VFR - Visual navigation guide

[cowpatz]

I received the following in an email from the CAA.
Although real world there is no reason that it cannot be applied to the flight simulation world (Especially MSFS with its accurate scenery depiction).

Visual navigation

Happy flying!

[Splitpin]

CP, I love all this stuff ...will print it ...I'm a compulsive collector of anything like this ...

[jpreou]

Although real world there is no reason that it cannot be applied to the flight simulation world (Especially MSFS with its accurate scenery depiction).

Got the same email, downloaded and read.

Actually, I 'real-plan' all my sim flights like this when I am practicing local flights prior to do them IRL. I use a real E6B flight computer too! (I want to buy a metal one - my card one has too much 'play' in it)

I just purchased maps for the area (Christchurch, Canterbury and surrounds), and a new aviation scale ruler (since I seem to have lost my last one) and I go through this same process, though admittedly not in quite the same level of detail for the sim. For example, I usually 'guesstimate' the drift and wind correction.

It can be really challenging to visually fly a route when there is some significant cloud cover and as good as the scenery is in MSFS it still isn't quite as good as real life (obviously, no nuances).
Even so, very valuable 'training' to be able to plan and fly a route in the sim before doing it for real. I try to use the same or similar aircraft to, though I am struggling to find one like the Karratoo (80mph cruise) - any suggestions on that front are welcome.

The other day I did RT - PH - AH - FF - RT in the Dee Jing RV-7 and that went well - bit of a 'snaky' track sometimes as I tried to positively fix my position, but otherwise good.

The one thing I have noted looked at the current charts and the sim - not all rivers are in the sim; I see rivers on the chart that are not in sim. Ditto with some roads, mainly smaller ones. And powerlines are particularly poorly implemented - when they do exist they are damn hard to see. The old ORBX regions for P3D were much better in this respect. I even struggled to find the rail tracks in this area the other day!
But overall, if you are a real flyer, or want to take your simulated experience to a whole new level then this is good practice / fun.

The only trouble is that, as the CAA guide suggests, it takes me twice as long to plan the flight as it does to fly it!
So sometimes it is good to jump into another virtual airplane, fire up DirectTo on the GPS and just follow the magenta line ... even [gulp] ... let George do it