Becoming proficient at flight.

[James.Denholm]

Heya all,
I'll skip to the point: What is the best way to become proficient at atmospheric flight and space manoeuvres, such as docking? When I think of you guys flying, and see screnies and so on, it makes me realise that you guys must be able to fly with military precision, with skills that rival most airline pilots (hey, everyone loves flattery!). What would be the best way for a newbie, such as myself, to get that sort of skill? I figure that the best idea would be to sit down for a day during the holidays, and just do a solid days worth of taking off, docking, re-entering, landing, and so on, in a touch-and-go style that you occasionaly see trainee comercial pilots doing. Is this a good way to go about practicing, or is there a more efficient way to hammer the protocools of flight into one's brain?

James.

 

[pete.dakota]

Don't practice entire flights at once. Take things step by step. What ship are you hoping to use? Try taking off, flying around the Cape, maybe climbing up to 30km and coming down dead stick to see if you can land. There's no point practising re-entry if you don't actually know how to land

I've set aside time in Orbiter to learn specific sections of flights. From manual launches into specific orbits, rendezvous, docking, semi-manual re-entry and glide landings. It's took me well over a year to become fully proficient at all of those aspects.

 

[The Aviator]

I agree with pete.dakota.
Another method is to watch playbacks and read tutorials, asking yourself questions, try to answer and doing flight tests to see if you are right. Then, begin with vessels like DG-IV, with a number of autos that you can engage, sit down and watch what happens during a particular manouver...
After time... you'll realize that autos aren't able to pilot a ship, you'll disengage them and fly yourself your vessel.
And last: practice, practice, practice...

 

[James.Denholm]

Don't practice entire flights at once. Take things step by step. What ship are you hoping to use? Try taking off, flying around the Cape, maybe climbing up to 30km and coming down dead stick to see if you can land.

That's probably a good idea. But what does 'dead-stick' mean? I don't actually use a joy-stick... (dodges bullets)

I've set aside time in Orbiter to learn specific sections of flights. From manual launches into specific orbits, rendezvous, docking, semi-manual re-entry and glide landings. It's took me well over a year to become fully proficient at all of those aspects.

I shall give it a try! Thanks, pete.

I agree with pete.dakota.
Another method is to watch playbacks and read tutorials, asking yourself questions, try to answer and doing flight tests to see if you are right. Then, begin with vessels like DG-IV, with a number of autos that you can engage, sit down and watch what happens during a particular manouver...
After time... you'll realize that autos aren't able to pilot a ship, you'll disengage them and fly yourself your vessel.
And last: practice, practice, practice...

Again, thank you, Aviator, I shall study, study, study.

And when I go mad, I highly recommend you buy a flack-jacket.

 

[agentgonzo]

That's probably a good idea. But what does 'dead-stick' mean? I don't actually use a joy-stick... (dodges bullets)

Dead-stick means to land the craft without any engines running, essentially landing a glider*. This is the way that the shuttle is landed in real life and is pretty much the way that most runway landings are done in orbiter. It gives you a great amount of satisfaction to get the craft through reentry and then glide it to a landing on the SLF (runway).

You don't need a joystick and a lot of people (myself included) just use the keypad to fly.



*Though the shuttle has only marginally better gliding properties than a brick.

 

[V8Li]

Yea, take baby steps and understand the instruments you are using. For example is not hard to land on the middle of the runway if you know how to use the HUD for final approach. Everything is complex at first but once you've uderstand how things work the fun will start. For example I've quit Orbitersim for about 2 months because I was frustrated I was not able to reenter properly... Now unpowered reentries are my favorites and the best thing I do in Orbitersim since I just love doing it. So my vote would be to understand what you're doing cuz' it's hard to enjoy Orbitersim if you don't.

 

[dkluempers]

I concur with the comments made thus far. I retry scenarios practicing each section using saves so that I can restart at specific points. I have been spending most of my time practicing getting into orbit, aligning then intercepting the ISS and using IMFD to go from one place to the other. Reentry to Mars & Earth are still very difficult for me but that is my next section to spend time on. I am still not adept at all of this but breaking it into pieces to practice makes it easier to learn. The one thing I try not to do is get frustrated. I know that it takes time and if I need help there are plenty of freindly people here to help me.