VRFW 005: Take Your Flight Simulator to the Next Level

John Melley: Welcome to the VR Flight World Podcast, the place where flight training and your home office collide. Get tips, tricks, and in-depth interviews about flight training, virtual reality, and flight simulation with your host Dan Caston.

Dan Caston: Welcome to the VR Flight World Podcast, and today we’re going to be going over different ways we can actually improve our flight training and take our flights into the next level. So the question is, what do you need to do to get your flights to the next level. It really depends on what you have already. What you have going on? What do you have for your flight sim? Because it can be anywhere from starting with X-Plane 11 as an upgrade to adding VR. So, let’s just go over a few here.

Dan Caston: So, first one I’d like to go over is virtual reality. Obviously, I’ve went over this before but it is a major improvement if you can add virtual reality to your X-Plane. Of course, you can add to other sims as well. So, what does VR actually do for you? Well, it gives you that perspective where you can look around. You can see things in three dimensions. So, it’s just the way you see it in real life. So, you actually get that depth perception when you’re coming in to land. You can turn around, spot your runway, all these different things coming to effect. I went over them before but VR jut really adds another level to flying, and that’s why I’m bringing it into this episode.

Dan Caston: So secondly, I would probably going to getting some equipment for you. You’d probably want to get some rudder pedals, because rudder pedals really add another level. With virtual reality, you can’t actually control the feet, it controls by moving the yolk, which if you’re actually flight training and I use this for a tool. That’s why I like to fly X-Plane, and I like to use virtual reality because I like using it as a tool for flight training.

Dan Caston: When I’m training, I want to have it feel as realistic as possible, and I can’t do that without the rudder pedals because if I build in the rudder pedals into my yoke on takeoff, everything on landing, on crosswind landings, I don’t even know quite how you do the crosswind landing with the yoke, but there’s so many different things you can do with the rudder pedals, but you can’t do them if you don’t have them. For me, it’s almost the most important one of everything here is having rudder pedals. If I had to make my number one recommendation for upgrading your sim, it would be add some rudder pedals.

Dan Caston: Then on top of that, of course we have a yoke which is important and a trim well would be nice. Of course the throttle, my throttle actually came with my yoke. It’s a separate piece but it came with the yoke. So, if you get the same yoke that I have here, which I’ll leave a link in the description there. Just note that it is an affiliate link and I do get a small commission from anyone that use that link, and I truly do appreciate if you use that link.

Dan Caston: It doesn’t cost you anything and it won’t affect your sale, but I do appreciate it and it helps me to keep building content and keep going on this. Again, I’ll leave the link in the description. So that will be for my yoke and for my throttle, as well as the rudder pedals, and you can go in there and grab that if you want. I’ll leave one for the Oculus Rift as well. All right, and I appreciate you guys if you use that because that will make this happen. So, thanks again.

Dan Caston: So the next one here guys, let’s go on to your flight sim. So if you’re running in FSX, it’s a great sim but you could probably get a more realistic experience if you upgrade to X-Plane 11. I might have some people that will send me some nasty emails because of that comment, but I believe that X-Plane 11 is the next level of sim now. FSX, it’s kind of getting dated. It’s an older sim. You can do a lot of upgrades to FSX to help improve it, but at this point you’re probably better off getting X-Plane 11 or one of the more modern sims out there.

Dan Caston: So, next thing I would look at is an aftermarket plane. There’s lots of planes out there, I’ve mentioned them before. One of my favorite right now is Airfoillabs Cessna 172 because it’s pretty much a study plane that has everything that you need. By study plane, I mean that it has … Everything is very realistic. You can essentially touch and manipulate anything on the plane. You can actually do a walk around the plane. It has very realistic sounds to it, and the flight characteristics. It really flies naturally. It makes you feel like you’re actually in the plane, especially when you’re doing this on VR, which I am. It does have a little bit of an effect on your frame rate but it’s minimal.

Dan Caston: So moving on guys, the next one I would look at is make sure you’re planning your flights before you’re heading out into the sim. A lot of times I get into the sim and I pick an airport, and I just fly a loop but I don’t really have the purpose. If you actually plan your flight out, I believe one of the planning tools online is called SkyVector. If you use that tool, or you can use actual charts. Get yourself some charts or get yourself anything, but SkyVector is a great one because it’s free and it has actual charts on the internet there. It’s a great tool. Plan your flight route down there, and then go fly your flight. It gives you kind of a purpose. It gives you airport destination. Don’t make it too far because you don’t want to be flying for five hours at a time just to get your destination, unless maybe you’re flying a commercial jet of sorts. So, plan it out and it really help improve your flight training.

Dan Caston: Along the same lines here, I would try using proper navigation, use some VOR. If you’re using a chart, see if you can … I show you on one of my videos how to put a window inside your VR if you’re using VR, if you’re not, then you can just put the chart beside you and actually fly the route. A lot of the stuff in your sim is going to look very similar and you can fly at your home airports so you recognize things. So, if you put the chart up there, you’ll be able to see where it is your flying and fly the route that you already planned out. Have it all planned out, fly it and like I said before, it’s going to really improve your flight experience in flight sim. It’s going to help you in real flight training as well because you’re going to have to go through the steps of planning out a proper flight, as well as setting up your instruments, doing all that stuff. It’s going to take your flight training just to another level.

Dan Caston: All right, along the lines of being more realistic, let’s talk about adding some radio calls. You can do this on your own just by saying it out loud, but a great way to do this is actually going to … There’s two different methods here or two different places to do this. There’s PilotEdge and there’s VATSIM. So on PilotEdge and VATSIM, there’s actually air traffic control around the other end. I believe what PilotEdge, the air traffic controller is actually a professional and he gets paid to do that, whereas the VATSIM is a volunteer. That’s probably your difference and that’s why you’re paying that extra for the PilotEdge. You may want to start out in VATSIM and then move your way up to PilotEdge, so when you need that extra realism.

Dan Caston: I have two more points here. One, I’ve mentioned this before as well, but get the most realistic weather you can, going into your settings and change your weather to update as you fly. So, you can have an update every 15 minutes, and it will take the actual real world weather, and it will add into your sim. That’s what I suggest for that. If you want to even take the next level, you can get what’s called xEnviro. It’s a program that you install and it will add in even more realistic weather, and that’s what the program is meant to do is just to add in, so you’ll get very specific weather and it will be very realistic.

Dan Caston: So, there’s another one coming out called Active Sky. Active Sky is a top-notched weather producing program and it’s used for other sims right now but not X-Plane, but I’ve heard that it’s coming out soon. So, keep your eyes off for that because that will be a big game changer for the weather in X-Plane. So, if you’re a little more advanced and you want some very realistic weather, look at xEnviro or Active Sky when it comes out.

Dan Caston: Last thing I have here is get away from the sim altogether and go out take a discovery flight somewhere. Go to your local airport, try a flight. See what it feels like to fly and a lot of you guys might be student pilots, so this might not be a very good point for you guys, but for people that are flying sims, try an actual flight. Feel what it feels like to fly that plane, to control a plane. They’ll let you control the plane while you’re up there, even if it’s your first flight, they’ll let you take over. They’re not going to let you land plan, not going to let you takeoff, but you’re going to get some experience in the sky. Then you can come back, be more excited when you get on to your flight sim.

Dan Caston: So guys, that’s all the points I have right now. Again, soon we’re going to be going into interviews, and I’m really excited to get into interviews. I have a guest lined up right now, and we’re looking to line up some more guests. So, if you’re interested in becoming a guest on the podcast, we’re looking for new applicants to interview. Just send us an email. I have a contact form. It’s vrflightworld.com/interview. That’s vrflightworld.com/interview, and if you go to there, you can actually fill the form. Send that form to me, and I’ll take a look at it. I’ll send you back an email. We’ll talk a little bit about what’s going to be on the podcast, but I’d love to interview some people here. We’re in the process of lining up some people. Like I said, we have one already that’s just about ready to go.

Dan Caston: So, look forward to those. If you’re listening this, look forward to those in the future. Like I said, it’s going to change and I’m really excited for it. So, I will talk to you guys on the next one. Make sure you guys subscribe and take a look, we have a YouTube channel as well and a website. So, vrflightworld.com, and we’re VR Flight World in YouTube. All right guys, talk to you later and we’ll see you on the next one.

John Melley: Thanks for listening to the VR Flight World Podcast, online at vrflightworld.com.