TOPSKILLS - FLIGHT-SIM MANEUVERS 21ST CENTURY

Flight Sim Maneuvers 21st Century

Fly your simulation aircraft the way real-world pilots fly their real airplanes

By Bill Stack

Enjoy the satisfaction of true-to-life simulations by using authentic procedures for every flight phase.

• Taxi, take off, climb, cruise, descend, approach, and land like a real-world pilot.
• Plan your flights and prepare your aircraft like a professional.
• Use every procedure and method realistically.
• Learn what expert pilots know.
• Do what skilled pilots do.
• Handle your aircraft properly throughout every basic flight maneuver.

Eighteen chapters dedicated to specific topics:

1. How Aircraft Fly. Lift, thrust, drag, angle of attack, inertia, yaw, roll, pitch, torque, propwash, P-factor, gravity, wind.
2. Knowing Your Aircraft. Performance specifications and characteristics. Cockpits, panels, flight instruments and gauges, aircraft instruments and gauges. Analog, glass, hybrids. Controls, knobs, handles, switches, yokes, sticks, throttles, mixture. Communication and navigation radios.
3. Knowing Your Airports. Elevations, layouts, runways, taxiways, parking areas, gates, intersections, hot spots, turnarounds, frequencies, services. Controlled, uncontrolled.
4. Planning Your Flights. Choosing appropriate departure and destination airports. Determining flight distance. Knowing take-off and landing distances. Applying speed, distance, and time. Calculating fuel needs. Getting weather briefings.
5. Preparing Your Aircraft. Managing weight and balance. Preparing your cockpit. Starting your engines. Turning on electrical systems and devices. Setting altimeter. Tuning radios. Running up.
6. Moving Around Airports. Following signs, markings, and lighting. Getting clearances at controlled airports. Announcing intentions at uncontrolled airports. Using airport diagrams and maps. Taxiing safely. Adapting to wind effects. Final preparations at runway holding areas.
7. Taking Off. Receiving clearances to take off at controlled airports. Announcing intentions to take off at uncontrolled airports. Taxiing onto runways. Take-off phases – roll, rotation, liftoff. Fixed and variable take-off factors – field elevations, atmospheric temperature, winds. Choosing flaps. Using take-off checklists. Aborting take-offs.
8. Difficult Take-offs. Short fields, tall obstacles, high elevations, high density altitude, hot-and-humid weather, soft surfaces, severe winds, slippery surfaces. Formulas for calculating high density altitude and take-off distances.
9. Climbing. Rotation speeds, lift-off speeds, initial-climb speeds, landing-gear retraction, flaps retraction, obstacle clearance, best climb rates and angles. Attitude flying. Wind effects. Torque, P factor, and ground effect. Engine performance and limits. Risk of stalling.
10. Cruising. Highest cruising altitude versus best cruising altitude. Highest attainable airspeed. Elementary cruising procedures. Flying straight and level. Maintaining heading and airspeed. Compensating for winds.
11. Descending. Determining target altitude. Deciding when to begin descending and when to stop. Controlling descent airspeed and vertical speed. Turning while descending. Relying on flight instruments. Adjusting fuel mixture. Monitoring instruments.
12. Turning. Types of turns – moderate, steep, descending, ascending, level flight. Bank angles, turn radii, coordination, skids, slips, standard rates. Using ailerons, rudder, and elevator. Relying on instruments for best turns – turn-and-bank indicator, inclinometer, skid/slip indicator, altimeter, vertical speed indicator, airspeed indicator. Respecting load effects and G factors.
13. Stalling. Types of stalls. Common risks and hazards. Stall indications. Stall prevention and recovery. Spin avoidance and recovery. Deliberate and controlled stalls.
14. Airport Traffic Pattern. Where airport patterns are used. Common names for airport patterns. Parts of the pattern. Standard procedures. Pattern entrances. Wind compensation. Demands on pilots. Common errors.
15. Approaching for Landing. Calculating landing distances. Controlling final descent rate and speed. Deflecting flaps. Tracking runway centerlines. Compensating for winds. Using visual cues. Avoiding stalls. Deciding go or no-go. Approaching high and steeply.
16. Landing. Threshold crossing. Flare, roundout, leveloff. Touchdown. Postlanding roll. Holding the centerline. Demands on pilots. Common problems. Bouncing, floating, climbing, aborting. Runway exit.
17. Challenging Landings. Crosswinds and gusts. Short runways. High elevations. High density altitude.  Soft, snowy, and icy surfaces.
18. Go-Arounds and Touch-and-Goes. Aborted landings. Proper go-around and touch-and-go procedures. Training exercises.
19. Abbreviations. Abbreviations used in the book are clearly and concisely defined in a separate appendix.

Easy to Read and Follow

Organized and formatted for quick and easy use.

• Every chapter is dedicated to a specific topic for speedy comprehension and reference.
• Each chapter is identified by number and title in headers with page numbers so you always know where you are in the book.
• All descriptions and explanations are clear and straightforward for home-simulation enthusiasts.

Clearly written

• Complicated concepts are described in straightforward English.
• Facts are logically presented for thorough understanding.
• The book tells “what it is,” “what it does,” and “how to use it.”
• Aeronautical terms are plainly defined for clear understanding.

Easy to Use

• Bulleted lists and breakouts facilitate comprehension and learning.
• Custom made graphics convey principles easily.
• Structured tables lay out detailed technical data.
• Step-by-step procedures are numbered for easy following.
• Screen grabs from the simulator assist with comprehension.
• Simplified line drawings help with clarity.
• Diagrams were made especially for this manual.
• Precise labels enable quick and easy reference.
• Exercises facilitate skill development.

Reliable facts and methods

• Real-world source material was used wherever practical.
• Images are taken directly from MSFS 2020.
• Everything is independently verified for accuracy and edited for correctness.

Specifications

• Common PDF format can be used by all home flight simmers.
• The book is 314 pages from cover to cover.
• The ZIP archive file is 6.1 megabytes.

Extra Goodies

My standard V-Speed card is included as a free bonus. Common V-Speeds are defined by speed on one side and alphabetically on the other.

Focus and Limits

Flight-Sim Maneuvers 21st Century describes and explains the use of light general-aviation aircraft that are suitable for basic and advanced flight lessons. Focus is on visual flight. Microsoft Flight Simulator™ 2020 is used because it is popular. Aviation principles and methods can be applied to other aircraft in other simulators.

Aircraft specifications are provided as appropriate and applicable. Comprehensive and detailed specifications are outside the scope. Cross-country navigation and instrument flights are described in other manuals.

This manual is for home flight simulation only. It is based on real aviation principles and procedures so home flight-simulation enthusiasts can maximize their enjoyment. Because some aspects of home flight-simulation games are not exactly like real-world aviation, some information in this book is not exactly like real-world flight. Use for real-world aviation is not appropriate or authorized.

Use Your Time Productively

Don’t lose valuable flight-simming opportunities searching the internet for flimsy freebies. Most are worth their cost. Ftldave says it best:

“YouTube is hit or miss. Sometimes there's great, informative content, other times the videos are useless and unintelligible. How much time do you want to spend searching for the former, how much time to waste with the latter? As is often said about open software, the same is true for this: It's free if your time has no value to you.”

Flight simmers have trusted, benefitted, and enjoyed my instructional books since 1997.

Satisfaction Guaranteed

A lot of time and effort has been invested by me and others toward making a quality product that is useful to people. Any book with physical defects will be replaced at no cost. If you can show that the content of Flight-Sim Maneuvers 21st Century is not as described, your money will be refunded. If you find facts that you believe are in error, please let me know so I can evaluate them. – Bill Stack, Author