There we go, I was at GPN21 the previous weekend and gave a talk about flying in the virtual worlds. The Video Operation Center has been quick and the recording is now online for general consumption. As it was a mostly German event, I decided to give the talk in German. Sorry about that but … Continue reading Reality Bites – Flight Simulation – Part 12 – Talk Recording – GPN21
While I’m certainly still considering myself a newbie at flight simulation, I’ve accumulated a number of interesting stories about the topic over the last year on how to get started. So I thought I’d talk a bit about it at the upcoming ‘Gulaschprogrammiernacht’ (GPN21) in Karlsruhe this weekend. Yes, it’s not quite like any other … Continue reading Reality Bites – Flight Simulation – Part 11 – Giving A Talk at GPN21 This Week
It was predictable in some way that sooner or later, I would want to do yet another ‘upgrade’ in the flight simulator and move to something bigger. After the turboprop Daher TBM-930, which I started flying last year, it was either a private yet or an airliner. There is lots of choice and in the … Continue reading Reality Bites – Flight Simulation – Part 10 – Moving to ‘the Bus’
There obviously had to come a time when the interests of the wireless network engineer in me and my enthusiasm for flying in the simulator cross paths. Even small general aviation aircraft have lots of radios on board these days and if you go up the price range a bit, there are even built-in satellite … Continue reading Reality Bites – Flight Simulation – Part 9 – Satellite Communication in Planes
When flying in the simulator, I’m quite amazed how many radios a modern GA airplane or airliner has on board. Sometimes, it feels more like a flying radio tower than an airplane. The picture above and below shows the antennas of a Daher TBM 930 turbo-prop plane on its roof and its underside. Needless to … Continue reading Reality Bites – Flight Simulation – Part 8 – Radios In Planes
When flying with Visual Flight Rules (VFR) in the simulator, I’ve come to rely on SkyDemon, a real world tool to plan VFR flights and then use it during the virtual flight to find my way and to avoid ‘Charlie’ airspace and restricted areas. When flying with Instrument Flight Rules (IFR), other real life tools … Continue reading Reality Bites – Flight Simulation – Part 7 – SimBrief and Navigraph
In the previous post back in January on my flight simulator adventures, I’ve described my step from a small propeller plane to the somewhat more powerful turbocharged Daher TBM 930. While that doesn’t give a lot of benefits from a Visual Flight Rules (VFR) perspective, having a faster plane for Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) flying … Continue reading Reality Bites, Part 6: The G3000 Avionics on Steroids in That Simulator
I’ve been virtually flying on VATSIM for some time now, and the small Diamond DA40 is great fun, especially for Visual Flight Rules (VFR) operation. With its Garmin G1000 flight management system, flying Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) to and from larger airports is also a lot of fun, especially since the software was updated to … Continue reading Reality Bites – Flight Simulation – Part 5 – Moving to the Next Plane
In episode 3, I’ve looked a bit on how flight planning and navigation software for ‘the real world’ can be used in a flight simulator. Using such software is a huge step beyond the built-in navigation tools when it comes to flying in the simulator as realistically as possible. Next in my list of things … Continue reading Reality Bites – Flight Simulation – Part 4 – VATSIM
In part 2 of this series, I’ve been looking at resources available from books to videos on Youtube to learn flying in the virtual domain. For me, a mix of real world examples and examples shown with a simulator made most sense. So for a couple of months I was flying happily on the simulator … Continue reading Reality Bites – Flight Simulation – Part 3 – Real World Apps in the Simulator