I’ve been looking forward to practicing my short/soft field landing skills over the last week, but the weather has been a mix of nasty and not good enough. I scheduled four flights in the last week and had to cancel all four due to weather! What a bummer. It was also too cold for any motorcycle joy rides.
Having withdrawals, I decided to get out my sectional chart, E6B computer, and plotter to plan a trip from Sanford to a small private airport in Boone, NC, 129nm west of Sanford and 3,000 higher. My intent was to try and fly it in X-Plane (a flight simulator), but given that the simulator terrain is seriously lacking in details, I wasn’t sure if it would work. I had a 1970-something Cessna 152 that had a cockpit layout and performance numbers nearly identical to what I fly in real life, so I felt right at home. I also have CH Products’ yoke and pedals to make controlling the plane more realistic. Skipping the preflight and taxi, I went straight for the takeoff. I had calculated the initial heading based on the wind (that I picked at random and entered into the simulator) and started looking for landmarks. X-Plane can download realtime weather, but if it’s too windy for a real flight, I don’t want real weather.
The simulator shows lakes, large rivers, major roads, airports (of course), and shows cities by using different terrain bitmaps for the land area; there aren’t any 3D buildings… at least not with the graphics settings I was using. Based on those available landmarks, and the use of a VOR or two to verify my position (which the simulator also has… with actual frequencies and locations) I was able to navigate directly to my destination without getting lost. I had calculated the fuel consumption and time en route, and both were pretty close. I did not do a detailed checkpoint flight plan like I would do in real life, but it was close enough for fun.
Landing at Boone (and just about anywhere VFR in a simulator without surround views) is very difficult. My entry into the pattern was horrific and my first landing attempt ended in a go-around. The second one was only marginally better. Boone is a 2,100 ft. long paved strip, so a short field landing is what I attempted. Even with a decent approach, the feel of the controls is definitely not the same, making it much more difficult to nail a good landing than in real life. It’s also harder to judge distance from the ground in the simulator. Oh well…
It’s not the same, but it will have to do for now.
You are such a geek. 😀 ‘Long as it makes you happy. 😉