driven by a 200 MHz Pentium Pro was simply dreadful. The ATI All-In-Wonder 128 works fine at 1200x1600 on an 800 MHz PIII. You can download a demo from Laminar's web site to determine if your display board can hack the OpenGL used byX-Plane 5.x. X-Plane Classic, which runs well with average display boards, has also been updated with a better turn coordinator.

This may be the sim to beat. The October 1999 Aviation Consumer gives X-Plane a positive review. "Definitely consider X-Plane before buying any of the mainstream programs."

I have not tried any other mass market flight simulator yet. Their manufacturers are welcome to send me a review copy.

On Top runs under DOS using a 32 bit memory manager. My system is fitted with a Creative Sound Blaster Live! PCI sound board which at first greeted On Top with silence. The SB Live! DOS emulation was not enabled because all the good IRQs (hardware interrupt lines) had been spoken for. After 8 hours of hacking and rebooting Windows 98 (and nearly deciding to reinstall Windows!) I went into the motherboard BIOS and changed the PCI interrupt status of IRQ 10 and IRQ 15. On Top now has a motor I can hear. On Top still does not take input from the throttle on my Sidewinder. (It works fine with the CH Virtual Pilot Pro.) Because On Top is not a "well behaved" Windows program, standard screen capture programs won't work with it. If Windows times out and enters screen saver mode while On Top is running, things get really messy. Users have complained that the latest release requires display boards that meet vertain VESA standards not supported by all boards. A native 32 bit Windows version would be welcome.

Aside from the choice of operating system, On Top is a credible IFR simulator indeed. A Certified Instrument Instructor (CFII) and $2000 of special hardware make this into a PCATD suitable for maintaining IFR currency. Nobody presets the direction gyro for you, just like on a real plane. The attitude indicator has a working adjustment knob. ASA's turn coordinator is as smooth as the real turn coordinator on my real Skylane. Blimey.

On Top has a number of touches that suggest real IFR pilots were involved with the design process. I heartily recommend downloading the simulator and its manual (106 pages in Adobe Acrobat format).

My computer has a SB Live! PCI sound board. It took 8 or 10 frustrating hours of hacking to get the sound working. (I had to free up an IRQ for use by the SB Live! Soundblaster emulator. You shouldn't have this problem with a cheap ISA sb16 clone.) Once I finished, I wasn't in the mood for a bloody checklist, so I grabbed the NDB approach plate for Helena Montana (the only place the free demo will fly) and took off. So much for Cockpit Resource Management.

The right mouse button gives instant access to the throttle, making it easier to fly with the Sidewinder's throttle INOP. (The current Virtual Pilot Pro throttle does work with On Top.) I didn't take the time to familiarize myself with either the airplane or the approach plate. The Helena NDB approach is best studied before the eyes glaze over. Nonetheless I did get the plane up and down without incurring any messages about crashing. (Serious flight simulators respond to crash landings with a modal window announcing the fact. A good game rewards a crash with an awesome sound file (Hi-Fi CVR tape?), cracks and blood on the windscreen, parts of the airplane floating to earth, a debris pile, the whole bit. ) Had I done the same thing in a real airplane I should have suffered serious injury at the hands of my CFII.
No wonder the vertical speed is drawn in purple. That's the color the pax would have been afterwards.

Since you can download the demo and manual yourself, I'll just mention that the buttons on the screen above all work, at least the ones I tried. You can replay the flight. The buttons at the bottom control what's shown; I've turned off everything except the NDB and the airport to make this snapshot clearer.

Jeppesen FlitePro 6.0.0 (discontinued)

Jeppesen have recently introduced a home version of their high end IFR simulators. The product is described on the

"FlitePro is the first of its kind to integrate the mapping/replay features of FliteStar, FliteSchool instrument multimedia course, and the simulation technology proven in the FS-200 software." This is a new version of their FAA approved PCATD hacked to work with consumer joysticks or yokes instead of expensive dedicated hardware consoles. FlitePro has a carefully crafted copy protection scheme which checks for CD in the disk drive. IF the CD is not present, FlitePro 6.0.0 may crash Windows 98. Unfortunately, other parts of FlitePro 6.0.0 were not so carefully crafted.

This first released version of FlitePro has a growing gig list. Not all of these bugs appear on all machines. Some have been corrected in the patch available on their web site.

Saving and restoring the sim state mortally wounds FlitePro. I have yet to to get a good hard copy of the flight path on an HP Postscript printer using FlitePro's print command. With one print driver I get a black box obliterating the last portion of the flight. With a IIIsi driver Jepp recommended FlitePro crashes with a GPF from DIBENG.DLL. I have obtained good prints using an Epson Stylus Photo EX.

Even if Windows doesn't crash after running FLitePro, a reboot is prudent. Other users have reported similar problems.

One of the reasons I bought FLitePro is its II Morrow GPS simulator. Its operation closely resembles the "quirky operaing logic" of N2469R's Apollo 2001 GPS. I normally fly with my 2001 set to a custom NAV page that displays bearing, distance, track, ground speed, destination ID and ETA. This is very useful backup information, especially since track and ground speed are not affected by common GPS errors. Unfortunately, the II Morrow virtual GPS NVRAM dosen't remember modified nav pages. This is a pain because manipulating virtual GPS receivers by mousing around is cumbersome. (Defining a custom page in the real 2001 requires a bit of RTFM, but it only has to be done once.) I have since discovered that hitting the MAP button brings up an illegible map and a data page with bearing, distance, track, and ground speed. This is quite helpful when the DG fails.

Descending is a problem; closing the throttle and setting full flaps doesn't get me down fast enough to hit the numbers on the Portland-Troutdale ADF approach. Landing isn't much fun either because the frame rate is a lousy 5 per second with a Diamond Viper 550 AGP and 450 MHz Pentium III. (The FAA will not approve a glass cockpit with a refresh rate less than 20 per second.) The same hardware gives wonderfully smooth operation with X-Plane and 100 frames per second reported with FS98.

Right: Scrolling can jumble the display even with the patch. Unstable code sometimes provokes illegal instruction exceptions or halts Windows 98 altogether. Other than the suggestion to change printer drivers (losing half of my printer's resolution!) I am reminded of Dilbert's "QuikProtect" program. (To be fair, it should be noted that FlitePro has not erased any hard drives yet.)

Left: portion of the hard copy of the flight path showing a big black box where the airplane should be. Note also the missing I-VDG localizer used by the Pearson LDA-A approach. Flirepro requires the user to switch the ILS beams between runways, just as real airports do.

The patch release allows devices such as as CH Products' Virtual Pilot Pro and pedals to be configured. The configuration is quite flexible once you figure it out. Since this is an IFR simulator I won't complain about the lack of brakes. IFR students always go missed.

Jeppesen say a 100% SoundBlastter compatible sound card is needed. This is an overstatement, as any card supporting the current Microsoft interface should work. My PCI Soundblaster Live! worked fine after I ignored the crossed out sound icon. I haven't read any complaints about sound not working.

One of FlitePro's "tips" suggests brave users have a go at the DME ARC approach to Martin State Airport near Baltimore. If you like DMA arcs you'll love this approach and its missed. Not to worry, one can print the (not for navigation) approach plates to selected airports. Click here to see the flight path and profile display. Note that the FlitePro 6.0.0 display does not record airspeed, vertical speed, MP, or RPM.

If and when FlitePro is completed, it will become a worthy competitor. Customizable panels and other enhancements may be in the next major revision. A recent patch seems to have corrected some of the crashes recounted above. Even with the patch, FlitePro won't work right with DirectX 7, but upgrading to 7a seems to fix the problem. I had to set some of the control sensitivities to very low values to get a controllable airplane.

I cannot get 10 degrees flaps using the FLAPS DOWN button. It goes from 0 directly 20, then 30 on the next push. 10 degrees is useful for ILS approaches, 20 is not realistic.

Flitepro still does not save nearly as much as it should. Nearly everything must be reconfigured when you start the program except for the location, altitude, and speed which are saved and loaded with the "sim state". This gets tedious when one decides to shoot the odd approach during a work break. You might try flying VFR a bit until you get the plane and its controls working properly, then dial in the clag.

People who first learn landing MSFS are used to a different set of visual cues. Simmers may learn bad habits that make it hard to accurately land a real airplane. One man's experiences are chronicled at www.avweb.com. (If this link doesn't work, look under "training" at www.avweb.com.)

Practicing stalls with a sim is a mixed bag. To the extent that one learns to keep the nose down at the right times, that's a good thing. But sims may not teach one to use rudder to pick up a wing that drops in slow flight. In slow flight, trying to pick up a wing with the ailerons can make things worse. Slow flight is called the "region of reverse command" because some of the controls don't provide the response they normally so.

It is tempting to practice emergency flight maneuvers with FS98. There is no penalty for misjudgement. But despite being checked by Cessna, the flight models may not be accurate. If you practice an engine failure on takeoff, will the real Skylane do what the Microsoft Skylane did? I've never seen a PC based flight sim get into a spin that looks like what I've seen on King Videos.

What about thermals on final? Until cheap artificial gravity is available, there may be no good way to simulate turbulence on a sim.

What about sloped runways?

Simmers who aspire to flying real aircraft should practice flying and landing without instruments - use the "W" key to make the panel disappear. A common criticism of ex-simmers is that they don't spend enough time looking outside the cockpit. There are too many midair collisions to accept this habit.

Captain Chuck's Excellent flying Experiences
>>>FLYING TOP MENU

I returned for credit the MSFS2k. I didn't see anything super in it.
The local superstore gives credit on opened software  if returned wihin 14
days and there is a reasonable reason for the return. BTW, I received
response from MS Support re: the poor switch lighting at night--they
haven't a fix--they changed from top lighting in FS98 to back lighting of
instruments in FS2k,  but do not plan to do any lighting of the switches.
Re:the credit--it helps in getting the credit when the store understands
that the presence of an original CD in the CDROMdrive is necessary for
operation--thus, the program is essentially useless when the CDDisks are
returned to the store.
Just another thought---I think that the aural communications feature of
both FUII and ProPilot99 are important--getting the ear accustomed to the
patter of the tower and ground and arrival and departure voices is
important. 
Regards,
allen   W9ECJ.

On Sun, 7 Nov 1999, Chuck Forsberg WA7KGX wrote:

> Actually I haven't gooten much email on this subject at all,
> and the ones I have received have been well considered.
> 
> I'm still a bit undecided as to how accurate a sim needs to be to
> be useful.  For example, fs2k requires me to almost close the
> throttle on an ILS even with flaps 10.  This doesn't seem natural.
> The fix might be to use flaps 20.
> 
> None of the sims I've flown with the possible exception of Frasca
> have KX-155 knobs that work like the real thing.  There are a few
> times, like when starting an approach after a hold, when you don't
> have all day to twiddle knobs.  Otherwise who cares, just get the 
> altitudes and freqs and headings right.  OK to stop the sim and
> keyboard new numbers.  I've never flown a plane where freqs were
> entered with a bloody mouse.  Never even seen it on TV.  Have seen
> nav data entered on keyboards (Star Trek).
> 
> Aside from remembering where you are (without cheating by looking at
> the GPS) the trick is to nail the needles on approaches and not bust
> altitudes.  This is a hand-eye (and foot) coordination skill.
> But just try to find rudder pedals that work like the rudders on
> a real plane during an ILS>
> 






From eric.burke@jeppesen.com  Mon Jan 24 12:44:47 2000
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Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2000 13:43:17 -0700
Subject: Re: Flitepro Still Spazzing
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We do not have a release date for the 6.2 patch.  On the Cessna 172 in FlitePro
there are only 2 settings for the flaps.  There is no 10 degree mark even if you
use the mouse to change it.

- Eric









caf@omen.com (Chuck Forsberg WA7KGX) on 01/24/2000 01:33:19 PM

To:   Eric Burke/Jeppesen/TMC@Jeppesen
cc:

Subject:  Re: Flitepro Still Spazzing




When will 6.2 be out??

Also, After assigning a button to FLaps Down, one push goes from
0 to 20 degrees, bypassing the desired 10 degrees.  This isn't
very useful for shooting approaches.  We need a patch to get the
flaps down button to work properly.