Microsoft Flight Simulator Handbook

by Jonathan M. Stern

CHAPTER 2

The New Flight Simulator Pilot's Ground School

Pilot's Log Increased weight in the plane requires longer takeoff and landing distances. If a pilot doesn't plan for this, it can take him by surprise. People train with the airplane loaded in the same way again and again. Often in a 4-seater, it's just the instructor and the pilot. Add two more people, and it's a different airplane. Understanding that and experiencing it are two different things. You might land on a runway that's been long enough before. But now it's not, and you end up going off into the grass.

As I said before, good marketing practices dictate that you hook the new flight students before you require that they sit through ground school to learn the basics. After the introductory flight, however, it is time to learn some of the basics, and that's what you do in this chapter.

This is by no means the substantial equivalent of a private pilot ground school. Because of certain limitations of the Flight Simulator program and for the sake of covering instrument flying in the same book, a number of topics included in private pilot training are omitted and others are dealt with in a cursory manner. The bottom line—as was stated in the disclaimer at the beginning of this book—is that neither this book nor the use of Flight Simulator can take the place of real flight training.

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