The First Solo



In a pa22-160 on EDDP, Leipzig-Halle, Germany


Before taking off the first time, let us understand the extremes of Aviation:

An airplane is quite fragile and flies at high speeds. Yet it is one of the safest forms of transport.

Pilots must constantly follow rules and procedures. Yet an airplane is a symbol of freedom.

With a little training, flight a small aircraft is easy. Yet if a problem occurs, you must be able to resolve it in a few seconds.

Many flight tutorials are written with a lot of humor. Yet not taking flying seriously will bring you down to earth prematurely.

The aircraft used in this tutorial is the "Cessna 172“. This is the aircraft used in many real life flight schools and a great airplane to fly. In addition the C172 in FlightGear is broadly equipped with Communication and Navigation Radios. And also its performance data are well known, see http://wiki.flightgear.org/index.php/C172. All together that makes it an ideal Training Vehicle for us.


Prerequesite

It might not come to you as a total supprise, but before you start the program, it must have been installed and functional. So let us check:

A First Experiment


You should notice:

The Cessna starts rolling
  • turns more and more to the left
  • the speed will rise and starts indicating in the "Airspeed"-instrument (the one at the upper left side of the instrument panel!)
  • when entering the green markings in the "Airspeed"-instrument the Cessna will Take Off
  • and keep on turning to the left
  • and finally will crash, as you see in the picture

This is the very natural behavior for this "wild beast" -- when there is no tamer around! As a pilot (to be) you never should forget this behavior - you will always find it, most distinct in aircrafts with only one engine! (Technically: It results from the unbalanced torque-effect of the engine!). You must be prepared to counterattack these "bad habits" vigorous - show that beast who is the boss! We will learn to do that further down.

Now let us cancel this demonstration with "Menu → File → Quit“ - and see how it is done without paying that extremely high insurance-policies each time!



Getting Serious

In the following we will do what a real instructor would do: We will introduce you to the things you will need to know and operate next. Most of that you will not have to read again for each start - at best you make yourself a little "Checklist" what to check each time - and save it for later use!

A "real instructor" would not just let you take the controls and fly -- he would first taxi to the runway, take off, climb and level off. Only then he would "force" you to take over and start teaching you the level "cruise" flight. Here in the simulator you have to do everything yourself right from the start! That makes it quit difficult - but on the other hand you can train as often as you like, at any time you want - and do not have to pay for it! You even get some additional, "unrealistic" support - and nobody is there screaming hell at you (except yourself!)! And be sure: There were others not as good as you -- even they made it!

For the beginning you should remember these keys:
If you have already a joystick (and know how to use it) you may use it from the beginning. But in the scope of this book, we will just describe (and suggest for the beginning) the usage of keyboard and mouse - the joystick (being it of whatever type and manufacturer and Operating-System etc.) you have to figure out yourself (see Joystick in the part "Briefing).

But you have to decide yourself about using Mouse or Keyboard - we will explain both! My private suggestion is:

Preflight

This now will be our first actual usage of what we have learned in the preceding chapters. For the beginning we will keep it a little easier by just using the Cessna like a car, i.e. only "2 dimensional" right/left and forward (backward is a  little unusual for a plane!)

The Location

Before we start let's get familiar with the area in which we will fly our first training sessions - otherwise we might get lost pretty soon. (That "we" was a little a hoax: You will be alone on your flights -- but all my good wishes will be with you!).

There are a lot of possibilities to explore the area in advance: If you are constantly connected to the Internet you might use my favorite "MPmap", or "ATLAS" if you just work locally, you could also use normal street-maps, or aviation maps, etc.
If you want to follow me in using the MPmap just open http://mpmap01.flightgear.org and zoom and move as usual in Google (see the vertical scale in the upper left corner, and move witch the mouse while holding the left button pressed!):

Die SF-Bay-Area on MPmapWe will start in the San-Francisco-Bay-Area because that area is included in the basic FlightGear-Package. We will avoid the most busy "San Francisco International“ (KSFO) airport -  but start just opposite on the "Metro Oakland International“ (KOAK) on Parkinglot "lighta11“.

See in the left picture the Bay-Area with the 5 airports (KOAK, KSFO, KHAF, KSQL, KHWD). The little red dots are Multiplayer aircraft that were active on a weekday at 9:00 local time - but only one is actually flying now (the one over the Bay with the comet-tail). On the right side you see the pilot "jomo" in his C172p, parking exactly were you will start up soon!

You will also notice, that it is hardly possible to get lost in this area: Wherever you are you can fly westward or eastward to find a coastline having the water on its westward side - that line follow north or south - and you get home again. (At least you will find the "Golden Gate Bridge" to be seen here in the very upper-left corner!)

The picture on the right enlarges the airport-area with it's 5 runways (11/29, 09R/27L, 09L/27R, 15/33). Again you see "jomo" parking there and you see a red dotted line from "jomo" to the runway "33": That is the way you will have to taxi prior to take off!


>Start the Simulator

There are many ways how to start the simulator. Because we do not need lots of options for our training, I would like to make sure that every trainee has the same environment for these first flights. So we will Just type into a Command-Line:
fgfs --airport=KOAK --parkpos=lighta11 --enable-auto-coordination --prop:/controls/gear/brake-parking=1u

You may have to add $FG_PROG/ in front of that line if you do not have a standard installation for your Operating-System!
Click onto the blue marked $FG_PROG to see what that label should be replaced with for your system!

Cockpit with/without Yoke

With that command we will get one of the above 2 pictures - at least after we have done 3 improvements (if needed):

Check the Controls

C172 ready to start up
Do you remember the picture of the Bay-Area at the beginning? In the right picture there was shown the way to runway 33. According to that:
  • you at first have to make a U-Turn (180°) and taxi to the red marked 1
  • from there we follow the taxiway to the right
  • turning then right again at the next taxiway-crossing leads us to the runway 33 at 2.
Keying in "V" (may need multiple times!) should return you to the primary "Cockpit View".

But take some time now to switch through all the views by keying "v" and/or "V" several times! See "menu → View → View Options" for all views being available (and active!) .

inside & outside controls
Test the Control Elements: Switch between the sights with "v/V", activate the HUD with "h" (try to key "h" a couple of times and watch!))

In the following "Mouse +" means: Click the right mouse-button till the courser is a cross-hair (+), indicating the "Control-Mode"!
    1. Aileron: (Remember: We "auto-coordinated" the ailerons and rudder - so both will move now the same time! See also item 4!)
      • Mouse +: Move the mouse left/right
      • Keyboard: "←/→“ (or "4/6“)
        • The yoke should move like a steering wheel
        • In the HUD you see the ailerons moving themselves - and above you see the deviation from neutral
        • (4c) The Compass finally will show the resulting change in heading (when flying)
    1. Elevator:
    1. Rudder: (Remember: We "auto-coordinated" the ailerons and rudder within the start-command - so both will move now the same time! See also item 2!)
      • Mouse +: Keep the left mouse-button pressed while moving the mouse left/right
      • Keyboard: "Insert/Enter“
        • (4a/4b) Watch the foot-pedals moving
        • In the HUD you see the rudder moving left/right - and below of it the deviation from neutral
        • (4c) The Compass finally will show the resulting change in course (when flying)
    1. Breaks:  As in automobiles there are 2 independent breaks in an aircraft:
      • The normal breaks work while activating the upper part of the rudder-(foot)-pedals
      • The parking-break is set/reset with a hand-lever. 
      • All breaks work on the 2 main-wheels, separate for the left and right wheels - thus you can turn on ground with breaking left or right (that we call "differential breaking").
      • Watch it: That simulated breaking is just "full break" or "nothing", thus I suggest you use them in a stuttering fashion:  On Off On Off ...!
      • Mouse: There is no direct means to operate the normal breaks with the mouse!
        • The parking-break you set/reset by clicking onto the lever (5).
      • Keyboard: You break on both wheels with "b", if you want to break only on one side, you use "."/"," (dot/comma). Watch the foot-pedals (4a and 4b) moving in the upper part, i.e. in reality you break by tilting your toes only!  
        • For the parking-break use "B" (shift+b)
    1. Altimeter: Do not forget to set the altimeter to the altitude of the airport– otherwise you will never know what altitude you really fly at - that would turn out pretty bad during landings! Use the rotary button in the left lower corner of the instrument to set it.
In the HUD you see 2 altitudes: In the big scale on the very right side you see the normal "altitude above sea-level" - to its left the "altitude above ground". On KOAK you will not really see a difference (it is 9 feet!) - but fly over a mountain then you will notice it!
    1. Heading (4c): We always know the heading we will fly directly after TakeOff: It usually is the runway heading, i.e. for our first flights 330°! So set the red marker inside the scale of the Directional Gyro to 33, by clicking left/right of the little knob just on the right below the instrument.
    1. Fuel: And of course you should check if you have enough fuel! For this first training that might not really matter - but later on, for longer trips or when you stay in pattern for some time, that may become critical! So make it a habit to check it prior to any start - unless you want to become the clown that everybody laughs about!
    1. Elevator Trim: Check the big black wheel in the center below the instrument-panel: Make sure it is set for "Take Off". That again is not very important now because it was set correctly during start-up -- but when you start again after a landing then that item becomes crucial! If the trimming is not reseted after landing you might be certain that you crash very shortly after Take Off. So again: Make it a habit to check it each time!

Getting Ready

Start Your Engines

In our Cessna you can start your engine 2 ways:
  1. you just type "s" - that will start it the quick and dirty way!
  2. or you do it the "realistic way", for that see that chapter in the part "know How"
Choose either one (for now!)

"Cleared to taxi to runway 33“

Because there is no real ATC available right now, we can give that clearance ourself!

Remember the little trick: If you cannot read as fast as the plane reacts: Use the little key "p"!
Watch your speed especially while turning:
>> going too fast will flip you over sidewards
>> going too slow might bring you to a full stop - you then might need a little more RPM (and may be less stuttering breaking!)
>> especially in this situation you better never apply full breaks - just "stutter"!

Now have fun in your "auto-scooter":

Fly

Climb Out

Well now: Let us try something a car cannot do (intentionally!): We will now use the 3rd dimension! Do not be ashamed if that does not work out perfect that very first time - if you get up to an altitude of 2000 ft without crashing I will be satisfied. After that you have lots of time to exercise! So:
It should look like:
    • “
 See the nose just a little above the horizon, and just a thumb left of the houses (or following the coast-line). You even notice a slight horizontal tilt (as in that picture!) easier when watching the horizon, than on the instruments!! Who cares for now that the speed is a little high? We are not judged (yet) by achieving the best performance!

So: Fly by the horizon and use the instruments to verify the achievements over time! If needed set yourself a new target at the horizon (or something above or below or left or right)!
  • To control the speed: Raising the nose will increase the rate of climb and thus reduce the speed -- and reverse. (Did you notice that I said "control the Speed"? Speed is the critical value for holding you in the air - so watch that!! Just vary the rate of climb to hold the speed - who cares how fast you climb or sink right now!?!)
    • Mouse +: push the mouse forward to increase - pull backward to reduce the speed
    • Keyboard: "↑“ increases, "↓“ reduces the speed
  • To control the direction:
    • Mouse +: move left/right
    • Keyboard: "←“ / "→
Let us continue to climb to our cruising altitude of 2000 ft - and do not forget the heading: It should stay on 330° !


Cruise

About 100 ft below the planned 2000 ft we start leveling off:

Getting horizontal: Push the nose down gently, till
>> the little dot-symbol in the center of the "Attitude Indicator" is leveled with the horizon
>> and/or the rhombus in the HUD levels with the 0-line
The Cessna will not really like that and fight against it. You really have to force it - and apply more  force the faster we become. Hold the attitude leveled with the horizon!

Now watch the "Vertical Speed": That needle should move from pointing upward to the horizontal position and remain there. But careful: Especially that instrument indicates very delayed - double-check that indication against the indication of the altimeter, that should remain at 2000 ft. And again: As soon as you are getting close to the attitude for the level flight return to the method:

Do not chase the needle - but aim towards a point in the distance!

Airspeed: Till now the speed has been between 70-80 kn - now let it raise to about 110 kn. When reaching that 110 kn (and not before that!) we reduce the RPM to 2500. That will balance the speed at about 120 kn.

Trimming: You will have noticed that you need to apply more and more force to hold the horizon in that position. The reason for that we know already! Remember? While climbing we regulated the speed by increasing/decreasing the rate of climb! Now we do the reverse: The more we take away the climbing the more we enforce an increase in speed - that again tries to enforce an increase in climb. So let us use that wonderful big black wheel on the center pedestal below the instrument-panel. Rotate it upward until you do not have to push the yoke any more (or use key 7/1)! You probably will have to regulate a little back and forth until the Cessna truly stays leveled at that altitude!
Heading: You probably have noticed that it becomes much easer now to hold the heading - so lets delegate that work completely to the keyboard, and trim the rudder with 0/Enter Take your time to trim the aircraft to a "best can do" straight and level flight. You might not be able to trim it by the trim-wheel a 100%. Do the very last piece "to perfect" with the RPM! Yes: Just change the RPM a very tiny little bit will help! Your Cessna should stay stable then for at least a minute (on a beautiful day like today!). And that is a good time to adjust that little plane-symbol inside the "Attitude Indicator": Turn the button underneath the instrument to adjust that little symbol with the horizon - so we always know what is "level flight"!

Now I am curious: Are you as confused as I (was some time ago)? Is that really true:
Do you really believe that? Lets try it:

Practice
Let us do those tests, after having trimmed the Cessna (at 2000 ft with 2500 RPM at ~120 kn) - good enough to be able to leave the hands (and feet) off the controls (for a short while):
Just do that a couple of times (until you believe it) - and then never ever forget it again, because:

Exactly that is the secret for a good landing!

Very often you will see that "pilots" approach the runway too high or too low and then try to adjust that using the elevators!!
There is nothing worse that you can do!!
Now you should have learned and never ever forget:
The speed is the most critical while landing so you control your sinkrate by changing the RPM!!
That is unbelievable -- but true !


Turns

If we would have enough fuel and time we could just continue cruising straight ahead and come back to KOAK sometime, after having circled the earth. But most people prefer to turn back to the airport and land after a reasonable time. So let us try that:

The principle is very easy:
>> bank to the right and we will turn right
>> bank to the left and we will turn left

But actually we do need 3 controls for it:
  1. the ailerons to initiate the banking and thus the turning
  2. the rudder will balance the different drag of the  2 wings, caused by the ailerons moving opposite to each other
  3. the elevator to add lift which we loose because of that banking
You will learn more about the relation of those 3 in the chapter "Turns" under "KnowHow". For now let us be grateful for having "auto coordinated" aileron and rudder within the start-command! And the elevator we will use only as we did all the time: Keeping the altitude! So for now we might not win a beauty contest - but we get back to the airport that way!

So: What is new and difficult about turns? We did that already all the time (automatically) when holding heading and altitude! The new thing is only to do it controlled and over a longer timeframe!

To control the turn we will use the "Turn Coordinator". In that newer Version (left) we have again a little aircraft - but this one is specialized to watch our turns:
  • The instrument will show us our "banking to the side". If we hold the wing/needle on the first mark we do a "standard turn" that completes a full circle (360°) in 2 Minutes!
  • The little ball below it tells us how well coordinated that turn is: It should stay in the center - otherwise we slip to the outside or inside.
For those first exercises let us not worry about the little "ball-leveler" below it: We do not want to win a beauty contest (yet)!
But during the turn try to keep the little plan with its wings exactly on that mark (with the ailerons) and hold the altitude (with the elevator)
And again:    Do not chase the needle - but watch the nose at the horizon!

When you are satisfied with yourself at this exercise, let us do a last test:
>> fly straight and leveled
>> set your red bug in the "Heading Indicator" onto the present heading (i.e. exactly on the top-edge of the scale)
>> start the stopwatch
>> and start turning until you are on the same heading again
>> stop the timer
What was the time? It should be close to 2 minutes! By the way: Theoretically that is always 2 min at that banking, independent of the speed. If the speed is higher the radius and thus the circumference and thus the way to be flown will enlarge, resulting in the same time for a complete circle!

Well now: Only the Autopilot will hit that exact time - but the closer you get to that 2 min., the closer you are to being perfect in controlled circling! We will learn some more about "turns" later in the part "KnowHow"!

Landing

Landings are by far the most critical and most complicated task of all! But you learned already how to control your Cessna and I have found a nice spot with fitting landmarks -- so we will mange this. Just a formal hint: According to standards the "Pattern" to a runway usually is left (i.e. the pilot always sees the runway best from his left pilot-seat) - but it may be right for several reasons. We did get approval for the right pattern, because otherwise we would disturb the other traffic at KOAK!
See the picture:
First Pattern
We will fly back again to KOAK, where we started from on that pink line "to Extern", just leaving to the north (on 330° heading, do you remember?!).

We come back just left of that one on the other pink line "from Extern" entering the so called Downwind, at the usual pattern-altitude of 800-1000 ft above ground.

At an easy to spot landmark we will turn right 90° to Base.

Finally we will turn another 90° to "Final", descending very smoothly to the threshold of runway 27R.


If you then want to exercise you may do so by taking off on 27R, following "Upwind", turning to "Crosswind" and then continue with "Downwind" as we did before.

You also could, just after landing on 27R take a shortcut to the 33, start from there and directly join into "Downwind". (That would not be an officially approved procedure - but is nice and handy!)

Let's do it: Of course I do not know exactly where you are right now - but I assume you just come back from the exercises we did before, so you should be somewhere north of the airport - coming well trimmed downward the eastern lake-shore to the Bay Bridge at an altitude of 2000 ft and 2500 RPM and thus a speed of ~120 kts:

Towards "Bay Bridge"
So you should find the position as shown in the picture. There you decide, if you

In any case you will meet me again at the entrance to the "Oakland Inner Harbor", following that "Harbor-waterway" southeast towards the harbor and then the airport:

The"Downwind" is parallel to the runway we want to land on, in reverse direction and 800-1000 ft above ground. We will stay at the upper limit: 1000 ft.

We want to land on 27R (the right one of the 2 parallel runways heading 270°), so we set the "heading-bug" (the red marker inside the compass dial) to 270. Now we can just fly by that bug till the final landing without thinking, calculating, or whatever:
Solo-12-Downwind.pngJust before the end of the harbor turn to the downwind-heading 090° (the red bug all the way down). At that point we will start to aim towards the valley marked "Flugrichtung". When we are about 90° besides the center of the runway, we start to reduce our Speed:

reduce the RPM to 2000 and trim new for a level flight
    • constantly trim the Cessna to maintain the altitude 1000ft
    • that will reduce the speed to our approach-speed 80-90 kn
    • at a speed just below 100 kn (white area) we will get the Flaps to stage 1 with "]"
    • watch the RPM and make sure it stays on 2000 (it tends to drop - so use the throttle to adjust)
    Keep the heading towards the valley "Flugrichting" until :

    Corner Point to base
    Where there was only the valley we now see a lake ("See"). From there is coming a river ("Fluss") crossing the highway ("Strasse") in front of us.
    • At that "Fluss/Strasse" crossing we turn base - i.e. the red bug pointing to the right!
        • If you look to the airport just before turning, you see that the runway is behind you at about 45°. That matches the normal definition for that "point to turn to Base: ", i.e.
                    "If you see the runway in 45° behind you → turn to base"!
            That is not really a very precise method - but it works since about 100 years!
      • As soon as you are on Base look to your right: You should see the runway in some kind of an angle to you. Shortly before you are crossing the  prolonged centerline of the runway 27R turn to Final!
    I know: That needs some thinking ahead and some patience -- but you will learn that by training!




    Practice in the Pattern!
    That first landing probably was not the best of your lifetime (hoping that there is some life afterward!) - so practice, practice, practice, ...:
    Now have fun practicing! Be aware: If you cannot do it with such a light-weighted, fast responding aircraft -- you never will be able to do it with the "Biggies" - and that even in bad weather! An Autopilot is a wonderful thing - I love to use it myself! But do you really want to be dependent on a machine all your life? At least once in a while you should train your "manual, human controls" again and again. Profi-Pilots (must!) do it constantly!


    Switching Off

    As good pilots (to be) we do not just switch of the PC or the Simulator or whatever!

    We do an orderly shutdown:
    and do not forget the most important thing: Some caressing units to that wonderful C172p! (Also aircrafts do have feelings!)