Stall Turns Banked Turns Getting started with piroflips Kaos! Practising efficiently Making the most of the simulator Exercises Difficulty Simulator and reality Strategy Worksheet software MY EXERCISES Under construction Drill Instructor
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This page is under construction. Don't believe every word :-)
Exercises
As the saying goes, "Genius is 1 %
inspiration and 99 % perspiration". Fortunately we've got the simulator, and can practise at no cost.
But visiting a random Phoenix multiplayer session shows that many us don't really know what to do with it to practise efficiently. There aren't any instructions.
With the exercises, I'm trying to provide "the missing manual".
The objectives are as follows:
- Practise new things that you wouldn't have tried otherwise.
Most people tend to concentrate on what they already know, and shy away from learning something new.
The exercises propose new ideas for practising. - Practise the same new feature on consecutive days.
Most of the learning happens between flying sessions and overnight. You'll make much more progress with 15 minutes every day than with two hours once a week! - Break down new "material" into small pieces that can be practised
individually. This makes the learning curve much more manageable:
Often, something complex is impossibly difficult because simple pieces
are missing:
Example: in order to fly confident circles, it helps a lot if you are able to hover with the nose facing into any direction. - Arrange the steps into a logical order.
- Provide help in spotting defects: Develop a critical eye towards
your own flying and spot what you could do better. Over time, you'll
learn corrections, and the corrections will become automatic.
Example: Many beginners and even advanced pilots have never seen a proper banked turn: The altitude is fixed and the tail tracks like on rails - you make it look like an angry F-16, not a marble in a bath tub. But as long as no one tells me, I don't even know that I'm doing it badly, and won't try to improve. - Motivate the pilot to self-evaluate his performance
- Provide a "work book" where you can mark down your results
permanently, review your progress and look up what you did in the past
and could repeat.
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