Flight Yoke (now with flight sim reviews)

[Variety of Cells]

Finally received my FSeconomy account today.  It should be noted that being forced to wait for an account has increased my anticipation, and might make me have a rosier view of the experience to justify waiting so long. But, even so, I'm enjoying it. It gives me exactly what I wanted: a reason to fly from one place to another. I also enjoy trying to maximize efficiency by carrying as much cargo as I can, sometimes by making stops on the way to pick up more.

But more importantly, it increases the stakes. I just flew into NZMF, Milford Sound in New Zealand. Used live weather.  Lots of clouds, and the airport is surrounded by quite famous mountains. (I've actually been there, it's beautiful, I wish I could go back.)  Everything was smooth. Had auto pilot on and the simulation speed increased. But then the engine sound changed. It shut off. I had low fuel warnings, but I checked and I still had 5% per tank in my Cessna 172. Couldn't get the engine to start again. Maybe there needs to be more fuel in the tank to start it. Or maybe something else was wrong. I don't know. However, I was pretty close to the airport. Couldn't see it through the clouds, but I was close. And with FSeconomy, I wasn't just messing around. I had passengers on board. Their lives were in my hands. So I lowered my flaps and glided down. Didn't quite get enough distance from the runway as I circled, but I was scared I didn't have the height to turn around and try again. Wheels landed on the end of the runway, and thankfully I was able to slam on the breaks and stop right before the trees.  The flight completed, and I checked FSeconony and... it counted!  Everyone departed safely.

Now I have a story.  Wouldn't have been as fun without FSeconomy.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

 I have not tried increasing the sim rate in MSFS yet, I wonder if it messed up the fuel consumption.  If the motor shut off due to low fuel it's no wonder you couldn't get it started, sounds like the fuel gauges in the sim need some work.

Hmmm, not sure you can glide a 172 that far, especially with flaps down...  Flaps increase drag a lot so without power your airspeed should have dropped like crazy.  For a dead stick landing you want to keep your airspeed up so you have control, the slower you go the less force the control surfaces have.  I guess if you were too close to the runway and needed to lose altitude flaps are useful for doing that, but I think doing slips are preferred so you can save some airspeed for any last second maneuvers near the runway.

As they say, any landing you can walk away from is a good landing, any landing where you can use the plane again is a great landing. 

I've ordered some aluminum extrusions and plan to make my own rudder pedals, already breadboarded the pots.  The Thrustmaster throttle has an RJ12 connector for the pedals, but it has an offset clip that is very hard to find, only used on DEC phones and some Lego electronics.  I took a regular RJ12 and cut off the clip and it fits in fine, I'll just have to tape it in to keep it from pulling out.  Got 3 pots on a breadboard and after a little trial and error got rudder and toe brakes moving correctly when I plug the cable into the throttle.  Once I get the parts and work out a base and frame I'll start the CAD work creating some pedals and other parts to 3D print.  Hopefully it will be a fun project.

[Variety of Cells]

Ah, good advice.  Yeah I was losing too much speed.  I was thinking that the flaps would give me more lift and control at lower speeds, but not thinking that they are what's slowing me down, and you're not really getting lift without the engine I guess.  It ended up working, but I've learned something for next time. 

Last flight of the day had me flying into NZAS.  Circled it for almost 10 minutes in the fog trying to find the runways.  Eventually had to just put it down because again I was running low on fuel and I didn't want to risk it.  I saw some buildings with planes next to them and a tiny bit of pavement, so I aimed for that.  Ended up in the grass, but again, safe, and I got paid.  I was curious so I left the flight and then started a departure from NZAS, where I had it take me right to the runway.  Turns out I couldn't find the runways because they don't exist, it's just grass. 

[MartyS (Gromit)]

After about 20 hours of 3D printing got the basics of my pedals working.

Just have to design a mechanism to transfer about 40 degrees of movement into about 270 degrees on the potentiometer.  Thinking of doing something with string like the tuning dial on a radio.

After that I have to design the toe breaks, it will basically be a 2nd pedal that goes above the heel pedals that you push over with your toes.  Lots of planes have pedals like that, and it will be less prone to breaking vs. trying to get the entire pedal to push/pull and rotate over.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

I was a little bit off in my calculations for how far the string had to travel to turn the pot from end to end, so lost about an inch of travel on the pedals, but it doesn't feel all that different, might be even better not to have to move my feet as much.

Still thinking about different designs for the toe brakes.

[Variety of Cells]

Ok, I have a question. I'm starting to get deeper into the sim, trying to do things the proper way. Just learned about IFR flights vs VFR and that makes sense. Did an IFR flight for the first time and that was cool. I ran out of fuel again on my approach (The fuel estimator on FSE is pretty off. I've been buffering it by a lot and I still run out sometimes.) But I managed to set it down.

Anyway, my question is, when doing an IFR flight through ATC I arrive at the airport... but then what?  They kind of stop talking to me.  I ended up canceling the IFR flight and contacting the tower to land. Is that what you're supposed to do? The answer to this question might be specific to MSFS2020 and you might not be able to answer it fully.  I'm trying to learn by watching videos, but I haven't found a good video to put all the pieces together yet. They usually focus on one thing and then leave other parts out, so I don't get to see how they interact. Like showing you how to do an ILS landing, but without using coms at all. I've also been flying into a lot of very small airports, and I've learned that not all airports have the same features.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

I haven't been using the ATC in MSFS so can't say anything about it other than I've been reading on the MSFS forum that it's not great...

Normally different parts of a flight are in contact with different control people.

Between airports you would be talking to the regional center.

Approaching the airport you are talking to the airport on one frequency.  Sometimes a different frequency for final approach and landing.

Once you land you talk to ground support on a different frequency.

Taxing around the airport might be a different frequency than ground support.

Departing the airport you are talking on a different frequency.

Big airports have multiple frequencies for each of these, so when they get busy they will tell you what channel to switch to after you make contact, and at each step along the way the controller you are talking to will tell you what channel to use when they hand you off.

Small airports might only have a couple of different channels, one for tower and one for ground. 

Really small airports will only use one channel.

Really small airports sometimes have no one on the ground and there are plane to plane frequencies used so planes coordinate with each other.  Those types of airports sometimes have automatic lights that you send a signal to as you approach at night and they turn on.  Usually no refueling at those airports since there's no ground support.

It's hilarious that every airport in MSFS has those people waving you in and have push back machines at the ready for your tiny piper cub....

None of that probably helps with how to get MSFS to work properly, but that's a rough idea of how it should work.

[Variety of Cells]

Thanks, that helps a bit.  Still need to do some more research, but it helps. 

It is funny that those guys are always there.  But it's less funny when the parking spot you spawned into is on a little hill and you're stuck with no reverse thrust.  And there's a guy with a push back machine standing right there, but when you contact ground support it tells you this airport doesn't have that feature.  Buh.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Shift+p will start the guy pushing you back, same key to stop.

If there is no building in front of you just go forward and mow them down, with full rudder to turn around, there are no collisions with ground vehicles or people, or other planes, I've taxied right through AI planes.

[Variety of Cells]

It was a weird situation where I was literally stuck on an incline. Wouldn't move forward despite going full throttle. Parking break was off. It was weird. Maybe stuck on some geometry.

I've had some success landing an IFR flight now after watching a few more videos. I think my issue before was I didn't have an approach set. I think ATC had just picked one for me and I didn't realize, and so I didn't have it in my GPS. But now I see you can select your approach ahead of time before you start the flight if you're flying into a big enough airport.  Flew into Auckland using RNAV to land. It was pretty slick.  I'll have to try ILS sometime too.  Then I need to wrap my head around the proper procedures for flying into small airports that MSFS doesn't have approaches for, because I'm sure whatever I've been doing is wrong.

Slowly working on turning the other helpers off. I still have auto mixture on. Maybe I'll tackle that one next. But I think I'm going to have to turn the taxi arrows back on. I'd be down to try and figure it out normally. But most airports don't have signs in MSFS, and what MSFS has made up doesn't always match the actual airport, so looking it up online won't help. Plus sometimes it wants you to go some crazy route. So I think I'll just leave the arrows on and save some frustration.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

 From what I've read and also encountered myself ILS is hit or miss, some airports work correctly and some don't.  It does seem like they rushed this out a bit before it was done, lots of stuff that needs more work like the G1000 not letting you set up a flight plan with multiple way points.

It's also a big oversight that they didn't include any DME systems in any of the planes, I guess they figure even for planes without GPS people bring their own when they fly, which is probably true, that's why I got X-Plane, flying a vintage plane it's cheating to pull out a GPS, if you know the angle and distance to a VOR using your instruments you know where you are on a map.  If you just have DME you can use a couple VORs to triangulate your position by drawing distance circles around them and you are where the circles intersect.

For small airports without ILS do you know how to read PAPI lights to get on the correct approach slope?  Those seem to be working correctly everywhere I've encountered them.

I've got the last part for one side of my toe brakes printing overnight, if that works out by Sunday I should have all the parts for the other side done, so I might be flying with pedals and toe brakes Sunday.  It has taken quite a few test pieces to get some of the dimensions correct, home 3D printers are good to about half a millimeter accuracy, if you need better you have to adjust the size in CAD and print test parts, adjust the model 0.1 mm, print another test part, etc...  So getting several parts to fit into each other perfectly can take a while.

[Variety of Cells]

I know of PAPI lights, but I don't know how to read them. I'll have to look that up.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Pretty simple, 4 red means too low, 4 white means too high, 3 red means a little low, 3 white means a little high, 2 red and 2 white means you are on the correct slope.

Sometimes instead of in a line they are in 2 pairs that form a box, those just tell you high or low or correct, you don't get the "close" readings.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

 One side of my pedals is now mechanically done, just have to wire it up, about 11 more hours of printing for the parts that go on the other side.

Got 2 rubber bands as the return on the toe breaks now, the design leaves me lots of choices for other ways to spring it back.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

My pedals are done and working nicely.

Man is it hard to steer on the ground with them, I keep pushing the wrong one to turn.  I think I'll have to taxi around for half an hour to get it somewhat natural...