This screen capture was taken during a flight where I deliberately flew a Boeing 747 under the Sydney Harbour Bridge. You can see the bridge and the Sydney Opera House on the other side of the bridge. The detail on the bridge is excellent. The simulation does detect collisions, and if I didn’t direct the aircraft accurately enough, the simulation would show that I have ‘crashed’. I have experienced several collisions! Using a simulator, a pilot can try things that they wouldn’t be wise to do in reality.

The surface of the water looks uncharacteristically calm for Sydney Harbour, but the reflection gives a good indication of how low the aircraft is getting. Flying a 747 under the Sydney Harbour Bridge is something that I would never think of attempting in reality, but I found that I could do it using the simulator. And it was fun. I used the detailed “iFly 747” add-on aircraft (seen here in the ‘Lufthansa’ colour scheme) that offers the most realistic Boeing 747 systems simulation that I have.

Flying the Air Creations Buggy ultra-light aircraft in the European Alps, with a bit of rain and low-lying cloud-cover about.

The cliffs that can be seen here are the ‘white cliffs of Dover’. With so many add-on aircraft available to try, it is nice to be able to try flying aircraft from the early times of powered flight, usually by the ‘seat of your pants’. Here, I am flying a Bleriot XI aircraft across the English Channel. I set up calm conditions, just before sunset, for this attempt.

If I wanted to, I could have set up strong winds and rain for the flight, though I know that for this aircraft, that would have meant a high chance of losing control of the aircraft. I could have set the time to be any time during the year, or any time in the past or the future. Having said that, the objects and the landforms don’t change from year to year, just the dates. The colours of the landscapes do change depending on the season (summer, autumn, winter, or spring).

The position of the sun is modelled, according to the location, the time of the day, and the time of the year. Fairly realistic lighting effects have been incorporated into the simulation.

This image shows a Cessna C172SP Skyhawk with landing lights on at night, ready to take-off at an airstrip with lighting. You can set up the simulator for a flight at any time of the day or night. During dawns and sunsets, the simulator provides fairly realistic lighting to allow you to manage the conditions.

This is the view of the same Cessna C172SP Skyhawk ready to take-off at the illuminated airstrip at night, but from the pilot’s view.

Where the weather is particularly cold, the simulator will provide snow covered terrain. Snowstorms, rain, winds, cloud cover, or clear skies can be set up using the weather settings in the simulator, as well as how quickly the weather may change. As a pilot, you need to manage the aircraft within these conditions as well as the temperatures within the aircraft and the engine. When flying in a pressurised airliner at around 40,000 ft altitude, the simulator will show the outside air temperature to be -40 degrees Celsius, or so.

Here, the simulator is providing a view with suitable colours during a sunset (with clouds), as well as reflections off a surface of water with waves.

Hopefully, you can detect that I really enjoy using a flight simulator such as Microsoft Flight simulator X. I enjoy flying, especially when I know that the practice is completely safe, and when it doesn’t cost me anything for fuel, flying licenses, airport fees, or aircraft maintenance. I also haven’t needed to purchase any real aircraft for flying, which can be extremely expensive. I have about 100 different simulated aircraft to choose from, including gliders, ultra-lights, helicopters, general aviation aircraft, military aircraft, historical aircraft, corporate jets, multi-engine jets, and even the Space Shuttle. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of add-on aircraft available for Flight Simulator X.

It is a sensational computer program!

With flight simulation, I can also set up a flight in a very short span of available time. This is a highly convenient thing for when available time is short, but I also know that this is something that is ultimately detrimental to real flying practices, because it allows simulation pilots to be sloppy with their preparation and their skills. I know that when flying for real, it is very important to plan flights well.

Good preparation should include things like:

• getting as much knowledge on the aircraft you are going to be flying – the state of the aircraft (physical limitations, and state of the aircraft in terms of the maintenance it has received);

• finding out the expected weather over the entire flight;

• having and checking flight charts for both the airport of departure and the destination airport, as well as the terrain under the flight path, and charts for any other airports that I may need along the way, including any alternative airports;

• create a suitable flight plan;

• preparing the aircraft with an appropriate amount of fuel for the distance to be flown, along with extra fuel for unforeseen events (flying into a headwind) or an emergency situation (might not be allowed to land at the destination airport, so need to look at a suitable possible alternative);

• double-checking everything for the flight;

• filing your flight plan with Air Traffic Control (ATC).

Of course, when flying using flight simulation, you can do, and should do, all of these things for thorough flight preparation.

When flying for real, you are risking your life and the lives of other people, so you need to operate with the greatest care, intelligence and sensibility at all times. It is important to be in very good physical shape, and make sure you have had a good sleep. You need to maintain all of your flying and navigation skills and keep up with changes to all aspects of flight safety.

In the flight simulation world, you are freer to operate as you want to, without adversely affecting other people.

Using flight simulation, I have flown a lot of very different types of flights. Flight Simulator X logs all flight times and major events such as landings. I have clocked up more than twelve hundred hours of flying time. I have made over 900 landings at over 170 different airports. I have flown over 80 hours of ‘Instrument Flying Rules’ (IFR) flights. The vast remainder of my flying time was flown under either ‘Visual Flying Rules’ (VFR), or no Air Traffic Control (ATC). I know that for real aviation, all commercial airline flights MUST BE flown under Instrument Flying Rules (IFR), so that Air Traffic Control tracks the progress of all such flights.

I have clocked up over 50 hours of glider flights, and over 180 hours of multi-engine flights. I have flown over 20 hours during simulated night time.

Microsoft Flight Simulator X has an extensive learning centre and a good program of flying lessons. I have done all of the flying lessons and found the learning to be very valuable. It certainly gives me a good idea of the nature of real world flying. As a result of doing the lessons, I passed the Private Pilot’s Checkride, the Instrument Rating Checkride, performed Instrument Landing System (ILS) landings, and learnt other skills required of Commercial and Transport Pilots.

At one stage, I spent considerable flying time flying around the Australian coastline in short segments, usually using single-engine general aviation aircraft. I started in Adelaide, and moved along the coast towards Melbourne in Victoria, passing long stretches of coastline referred to as the Coorong, and the ‘Great Ocean Road’. From there, I flew to Wynyard on the north coast of Tasmania, via King Island. I went around the Tasmanian coast in an anti-clockwise direction, and finally left Tasmania from Devonport on the north coast of Tasmania to go back to the Victorian coastline via Flinders Island. I flew around the coast of Victoria past Cape Howe, and then along up the east coast of Australia through Eden, Batemans Bay, Nowra, Woolongong, Sydney, Newcastle, Port Macquarie, Coffs Harbour, the Gold Coast, Brisbane, Harvey Bay, Bundaberg, Gladstone, Rockhampton, Mackay, Bowen, Townsville, Innisfail, Cairns, Cooktown, Cape Melville, Lockhart River, around Cape York and then into Weipa. This is as far as I got, before stopping that project. I was very impressed with the details of the Australian coast provided in the simulator.

The flight simulator can be added to, or have parts of it replaced with updated or just different scenery: more aircraft, or more scenery, etc. I have created some scenery myself.

Flying, using a flight simulator, you can quite happily pause the simulation for a break, or go to the toilet, or make some lunch and eat it. This can be really convenient, and adds another aspect of freedom to flying using flight simulation. Any flight can be saved and continued at a later time. I can also record screen captures of the simulation at any time, and even record sections of flights for viewing back from different angles, etc. There are also tools for analysing flights.

I have sometimes left the simulation running while I go away on a break. This is something that I haven’t done much, because I would not be experiencing the flight as such anyway, and I am not around should Air Traffic Control require a response, etc. With flight simulation, there are several ways of minimising the time required for long flight times, including temporarily changing the rate at which the simulator runs, or moving the aircraft along the flight path and picking up the flight from a point that is further on.

In the world of flight simulation, the aircraft used can be set up specifically with the way you want them to be – such as brand new, full of fuel, using low-realism but easy-to-fly settings, or aircraft that have experienced stresses due to a few hard landings, perhaps with very realistic flying settings, making them more difficult to fly. The challenges can be set up to try, and situations can be saved and attempted in different ways.

I can sometimes think of me, my computer set up, and the whole real world, flying along inside the flight simulator. In real life, I can be ‘flying’ inside my flight simulator, then decide to walk outside my home to collect the mail and see the sunlight on our garden, and look up at the sky and the clouds and maybe see a real airliner flying on its way to land at Adelaide Airport, and then I return to my flight simulator and continue my simulated flight. The whole real world seems to be flying along with me inside my flight simulator. My imagination makes it possible.

End of this monthly display.