Why I've come to like props more than Jets...

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Still Learning
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Why I've come to like props more than Jets...

Post by Still Learning »

On April 14th I flew by hand and landed by hand a 737 - in a simulator. And ever since then, I really enjoy flying my Cessna. Which, coming from me, is an odd thing to say. Look at it this way. If time costs money, in 3.5 hours, in my Cessna, I'm guesstimating 300 some odd NM.

If I were to spend that same amount of time in a jet, I'd cover (approx.) over 1,500NM.

So, for as long as I can remember, the jet always looked liked the better deal. And that was the paradigm though which I saw things. That was until 1 week ago. Just to carry it one step further, What's the fun in flying by a/p? In my opinion, it removes you from the process, or on the other hand, allows you to run an errand or two, depending upon how long your flight is.
Flying the props, like those offered by A2A, in my opinion, and experience, having flown both by a/p and manually, keeps me involved in the in the process of flying. For now anyway, I welcome the involvement of actually hand flying the plane; rather than view it as an inconvenience - that the autopilot could do for me.

For me, that re-alignment is huge.

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Scott - A2A
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Re: Why I've come to like props more than Jets...

Post by Scott - A2A »

Well, I think many have it backwards in that, the smaller the wing and faster the plane, in many ways the easier it is to land.

The Aerostar 600 is actually really easy to land on a small strip. You just point it and it goes. Cut the throttle in the flare, and it lands. Not so with a 172, Comanche, etc. If you are just a bit too fast, you cut the throttle and.... you float... float... float....

The bigger the wing, in many ways the tighter the tolerances. The thing that is harder on a smaller winged airplane is, if you get too slow they can get dangerous, whereas the bigger wings tend to be more gentle in the stall, since they just want to keep flying. A stall with a big long wing may just cost you a few hundred feet, whereas in the faster / slicker plane, can cost you many times more and have some nasty wing drops in the process. So, even though a higher wing loading plane, like the Aerostar is very easy to land, you need to pay more attention to your speeds.

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Re: Why I've come to like props more than Jets...

Post by DHenriques_ »

Still Learning wrote:On April 14th I flew by hand and landed by hand a 737 - in a simulator. And ever since then, I really enjoy flying my Cessna. Which, coming from me, is an odd thing to say. Look at it this way. If time costs money, in 3.5 hours, in my Cessna, I'm guesstimating 300 some odd NM.

If I were to spend that same amount of time in a jet, I'd cover (approx.) over 1,500NM.

So, for as long as I can remember, the jet always looked liked the better deal. And that was the paradigm though which I saw things. That was until 1 week ago. Just to carry it one step further, What's the fun in flying by a/p? In my opinion, it removes you from the process, or on the other hand, allows you to run an errand or two, depending upon how long your flight is.
Flying the props, like those offered by A2A, in my opinion, and experience, having flown both by a/p and manually, keeps me involved in the in the process of flying. For now anyway, I welcome the involvement of actually hand flying the plane; rather than view it as an inconvenience - that the autopilot could do for me.

For me, that re-alignment is huge.

Still Learning
There are a lot of ways to use and enjoy the sim. Personally as a long time pilot I've never quite understood the mindset that flies a plane in the simulator using the autopilot most of the time in flight. I'll use it for a long haul in cruise but I always make my landings, especially landings on instruments by flying the aircraft manually or at best using a flight director.
I enjoy the "work" involved with flying this way. In fact it mirrors the way I handled real airplanes all through my flying life.
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bladerunner900
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Re: Why I've come to like props more than Jets...

Post by bladerunner900 »

I love flying Nap-of-the-earth in my A2A props, and a few others. :wink:

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Re: Why I've come to like props more than Jets...

Post by dvm »

I never understood why one would want to use a autopilot in the sim or why anyone would want to make a long flight in cruise for that matter. In the real world most airplanes were designed for transportation and getting from point A to B safely requires a whole lot of preparation and diligence. Some would say this is fun but for me it is work. Flying two hours for the chance to make one landing is not sport. The sim lets me fly all kinds of aircraft, do aerobatics, shoot as many landings as I want under any conditions I choose for pennies without risk or stress. I realize it is not the same as real world flying but as close as I am going to get with my limited skills, money and physical limitations as a senior citizen. If I want to go fast close to the ground with the wind in my face I am stuck riding my motorcycle. But I digress if you love to fly around the world in a tube liner more power to you. ZZZZZZZZ :D :D

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Re: Why I've come to like props more than Jets...

Post by AKar »

I like well-made tubeliners in the sim as well, but my scenarios are hardly typical airline operations. More like... charters into remote fishing towns and such! :)

With GA planes, I like low-level VFR, cruising among the terrain, in the valleys, being challenged by the weather every now and then. Only as a last measure I revert to instruments. I do use the autopilot rather often, but I can't even say how much I like the S-TEC in A2A planes: it provides just the convenient level of hands-off but still keeping me in the loop.

-Esa

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Re: Why I've come to like props more than Jets...

Post by batt »

dvm wrote:I never understood why one would want to use a autopilot in the sim or why anyone would want to make a long flight in cruise for that matter. In the real world most airplanes were designed for transportation and getting from point A to B safely requires a whole lot of preparation and diligence. Some would say this is fun but for me it is work. Flying two hours for the chance to make one landing is not sport. The sim lets me fly all kinds of aircraft, do aerobatics, shoot as many landings as I want under any conditions I choose for pennies without risk or stress. I realize it is not the same as real world flying but as close as I am going to get with my limited skills, money and physical limitations as a senior citizen. If I want to go fast close to the ground with the wind in my face I am stuck riding my motorcycle. But I digress if you love to fly around the world in a tube liner more power to you. ZZZZZZZZ :D :D
I like using the autopilot,.........occasionally.

One cold day in January: I decided I had nothing better to do than flying the B-17 to Hawaii, which is something I could never imagine doing in real life. Before I took off however, I knew I would have to get an understanding on how to use the C-1 autopilot and so I had to spend some time watching some U-tube videos on how to do that. After watching the vids; I realized that managing the C-1 along with the rest of the airplane, was going to be an adventure in itself.

Well, I wasn't disappointed. Throughout the course of the 15.1 hour flight, the C-1 autopilot allowed me to get other things done around the house I needed to get done that day in my capacity as chief pilot, cook, and bottlewasher. My crew would expect nothing less. However, because I was not the complete master of said autopilot and; my number 3 & 4 engines were collectively burning fuel at a higher rate than 1 & 2; I still had to check and recheck attitude, altitude, airspeed, and course along with engine operation, fuel consumption, and crew comments, every 5 minutes or so in order to safely reach Hickam.

Nothing remotely boring about it, I constantly had to fiddle with the trim, the autopilot, and fuel transfer controls all day long to get that aluminum kite across all that water just to get a beer at Waikiki before the bar closed.

I made it to Hickham (from Hamilton Field, CA) with 319 gallons of fuel to spare, which meant that I burned around 220 gallons per hour. During the war, 200 gallons per hour or less was the standard a B-17 or B-24 crew was expected to meet so I was a bit sub-par in my engine/fuel management. Maybe I can do better next time.

I'm quite grateful A2A models such things as the C-1. As an amateur historian, I get to learn and experience such things as I never otherwise would.
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Re: Why I've come to like props more than Jets...

Post by n421nj »

I prefer hand flying in the sim with autopilot solely for bathroom or beer breaks. Im not too concerned about distance traveled when i fly or the speed of the aircraft but instead how much time i have.
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Re: Why I've come to like props more than Jets...

Post by Mickel »

batt wrote:I made it to Hickham (from Hamilton Field, CA) with 319 gallons of fuel to spare, which meant that I burned around 220 gallons per hour. During the war, 200 gallons per hour or less was the standard a B-17 or B-24 crew was expected to meet so I was a bit sub-par in my engine/fuel management. Maybe I can do better next time.
In your defence, you were battling into a headwind all the way, whereas they had a tailwind out.

Auto-pilots can unfairly get a bad rap. It's another tool to help get from Point A to Point B - just like a VOR, or GPS. There is a big difference between 'TOGA-V1-Vr-V2-Gear-up-LNAV-VNAV-AP on-coffee time-wake me in 13 hours-autoland' and using the AP to steer the plane while you (as a single pilot in a 2-3 crew jet) navigate, mess around with radios, number crunch, keep an eye on the engines & airspeed, not get lost at 450kts over the ground then hand fly ILS to minimums in a '60s/'70s jet.

Honestly, the only reason I fly anything GA any more is due to what our hosts have provided over the last few years. Most of the others lost their appeal because they're quite samey. I will still use the AP as required (apart from the Cub, obviously) - usually when I can't be bothered fighting turbulence.
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dvm
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Re: Why I've come to like props more than Jets...

Post by dvm »

batt wrote:
dvm wrote:I never understood why one would want to use a autopilot in the sim or why anyone would want to make a long flight in cruise for that matter. In the real world most airplanes were designed for transportation and getting from point A to B safely requires a whole lot of preparation and diligence. Some would say this is fun but for me it is work. Flying two hours for the chance to make one landing is not sport. The sim lets me fly all kinds of aircraft, do aerobatics, shoot as many landings as I want under any conditions I choose for pennies without risk or stress. I realize it is not the same as real world flying but as close as I am going to get with my limited skills, money and physical limitations as a senior citizen. If I want to go fast close to the ground with the wind in my face I am stuck riding my motorcycle. But I digress if you love to fly around the world in a tube liner more power to you. ZZZZZZZZ :D :D
I like using the autopilot,.........occasionally.

One cold day in January: I decided I had nothing better to do than flying the B-17 to Hawaii, which is something I could never imagine doing in real life. Before I took off however, I knew I would have to get an understanding on how to use the C-1 autopilot and so I had to spend some time watching some U-tube videos on how to do that. After watching the vids; I realized that managing the C-1 along with the rest of the airplane, was going to be an adventure in itself.

Well, I wasn't disappointed. Throughout the course of the 15.1 hour flight, the C-1 autopilot allowed me to get other things done around the house I needed to get done that day in my capacity as chief pilot, cook, and bottlewasher. My crew would expect nothing less. However, because I was not the complete master of said autopilot and; my number 3 & 4 engines were collectively burning fuel at a higher rate than 1 & 2; I still had to check and recheck attitude, altitude, airspeed, and course along with engine operation, fuel consumption, and crew comments, every 5 minutes or so in order to safely reach Hickam.

Nothing remotely boring about it, I constantly had to fiddle with the trim, the autopilot, and fuel transfer controls all day long to get that aluminum kite across all that water just to get a beer at Waikiki before the bar closed.

I made it to Hickham (from Hamilton Field, CA) with 319 gallons of fuel to spare, which meant that I burned around 220 gallons per hour. During the war, 200 gallons per hour or less was the standard a B-17 or B-24 crew was expected to meet so I was a bit sub-par in my engine/fuel management. Maybe I can do better next time.

I'm quite grateful A2A models such things as the C-1. As an amateur historian, I get to learn and experience such things as I never otherwise would.
You just made my point for me. Managing the systems monitoring the fuel consumption and so on may be entertaining and challenging but it is not really the stick and rudder experience of flying the airplane. I do understand many folks love the challenge of the details of a long flight in a sophisticated airplane but some of us just want to just experience controlling the aircraft. You know some folks love that part of it as just look at what most of the stuff at flight sim.com is, tube liners. The best example I can give compare flying the doublender bush plane as in a recent post with flying a 747 from NY to Paris.

http://a2asimulations.com/forum/viewtop ... 23&t=59455

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Re: Why I've come to like props more than Jets...

Post by DHenriques_ »

dvm wrote:
You just made my point for me. Managing the systems monitoring the fuel consumption and so on may be entertaining and challenging but it is not really the stick and rudder experience of flying the airplane. I do understand many folks love the challenge of the details of a long flight in a sophisticated airplane but some of us just want to just experience controlling the aircraft. You know some folks love that part of it as just look at what most of the stuff at flight sim.com is, tube liners. The best example I can give compare flying the doublender bush plane as in a recent post with flying a 747 from NY to Paris.

http://a2asimulations.com/forum/viewtop ... 23&t=59455
Too bad you didn't know me back in the old days. Took a friend's J3 all the way down the Eastern coast from Delaware to Key West. Beautiful weather all the way down. Flew with both the upper and lower sides wide open in the breeze. Off the Carolina coast pulled the power back over a boatload of beautiful girls and exchanged hollered back and forth greetings.
Wonderful trip.
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Re: Why I've come to like props more than Jets...

Post by Still Learning »

I should have elaborated as to the type of a/p I was talking about...like those found in today's aircraft. And there's nothing wrong with that, I used them for years in the sim.

My experience has been, (having flown both by autopilot and now by hand - A2A C172,) and this is just my opinion - I find I'm more engaged cognitively, which for me, makes it a more enjoyable experience.

Scott -
The Aerostar 600 is actually really easy to land on a small strip. You just point it and it goes. Cut the throttle in the flare, and it lands. Not so with a 172, Comanche, etc. If you are just a bit too fast, you cut the throttle and.... you float... float... float....


I was coming in to high and fast into KCCR (Concord, CA) and you are absolutely right. By the time I made it down, I lost too much RWY behind me, because of the long float, and went right through the fence and rolled to a stop on the grass. But I am pleased to report, today I made a decent landing at KCCR. (and didn't hit fence, and stayed on the RWY.)

Dudley -
Personally as a long time pilot I've never quite understood the mindset that flies a plane in the simulator using the autopilot most of the time in flight. I'll use it for a long haul in cruise but I always make my landings, especially landings on instruments by flying the aircraft manually or at best using a flight director.
I enjoy the "work" involved with flying this way. In fact it mirrors the way I handled real airplanes all through my flying life.


My motivation/reasoning for using the a/p was a couple things. I never had any formal training, in all my years of flight simming, which goes all the way back MSFS for the Mac and Meigs Field, for those of you who have been in the hobby long enough to remember. The only formal instruction I ever received in all this time was just over 1 week ago in a sim of a 738. Other than that, its been forums, and to a large extent YouTube. But that can only take you so far. So, I wasn't so confident about my abilities, despite years of trying.

And I didn't want to sit there for 3 and a half hours - or what have you - and have to fly the thing, when Microsoft included a GPS, that can do the work of flying a jet no less, for me.

I agree with you about the landings. - I find - that I'm so much more involved with the process when you make your own landings. and it's important to keep your skills up.

dvm
I never understood why one would want to use a autopilot in the sim or why anyone would want to make a long flight in cruise for that matter.
I agree with you. If I'm going to fly across "the pond," as they say - the only way, that's going to happen in the sim, is by my flying the Concord X, and getting there in 3.5 hours from New York.



Still Learning
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Warbirds
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Re: Why I've come to like props more than Jets...

Post by Warbirds »

For many years (maybe twenty) my friend and I have been in and out of FSX and lately P3D. All those years we mainly hand flew all types of virtual craft but things changed one day when I was over to his place and we were flying the sim. We both agreed we were a bit bored with the whole thing and needed a new challenge or way to fly.

I have always avoided tube liners and vintage was my pick but for this change we both got a nice shiny new 747 tube liner. Things then got interesting and after some time with the tubes we found that setting them up for a proper departure and auto land was as involving, if not more so than hand flying from A to B. We both have been energized by this new challenge and sim flying hours increased.

We have had some real aviation in our past, he fixed and maintained instruments and radios in most of the Air Force planes on the Islands during the A bomb test and has been up in all of them. I have had some time in light planes so we know a bit about hand flying and getting a vintage prop job from here to there but lately we are having fun trying to bend some tube liners to our will as well.

My time now is divided between Island hopping in the Connie and long distance in the new shiny 747. By the way, I love the Connie's autopilot and use it sometimes, but never the gps,,,,yet.
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Re: Why I've come to like props more than Jets...

Post by Dooga »

Tbh I've never understood why a lot of people are so fixated on jetliners, in real live or in sims - programming an auto pilot, and monitoring dials, ideally for long-haul flights for many hours. Taking the most boring aspect of flying and putting that in a sim, ideally lets also simulate all the associated mind-numbing paper work :)

The biggest I'm prepared to go is a twin, something like the Flight1 KingAir, and that is already more in the "system operator" than in the "flying an airplane" category.
Happily reduced my scope to "anything from A2A, preferably with only one engine" now; the only thing I'm missing there is a more powerful float plane - floats for the 182 would be amazing!!

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Re: Why I've come to like props more than Jets...

Post by AKar »

Dooga wrote:Tbh I've never understood why a lot of people are so fixated on jetliners, in real live or in sims - programming an auto pilot, and monitoring dials, ideally for long-haul flights for many hours. Taking the most boring aspect of flying and putting that in a sim, ideally lets also simulate all the associated mind-numbing paper work :)
That's true, yeah... but then, you can fly into interesting locations and create scenarios where you need to manage all the stuff a bit differently. It is pretty fun every now and then. As simple as Valdez 24 approach, either circling or through the valley, gets you busy in an Airbus! :D

-Esa

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