AirMail’s
Rocky Debut
On May 15, 1918, the United States Postal Service began airmail service. When the first pilot, George L. Boyle, was ready to depart Washington, D.C., his Curtiss
Eventually, Boyle took off, following train tracks. But as the tracks circled, so did he. Then, after running out of gas, Boyle crashed in a field.
To read more about the
Of course, you can still create custom weather piece by piece, defining cloud layers, winds aloft, visibility, precipitation, and temperature. Watch raindrops spatter the windscreen of your Beechcraft King Air 350 during a
To read more about Flight Simulator’s improved weather functions, read the articles in the Weather section of the Learning Center.
Instrument Flying
The need to fly in all conditions eventually led engineers and pilots to develop techniques for flying without the aid of ground references.
In 1929, Jimmy Doolittle made the first
Flying with instruments in Flight Simulator, you have access to the same navigation aids and instruments available to
flight plans with the Flight Planner; selected aircraft include IFR panels, which show all key instruments, avionics, and controls on the screen. The Flight Simulator NavData database, supplied by Jeppesen, includes the world’s VORs (VHF omnidirectional receivers), NDBs (nondirectional radio beacons), ILSs (instrument landing systems), low- and
Curtiss Jenny and to
To learn more about using navigational aids in Flight Simulator, read the articles on Navigation in the Learning Center.
Compare the cockpits of the Curtiss Jenny (top), the Vega (middle), and the Boeing
12
F L I G H T S I M U L AT O R 2 0 0 4 | A C E N T U R Y O F F L I G H T |
13