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Archive => EuroHarmony VA => Old Forum => Ask EuroHarmony => Topic started by: EHM-1465 Dominic on February 25, 2006, 01:37:59 pm

Title: FS2004 flying lessons - useful training or not?
Post by: EHM-1465 Dominic on February 25, 2006, 01:37:59 pm

Hi everyone,

I've been doing a bit of VFR flying on EHM tours recently and this made me think I should really complete the flying lessons included in FS2004 - I started them when I first got it but didn't get past the private pilot checkride... :'(

So I've just started on the Commercial lessons, and I've replaced the default Beech Baron with our VFA one (and I've repainted it blue - sorry Robert but I'm not very keen on brown ;D )

In fact, I've replaced the aircraft for all the lessons with EuroHarmony ones...  The lessons are quite useful - reminding me of lots of good flying tips I've forgotten.

My question to everyone is, have others completed the lessons and what did you all think of them?

I think it could be a useful extension of the Virtual Flight Academy, if EHM pilots were able to practise their basic flight skills on EHM aircraft and it's the easiest thing in the world to change the aircraft you fly the lessons in...;)

So, what do you think? Useful training aid or annoying distraction...?

Title: FS2004 flying lessons - useful training or not?
Post by: EHM-1821 Javier on February 25, 2006, 01:53:07 pm

hi dom1! i do not know if it is really too useful but it helps to prepare u for bad situations.however, the bad part is that if u land properly without mr rod machado saying that u can land, it is considered a crash.

by the way,how do you replace the aircraft?

Title: FS2004 flying lessons - useful training or not?
Post by: EHM-0654 Murray on February 25, 2006, 03:02:54 pm

Dom(inic),

Definitely useful, but my own opinion is that actually completing the PP checkride was made too difficult in FS2004.

I've been considering going back and doing the checkride now that I've got a couple of years flying in FS2004 under my belt, figure I might actually be able to complete the tight turn now.

Title: FS2004 flying lessons - useful training or not?
Post by: EHM-1703 Philip on February 25, 2006, 03:06:17 pm

Hey everybody, Murray is going back to school! That makes him a mature student! :P

Title: FS2004 flying lessons - useful training or not?
Post by: EHM-1465 Dominic on February 25, 2006, 03:41:42 pm

Dear 1821,

If you want to replace the aircraft in the lessons with another one all you need to do is go into your main FS2004 folder, open the Lessons folder and in that you'll see other folders for the different 'licence' types - "comm" for commercial pilot, "instr" for the instrument rating...

Open the folder for the lessons you want to practice and you'll see lots of icons, you should find that there will be three with the same name for each lesson and checkride, and of these one will be a weather file marked .wx at the end, one will be .abl (the adventure language that lets Mr Machado talk to you...) and the other should have a plane icon and is the one you want - the .flt file.

Open this file up with Notepad or some other text editor (right click over the icon and select 'Open with' then scroll down to Notepad). Once it's open scroll about halfway down the file and you should see a section marked [Plane.0]

In this section is the name of the aircraft that the lesson will use ie Aircraft=Beech Baron 58.

All you need to do is change this to the name of the plane you want to fly instead, which you will find in the relevant aircraft configuration file (aircraft.cfg) in the folder of the plane you want to fly. Look in the 'title' line:

eg [fltsim.0]
     title=Beech Baron 58

Copy the title and paste it into the section of the .FLT file and save it, then next time you try that lesson your chosen aircraft will be there...

One word of caution, many of the lessons are set up around the power settings and speeds of a particular aircraft so if you change it to a different type, you probably won't be able to complete the lesson !! It is useful for changing to a different livery though...

Hope this helps,

Dom

Title: FS2004 flying lessons - useful training or not?
Post by: EHM-1821 Javier on February 26, 2006, 09:07:34 am

thx but after what you said,i'd rather not

Title: FS2004 flying lessons - useful training or not?
Post by: EHM-0001 Gergely on February 26, 2006, 12:22:22 pm

I would say the FS lessons are quite useful for beginner pilots. Even if you don't care about the 'exams', you can learn useful procedures - ILS approach, VOR radials, holding etc.

Gergely

Title: FS2004 flying lessons - useful training or not?
Post by: EHM-1617 Iain on February 26, 2006, 05:25:59 pm

They are useful for the basics - as long as you read the text as well as taking the lessons. The PP checkride is piss easy Murray - it's the IR ride that has a bug in it expecting you to set the OBS before you're told about it that is hard to pass. I got it and printed all 5 certificates :)

Title: FS2004 flying lessons - useful training or not?
Post by: EHM-0654 Murray on February 27, 2006, 08:26:15 am

Well, I got from not having looked at the School in FS to tight turns between Midday and the start of the fly-in event yesterday, and it was tight turns I wanted to get to.