Nice to meet you
Hello everyone! I’m Takahappy, and I think it’s nice to meet you. My name is Takahappy and I’m from the Operations Department. Thank you very much for visiting our blog.
It’s been almost half a year since SHA was established, and many of us who love flight simulators have come together to form a division, albeit a virtual one. Since this is my first blog post, I’d like to talk about the flight control system, which is a part of the technical support we provide in the SHA Flight Operation Department, in a simple but profound way. Please bear with me for a while.
Let’s try it
Huracrim at home, whether you are a recent adopter or have been a fan for a few years, there is a little game that is fun and difficult to get the hang of. It is…
“Can you make an airplane fly straight?”
Of course, it’s not an autopilot, w. You have to grip and control the stick and throttle, and don’t include the flight director (FD: a pink (magenta, to be precise) cross-shaped target that indicates the proper attitude calculated by the flight management system) or autothrottle.
Game goal
Take off and aim for 6,000 feet. Azimuth is 360 degrees. The indicated airspeed is 240 knots, begin from 5,900 feet, and you have 90 seconds to meet the above numerical target, not one foot, not one degree, not one knot off.
It took me a year to master this. It is a very deep game. It’s certainly fun to fly like a real pilot, enroute from your starting point to various locations and fly like the real thing. I love it too. However, I think there is more to it than that. It’s the real joy of flying an aircraft manually.
Airwork
This type of training is commonly referred to as “airwork” or “maneuver training”. It is a training subject that provides the basis for piloting an aircraft.
I can get close to the target altitude, but there is inevitably an error of a few dozen more feet. After some skillful maneuvering with the control stick, you finally reach your target altitude and stabilize, but now your speed is off. Then, when I manipulated the throttle to reach the target speed, the altitude shifted again. In the meantime, the direction of flight was deviating greatly from the target heading. It was impossible to maintain the target value in 90 seconds. I think this is the result of the first try.
The two energies
You’ll need to clear your head a bit to fly straight.
We are in the air.
This is just inside the Earth’s atmosphere. Gravity will affect us. When we are in the air, we have to understand that we have two energies in particular: the energy of the earth and the energy of the air itself.
“Potential energy” and “Kinetic energy”.
The former is gravity, and the latter is the power supplied by the engine.
An aircraft in the air, if left without blowing its engine, will fall towards the earth like Newton’s apple. No wonder. The aircraft, pulled by gravity, will gradually accelerate. This is potential energy. Making effective use of this potential energy is the first important aspect of “air work”.
Read the specifications from the PFD.
Please see the above figure. The speed and altitude are exceeding the target. What should we do in this case?
Lowering the nose (lowering the pitch) to reduce altitude reduces altitude but increases speed. So, while lowering the nose, reduce the thrust to reduce the power as well.
How about this case? You are two knots short of your speed, but 20 feet higher in altitude. In this case, the first thing to do is to lower the pitch. Then the speed will increase slightly. If you can feel the increase in speed, you will naturally add a little more power if you are a little short of speed.
This is the process of “converting potential energy (altitude) into velocity”.
Please note that this is not the same as Please understand.
In reality, this situation will be corrected manually.
Next is this situation. The altitude is 40 feet short, but the speed is over 2 knots. You already know the answer. Don’t play with the power first, just gently pull back on the control stick and slowly approach the target altitude. The speed will naturally decrease slightly. The final adjustment is to reduce the thrust.
By doing this, you can determine the pitch and engine power that will keep you at a constant speed and altitude in level flight. This is what is commonly referred to as “grasping the specifications”.
This balancing pitch and thrust power (the percentage of N1 is probably an indicator) changes every second. That’s right. Flying in the air consumes fuel, of course. The overall weight of the aircraft is decreasing. The wind is blowing. If you roll the aircraft a little bit, the lift will be reduced, and the speed and altitude will change.
The events described so far are only a small part of the picture. If the aircraft rolls, the direction will naturally change, and the altitude and speed will also change. If you increase or decrease the power, the pitch will also change. For example, if there is a difference in engine power between the left and right side, this will naturally affect the direction, which in turn will affect the altitude speed as the aircraft rolls.
Flying straight through is a lot of work.
Finally
In order to enjoy this world in a fun and wise way, including this airplane trivia, why don’t you join us as a fellow SHA member and live an even more fulfilling Frasim life? We are looking forward to welcoming you to our Flight Operation Department.
The enrollment procedure is here
Next time, I would like to introduce the SHA Pilot Rating System operated by the Flight Operations Department. Thank you for your patience with this long article.