Asking Better Questions at 30,000 Feet (and 40 FPS) - Part Two of Two

In the last post, I discussed how I came to ask for help from my trusty assistant, ChatGPT.  For background details, I refer you to  Asking Better Questions at 30,000 Feet (and 40 FPS) - Part One of Two.

In this post, I am presenting Chat's response.

Warning!  

• A.) Like Part One, this is going to be a long post — sorry!  
• B.) One should not take this information as gospel.  Young Chat has made mistakes before.  
• C.) At this point, I've yet to make the recommended changes - but intend to perform the experiment in the near future. 

Now that I've covered my backside, let's move on.

The information presented below is cut-and-paste from ChatGPT's screen.

"My Question: "I have an Alianware laptop running FS2024. Hardware Details: 13th Gen i7-13700HX 2.10 GHz, 16 GB Ram, Windows 11 Pro, 8GB Graphics Flight Sim. Software: TrackIR5, Air Manager 5, FS2024 Flight Sim. Hardware: Saitek Pro Yoke and Rudder Pedals 4K TV as monitor Type of Flying: VFR Cross Country - Under FAA VFR Rules ChatGPT: Go into the FS2024 settings and provide me with the best settings for the simulator and type of flying as described above. Note: Frame rates do not have to high because - no more than 40 FPS."

Note: ChatGPT actually provided the sources for this response so you can double-check. 

Flight Simulation Showcase, MSFS/Addons, PC Optimized Settings, Crosswind, Pimax, Yandex and Sportskeeda.

🎯Your Mission Profile (What We Optimize For)

• VFR / low altitude / traffic pattern work
• 4K TV
• TrackIR (head movement = extra CPU load)
• Air Manager (external instruments = CPU hit)
• Target: 30–40 FPS, smooth

👉 Translation: prioritize terrain clarity + cockpit readability, sacrifice heavy eye candy (clouds, shadows, traffic)

🛠️ Baseline Strategy (Important)

Start from:

• Preset: HIGH-END → then tune DOWN
• NOT Ultra (too heavy at 4K on 8GB VRAM)

⚙️ Graphics Settings (Dial These In)

Display

• Display Mode: Fullscreen
• Resolution: 3840x2160 (4K)
• V-Sync: Off
• Frame Limit: 30 or 40 FPS (lock it) ← critical for smoothness

👉 Locking FPS stabilizes frame pacing and eliminates stutters.

Upscaling (Critical for Your GPU)

• Anti-Aliasing: DLSS Super Resolution
• DLSS Mode: BALANCED (or PERFORMANCE if needed)
• Sharpening: 80–100

👉 At 4K, DLSS is mandatory for performance.

Level of Detail (Most Important for VFR)

• Terrain LOD: 100–130
• Object LOD: 100

👉 These are the #1 performance killers—especially near airports and cities.

For VFR:

• Don’t go below 100 (you’ll lose visual cues)
• Don’t go above 150 (waste of FPS)

Textures (Good News — Cheap FPS-WISW)

• Texture Resolution: HIGH or ULTRA
• Anisotropic Filtering: 16x

👉 Texture quality has minimal FPS impact if VRAM isn’t exceeded.

Clouds (Big FPS Hit)

• Volumetric Clouds: MEDIUM

👉 Clouds can cost ~25% FPS on higher settings.

For VFR, Medium still looks excellent, 

Shadows (Heavy — Cut These)

• Shadow Maps: 1024 or 1536
• Terrain Shadows: LOW
• Contact Shadows: OFF
• Ray-Traced Shadows: OFF

👉 Shadows are “silent killers” of performance.

Environment Detail

• Trees: MEDIUM
• Grass: LOW
• Bushes/Plants: LOW

👉 Trees alone can massively impact CPU performance.

Traffic (Turn Mostly Off)

• AI Traffic: OFF
• Ground Aircraft: LOW or OFF
• Airport Vehicles: LOW
• Multiplayer: ON (optional)

👉 Traffic = CPU spikes → stutters on approach.

Glass Cockpit

• Refresh Rate: MEDIUM or LOW

👉 Huge CPU saver—especially with Air Manager already running.

Misc (Important)

• Motion Blur: OFF
• Depth of Field: OFF
• Lens Effects: LOW
• Ambient Occlusion: LOW or MEDIUM
• Reflections: LOW

🧠 Your “Real-World" Profile (This Is Key)

Given your setup:

What will bottleneck you:

• CPU → TrackIR + Air Manager + traffic + glass cockpit
• VRAM (8GB) → 4K + Ultra textures + clouds

What fixes that:

• Lower:
  • Clouds
  • Shadows
  • Traffic
• Keep:
  • Terrain LOD ~100–130 (for VFR realism)

🧩 Final “Sweet Spot” Config (Copy This)

Best Practical Setup for YOU:

• DLSS: Balanced
• Terrain LOD: 120
• Object LOD: 100
• Textures: High
• Clouds: Medium
• Shadows: Low
• Trees: Medium
• Traffic: Off
• Glass cockpit: Medium
• FPS Lock: 30 or 40

✈️ Why This Works (For Your Type of Flying)

For VFR cross-country, what matters is:

• Ground clarity ✔
• Stable motion ✔
• Pattern work smoothness ✔

Not:

• Ultra clouds
• Ultra shadows
• AI traffic

And most importantly:

👉 A locked 30–40 FPS will feel smoother than unstable 60 FPS in this sim.

🧭 Final Thought

You’re not building a benchmark machine—you’re building a training environment.

What you want is:

• Predictable performance
• Repeatable behavior
• Visual consistency

That’s what translates from simulator → cockpit.

If you want, next step we can do:

👉 Tune this specifically for traffic pattern / short field work (slightly different priorities)

👉 Or optimize for night flying / weather scenarios

Both require small but important tweaks."

Well, that's it!

Your thoughts,

Kenneth (Ken) Butterly, Founder

Asking Better Questions at 30,000 Feet (and 40 FPS) - Part One of Two

I’ve been having problems with FS2024 running on my Alienware laptop. 

Crashing — a lot. 

Not the occasional hiccup, but the kind that interrupts flow, breaks immersion, and frankly, makes you question why you booted it up in the first place.

So, like many of us, I went to YouTube. 

Plenty of videos. Plenty of opinions. Plenty of “best settings” that seem to assume unlimited hardware and a tolerance for 12 different variables changing at once.  I watched more than a few. 

And to be honest, I walked away more confused than when I started.

Then I decided to do something different.

I’ve been spending a lot of time with my young assistant — ChatGPT. And it occurred to me: instead of searching broadly, why not ask Chat for a little help?

The part that makes the difference.

The value of AI, at least the way I was taught to use it, is not just in the answer — it’s in the question. 

If you’re vague, you’ll get vague. If you’re generic, you’ll get generic. But if you take the time to frame the problem precisely, clearly — hardware, software, use case, constraints — you get something entirely different.

So, I laid it out:

• Alienware laptop.
• 13th Gen i7-13700HX.
• 16GB RAM.
• 8GB GPU.
• Windows 11 Pro.
• Running FS2024
• TrackIR
• Air Manager
• Saitek yoke and pedals
• 4K TV.

And then the most important part — the mission:

I told Chat that I'd be flying VFR cross-country under FAA rules. That I wouldn't need 60 FPS rates. That I wanted smooth, stable, repeatable performance — say 30 to 40 FPS — with an emphasis on what actually matters in VFR: terrain clarity, visual cues, and cockpit usability.

Note: Framing changes everything.

What came back wasn’t a generic “set everything to High” response. 

It was a prioritization strategy.

• Terrain level of detail (LOD) was set around 100–130.  Remember, we specified VFR — Being able to accurately read the terrain is as important as accurately reading and interoperating the chart.  
• Minimize the performance killers: clouds, shadows, traffic, and anything that spikes CPU load — especially with TrackIR and Air Manager already in play.  In other words, stop trying to make it look like a postcard and start making it behave like the training tool it is.
• Lock in the frame rate to 30-40 FPS.  Performance steadies out.  Smoothness over speed!

Many or probably most of us, tend to approach simulators the same way we approach our new hardware — push everything to the max and then troubleshoot the fallout. But if the goal is proficiency and supporting real-worldlike flying — then consistency is key.

This is the end of part one.  Part two will have the actual ChatGPT response.

Your thought,

Kenneth (Ken) Butterly, Founder

Newsletter - March 2026

FSG@ Network

Connecting flight simulation enthusiasts across Southeast Wisconsin and Northeast Illinois

About Us

The FSG@ Network is a volunteer-driven family of local flight simulation groups. It only takes three simmers to start your own group - and it’s free! Our mission: build home simulators, enhance flight safety and training, and foster camaraderie. Interested? Email us using the email form to the right of this screen.

Meeting Highlights 

House of Gerhard proved to be a good choice - food and service were great, and, you guessed it, we had a great time!

Meeting Venue

A proposal was made to find a single venue - a restaurant.  Route 20 Restaurant in Sturtevant, WI was suggested, so that's where we're planning to go for the April meeting.  If you’d like to join us, email me at flightsimulatorgroupat@gmail.com.

Friday Lunches

We held four Friday lunches in February with after-lunch simulator sessions. If you’d like to join us, email me at flightsimulatorgroupat@gmail.com.

Member Build Projects 

Bob H. is scoping out his new project.  More on this next month - I hope!

Flight‑Sim‑Saturday-Flyoff

Off the table for now.  As I said last month, still think it’s a good idea.

Off-Site Travel Events

Two group outings are being proposed:

• FSExpo-2026 – Minneapolis / St. Paul
• The "Boneyard" – Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Tucson, AZ
• The Airforce Museum – Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton Ohio.

Interested? Email flightsimulatorgroupat@gmail.com

Want to see what we're about?

Our next meeting is Wednesday, Apr. 22, 18:30–20:30 at Route 20 Restaurant in Sturtevant, WI. 

Look forward to seeing you there!

Cheers!

Kenneth (Ken) Butterly, Founder

Proof, Not Theory

I came across a YouTube video today — a cockpit view of a Boeing 737 landing on Runway 27 into Heraklion, Crete. It wasn’t dramatic in the way non-pilots might describe it. No applause line. No “greaser” theatrics.

What it was, however, is something far more meaningful: disciplined execution.

• Intention.
• Focus.
• Speed and altitude control.
• Route awareness.
• Traffic pattern management.

Every one of those elements was on display — deliberate, controlled, and repeatable.

And as I watched, I found myself thinking — this is exactly the point.

Boeing 737 stunning landing Crete Greece Heraklion Airport RWY27 | Cockpit view

More videos like this DutchPilotGirl

These are not mysterious, innate talents reserved for airline cockpits. They are learned behaviors. Practiced behaviors. And importantly, they are behaviors that can be developed — quietly, consistently, and effectively — on a home flight simulator.

Not perfectly. Not completely. But meaningfully.

So, I did what any curious pilot would do. I fired up Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, and recreated the scenario — different aircraft, same objective. I chose the Vision Jet. Different performance profile, same demands: manage the energy, stay ahead of the airplane, fly the approach with intention.

And that’s really the point, isn’t it?

The simulator is not there to replicate reality in every detail. It can’t. It won’t. What it can do — exceptionally well — is allow you to rehearse decision-making. To build mental models. To recognize when you’re high, fast, or behind the airplane — and correct early.

It allows you to practice being deliberate.

That’s the bridge between watching and doing.

Watch a professional execute a complex arrival, and you see the outcome. Step into the simulator, and you begin to understand the process.

That gap — between observation and execution — is where learning lives.

And it’s available, on demand, at home.

After I finished the session, I shut everything down, turned to my better half, and suggested we go out for dinner. A local Greek place. It seemed appropriate.

Not because I had just “flown” into Crete.

But because, in a small way, I had practiced thinking like someone who could.

Your thoughts,

Kenneth (Ken) Butterly, Founder

P.S. Check out: Your Pilot Academy - Pilot Selection and Assessment Preparation Courses

Expanding the Envelope

Up to this point, Digital Flight Deck has focused on non-combat simulation. That’s been deliberate — but it’s probably time to at least open the door a bit.

Some FSG@ members are already using Digital Combat Simulator (DCS). It may not be your thing today — but it might be tomorrow. So why not take a look?

DCS in VR is a different experience entirely. Not incremental — transformational. You’re not observing the fight, you’re in it. And that changes everything.

I came across a video today that captures that immersion well. Worth a few minutes—if only to see what’s now possible.

A realistic VR DCS War experience?

More videos like this Tactical Pascale

And it’s not just DCS.

One of our members Jon B., a Vietnam-era F-4 driver, recently stepped back into the Phantom — this time in VR using Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020.

His reaction? Grin, ear-to-ear.  Couldn't get him off the machine.

That’s really the point. These platforms are no longer just simulations — they’re experiences.

Need a little more convincing?  Do what we do.  Head on up/down to Extreme Flight Simulation (EFS) in Gurnee, IL.  Two DCS combat simulators, great staff and a lot of fun.  Don't forget to try their 737.  

And if reading is your thing, the Jan/Feb 2026 issue of PCPilot had a well written article on Military Jets in FS2024.

Of course, you can just load DCS up on to your computer - for free.  Either way, take a look!

Your thoughts,

Kenneth (Ken) Butterly, Founder

When “Next Generation” Isn’t Enough

I came late to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 — and now Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024.

Before making that jump, I had already invested heavily — time, effort, and not an insignificant amount of money — into Microsoft Flight Simulator X (FSX) and Lockheed Martin Prepar3D (P3D). 

That ecosystem, while aging, had something increasingly rare today: it worked. Consistently. Predictably. Reliably.

And I was happy!

The move to the new generation was supposed to be a clear step forward. In some respects, it absolutely is. The visuals are extraordinary. The world feels alive in a way we could only imagine a decade ago.

But here’s the uncomfortable part: a better-looking simulator is not necessarily a better simulator for all conditions.

This morning, I ran into these videos.  I'll let them speak for themselves.

MSFS 2024 Should Be Better Than This

A closer look at AeroflyFS. 

Aerofly FS 4 Review 2026 – The Smoothest VR Flight Sim? First Impressions vs MSFS

More videos like this The Flying Doctor

Looks like I have more investigating to do.  That said, I wouldn't rule out an AeroflyFS installation sometime in the near future.

Your thoughts,

Kenneth (Ken) Butterly

FSWeekend 2026

Two cornerstone events define the annual flight simulation calendar:  FSExpo 2026 and FSWeekend. 

With FSExpo 2026 scheduled for June 12 in St. Paul, Minnesota, and FSWeekend just concluded, these gatherings offer simmers a clear view of where flight simulation stands today — and where it’s headed next.

To give you a sense of FSWeekend, I’ve included a few highlights below. If you’ve never attended, this is about as close as you’ll get without hopping on a plane:

FSWeekend 2026 - 360 Degree Floor Tour

Vector Keynote - FSWeekend 2026 x FSElite Stage

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 Keynote - FSWeekend 2026 x FSElite Stage

More videos like this FSElite

What really stands out at these events isn’t just the hardware or software — it’s the ecosystem. The sheer number of developers, builders, and organizations pushing home flight simulation forward is impressive. 

Below is a sampling of vendors from FSWeekend. Click through a few — you’ll quickly get a feel for the breadth of innovation underway.

Consider this my two-hour walk of the show floor — without the sore feet.

31st Virtual Fighter Squadron	Mickey's Flightdeck
Aerosoft	Microsoft Flight Simulator
Airland World	Miravia Softworks
AirWürttemberg	MobiFlight
Aviodrome 737 Sim	MockingBird Air
Bigscreen VR	Motozolo
BRUNNER	MOZA
CockpitCrafters	Navigraph
Cockpitturk Prof. Sim Systems	Octavi
Contrail Shop	OnAir Company
Core Flight Technologies LLC	OSM Aviation Academy
DCS (Eagle Dynamics)	PH-SRU
ExcellAir	PMDG Simulations
Expanded Flight Hub	Pro Flight Trainer Switzerland
FeelThere	RealSky
Flight Panels	Rowsfire
Flight Simulation Association	SayIntentions.AI
Flightbeam Studios	Sim Innovations BV
FlightDeck	SIMMARKET
FlightGear	Sim-Mech AS
FlightSimDelft Hogeschool	Simprojects Motion Cockpit
FlightSimWebShop	SKALARKI electronics Ltd
FlyByWire Simulations	SoFly
GeoFS	Stichting Hoogvliegers
HCC!Flightsimulator	Tailstrike
HomeSim	Tobii - www.tobii.com
Honeycomb Aeronautical	ToLiss Simulation Solutions
IniBuilds	VA Systems
IVAO	VATSIM
JetStream Designs	Virtual Fly
Just Flight	WINCTRL
KLM-VA
Leonardo Software House
Meridian GMT

Finally, it’s worth saying this plainly: these shows matter. They bring together, in one place, the people and organizations that are steadily closing the gap between simulation and reality.

If you have even a passing interest in where this is all going, they’re worth your time — and your support.

Hope to see you in St. Paul.

Your thoughts?

Kenneth (Ken) Butterly, Founder

Trim - Flying's Unsung Hero - Part Four - Flying by the Numbers - From the Flight Deck to the Desktop

In the last post I mentioned how professional pilots intentionally fly by the numbers and how trim makes that possible.  In this post I would like to discuss intention at the CFI/Student level and propose a desktop training solution. 

Airline pilots fly by the numbers because they have to. Speeds, configurations, and performance targets aren’t suggestions — they’re guardrails. The interesting part is not that the system works (it clearly does), but that the same discipline can be adapted — very effectively — to general aviation training. And this is where the home simulator begins to shine.

In a light aircraft like a Cessna 172, we don’t need a page full of V-speeds. What we need are a few reliable anchor numbers and the discipline to use them. Downwind at 90 knots. Base at 80. Final at 65. Not perfect numbers — repeatable numbers. That distinction matters.

The simulator gives us something the real airplane cannot: the ability to isolate, repeat, and study cause and effect without distraction.

Take the stabilized approach. In the real world, we talk about it. In the simulator, we can enforce it. Set the rule: by 500 feet AGL, the airplane is on speed, on glidepath, and configured — or we go around. No salvaging, no improvising. Run that pattern ten times in twenty minutes. What begins as an exercise quickly becomes habit.

Or consider the fundamental relationship every student struggles with: pitch and power - trim. In the airplane, it often devolves into chasing needles. In the simulator, we can slow it down. Set climb power and a known pitch attitude. Observe the result. Reduce power, hold attitude, watch the descent develop. Repeat. The lesson becomes clear: the airplane is not doing something mysterious — it is responding exactly to what was set.

The same holds true when we begin to stretch beyond standard conditions. Change the environment — raise the field elevation, increase the temperature—and suddenly those familiar numbers don’t produce the same results. The rotation speed hasn’t changed, but the runway seems shorter and the climb anemic. That’s not a flaw in the system; it’s the lesson. Numbers are targets, not guarantees. Performance margins matter.

Wind adds another layer. A steady approach at 65 knots is one thing. Introduce gusts, and now we adjust — adding a few knots for stability. The simulator allows you to dial this in precisely, to see what happens when you don’t, and to understand why that small adjustment makes a large difference.

Perhaps the most revealing exercise is the simplest: fly a pattern “by feel,” then fly it again using defined speeds and checkpoints. The comparison is usually not subtle. One is variable, reactive, and inconsistent. The other is controlled, predictable, and repeatable. That’s the difference flying by the numbers makes.

There is, however, one critical condition if the home simulator is to be truly effective: it cannot exist in isolation. It should be integrated into the CFI’s syllabus. The same numbers, the same callouts, the same expectations — used in the cockpit — should be reinforced at home. In that way, the simulator becomes a bridge between lessons, not a separate activity.

Used properly, it anchors what was learned in the last flight while preparing the student for the next. The result is continuity. The student shows up not to relearn, but to refine.

None of this suggests that a home simulator replaces the airplane. It doesn’t. What it does — when used properly — is support the learning process. It reduces workload by building familiarity. It reinforces discipline. It allows a student to arrive at the airplane having already seen the picture.

Used this way, the simulator becomes more than a game. It becomes a laboratory.

And in that laboratory, the numbers stop being abstract — and start becoming instinct.

Your thoughts?

Kenneth (Ken) Butterly, Founder

Trim - Flying's Unsung Hero - Part Three - Trim, Speed, and Safety: What the Airplane Is Trying to Tell You

I recently ran a simple experiment in three simulators — Prepar3D, X-Plane 12, and Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 — using a Cessna 172.

Full throttle. Trim set to neutral. No pitch input. Autopilot used only to hold heading.

Then I let the airplane climb.

Across all three platforms, the aircraft settled into a steady climb at a consistent indicated airspeed while the rate of climb constant with altitude. At first glance, it looked like the airplane had simply chosen its own speed — and held it with remarkable precision.

In a sense, it had.

A statically stable airplane will seek an equilibrium angle of attack where lift, drag, thrust, and pitching moments balance. That angle of attack determines indicated airspeed. Trim doesn’t create that balance — it simply allows the airplane to hold it without continuous control pressure.

But here’s where the practical lesson begins.

In normal flight, trim (pitch) selects airspeed, and power determines what the airplane does with that airspeed. Add power without changing trim, and the airplane climbs. Reduce power, and it descends — all while holding essentially the same speed. Change trim, and you change the speed the airplane will seek.

That’s not theory. That’s how the airplane is designed to work.

At the same time, it’s important to recognize what the simulator may be smoothing out.

In the real world, a normally aspirated engine loses roughly three percent of its available power per thousand feet of altitude. Climb performance depends on excess power — the difference between power available and power required. As altitude increases, excess power decreases, and rate of climb follows.

But that’s only part of the story.

Vy decreases with altitude. Propeller efficiency changes as air density drops. Slipstream effects over the tail diminish. Induced and parasite drag do not scale identically. And let's not forget CG.  All of these factors subtly shift the airplane’s equilibrium condition as it climbs.

For indicated airspeed to remain perfectly constant from sea level to service ceiling, those effects would need to remain in near-perfect balance.

That’s unlikely.

In a real airplane, I would expect small variations — not instability, but not the near “ruler-flat” IAS trace the simulators produced.

And that brings us to safety.

The equilibrium speeds a stable airplane seeks is not random. It exists well above the stall region. The airplane is, in effect, biased toward a safe operating condition.

Professional aviation takes this further. Pilots flying aircraft like the Boeing 737 don’t estimate safe speed — they are given it. Every phase of flight uses defined speeds; all intentionally set with margins above stall.

The takeaway for student pilots and simulator flyers is straightforward.

Trim is not about comfort. It is how you select and hold a safe airspeed.

If you are holding pressure on the controls, the airplane is telling you something.

Trim it. And let stability — not guesswork — do its job.  

Understanding effective trim makes flying by the numbers that much easier.

Your thoughts?

Kenneth (Ken) Butterly

Meeting Notice Reminder - February March 18, 2026

 Change of Venue!

• Location: 3927 75th Street, Kenosha, WI  53142
• Time: 18:00 through 20:00
• Water and soft drinks on us!

See you there.  RSVP please.  I need to reserve your seat.

Kenneth (Ken) Butterly, Founder

Trim - Flying's Unsung Hero - Part Two

I thought it might be interesting to take a look at trim for pitch (trim) as it’s currently being taught. My suspicion is that there are probably as many ways to teach the subject as there are CFI's. 

Out of curiosity, I took some time reviewing a couple dozen YouTube videos and came away with the impression that most trim techniques/strategies are somewhere between brute force and finesse.  I prefer the latter myself.

To illustrate my point, I’ve selected the next two videos.

How to Trim an Airplane

More videos like this No BS Flight Training 

Day 22: Using Aircraft Trim Techniques: Tips to Help You

More videos like this MzeroA Flight Training 

Both videos provided the same info: 

Pilot sets pitch → aircraft seeks new airspeed → trim removes pressure.  

But can this skill be taught using YouTube/MSFS2020/2024?

How to trim a plane | The poor man's autopilot | Microsoft Flight Simulator

More videos like this Digital Aviator

Simple answer - yes!

Since pitch sets speed, without the ability to change pitch, might the aircraft's forward speed be limited?

That hypothesis will be the subject of part three.

Your thoughts?

Kenneth (Ken) Butterly, Founder

The Incredible Lockheed Constellation - Queen of The Skies

As propeller airliners go, the Lockheed Constellation is a piece of art.

With its distinctive triple tail and graceful, dolphin-shaped fuselage, the Connie remains one of the most beautiful airliners ever built. Designed by Lockheed and flown by Trans World Airlines (TWA), it helped usher in the modern era of long-distance airline travel.

On February 5, 1946, TWA launched its first trans-Atlantic service with the Constellation, linking North America and Europe in ways that would soon become routine for commercial aviation. The aircraft’s pressurized cabin, speed, and long range represented a major step forward in passenger comfort and capability. 

This INCREDIBLE Aircraft Changed Everything

More videos like this Airliner Designs

Building the Super Constellation, Lockheed Burbank film - 1955

More videos like this Wal_DC-6B  

The Aircraft NOBODY Knew about! Lockheed Constellation

More videos like this Mentour Now!

MSFS Red Wing Super Constellation Tutorial Startup Auto Pilot Full Flight VOR ILS

More videos like this Sprocket Simulations 

During the COVID lockdowns, I decided to recreate one of those early Atlantic crossings in P3D. Over three evenings I “flew” from Chicago to London, following the classic North Atlantic stepping-stone route:

Chicago → New York → Gander → Reykjavík → Shannon → London

The real Connie had the range to complete the trip in a single stop under the right conditions.

I, on the other hand, didn’t! 

Flying the route in stages gave me a real appreciation for the rhythm of piston-airliner flying—careful planning, steady engine management, and navigation that demanded attention and patience.

The good news for simulator pilots is that the Constellation is alive and well in the virtual world. Versions of the aircraft are available in Microsoft Flight Simulator X, Lockheed Martin Prepar3D, Microsoft Flight Simulator, and X-Plane 11 / X-Plane 12.

The first TWA Atlantic crossing in the Connie happened nearly 80 years ago.  If you’re a flight simmer, you don’t have wait another 80 to try it yourself.

Your thoughts?

Kenneth (Ken) Butterly, Founder

Trim - Flying's Unsung Hero!

I fly by the numbers.

Been flying this way—whether in an airplane or a simulator—since 1968. One reason I’ve been able to do so consistently is that I consciously use an elevator trim/throttle technique (that works for me) as a core tool in my “flight bag.”

I titled this post “Trim — Flying’s Unsung Hero” because the little device doesn't get the attention it deserves and without the proper use of elevator trim, flying as we know it simply wouldn’t exist.

So, let me present two videos to open the discussion. The intent is to show how focused and intentional use of this tool, combined with flying by the numbers, can make your flying both safer and more enjoyable.

Flying By the Numbers Demonstration

Descend and Decelerate

More videos like this American Bonanza Society

Suggestion: Next time you get on the simulator (home or flight school) why not give this Bonanza Guys ideas a try!

Note: This post is the beginning of a series. 

Your thought?

Kenneth (Ken) Butterly