Re: Things to remember in very hot weather

terry writes:

> Not being a simmer myself,  but dont you guys look at performance
> charts and weather re****ts and make pretend flight plans and all that
> sort of stuff that real pilots do? or do you just jump on the computer
> and take off?

It depends on the simmer.  Some go to extremes with details, others do
not.
In simulation, you can simulate the part you enjoy, and skip the part you
don't, which is one of its key advantages.

At least in the case of online flight, flight plans are routinely filed
(and
of course they are required for IFR).  I look briefly at weather for the
departure and destination air****ts and sometimes at weather along the way;
I
do a lot of flying in the American southwest, where the weather tends to
be
perpetually VMC, so detailed analysis isn't usually required.  If I'm
flying
through Alaska or through the Midwest in winter, or any place where VMC is
not
the rule, or any place unfamiliar, I look more closely.

I only look at performance charts in unusual situations (such as this
one).  I
fly the same aircraft regularly and in normal situations I have a good
idea
what performance to expect.  Yesterday I noted the temperature on the ramp
to
be 42.9° C, and so I worried a bit about any potential problems that I
might
have forgotten about that are associated with high ambient temperatures,
which
is why I asked about it.

There are simmers who have simulated passenger and cargo manifests,
virtual
airlines for which they fly, and other simulated details highly peripheral
to
the flight itself, but I don't usually bother with those, although I try
to
come up with weak pretexts for having different numbers of passengers
aboard
in small aircraft.  In large aircraft I generally assume that I'm flying a
private jet with a fairly fixed weight and a constant fuel load so that I
don't have to constantly recalculate things.  I keep more than enough fuel
aboard in both cases to cover the time range that interests me (no more
than
two hours or so for a flight, and often much less).

There are also simmers who are very close to gamers, in that they'll just
jump
into the aircraft and take off, and buzz buildings and fly loops and all
sorts
of tremendously unrealistic things.  They are only a problem if they do
this
online, as online flight (at least on VATSIM) is supposed to be just like
real
life, and this means no Mach 2.5 p***** over the runways at LAX or
anything
like that.

In simulation there is also a type of pilot that one would never see in
real
life, namely, a pilot who has flown only airliners and only with full
automation.  These pilots have learned only how to load something into
their
FMC, and depend on the computer to handle the flight; they maneuver by
adjusting controls on the autopilot, and every landing is an autoland. 
They
aren't much of a hindrance if all goes well, but since they are often
incapable of flying the aircraft without the FMC, any instruction from ATC
that requires manual intervention leaves them dangerously confused.  I'm
not
sure what sort of person would only be interested in loading the FMC and
going, without ever being curious about the other aspects of piloting, but
they seem to be common.  Perhaps it's the ATC that attracts them, and they
just want to sound cool on the radio.