There are many different ideas and reasons to pick up flight simulation as a hobby and I’ve laid out mine in the first part of this series. While most people seem to be interested to fly airliners and start right in an Airbus A320 cockpit, I was much more interested to make the experience as ‘real’ as possible. The appeal of flight simulation to me was to get as close as possible to flying small planes, so I started in a small Cessna with a classic ‘six-pack’ instrument panel. After a week or two, I moved to a Cessna 172 with a a Garmin G1000 ‘glass cockpit’, i.e. electronic instruments. Again a few weeks later, I ‘upgraded’ to a Diamond DA 40 NG 4 seater, also with a Garmin G1000 instrument panel and full autopilot. The flight lessons provided in MSFS2020 are very good for the basics, but to fly as realistically as possible, there’s a lot more to learn. Fortunately, there are many resources, both for real and virtual flying out there and in this episode, I’ll have a look at the classic approach: Getting some books on the topic.
Continue reading Reality Bites – Flight Simulation – Part 2: Books and Manuals