User Guide

First Lesson:
The Four Fundamentals
A typical first flight lesson will cover the “four fundamentals”
of flight. Actually, there might be five, since the first of them is
“straight and level” flight - and on a number of occasions, when
I’ve asked a student to demonstrate straight and level flight, they’ll
say something like, “sure!…which one first?” It’s not as funny as it
sounds; just to cruise along, straight and level, requires attention
to several things at once.
The four fundamentals, then, are straight and level flight;
turns; climbs; and descents. You can see that these can be com-
bined to form any maneuver necessary. When you get in an air-
liner to fly from Los Angeles to New York, the pilot will perform a
climb, mixed with turns as necessary, to get away from the airport
and up to cruise altitude; straight and level flight, mixed with turns
as necessary, to get from LA to NY (“fly east until you get to the first
ocean, then turn left”); and, finally, a descent, mixed with turns as
necessary, to land at JFK.
If you’re in a hurry to get into the air, you can pick one of
FLY!’s scenarios that start out with the airplane already in flight. In
the real world, however, even your very first flight lesson must, of
necessity, begin with engine start, taxi, and takeoff, so that’s what
we’ll cover here.
BEFORE TAKEOFF CHECKLIST
You’ll already have done the
internal and external preflight
inspection of the airplane. Now it’s
time to get all our ducks in a row
to get started up.
Look down at the bottom of
the center pedestal and make sure
that the fuel selector is in the
“both” position. Just above it, the
red fuel shutoff knob should be
pushed all the way in. Now look a bit higher up and check that
the trim indicator is at or near the “takeoff” mark.
Cessna 172R – Basics
INTRODUCTION
In this chapter, we’re going to use the tried and true Cessna
172R Skyhawk for quite a bit of basic flight instruction. If you’re start-
ing from scratch, by the time you’ve worked through this material,
you’ll have a thorough grounding in techniques that will apply
equally to all the aircraft in FLY! If you’re an experienced pilot (either
real-world or simulators), you can use this chapter as a reference for
basic techniques - or for information on the Skyhawk and its proce-
dures in particular. With so much ground to cover, this chapter will
be longer than most - it gives you all the basics, while those on other
airplanes will be devoted more to the individual idiosyncrasies of
those types.
Because FLY! is so realistic, I’ll generally write as if we were
in the real airplane. However, now and then I’ll need to make
allowances or suggestions for the simulator environment. I’ll call
these “SimTips.” Here’s one now:
80 81
SimTip
In real airplanes, it’s important to have the seat adjusted
properly to get the same perspective out the windshield every
time you fly. (In fact, many jets have a little optical sight gadg-
et on the windshield center post to assure that all pilots,
regardless of size, have the same eye position).
In FLY!, you’ll be using your mouse to look around the
instrument panel. Just as in the real airplane, the outside per-
spective will change as you do this. To be sure you always
return to the proper perspective, select the “home” instrument
panel view by pressing Shift + Home. (Or select the panel
view that you prefer to use most of the time.) Use Shift + F1
through F8 to “remember” an eye location, then use F1
through F8 to return to that spot.
Flight Instruction
Flight Instruction