An Introduction to Flight Simulation

Well, let's get this out of the way: Delving into flight simulator is probably one of the nerdiest activities out there, along with tweaking Linux and comparing washing machine RPM's (yes, that actually happens....go look it up, if you dare). But flight sim was, in many ways, my "gateway drug" to aviation, and I'm still pretty hooked. If you take a look at what goes on in an average flight, it can be pretty fascinating. I've been doing it for 5 years at this point, and I still learn new things every time I start up the simulator.

Before I go into the technicalities, details, and intricacies, I would like to make on incredibly important distinction: there is a very non-fine line between video games and simulations. Video games are designed almost exclusively for entertainment, and rarely provide any real educational value (disclaimer: I love games, and plan on making a post about them soon. So no hate). While some video games may have fancy graphics, their realism factor is usually skin-deep. Simulations, on the other hand, aim to accurately model real-world scenarios, for education, entertainment, or both. Furthermore, there are many flying games which are NOT simulations. These include 2D "sidescrollers" (such as the famous helicopter-in-a-cave), and many fighter-plane games.

And just to make this clear: Tom Clancy's Hawx is in NO WAY a flight simulator. From this point onward I will personally slap anyone who refers to it as such.

Anyways....

In the flight simulator world, there are two main categories: military and civilian. Military flight simulators include air-to-air combat, air-to-ground attacks, search and rescue missions, scouting operations, etc. Basically, anything that is done by the army/air force/navy. Civilians sims, on the other hand, can do pretty much everything else, such as airline flights, private sightseeing, glider competitions, hot air balloon adventures, helicopter shenanigans.....even space flight! The simulator community has become so large and involved that pretty much anything that can go in the air has been simulated one way or another.

Within the civilian flight simulator categories, there are programs which are highly popular: Microsoft Flight Simulator X (FSX), X-plane (http://www.x-plane.com/) and FlightGear (http://www.flightgear.org/). about 99.99% of my sim time has been in FSX, so I won't go into x-plane or FlightGear. But I encourage you to check them all out at the links provided if you are thinking of getting into this hobby. A brief synthesis:

FSX: Designed with the Microsoft budget/schedule, meaning it has pretty graphics but generally shoddy coding. Like any other simulator, it takes a ton of addons to get it to any level of decency. But it has the largest community, best addons, and best multiplayer support. If you have the time, it can become an incredible simulator. A new sim from a new development team, "Microsoft Flight" (http://www.microsoft.com/games/flight/) is on its way.

X-Plane: Designed by an independent team. This means there is a lot of attention to technical detail and technicalities, but it's not much to look at. It also has a fairly sizable community, but doesn't seem to have attained quite the same level of diversity and quality in addons as FSX. A new X-Plane 10, with some exceptional preview shots is right around the corner.

FlightGear: This one is free! It is programmed by thousands of contributors from around the world who freely donate their time. The pro is, of course, that you don't have to pay. The con is that it is at a much lower quality than any payware products. I encourage anyone tempted by simming to give FlightGear a try....consider it a free sample of sorts. If you like the concept, go out and give a few bucks for a better sim.

I keep mentioning addons and communities, like they're the centerpiece of some blood cult ritual. What's so important about those things in a simulation? Well, they both go pretty hand-in-hand, but I'll start with the importance of addons.

Simulators have an inherent flaw: they are incredibly complicated to model. There is an insane amount of things that must be programmed and calculated for any given flight. These things generally go under the categories of weather, traffic/air traffic control, graphics, sounds, and aircraft systems. To give you an idea: It took a team of 12 developers about three years to visually model Switzerland (http://secure.simmarket.com/aerosoftflylogic-switzerland-professional-x.phtml). With that in mind, imagine modeling the entire world, weather patterns, and dozens of flyable aircraft. So back in the late 90's, a solution was found: one company would make a base simulation program (such as FSX or X-plane), which would be followed by countless addons made by developers from all over the world. In other words, a realistic sim is really a collaboration by hundreds of developers, in one specializing in something very specific. Today, it takes dozens of addons to make a sim look and feel "up to standards." Here's a top-of-my-head list of the addons I would run in a virtual flight from Boston to Miami, and what they simulate:

Microsoft Flight Simulator X: Base Flight Simulator

Ultimate Terrain X: Visually models natural terrain, roads, rivers, and other 2d things on the ground.

Ground Environment X: Calculates "Autogen" a fancy word for buildings and trees. Basically, 3d models.

ActiveSky Evolution: Models pretty much anything to do with weather, such as temperatures, pressure fronts, winds, precipitation....even hurricanes. It can update weather with real-time info.

Real Environment X: Creates realistic textures for things such as clouds, taxiways/runways, sky, sunsets, etc. Also helps simulate wind shear, icing, precipiation and cloud date with ActiveSky Evolution.

FSUIPC: Helps diversify the simulator and connects it with other addons (very ambiguous, I hardly understand it myself)

Level-D 767: A Boeing certified 767 aircraft simulation

FS2Crew: Simulates a copilot and cabin crew

FSPax: Simulates Passengers

FSXBooster: Tweaks your core FSX Simulation to optimize performance and graphics

AIRAC: Used to update FSX Navigation data with charts and airways as they are changed in real life.

FSShade: Changes shades, tones, contrasts, and colors to visually enhance almost everything

Samoshin Trees: Simulates trees (No, I'm not kidding).

Audio Environment: Creates more realistic sounds, such as rain patters, engines, brakes, etc.

EZDok: Creates realistic vision, such as shaking the camera during high speeds and turbulence, lurching forward when braking, etc. Can simulate human vision or cameras.

FSINN: Allows a connection to other virtual pilots and controllers

Ultimate Traffic 2: Simulates air traffic, with real airlines/schedules, down to the last minute.

Furthermore, there are addons for individual airports, aircraft, and geographic areas.

To compliment these software addons, I have hardware peripherals (a yoke, throttle quadrant, switchboard, headset, and rudder pedals). So basically, once you buy a sim, it's far from over. But these things were acquired over the past 5 years, literally one thing at a time.

But these addons didn't come out of thin air. Each one came from hard working men and women who joined together in developement teams to produce them for money. And money requires customers. So it is really the strong player-base and dedicated simmers who made it all possible.

The most prevalent community within FSX is the "Virtual Air Traffic Control Simulator," or VATSIM (http://www.vatsim.net/). VATSIM is essentially a series of servers which allow pilots and controllers from FSX, FS2004 (the previous version of Microsoft's flight simulator), and even X-Plane to fly and control together. This means you could log in to a gate at John F Kennedy International, and fly with/be controlled by real people, who are all using virtual cockpits and air traffic radars. Headsets and microphones allow everyone to communicate with simulated radios.

Within VATSIM, there are many flying clubs, groups, and virtual airlines (VA's). VA's are set up to create the feeling of flying for a real airline, often times from both a flight and business standpoint. Many realistic VA's have extensive application processes, mandatory introduction training, assigned hubs, rank structures, payrolls, and management trees. I fly for American Virtual Airlines (http://joinava.org/), a VA which simulates American Airlines on the VATSIM network. I am the Assistant Hub Manager of the Boston hub with 19 flights, totally 56 hours. For the record, AVA is an awesome airline, and anyone already involved with flight simulation should check them out!

That's more than enough for one blog post. I plan on making a bunch of posts on this topic, so stay tuned. That being said, I hope to take a break from flight in my next post and talk about music a little bit.

Setting Things Straight: Commercial Aviation

Alrighty, here it is. The post about commercial aviation.

In its purest definition, commercial aviation is any form of flying that is done for hire or compensation. This includes a broad array of flying jobs, including passenger/cargo transportation, firefighting, racing, cropdusting, etc. It is the form of flying the world is most familiar with. Many people will simply never step foot in something smaller than a Dash-800.

A Dash-800, before you ask.

This post is pretty near and dear to my heart, because, like most, I was shot into the sky in aisle "F" of a Boeing 757 long before I got my first joyride in a lil' Cessna. Furthermore, the vast majority of questions I get are based around flying in huge jets at busy airports. For anti-rant sake, I'll structure this as a FAQ.

Q: Why are airlines always getting delays?

A. It's true, the aviation business sector is notorious for delays. I don't know one person who doesn't have some delayed-in-xxx-for-20-hours nightmare tale. So why is this?

The problem is that, unlike many other services you can purchase, a successful and on-time flight is highly contingent on a huge variety of factors, such as...

1. Weather: The uneven heating of the earth's surface creates an ever-changing set of weather systems. Things such as winds, icing, thunderstorms, sandstorms, and low visibility can all have serious impacts on the safety of a flight. For a commercial aircraft to take off, it must meet the legal requirements of both the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) and the airline's operating code. Even then, the Captain can personally cancel or delay the flight if he feels it necessary.

2. Air Traffic: Every airport has an operating capacity. As the average traffic flow of an airfield increases, the management will add runways, taxiways, new terminals, and air traffic control towers to maintain efficiency. Even then, there are some places where it's never enough. Airline Hubs such as JFK or LAX handle hundreds of flights a day. If even a dozen of those are individually delayed, it can seriously backlog everything.

3. Maintenance/Safety: While a delay/cancellation may cost the airlines thousands, a FAA violation or crash/forced landing will cost tenfold that. On aircraft has literally hundreds, if not thousands of systems, including navigational, electrical, hydraulic, pneumatic, etc. Once your in the air, a relatively small problem can have major consequences. A pebble-sized dent on a wing's leading edge would be enough to delay a flight for hours (or, situation permitting, an aircraft switch).

So....if just one of these things doesn't go perfectly, a delay occurs. It's unfortunate that people are so quick to throw verbal daggers at airlines for their alleged incompetency, when they are the last ones to blame most of the time.

Q: I hate turbulence. But is it actually dangerous?

A: This is a difficult question because, like many things in life, there is no straight answer. Over the past 100 years, standardized aviation safety regulations imposed by organizations such as the FAA and ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) have made it very difficult for one thing to crash a plane. Take the recent crash of the Air France Airbus off the Brazilian coast for example: It took a faulty instrument, mismatching speed reports, bad weather and reduced night time visibility to bring the jet down.

In relation to the original question, I have never heard of turbulence alone taking down a plane. That being said, if an amateur pilot allows a bad situation to spiral out of control, turbulence could seriously worsen things. Imagine, for example, if a student pilot with 40 hours flew into dense fog in a mountainous area. Ok, that's already pretty bad. If there was also turbulence, the jolting and constant control-inputs needed to stabilize the aircraft could prevent him or her from making the necessary decisions and actions to get out of the fog.

That example uses a student pilot, and it would be INCREDIBLY unlikely for a crew of professional pilots to get into a comparable situation. That being said, wind shear IS real threat to large aircraft. Wind shear is defined as a sudden change in velocity or direction of the wind. The most violent forms of it are found in microbursts and downdrafts produced in and around stratocumulous clouds (thunderstorms). To a meteorologist, wind shear and turbulence are two different things. To a passenger, well, they both feel like a bumpy ride. The difference is that microbursts and downdrafts have downed entire airliners, flown by highly competent pilots.

In summary, a turbulence is only dangerous if you're being flown by an amateur pilot who "falls behind the aircraft" (a term for when pilots are no longer able to anticipate things, and are barely flying the aircraft). Furthermore, the vast majority of professional pilots are smart enough to stay well clear of anything that could produce significant wind shear. So no, turbulence probably won't kill you. But still, fasten your seat belt.

Q: Many captains have been flying for decades....why do they still struggle with making a soft landing?

A: Oh boy. I love this one.

What we deem a hard or soft landing is the result of a controlled impact of the aircraft's rear tires hitting the ground. The mathematical version of impact force is best measured in Feet Per Minute, or FPM. In other words, the faster the aircraft is falling (more FPM), the harder the impact. If pilots are to make soft landinga, they must minimize the rates at which the aircraft are descending. Simple, right? Well, there's a hitch.

If you are descending slower, that means you are spending more time in the air, and less on the ground. When an aircraft is on the ground, it is less prone to wind shear, and slows down exponentially quicker. When you are close to the ground, wind shear can be highly fatal: a crosswind at high velocities could send an airliner's wing into the ground, followed by the rest of it. More time in the air = more time you could get hit by wind shear. When an aircraft is the in the air, it slows down by maintaining idle (0%) thrust, and using flaps + minimal speed brakes (flaps on TOP of the wings). Once you're on the ground, however, you can use reverse thrust, fully deploy the speedbrakes/spoilers, and most importantly, kick in the powerful wheel brakes.

Furthermore, landing too softly can result in skidding, which can lead to excessive wear on the tires, and even gear fires.

So like many things, there is a yin-yang-esque balance. If you land too hard, it can discomfort the passengers, and even damage the aircraft. But landing softly has its own myriad of problems. Pilot's generally shoot for something between 250-300 FPM when they touch down.

One other thing: The final touchdown is probably the most over-valued thing in passenger's minds. The vast majority of a pilot's training and focus is spent on pre-flight planning, the takeoff, and the approach. I'm not saying touching down is easy....but just because it was a hard landing, doesn't mean you had a bad pilot.

Q: How much do pilot's get paid?

A: It varies greatly by job and rank. A copilot (officer) for a minor cargo company flying a small turboprop would get around $20,000 a year. A senior captain for a large airline can make up to $300,000 a year.

Q: When I look inside airliner cockpits, I see a bazillion knobs and switches. How the heck does anyone remember what they all do?

A: Every aircraft's cockpit is divided into several sections, and within those, subsections. Generally speaking, the vast majority of knobs and switches in a modern airliner can be found above the pilot's heads, in the "overhead panel" (wonder where they got the name...). Overhead panels usually control the navigation systems, fuel flow, hydraulics, electrical systems, air conditioning, lights, cockpit recorders, and passenger signs. The panel is divided into subsections for each of these systems, and every section and individual switch is appropriately named. Furthermore, the vast majority of these switches are set once at the beginning of the flight, then left untouched until shutdown at the destination.

In other words, yes, there are a hell of a lot of buttons. But when you spend hundreds of hours training in that aircraft, and there's a logical division of systems, it becomes completely feasible to learn.

Q: How do pilots fly and land in bad weather, when you can barely see 2 feet outside of the window?

A: Aircraft navigation these days is based around a combination of radios and GPS. Radio waves can do a lot more than play music: certain instruments can tell how far or close they are from a certain frequency, thus allowing pilots to follow invisible radio pathways. GPS works in a similar way, but it's all done from space (how often can you say that casually?). Oftentime, modern airliners will fly a route that is a quilt work of radio and GPS routes. When landing, pilot's the Instrument Landing System, or ILS. A radio beacon is placed at the beginning of the active runway. The beacon sends out a glidepath, which can show the ILS receiver in the aircraft how high or low, and left or right it is of the "glideslope" (landing path). That being said, pilot's are required to have a visual of the runway within a certain altitude, otherwise they must go around.

There's so much more I could write here, but this post is already getting pretty long. I hope it was an informative, fun read, as I certainly had a blast writing it.

Irresistable

Ok, I lied.

My promise about a post regarding interesting facts in commercial aviation will have to be put on hold.

I decided that to keep this blog alive and fresh, I will try to make a summary post every time I finish a flight. In these summaries, I will include stories, pictures, videos, ATC recordings, etc. These won't have any "big picture" discussions or endless rants. Instead, they will just dish out the good stuff: Flying. And when you're flying in good ol' Vermont, the views never get old.

Date: 10/11/2011

Time: 2000z-2210 zulu (4pm-6pm local)

Elapsed Flight Time: 1.5 Hours

Route: VT8-KBTV-VT8 (Shelburne to Burlington International and Back)

Weather: Pristine!

KBTV 112054Z 33004KT 10SM CLR 18/06 A3018 RMK AO2 SLP221 T01780061 56013 

As the title suggests, I simply couldn't resist flying on a day like today. After some misreading of bus schedules, I managed to completely miss school (luckily, I only had one class). One call to Burlington Airport's weather station was all I needed: Winds calm, sky clear. 2 hours later, I was in the air.

Want to hear me on the radio?

http://archive-server.liveatc.net/kbtv/KBTV2-Oct-11-2011-2100Z.mp3

My callsign is N7828Z (usually identified as "Cessna Two Eight Zulu"). I'm the guy with the scratchy, near-indistinguishable radio!

Anyways. Here are some shots I snapped on my phone. Mi madre just ordered a camera-to-computer cable, so some videos and higher resolution shots are right around the corner!

In retrospect, I realized that this flight was probably one of my last solo's before I (finally!) turn 17 and obtain my Private Pilot's License. It's been a humbling journey, to say the least.

The Surly Bonds of Bloghood...

Well, after months of thinking about it, I've finally gone through with making this blog. I'm not expecting hordes of followers or international press with it, but I hope it can provide some entertaining stories and little-known facts to anyone who takes the time to peruse it. Like virtually everything else created on the internet, I welcome comments, questions, and criticisms, so please speak your mind!

This blog is going to be based around my core passion: aviation. If you know me in real life, you've most likely listened to me drone on about things like the 737's newest engine variant, the issues with our Air Traffic Control infrastructure, or the fascinating force and simplicity of Bernoulli's principle for...well....hours! Well, now I get exactly what I have needed: a chance to talk about planes even more!!!

That all being said, I am hardly a one-track type of person, so don't be surprised if other topics pop up here and other. My other passions include, but are certainly not limited to, music (I play the cello, and dabble in composing and electronic mixing from time to time), video games and technology, politics, animal rights, and foreign languages/cultures. From time to time I might upload songs I composed, or share my opinions on the psychological flaws of our current education system. Just keep an open mind, I'll try to keep it interesting for all types.

Ok. That last paragraph was taxing. I need to start talking about planes again before I experience a renal failure. I guess a good place to start would be a personal history: How I got into planes, and why they still fascinate me every day.

After racking through memory lane, I would have to say that my first aviation-related memory is one with my father. Unlike most of the pilots I meet, I don't have some deep-rooted family history with aviation. As far as I know, no one in my entire family has had anything to do with it. But that didn't stop me from dragging them into it! During one trip to visit my dad (I think I was about 5 or 6), he bought me a toy airplane and one of those floor-mat airports. I remember how angry I became when I realized that the plane was 1/5 the size of the runway, and would CLEARLY require about 3x more runway to get off the ground. So I dragged my dad's ass over to the nearest hardware store, and got the makings to extend all 4 runways. Good times.

"Susie, how the HELL am I supposed to

capture the glideslope when your

sitting on the goddamn ILS transmitter???"

Like most boys, I was really just drawn in by the size and the mystery. Something about the smell of jet fuel, the specific colored lights, the oddly shaped cargo trucks, the radio chatter....all of it was so huge and frantic and unfamiliar, it felt like a completely different universe, which I yearned to understand and participate in. In the summer following my "graduation" from Union Elementary School in Montpelier, I discovered "Operation Red Flag" and "Combat Flight Simulator 3," two PC flight simulators taking place in Iraq and WWII, respectively. I soon realized I was paying more attention to how soft my landings were and how neatly I could taxi, then actually killing things. What a strange kid I was.

So then I bought "x-plane" (http://www.x-plane.com/), a simulator designed primarily for civil aviation flying. This led to me buying "Microsoft Flight Simulator X" (FSX). Despite all these simulators, I was still pretty terrible at virtual flying, but that didn't keep me from trying. Over the years, the complexity and depth of my simulator experience grew. I continually upgraded the computer (another hobby of mine) to handle more trees, AI aircraft, pixels, etc. I bought a joystick, yoke, throttle quadrant, switchboard panel, and rudder pedals. In seventh grade, I bought a Boeing-certified FSX software addon that simulates the Boeing 767. Within a week, I had read and re-read the initial 150-page manual, and operated it from "cold and dark" in Vancounver to a shut down in San Francisco. I joined several online networks, such as Flight Simulator Multiplayer (FS-MP) and Virtual Air Traffic Simulator (VATSIM)

(http://www.vatsim.net/) where I received guidance and even lessons from real pilots and controllers.

I would be lying if I said I wasn't jealous.

In short, my love for aviation grew in such a way that could not have been possible before the 21st century. By the time I entered high school, I could (hypothetically) fly a 747 on a complicated instrument approach through a monsoon. I could read and dissect a VFR sectional chart (the type which makes up this blog's background), communicate fluently on the radio, and even control aircraft from inside "the tower". Through 9th and 10th grade, I continued to learn the ins and outs of various aircraft and fly for different "virtual airlines", albeit at a dampened rate due to the ridiculous workloads Vermont Commons School loved to impose. But in the fall of 2010, I started taking real flight lessons at Shelburne Airport (this blog is named after it's aviation code, VT8).

Since then, my love for flight has done nothing but grow exponentially. My instructor, Paul Potter, has constantly challenged me, both as a pilot and an individual. As of this past weekend, over 60 hours of flight time, logged on two faithful Cessna 150's, N11839 (November One One Eight Three Niner) and N7828z (November Seven Eight Two Eight Zulu). My experiences have included a temporary engine-failure, severe wind shear, and a close call with a Jetblue Airbus (I'll elaborate on these later). I've met all sorts of incredible people, from pilot's who fly $85 million corporate jets, to oldies who have flown in this region since WWII.

Ok, that's a lot for one post. Props if you got through it all (pun intended)!

Next time, I'll cover a personal favorite of mine: The myths and surprising facts of commercial flying, alongside some interesting info that might help with fear of flying.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air....

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace.
Where never lark, or even eagle flew —
And, while with silent lifting mind I have trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
- Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

-John Gillespie Magee, Jr.