If you all noticed I wasn't posting yesterday afternoon and early evening, it's because I was very busy. I'm working on my night rating. It requires an extra five hours of instrument time under the hood (beyond the five required for the PPL), and since I plan to go on and do my instrument rating, my instructor has moved on to IFR topics like VOR holds and (last night) a proper ILS approach under the hood.
FlightGear-related observations follow: 1. FlightGear was excellent prep for a real hold, much more useful than Elite, and behaviour right around the VOR itself is a tough test. The only thing we don't have right is the (substantial) needle lag when tuning a new radial, but that's not part of the hold proper. 2. On the actual approach, our LOC/GS and the real LOC/GS behaved pretty-much the same -- again, FlightGear was excellent practice (I didn't try an ILS approach with Elite). Off the approach path while we were being vectored in, the CDI flew back and forth at about the same rate as a child on a swing, rather than staying glued to one side (it was almost hypnotic), and the GS was a little funky as well. We should try to model that. 3. Most of the panel instruments had no lighting of their own, except for the VOR 1 gauge, which was quite bright, and of course the LEDs in the radios. Otherwise, there was just the one red light, which barely (but adequately) illuminated the panel, much more dimly than our current 2D panel. There wasn't enough light to read the labels on the electronic switches, for example. 4. Unless you're lined up, you really cannot see the runway lights. On downwind, it's *hard* to see the runway you're tracking, and these were big jet runways -- usually, the approach lighting and parallel taxiway lights were the only clues. On the approach path, the runway lights are very bright as in FlightGear. 5. From three miles away, off the approach path, you can barely see the airport at all -- the streetlights on city streets and in subdivisions are much brighter (again, this is a major airport). I lost it a few times while we were orbiting to let a regional jet land ahead of us. Forget about seeing the airport beacon in a well-lit city. 6. While the runway edge lights are bright, the runway itself is very dark. The yellow taxiway lines are almost invisible, even under the taxi and landing lights, and turnoffs and intersections are very hard to find (the double blue lights are the only clues). Landing before or after a runway intersection was especially tricky, because you cannot see the intersecting runway even from a mile away. Taxiing around the airport was almost like driving on a country road shining a flashlight through the windshield. All the best, David -- David Megginson, [EMAIL PROTECTED], http://www.megginson.com/ _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
