To Autoland or not to Autoland

[kjevans]

JanniCash wrote:
You don't cope with radio at all. Once you're assigned your cruise altitude and on own nav, you wait for the next handover, confirm it but never
contact the next ATC. You can now accelerate all the way until you're about 200 nm from your destination. No ATC will bother you. 200 nm out from
destination slow down to 1x sim rate, tune to the now active ATC and contact. They might try to tell you turn backwards, which you just ignore (don't
answer at all) until the instruction says "proceed own course", which you ACK and you're back on track.

I never said I don't know how to cheat all the way through long haul flights. And sure do I use the autopilot for cruise. The thing is, I like to
"fly", and for me there isn't much of a difference between watching the autopilot and watching a video (you may think different). Sure,
doing 1 hour
city-hops (as I prefer) doesn't rack up as many pilot hours as doing 10+ hour intercontinental flights. So what?

After all, it's a game. So the primary goal is entertainment and having a good time. If some autoland feature makes someone happy, so be it.


Jan

Hi Jan,
thanks for the reply and the tips about ATC if I ever try the acceleration again.

For me the best part is also the take-off and landing and I tend to do the short hop flights as you do.
I have just been trying varying proceedures that people have posted to see the difference and to cut a long story short, if anybody wishes to use
autoland, (of the many addons available) then they must be aware that it ain't all that.
I have now tried 4 different versions just for the hell of it and at best the success rate was around 25%. I prefer the true hands on approach to the
decent and landing proceedure, I enjoy the feeling I get when on short finals and the rush when making a good touchdown.
I know, as some have said that, at the of the day it's only a game but I tend to get really engrossed in the whole environment and try my best to make
it as real as possible.
I have just downloaded the FeelThere 737 Pilot in Command, which I am really looking forward to using, of course after reading the massive manual. I
have searched and searched for an aircraft that suits my requirements and this one looks like it might just do the job. PIC seems to be a much more
hands on approach to the whole flying issue in MSFS. It most probably will be a vast change from the standard fs9 737 I currently use.

Thanks to all for your responses, it was really interestng to see the many ways that us simmers do our stuff.

I remember my first ever real world flight in an aircraft, a Cessna 172. It belonged to an ex boss of mine and he decided to take myself and my cousin
out for a flight one saturday. We were so excited. Taking off I could feel the lump in my throat due to excitement and to feel the buffeting for the
airflow on the fuselage through my feet made it seem so real. Then it was time for landing and my ex boss who was always a bit of a joker told us that
this is the bit he found so difficult and took him the longest time to master but this time he was not joking, he was dead serious and I then had a
lump in my throat for a whole other reason!!
We made it though with no major dramas and that to me is what I feel each time I land a plane in MSFS.

Kirk