Learning to fly, or thinking of learning? Post your questions, comments and experiences here

Moderator: AndyR

#1563488
kingbing wrote:
James33 wrote:Flight simulator for practising RT (using one of the simulated ATC networks) = Very useful indeed. Join Vatsim and/or IVAO to practice your RT in "real time".


Excuse my ignorance but how does this work in practice? Are there other users acting as ATC?


Yes, there are people using software (effectively ATC simulator) which mimics a real life radar display who are connected to the network providing a service to pilots within their area of coverage (most of the world is not usually covered by ATC, as I type this the only controllers online in the UK are Gatwick Director and Tower). The people are a mix of real life ATC, real life pilots and hobbyists (and 13 year olds who have no idea what they are doing), and (on VATSIM at least), the ATC have gone through levels of training which allow them to control various positions, from Ground through to Area control.

Hope that clears up the basics!

Peter
#1563697
mattmoxon wrote:
kingbing wrote:Thanks Peter - sure does. This is all audio as well - not written?


Yep, you connect to the VATSIM server and it all works though your PC headset and mic.


Basically flying on VATSIM with all those addon mentioned would be like this:

Last edited by garylaw on Fri Oct 06, 2017 2:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
#1564160
joe-fbs wrote:While I would continue strongly to suggest that anyone with a limited flying budget spend it on things other than a simulator at the stage that the OP is at, I am interested to know please where do people get this scenery that is so realistic that they can use it to learn a circuit? We have a very sophisticated dedicated simulator at work and recently we "flew" it from a local airfield from which both the pilot and I fly regularly in real life. We really struggled to identify where we were from the simulator view of the area where we both live and fly.



So I used this which was very accurate for learning circuits at Damyns Hall - other products are available https://orbxdirect.com/product/egml

They even added the pylons on the approach to 21 when I pointed out that they weren't there but integral to the experience. I found it very helpful, and reduced some of the cognitive load when I went flying again.