Another version hits the runways (OR) What’s wrong with that switch?!

We got version 1.5 out today. This breaks new ground with random erroneous behaviour (REB) in the operation of aircraft panel switches. The existing random and “loose wire” failures systems have been beefed up to make more trouble for the pilot who was just getting used to a bit of piece and quiet on those long haul flights…

Problems requiring detection and resolution now include: Pitot heat; autopilot master; battery; alternator; avionics and NAV/GPS switches. What we’re really trying to model is the potential that the switch, or the circuitry immediately behind it, is somehow faulty and may require a good jiggle to get it working again.
Those darned ground crew…

We also introduced an additional (new) log book, using the traditional real world aviation format of one ‘line’ per flight. This brings in lots of data not available in previous versions, such as hours flown at night or under IFR, and “block time” for Virtual Airline buffs. You can print it too – suitable for framing…
We’re looking into making it possible to export it as data for submission to some of the popular Virtual Airlines.

The Shocking Affair of the Kicked Butt

I was wondering how many folks out there use something along the lines of the Aura Systems Interactor Cushion or the ButtKicker. I’ve got a bunch of the Aura Cushions which I picked up cheap off eBay. I use them as a pillow to sit upon, with another behind my back and another shoved under the rudder pedals. This makes for some serious tactile feedback, I can tell you. Pushing throttles forward or lowering flaps and gear has never been such a moving experience, especially during a thunderstorm. I feel this is an essential piece of simmer’s equipment and of course delivers great bang for the buck as you can continue to use it when playing your favourite first person shooter.

I wonder how long it’ll be before the recently released toys which use an electric shock when your opponent ’shoots’ you will begin to influence simmers. A USB electronic shocking device? Even flight simmers could use this because its primary role, from when I can see, is to induce fear in the mind of the player/user. I can freely admit that when I was playing a game with my son, which involved getting shocked if you were hit by the opponent, I really did not want to get hit again. So I guess one idea would be to shock the pilot if he/she crashes the aircraft, or perhaps it would have a good deal more use if in a combat flight sim, whereby the pilot it shocked when his aircraft is hit, simulating damage to the pilot.

Having said that, even civil aviation simming could use it when problems occur during flight to simulate stressful situations which induce fear.

I am sure a lot of readers will be wondering what the heck I am suggesting be done to the relaxing hobby of flight simulation? Giving electric shocks to the pilot? Well, I’m really just exploring ways that the experience can be experimented with, after all, we’ve all been on rollercoasters and seen movies which are designed to frighten us.

Air Crash Investigation

I’ve been watching the new series of Air Crash Investigation on TV. What a great documentary series it is. It covers tragic events of course, but it also shows the amazing amounts of effort that go into making air travel as safe as it can be. For the virtual pilot it also offers a wealth of detail on how aircraft, airport and ATC systems work and of course, when pilot error is involved, what not to do.

In fact, one of the things I find FSFlyingSchool helps bring to the simulation, with its random and loose wire failures, is the ever present danger of overlooking something simple which has gone wrong, especially if the instructor has been configured so as not to draw the pilot’s attention to failures. This can lead to some scary situations and when under stress, (not like a real flight, but at least you want to get that bird down safely), even simulator pilots can take the wrong emergency actions which makes a bad situation worse.

I mention this because in my earlier simming days I once had a fuel tank problem in a heavy and, duh, decided that the thing to do was apply maximum power and trim the rudder to compensate. In other words I had confused loss of a tank’s fuel with loss of an engine. This did a great job of making a bad situation considerably worse, but it’s just the sort of thing that can happen when you panic. Yes – this is why we have emergency procedures…

PC Pilot Classic Product!

Whoa – I just finished speaking to Derek Davis at PC Pilot – he tells me that we’re a PC Pilot Classic Product! This is a great honour – we owe many thanks to Derek and Joe for such a positive review. So – the review will be in the next edition of the magazine and we’ve even been included on the CD, along with a movie Joe made during his time with FSFlyingSchool.

Just flew some more flights with heavy iron to look at some new features we’re working on. I had a heck of a time when, having planned to execute the perfect flight, I suddenly noticed the gauge of the left main fuel tank slowly dropping down to zero! Wow – that thing must have had a hole in it the size of a Cessna. This changed the balance of the aircraft, but other than that I was able to get her down to EGLL without too much trouble. Basically, I’d forgotten that I had set the failure rate fairly high to test a different feature and I paid the price. It can get pretty wild up there with FSFlyingSchool…

Start of my FSFlyingSchool Blog

Well – here I go – this is the start of my FSFlyingSchool Blog. I hope that this will prove of some interest to those fine virtual (and real) pilots out there who have come to use, or are interested in using, FSFlyingSchool, or are just interested in flight simulation itself.

I’m Jeff Preston, the founder of FSInventions, makers of FSFlyingSchool, and am the main developer of FSFlyingSchool, along with my friend and software development partner John Paul Jones.

Things have been very busy lately with the release of several versions of the product since its initial publication in December 2006.

Out motto has been to frequently update FSFlyingSchool so as to resolve any issues as quickly as possible and to make new features available to existing users and new customers alike.

The new Career Analyzer is a great tool to use to evaluate your own performance with FSFlyingSchool. I have been using it for some time now and it’s very interesting to see which areas of my own airmanship needs extra work. The other day I managed to get a 747 down with a vertical speed of 66 fpm, which my experiments say is about as fast as a sheet of paper falls to the ground on a calm day. But, before I pat myself too hard on the back, I’m also very familiar with that awful sound FSFlyingSchool makes when you slam that baby down onto the runway and get told dryly that “you landed too hard”.

The FSFlyingSchool user interface training movies just made it onto the web site. We hope these will be very useful in explaining how the program works to both customers and interested simmers alike.

Dedicated users of FSFlyingSchool continue to submit new aircraft data for us to turn into FSR (aircraft profile) files in The Hangar – this scheme has proven very successful.

The web site itself has of course undergone several recent changes with the introduction of The Hall of Fame and the stats which can now be obtained on each pilot and each aircraft on the high score tables. There’s been quite a battle for the title of Circuit Caesar (pilot with the best circuit score), with Eric1972 currently holding that honour with 102.60 points in his SIAI-Marchetti SF.260 G-AERO.