Aerofly Wiki

[Elnora Heidrick]

Thefunctionality of tuning into a radio beacon and showing a bearing needle pointing towards it, is ADF. ADF is activated by tuning into the beacon frequency with one of the two radios, and then activating it with the ADF switch to the left side of the UFC (choosing the radio to use):

Just found it works with NDB frequencies (only) if the decimal point values are left out eg. Enter 224 for SDI near Phoenix. It does not work with VOR carrier frequencies in ADF mode. The wiki is not correct at this time.

Make sure your graphics card drivers are up to date. You can find the latest graphics card drivers on the webpages of your graphics card manufacturer. The automatic driver search of Windows may not return the latest drivers.

Also make sure the correct graphics card is being used if you have multiple graphics cards or an Intel HD Graphics chip and a dedicated graphics card. Use the appropriate graphics card settings for this.

We recommend to not create specific graphics card profiles for the use of Aerofly FS. Aerofly usually runs well with default settings and manually changing them could cause issues that we cannot replicate on our side.

To reset the settings delete the main.mcf file in your user documents directory Aerofly FS 4 folder. Then try starting the simulator again.Please see the Main Configuration File wiki page.

The Cessna 172 is a very popular training aircraft and because of its high wing configuration it is very stable and forgiving. The Cessna 172 SP features a 180hp piston engine that brings the plane up to around 110 knots in cruise.

Please don't apply the information that you learned in the wiki in the real world without taking real world flying lessons with a certified flight instructor. We are not certified flight instructors and this tutorial is not intended for real world flying and is applicable to simulator flying only.

We're starting this tutorial flight in Santa Barbara (KSBA) on the southern general aviation parking area, in the cold and dark configuration. We're going to introduce you to the basic flight instruments first before we head out for a short local flight around the airport. If you already know all of the instruments you can of course skip ahead.

Looking at the main instrument panel we find the classic six-pack of the most important flight instruments which we highlighted on the screenshot. In front of you you can find the control yoke which is used to steer the aircraft in the air. At your feet you can also find rudder pedals which are used to steer on the ground and to keep the nose pointing straight in the air.

The airspeed indicator uses the pitot and static pressure from small openings in the fuselage and on the wing to mechanically compute the speed of the oncoming air. This is the indicated airspeed and is typically measured in knots, giving us a speed in KIAS, knots indicated airspeed.

The more airspeed that we have the more lift the wing can theoretically produce. We usually only need enough lift to compensate the weight of the aircraft when we want to fly straight and level. If we try to fly slower and slower and we will eventually reach a point where the wing cannot generate enough lift and we can no longer fully compensate the gravitational pull. Then we either start descending or if we still try to maintain altitude we will get into a stall situation and the wing will loose even more lift relatively quickly. The airspeed at which a stall happens varies depending on the aircraft weight, the maneuvers that we fly, the flap configuration and many other factors like the current engine power and propeller wash onto the wings. And because of that fact you can't rely solely on the airspeed to stay away from a stall. For the simple case of flying straight and level we can still give some good speed estimates for the airspeed at which the aircraft will stall.

The attitude indicator consists of three gyroscopes that maintain their attitude relative to the ground reference.The gyros can be driven by electrical motors or by a small vacuum pump attached to the engine, depending on aircraft panel configuration. Our Cessna 172 is uses a vacuum driven system.

The gyros remain in a fixed attitude while the aircraft rotates around it. Attached to them is a symbolic picture with a white horizontal line to represent the horizon, a blue sky part above and a brown earth color for the ground.You can also see several lines marking the pitch angles and bank angles to be able to read these angles in degrees.

White diagonal lines at the on the brown earth part show the 22.5 and 45 bank angles. The white dashes at the top of the instrument indicate the bank angles 0, 10, 20, 30, 60 and 90 for left and right turns.

The altimeter is a diagram that expands and retracts as the ambient air pressure changes. It compares the pressure difference of the currently measured air pressure to a reference pressure set with an adjustment knob. The altimeter doesn't show the altitude above sea level or above ground correctly unless it is calibrated to the current air pressure on the ground or sea level.

The correct pressure setting is given by local weather stations, automatic terminal information service (ATIS) or automated weather observing system (AWOS). In standard conditions the pressure is 1013 hPa or 29.29 inches of mercury.

To read the altitude correctly you have to combine these three needle indications in your head. First you read the 10k needle. In our example it shows roughly 0.4 something which is well below the '1' on the scale, so we know we're roughly at 4000ft but well below 10,000 ft and we can ignore the 10k needle in our calculation.

Then we read the second needle, which in our example indicates 3.8 something. So we know we're somewhere close to 3800ft.

Lastly we read the third needle which shows 8.2 something so 820ft.

When the airplane wings are horizontal then the airplane is not turning at all. When the left wing tip tips down to the white marker then you are flying a turn to the left at standard rate which completes a full 360 turn in two minutes. A 180 turn will take 60 seconds and a 90 turn takes 30 seconds at that turn rate.

These standard rate turns (2 minutes for a full circle) are used in instrument flying conditions to fly standard procedure turns which can be flown relatively precisely even with this one basic instrument.

Internally the turn indicator is another gyroscope that it allowed to tilt depending on the change in heading. As the nose of the airplane yaws left and right the turn indicator shows the rate of turn of the fuselage as seen from above.

The second and lower part of the instrument is the balance ball. This acts just like a balance scale but the tube is slightly curved upwards to the end to make it less sensitive. The ball inside the tube will be pulled down by the acceleration of the airplane and rolls to the lowest point. When we always point our nose straight into the wind the ball will be centered even if we fly turns. It is the equivalent of the forces that you feel when you sit in the airplane yourself.

When the airplane nose is not pointing straight into the wind the fuselage and vertical stabilizer as well as the propeller all will create a side forces. Sitting in the plane we can feel that we are pushed to left and right. The balance ball then also deflects left and right. To correct this we should apply rudder input to straighten out the airplane nose. Otherwise we generate extra drag and worsen the experience for passengers. Thinking of bigger airliners you can imagine it would be very uncomfortable if the flight attendant's trolleys suddenly move left and right and bump into the passengers right next to it. Similarly in a small airplane you don't want all of your passengers and luggage to be flung to one cabin side like they do in a car. Unlike a car the airplane is sensitive to being loaded asymmetrically and would start to roll slowly in an uncommanded fashion.

Looking at the ball, if you see it deflected you should push more of the rudder pedal where the ball is on. If the ball is on the left you apply left rudder with the left foot. When the ball is right of center you push right rudder with the right foot.

The heading indicator is a gyroscope that maintains its attitude even if the aircraft turns around it. You can think of the compass rose being stationary while the aircraft symbol turns with the actual airframe.

The heading indicator therefor shows the direction of the aircraft nose relative to the fix gyro reference. The gyro is adjusted to the known runway heading before taking off and during the flight it can also be re-calibrated using the magnetic compass on the windscreen.

The vertical speed indicator shows the rate of climb and rate of descent by comparing the current air pressure with the pressure inside a pressure vessel. The air is allowed to flow in and out of this chamber and the needle moves according to that airflow.

When the needle deflects up then you are climbing. It shows the rate of climb in 100 feet per minute. With the needle pointing at +10 for example you are climbing at 1,000 feet per minute. Climbing from 2,000 ft to 4000 ft will take two minutes at that rate.

If the needle is pointing down you are descending and loosing altitude. For approach and landing as a rule of thumb you can use your airspeed in knots and divide that by 2 to give you the necessary sinkrate indication for a stable 3 approach angle. For an approach speed of 70 knots in our Cessna this yields roughly 350 ft/min. For 80 kt it's 400ft/min and for 100 kt it's 500ft/min. The actual rate required depends on other factors like wind speed and actual ground speed but this is a good estimate.

The spark plugs which ignite the fuel receive their electric power from two rotating magnets attached to the driveshaft that induce a current in electric coils near them. When the engine is rotating these magnetos cause the spark plugs to fire. In the cockpit we can open the two electric circuits (one for each magneto) to stop the engine ignition for each side individually. The ignition key can be found in the lower left of the instrument panel and has multiple stops.

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