I have recently been playing on MS Flight Simulator 2002 Pro with limited enjoyment. I can take off, fly and use AP no problem, but I suck at landing. I never know when to start decent and always end up overshooting the airport! Also, when they tell you a runway how do you have time to find out where the runway is in relation to your BRG? Don't the manuals tell you anything. I'd also like to know why the jets don't stay in the sky without stalling even on AP?

Anyone have any advice or a link to someplace with good info on jets and extended flying procedures?

Are your flaps and gear up?

Yep.  I do everything the kneeboard says, as well as the other documents provided.  The AP should at least keep it in the air?  MS doesn't really give any information regarding flying the jets either.  Kinda irritates me.  They make an excellent flight sim and leave out important material.

When you get tired of flying whales and busses, get yourself a copy of Falcon 4.0, apply the latest patches and upgrades, and have yourself some REAL fun flying!

I haven't loaded up FS in so long it isn't even funny, because Falcon 4.0 totally kicks its ass.

Falcon 4.0 is an out of print title, but there are always a few packages for sale on ebay.

CJ

what category rating it the aircraft (CAT I/II/III) ????

are you in the right AP mode?  AT armed???

I'll second that! Falcon is the first flight sim I ever paid for. It's the oldest one I have and still gets the most use. It is also the only one I can't get the best of.

I compulsively play IL2 Forgotten Battles nowadays... AWESOME WW2 flight-sim. I'm also part of the third-party addon community for it (only addons are official, but most of them are third-party)

Nothin' better than watching the wing and tail get ripped off of a 109 through your gun-sight [;)]

Edit: [url]www.il2sturmovik.com[/url]

You may have to dial in the airfields TACAN or VOR/DME to calculate a good descent point.  You use your approximate ground speed in miles per minute and then vary your VSI so that you loose the appropriate amount of altitude.

ex:  You are at 10000' MSL and need to descend to a pattern altitude of 1000'.  You are 15 miles from the field and flying at 250 KIAS.  Thats approx 4 miles per minute which puts you at the field in about 3.5 minutes.  9000/3.5=2571...therefore you need to carry about 2500 fpm rate of descent.

My use for MSFS had to do with a copy of King/Cessna's private pilot ground-school course, and a desire to learn to fly (The King CDs will be enough for me to pass the written exam)...

It's on hold untill I will have enough money for the practical part (since I only have a year after I take the written, IIRC)...

I got pretty good at doing the 'practice' lesson reccommendations from the course, back when I thought I'd have enough money to make taking the test worth it...

I will third that. The game is way cheap.

Microsoft [url=http://www.microsoft.com/games/combatfs/] Combat Flight Simulator[/url] is pretty fun. There was a show on the History Channel a few weeks back about dogfighting, and the simulators/cockpits the Airforce pilots use to train with were running what looked to be CFS.

Ill 4th the falcon 4.0 + addons...cant be beat imho.

but here are some sweet screenshots from FS2002PRO i took.

[img]http://000buck.d2g.com/ss/747vert.jpg[/img]

[img]http://000buck.d2g.com/ss/b58-02.jpg[/img]

[img]http://000buck.d2g.com/ss/b58-03.jpg[/img]

[img]http://000buck.d2g.com/ss/sh3sanfran.jpg[/img]didnt quite make the loop over the bridge :D

ok here's some tips.  First look at you airspeed indicator on the Primary Flight display (Tape on left of Artificial Horizon).  If you see red bars coming up you need to bump the trottle up.  Also a good rule of thumb for starting your decent, is 3 miles for every thousdand feet eg. 10000 ft 30 mi, 20000 ft 60 mi and so on.  Works like a charm.  The approach mode for the AP is not a true auto land, you will crash more often then not.  To see the orientation of your arrival runway, go to the map view off of the tool bar, and find your airport, and zoom way in, it will give you runway heading, and if you double click on the airport it will give you true runway heading and ILS freqs.

Roger that.  F4 kicks serious ass.  Although I'm having trouble running it one of my computers [:(]  When I try to launch, it just goes to a black screen momentarily, beeps at me and flips imediately back to the desktop.  Never had this problem on any of my other machines, and have played it for years.  Haven't weeded out the root of the problem yet [>:/]

I can see I still have some homework to do.  The ILS/VOR has yet to be really learned, but I'm trying to get good at my in-flight orientation and taking off is real easy for me.  My main trouble is with descent and landing in prop driven planes, other than that I'm pretty good on those.  With all jets I pretty much suck.  Even when reading what I think I need to know and paying attention to the kneeboard I end up stalling at full throttle with gear and flaps up.  I do everything it says for climb and/or cruise, yet I still somehow stall with full power?  What I need is something that gives a pretty decent explanation of flying in jets as the MS flight book does with prop planes.  The jets just have a whole different set of procedures and equipment that I need to learn.  

Thanks for the explanation of miles needed for descent per altitude.  I will write that down.

Also, I have the MS combat flight sims (1 and 2), however, I'm pretty sucky at not getting shot down, especially on version 2 (Pacific Theatre).

What is this Falcon 4.0?  A military jet sim?  How old is it?  Graphics any good?

not trying to be a smartass, but have you tried reading the instructions. when i got mine, msfs 2000, it strongly states that you need to learn how to fly to really enjoy the program. thats why it has flight lessons included. startes with simple left & right turns and will take you thru atp rating.

i would suggest trying the lessons until you learn. it like crawling before you learn how to walk. if that isn't your cup of tea, at least do the lessons until you get to the part that tell and shows you how to land properly. it's in there and pretty simple.

remember crawl then walk. heck my back yard is full of thousands of wrecked aircraft from my learning days on fs.

Will Falcon 4.0 work with Windows XP Pro ?

It should.  

The place to go for Falcon 4.0 information, patches, updates, and discussions is [url]www.frugalsworld.com[/url].

Virtually any question you may have about F4 (as we call it) can be answered there.

I'm serious enough about Falcon 4.0 that I recently dumped almost 300 clams on a Thrustmaster Cougar HOTAS throttle and stick setup.  It totally rocks.

CJ

Ah yeah, I've been reading the instructions and doing the lessons.  I did when I first got the program, but had to set it aside for a few months.  What I'm saying is MS doesn't include any information about flying the jets.  The lessons are fairly limited anyhow, anyone can get through them.  I am good at flying, I just don't have a grasp on the landing part.  As far as the jets are concerned, the material included doesn't seem to give enough info about certain procedures needed to fly jet aircraft properly IMO.