Been getting a lot of time in the sim lately, it's a nice escape when classes are constantly killing me.  With how good the scenery is in MSFS 2020, I enjoy general aviation more than airliners now!  It makes me feel like I'm really flying!  The Cessna 152 is one of my favorites, as it has no autopilot, and is all steam gauges, nothing digital.  I taught myself NDB and VOR navigation, and I find them very enjoyable!  Of course, that does not take away my love for the airliners!

The Learjet 35 is real fun to fly - its flight dynamics are a little challenging but it is a rocket!  The thing takes off so quickly and can climb to FL450 in about 15 minutes!  It's also very analog, something I love.

Flew a Cessna 172 with skis to the Denali Base Camp in Alaska.  It was a little bit of a challenge as I had to get to high altitudes quickly to clear mountaintops even if I was only clearing them by 100 or 200 feet.

Not a great plane to fly in my opinion.  The Robin DR400 climbs super slowly, and stalls with the slightest imperfections in conditions, I hate it, but I wanted to keep the theme European on Saint Patrick's Day this past March when I flew over Donegal and Ballybofey, two towns in Ireland where my family came from 120 years ago.

Alaska is such a great place to fly, and the DHC-2 Beaver is a great plane for this.  Not the best performing, but looks great and can land pretty much anywhere!

As I said, I love the Cessna 152.  Spin recovery is one of my favorites, as you can send this thing into a spin so easily.  Just get it to around 50 knots, then full elevator and rudder, and it'll go into a spin.  It's so easy to recover though, simply wait for airspeed to die and then go full opposite rudder and itll recover itself.  For a stunt I took it above the Penn State campus at an altitude of only around 1200 feet AGL, sent it into a spin, and recovered without even getting close to hitting the ground.  This screenshot was taken on a different flight, when I was flying a 152 from a local airport, KLOM, to wherever I ended up, which ended up being KWWD, using NDB and VOR navigation.  I haven't delved deep into instrument flying and it is something I want to focus on more.

Of course, airliners are still a great time.  Here's an A320neo en route from San Diego to Seattle, with both Mount Saint Helens and Mount Rainier in the shot.  The A320 is nice to fly, but I should probably get to know the autopilot a little better.

I got the PMDG 737NG, and I forced myself to learn a true study-level aircraft for the first time.  This is the real deal.  I had to program my entire flight plan into the FMC myself, it sucked, but it felt cool especially when the aircraft did everything I asked it to.  The 737 is real fun to fly, and while it is a little sluggish at times, its complicatedness compared to the A320 makes it real fun.  This is a 737-700 and this pic was taken on a flight from Philly to Detroit.

I just got this one a couple days ago, the A330neo.  It's real fun to fly.  It too is a little sluggish, but that's alright.  It's an absolutely gorgeous plane, I've always loved the look of the A330 family, and they always land so smoothly!  This A339 screenshot was taken on a flight from Dublin to Philly.

LFCL-LFCC-LFCR-LFCL

I did it few weeks ago. it was suppose to be 152nm but... i got lost did around 200nm and had to ask for ATC support to get back in my routeROFL-Toad-edition

here is my trip map track by GPS.

Scary trip but it is done now

Took a quick half hour drive to the nearest international airport, Philadelphia International Airport, as I haven't gone plane spotting in many years, probably at least 6 years if not more.  While PHL doesn't have some of the great international traffic it did before covid (it used to have daily Lufthansa and British Airways 747 flights along with Qatar Airways 777 flights, but American Airlines is really the only airline anymore doing international flights out of PHL post-covid, and it is their hub so they must stay here), it still has some great places to get real close, and I got lucky, as runway 9L has some of the closest spots from the road to the runway, and almost all approaches were being done on 9L today, with the exception of small regional flights being moved to runway 35.

The size of the Boeing 787 can be misunderstood, many think of it as one of the "smaller" widebodies like the 767.

When in reality, it is actually massive!  This is an American Airlines 787-9 coming in from Lisbon.  If you look real close, you can see how tiny I look in comparison to it!

Hi devon!!

Ty for those great news about aerospace studies, wish u to successfully get ur degrees. the world is very lucky to still have young and skilled pple excited by aerospace.

Good luck for the studies. and trust me the best is coming. very few are granted to do the job they love.

Bye and have fun there.

 

Hello everyone!

It's been a while since I logged in here.  Been super busy in college the last 2 years, I am currently in the middle of my fourth semester at Penn State, still studying Aerospace Engineering.  Things are getting real tough, and I'm told next semester is going to be the worst of them all, but it will lighten up from there, so I have something to look forward to in the future.  I've been trying my best to fly as much as I can.  I can usually get at least 3 or 4 flights per month done, but over the last week I've found some extra time and been able to do many flights, but unlike the old sims, I've been focusing a lot more on General Aviation in FS2020 and trying to make my actual flying skills better, rather than just hitting autopilot in a 747 or A320 every time, though I still enjoy commercial flights a ton.  Over the summer, I was lucky enough to be able to go on a couple flights with my neighbor at home who is a private pilot in a Cirrus SR20, and he was nice enough to put me at the controls for a a solid hour of flight time.  Real fun stuff!  In school, I got past most of the "weed out" classes my freshman year, where they intentionally make classes hard to filter out kids who wouldn't make good engineers, and now in my second year I am taking more classes that are more specific to engineering, concerning things like forces on materials and the strength of different materials and the math behind them, though I am also in the last regular math class I have to take, Calculus III, which is basically regular Calculus but in 3D instead of 2D, it's quite challenging.  Next year is when I will be in classes specifically tailored to Aerospace, like aerodynamics and the structures of aircraft and the forces on them.  Hope everyone is doing well here!  If you want to keep in contact more regularly, feel free to talk to me on Facebook/Instagram or over text, we can exchange phone numbers if anyone wants.

Devon

Training navigation on FS 2004 without GPS, not good but i could do even if it seems to be flown by drunk pilot

carca.pdf (638.13 KB)