Hello there
After being tempted for years to by a Microsoft Flight Simulator, but being put off by both the price and not trusting myself to stick with it once the lust for gunfire kicks in, I’ve finally taken the plunge and bought MS2002. (Managed to blag it for £19.99, how could I say no!)
I thought I’d start as I meant to go on and enroll in Rod Machado’s flight school to earn my wings in style.
Straight away though I discovered that fate had decided to conspire against my slow journey toward solo flight, when on my very first take off (introductory flight) my plucky little Cessna slewed violently to the left, ran over a dog and left the runway for pastures new!
Constant pressure to the right on the rudder (joystick handgrip) was needed to get airborne, but in my heart I knew that this was not good.
I recalibrated the joystick three times with no luck! (How I long for the days when you could manually calibrate sticks using thumb wheels on the base!) I searched options for realism settings that controlled torque and disabled them, knowing even as I unchecked the box that this was a true grasping at straws maneuver. No luck. I reinstalled MS2002, no luck.
Finally I got me down to PC World and bought a shiny new MS Sidewinder joystick. (A basic model with no twist grip rudder) Returned home and kitted up with bated breath……Ta Daaaaaaah! No slewing. A lone trumpet plays the last post somewhere in the background as my ageing “Logitech Wingman Pro” is escorted off the runway, to live out the remainder of his days in a home for retired joysticks somewhere in dusty shelf land.
So poised once again, goggles firmly in place and Biggles scarf stiffened with a bucket of starch, so it looks like the wind is blowing it out behind me, I once again throttled up and leapt Gazelle like into the blue yonder. (Erm… so not Gazelle like then, more bird like really…yes.)
Lesson one: Up and Down. I can do that! “You’re a natural” proclaims Rod and I am forced to agree.
Lesson two: Side to Side. I can do that! Nope….. Apparently I can’t!
Here it is then that I turn to the collective minds of this august body of men and women (that’s you that is) for help in my hour of need. Doubtless the first of many.
1/ a twenty degree turn to the left poses no problems for this magnificent man in his flying machine. Rod’s hand is soon heartily clapping me on the back and it’s well done all around. But a requested ten degree turn in the opposite direction seems totally beyond me! I bank, the plane turns, we go round and round and round and round…. Do you see a theme developing? Rod says nothing! Despite my best attempts to impersonate some kind of demented ten degree vulture. I’ve tried changing the degree of bank to all kinds of angles in case it’s Rod that’s actually drunk, but all to no avail.
What can I possibly be doing wrong?
2/ the manual talks about earning virtual certificates for the various stages of flight school, but I don’t see anything listed to suggest how you get these. Added to which you don’t seem to be able to log in your name anyway, so how does the program know who is who if more than one person in the family is learning to fly?
So there you have it. Am I to soar through the clouds? Or am I destined to crawl on my belly through the mud forever dreaming of the heights above. The answer lays in your hands dear friends.
Chocks away!
Badger
6 Answers
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Chief Captain
I love it please come again.............Oh you want advice
Turning mmmm I can do that
scarf no longer will stand on it's own. 
of completion. Grab what you will, print them out (include the name of the lucky recipient) and voila your a pilot, well sort of. 
We have a new champion! 
wrong film
