It doesn’t move you from place to place so much as it moves you between the different phases of your flight plan, skipping from Takeoff or Cruise to Approach or Final. Up along the quick-access menu again, you find an icon that looks like a little teardrop-shaped map pin. And only works if you have a flight plan dialed in. Condense long trips with Travel ToĪnother handy feature for longer flights works a lot like time-lapse, yet it’s actually much more elegant. Landing Path will even direct you down to the right runway, helping you get onto the right glide path for final approach.
Route & Waypoints will give you floating markers in the sky to follow all along your flight path. If you need help getting your bearings, head to the pause menu, hit the Assistance tab, and play with the settings inside the drop-down to the left of the Navigation tab again to dial things in to your liking. That’s especially challenging at larger airports with multiple, intersecting landing strips.
Once you reach your destination airport, Microsoft Flight Simulator assumes that you know which runway is which. You can even give them control of the plane if you need to step away for a few minutes. Now when you approach your destination, they’ll radio in to get you clearance to land. Toggle the Manage Radio Comms option to turn on your AI co-pilot. Up on the quick-access menu, you’ll find an icon shaped like a pilot’s head. Use a virtual co-pilot and waypoint assistanceĪlternately, you could ask your virtual co-pilot to work the radio while you worry about driving. Just don’t forget to acknowledge the tower when you do finally get clearance. To do that, open up the ATC interface (available on the quick-access menu at the top of the screen) and request pushback, clearance to taxi, permission to take off “straight-out,” or whatever combination of the previous gets you assigned to a runway. You can also get there from a similar Assistance menu on the Pause screen once you start flying.įor the taxi ribbon to appear - and actually guide you out to your assigned runway - you’ll need to communicate with air traffic control (ATC). Then select the Assistance menu, select the drop down caret to the left of Navigation Aids, and turn the Taxi Ribbon option on. From the Welcome screen, hit the Options tab at the top. That’s why I lean on the built-in Assistance features to help me out. You can access that option via the drop-down menus directly below the Departure and Arrival airports on the World Map.īeginning and ending a trip by taxiing on and off the runway can really add to the immersion of role-playing a pilot, but actually finding your way around the tarmac can be a pain.
But, to get the full experience, think about starting at a gate or in a parking space. With a flight plan locked in, know that Flight Simulator defaults to placing you on a runway ready to take off. Taxi with Assistance and air traffic control Just make sure they’re relatively close together at first.
So, now that you know how to take off and land, it’s time to pick a few airports and start doing laps.įrom the World Map, select both a Departure and an Arrival airport on the world map and get to work. Some of Microsoft Flight Simulator’s best features don’t work unless you’ve first created a flight plan. It’s a bit hinky and requires more precision than you’re probably capable of right now.
Feel free to do the first five modules at your own pace, but stop short of lesson six - your first solo flight. Once you get a handle for how your controls operate - including pitch, yaw, roll, and throttle - it’s time to dive into the Flight Training tutorial. To start midair, click anywhere on the World Map besides an airport and select click “set as departure.” That will begin your journey about 1,500 feet high, already at a safe cruising speed. So I recommend starting your first few flights already in the air.
But getting a plane into the air can be intimidating, especially if you don’t know how it handles. My initial instinct with Flight Simulator was to start my first play session already on the runway, staring down the centerline and ready for takeoff. Image: Asobo Studio/Xbox Game Studios via Polygon