Flight training missions return, all new and better than ever, with FS Academy - VFR for Microsoft Flight Simulator.
VFR has a new home. Find the tutorials under ACTIVITIES-CUSTOM CONTENT.
VFR is an all-new, study-level package to coach you step-by-step into the varied and rewarding world of flying visually under Visual Flight Rules.
Brought to you by a real airline captain, VFR gives you the authentic knowledge and teaches you how to fly like the professionals to get maximum realism and authenticity from your flight simulation, covering ATC, airspace, circuits, mountain flying, cross-country navigation and more.
Mirroring a real flight training course, VFR harnesses the fantastic new world within MSFS, combining as a fully authentic training experience, covering a host of aircraft and locations.
Use VFR Maps and Jeppesen charts to find your way as you travel cross-country with your instructor guiding you every step of the way through a series of 12 authentic missions. Start with the basics before being let loose on a series of short solo Bush-Trips and sitting your virtual Skills Test with an examiner.
The skills you will learn are transferable to practically any light aircraft and environment, as we will conduct our lessons in varied locations across the globe, using the local flying rules and procedures to give you the broadest international skillset possible.
Each mission has accompanying theory, found in the comprehensive ground school manual. Learn the theory before you take to the skies and practice it for yourself with the help of your instructor.
VFR 01. BASIC VFR
We’ll focus on introducing you to basic aircraft handling skills. Get the weather information from the Automated Terminal Information Service (ATIS) and coordinate with ATC to depart Liverpool, following the Entry/Exit route known as “Mersey Lane” to Seaforth at the control zone (CTR) boundary, before practicing some basic handling once in uncontrolled airspace.
VFR 02. APPROACH
Get your first introduction to the approach and landing attitudes before re-entering the control zone, navigating visually between VRPs and completing an approach.
VFR 03. CIRCUITS
Now it’s time to nail down the basics of both the normal and low-level circuit at Tauranga on New Zealand’s North Island, learning the downwind checklist and cementing your aiming point skills.
VFR 04. LOCAL FLIGHT
Leave the airfield and travel across the New Zealand countryside in your first taste of flight in uncontrolled airspace before performing an Overhead Join.
VFR 05. NIGHT VFR
Discover both the challenges and rewards of taking to the skies after darkness falls over Lake Ontario, relying more on your instrumentation to guide you safely from Toronto to your destination.
VFR 06. CROSSWIND
Battle the elements above the Shetlands as you are introduced to the control inputs and handling effects of crosswind conditions and drift, before returning to Sumburgh for a short field landing.
VFR 07. ABNORMALS
Things don't always go to plan. Run emergency drills and engine failures, using the decision making structure that will keep you safe in the face of adversity.
VFR 08. MOUNTAIN FLYING
Carve your way through mountains and valleys in our Mountain Flying lesson. Learn how to fly safely amongst high terrain and turbulent air currents.
VFR 09. UK TRIP
Leave the popular Elstree airfield North of London and make your way around the capital, crossing the Thames at Dartford and making a stop over at Biggin Hill. Then continue South towards the coast, avoiding Gatwick airspace towards Shoreham.
VFR 10. USA TRIP
Depart Seattle’s Renton Municipal airport and cruise through valleys, over bridges and across lakes as you tour the Washington landscape. Remain safely below the Class B airspace near the major Seattle Tacoma and Boeing Field airports.
VFR 11. NEW ZEALAND TRIP
Behold the stunning New Zealand South Island as you make a quick hop out of Milford Sound to Martins Bay before settling in on a long stretch to Queenstown, marvelling at the snow-capped mountains and meandering rivers.
VFR 12. VFR SKILLS TEST
Once you are confident with your skills, take your virtual Skills Test and fly a full flight profile with your examiner, to put what you've learned to the test.
FS Academy - VFR is accompanied by a comprehensive 70+ page ground school manual, covering a host of topics to boost your background knowledge before you take to the skies, including:
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Principles of Flight
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Lift + Drag
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Visual Reference Points
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includes VFR Maps + Charts
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Normal and Low Circuit procedures
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Go-around + Touch and Go
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Airspace classifications and night-time differences
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VFR Rules of the Air
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Overhead Join
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Failure management
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Valley flying
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And More!
A crucial skill for any pilot, it's time to up your game with FS Academy - VFR.
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Honestly, I'm not sure if I even officially finished with missions 2/3/4/5 and that was in fact flying aforementioned loops and even resorting to opening Little NavMap to figure out where I was. For a frame of reference I'm a complete noob to aviation, but I have played MFS 2020 for about 200 hours and probably have another 100 hours reading and watching tutorials.
A nice concept and well intentioned, but ultimately nearly useless for the intended audience.
Biggest frustration is the change of the aircraft as the lessons progress. First 2 lessons are done in one plane, and you get used to where the instruments are, the behavior of the airplane, etc.
3rd lesson for no apparent reason you are thrown into a completely new aircraft and since the missions start mid-air, already flying, you have seconds to orient yourself and figure out what the new dashboard means. Not only that but the chose aircraft has a weird dial for the RPM and Airspeed, combining the two, and it took me a minute to figure out that the bigger numbers were RPM and not airspeed. On top of it, it seemed to be a bit more twitchy in response which added to the frustration even further.
Really not a good idea to start in the sky for these missions, at least the first few beginner ones. Even worse idea to be throwing a what is to be expected a new user into new aircraft every few missions.
Since the missions are relatively short, it would be better to start from ground like in an actual school, and get you to the point in the air where you can start executing the maneuvers. And keep your pupil in the trainer aircraft so that he/she can concentrate on the lesson and not learning new plane while trying to digest information thrown at them.
Some of the instructions are also a bit off and vague. While descending in the second lesson, instructor starts talking about waving off, which I interpreted as an instruction to do so. Apparently it was just an explanation of what it was and I expected to continue descending. This pattern seems to repeat itself, without a clear differentiation between an instruction to follow and a general overview of the concepts.
Finally, and there really no way around this so I cannot ding the creators for this, but since the instructions are simple per-recorded audio messages that get triggered based on your position, airspeed and altitude, you have a relatively thin margin or error in case you miss the trigger to initiate the next step of the instructions. Given all the feedback from above, it is relatively easy to miss these triggers as you may be struggling with new aircraft, unclear directions and just overall learning process.
I will not hesitate to buy anything from this developer in the future. They are putting out quality products.
All in all, personally I've found the PDF manual FAR more useful than the in-sim lessons/missions. In fairness to the developer, I do not know if trigger placement for missions is a limitation of MSFS's SDK at this time, seeing as it's all new and basic from what I've heard, OR if this aspect of the pack was just generally overlooked. I would've expected a VFR pack (arguably made for absolute newbies to flight) to hold my hand a little bit more, allow more time to execute instructions before giving a new one, have better selection of airports in order to adequately introduce key concepts (e.g. grass strips when you're trying to learn precise traffic pattern entry techniques are an unnecessary added difficulty to the learning process) and generally be able to handle failures to execute instrucitons by the student pilot, much better than this.
That said, the quality of the audio and the information itself both in the manual and the in-sim lessons IS GOOD, in fact I really liked that there is custom ATC audio with much more in depth information/advanced "ATC-speak", it's just seriously hindered and made more difficult by the implementation. I can only hope the dev can take this (hopefully) constructive criticism and perhaps tweak these aspects and update the pack in the future, since at the time of writing, I'm having a better experience just reading the manual and practicing what I learn in my own free flights.
3/5 for implentation, 5/5 for effort, call it 4/5 overall.
Requires MSFS.
