Flight Simulator Notes and Comments

Flying the Mooney low and fast, with a wide-angle view. See "Nap of the earth", below.		Horsing around in Sydney, flying under the bridge.

• Nap of the earth - The Mooney is very fast and very maneuverable—fly it at full power at treetop height and follow the terrain closely. As you approach a mountain or building, wait until the last second, then zoom up sharply. On the opposite side, you must chop the throttle promptly when descending to avoid an airspeed alarm. Using this "nap of the earth" technique, try following a river, or try following a mountain valley. You can also try flying down the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, nap of the earth, full throttle. For an interesting view, switch to the spot plane view, with the spot plane directly behind your plane, and zoom-out to a very wide-angle view (press "-" repeatedly). You'll see lots of scenery flying by at high speed.
• Mountain valleys - Some of the mountain valleys by Mt. Rainier (the big mountain southeast of Sea-Tac) have nice scenery. Use Slew Mode to position yourself high up near the mountaintop, then pick out a valley and follow it downhill as it twists and turns. Eventually, most of the valleys pick up a river, and finally come out on the plains to the west. It's nice to use a Cub or some other slow plane so you can have an undemanding flight and enjoy the scenery.
• Bridge flying - Unfortunately, you can't land on bridges, since the roadway is not a solid surface. But it's fun and challenging to fly lengthwise down a bridge, a few feet above the roadway, without dipping through the roadway and without hitting any of the bridge structure. It's best to use a small, slow airplane like a Cub, since the Cub even fits through the small openings of a cantilever bridge (the type with lots of steel latticework). It's also fun to fly under bridges. With a big bridge like a suspension bridge, there's usually enough room to zoom even a 747 under the bridge at cruising speed. For more challenge, trying flying along or under a bridge, but fly inverted.
• Fly inverted - Most of the airplanes can fly upside down.
• Buzz the control tower - Switch to "control tower view" and buzz the control tower. You get good views of the airplane from the control tower camera as the plane approaches and zooms close overhead. You can also circle continuously around the control tower while watching from the control tower camera.
• Island hopping through the Caribbean - Some of the Caribbean islands have decent scenery (Like St. Maarten in the Netherlands Antilles), with autogenerated buildings placed carefully alongside roads instead of willy-nilly, like most scenery. Plus, many of the islands are close together, and you can see the next island from the present island, making navigation easy. Try starting out in the British Virgin Islands (listed as "Virgin Islands, British"), and follow the chain of islands east and south until you reach Trinidad or Venezuela.
• Head-on collision on final approach - I confess to getting destructive feelings sometimes in Flight Simulator, so I fly in the vicinity of the approach end of a busy airport and wait for autogenerated traffic to show up on final approach. As they fly inbound towards the runway, I fly outbound, steering directly towards them at the last instant. I try real hard to have a head-on collision, but it's surprisingly difficult to hit another airplane in Flight Simulator. For one thing, the program seems to detect the collision course, and the autogenerated airplanes can take evasive action (they also flash their landing lights). For another thing, it's just difficult to work out all the angles and speeds to come up with the proper instantaneous solution. To have the most opportunities for collisions, configure the program to generate the maximum amount of traffic (Alt->Options->Settings->Traffic->Air traffic density), and hang around a major airport during a busy time of day.
• Watch landing airplanes close-up - Probably everybody who uses Flight Simulator at least occasionally hangs around real airports to watch airplanes land and take off. You can do that in Flight Simulator, too, and you can do it in a way that you could never do in real life. Park an airplane on the grass just past the approach end of a runway (if you park on the runway itself, all arriving airplanes declare missed approaches and go around). Experiment with positioning the airplane, and even opening the door or moving the eye point, until you get the best view. Also, you can turn on a VHF radio and listen to the tower frequency to hear what's going on. Then, set up the spot plane view so it's a very wide angle view and looking directly down the runway. As an airplane descends on final approach, watch it by looking out the window in virtual cockpit view mode (you can zoom-in for a better look). Just as the airplane passes overhead (remember, you're right at the runway threshold), switch to spot plane view and you'll see the airplane swoop overhead and touch down on the runway.
• Force airplane to go around - This is a variation on the previous setup. Park on the grass next to the runway, and as an autogenerated airplane descends on final approach, pull out on to the runway and watch the airplane do a missed approach and go around.
• Watch airplanes take off - Park the airplane in the grass next to the runway, most of the way down the runway from the departing planes, at the point where heavy jets just take off and are maybe ten feet in the air. Position the airplane perpendicular to the runway, with the engine idling, and set up the spot plane view so it's looking down the runway towards the airplanes about to depart. Wait until a heavy jet starts its takeoff roll and is committed to take off, then pull out on to the runway and stop in the middle (if you pull out too soon, the jet won't start its takeoff roll). Switch to the spot plane view and you'll see the airplane barreling down the runway towards you, and if you've positioned your airplane correctly, the jet will rotate and become airborne just before it passes over you, swooping overhead at low altitude.

Watching airplanes take off. In the right-hand picture, I miscalculated where to position my airplane, and the 747 didn't get high enough to clear me; its heavy landing gear passed right through my airplane.