Our Flight Simulator

Our Flight Simulator Setup

9/11/2023

Click here to see page about building Trade Wind Airfield
for the Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020

We got our private pilot's license back in 1979 (at age 30). We started off swordfish spotting for some swordfishing boats in the early '80s flying Citabrias and Super Cubs outfitted with 80 or 90 gallon belly tanks for extra fuel. A typical day was about 14-1/2 hours in the air, often 300 miles or so out over Georges Bank off the coast of Massachusetts (so the commute was almost 5 hours of the day). You can see some pictures here.

Later, we flew a Cherokee 6, an Aero Commander, and some Britton Norman Islanders for a charter outfit called 'Edgartown Air' based on Martha's Vineyard, which involved getting our multi rating, and later, our ATP rating. They merged with 'Cape Air', based in Hyannis on Cape Cod, so we transitioned to their Cessna 402s. Later we flew a Cessna 421 for another charter outfit, before moving on to a career as a computer tech (unfortunately, couldn't support the family with the flying career without moving up the ladder and being gone all the time, which we were not interested in).

Click here to see page about building Trade Wind Airfield
for the Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020

Here are some pictures of the Aero Commander and one of the BN2 Islanders we flew for Edgartown Air:

Mike and Nikki next to 1010F, the Aero Commander

2742N, One of the Britten Norman Islanders

We have really been missing the flying, so we finally got around to building a flight simulator. For a long time, we had figured a simulator would never replace the joy of flying for real - we had flown the original MS flight sim back in the late '80s on a Tandy 1000 - pretty cool, but pretty basic at the time, given the tech available back then. But with the hype around the release of the Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, with graphics based on Bing maps and a bunch of AI, we got interested in trying it again.

Here is some info on what we have setup so far.

Based on experiences we had setting up some VMWare servers using some older Dell workstations (T5400 at first) due to them being basically servers with dual Xeons, plenty of RAM, and space for multiple drives, we got another one on eBay - this one a Dell Dimension T5600 with two 8 core Xeons (with hyperthreading, so effectively 32 cores) and 32 gigs of ram. Auction indicated no OS or drive included, but it came with a Windows 7 Pro sticker and key, so we put an SSD drive in and were able to install Windows 10 Pro using the Win 7 key for free. We also added a larger platter drive for image backups and other software installers. The only other thing we needed was a graphics card capable of supporting the MSFS 2021 simulator, so we got an nVidia GeForce GTX 1660 video card, also on eBay. Not a really high end card, but it does the job nicely.

UPDATE: We have been playing with Blender, an open source 3D modeling program, and, turns out, it is more demanding of the video card than the flight simulator is. We recently upgraded the video card to an nVidia GTX 1080ti, with 11 gigs of vRAM (again, used on eBay). This card has vastly improved the performance when using Blender, and should help with performance in the flight sim as well.

We had also inherited a nice 38" flat screen TV that was having some odd video issues, from my daughter and son inlaw, which we were able to fix with a used controller board from eBay ($50). This is awesome as the primary display. Off to the left we mounted two 22" monitors, one in landscape mode, and one in protrait mode. These display enroute charts and approach plates when flying IFR on the sim. We also got a Thrustmaster T16000M FCS Hotas Flightstick, which has a twistable stick for rudder control, a bunch of programable buttons, and a slider for throttle control.

Flight Simulator Setup

Flight Simulator Setup showing two smaller monitors displaying charts

Throttle Quadrant and Mousepad with Aero Commander 1010F

We initially used this setup, along with a copy of the FlightGear sim, which is open source and free, to verify that the system could support a flight simulator reasonably well. The FlightGear sim is pretty nice, considering it is free. The senary is pretty basic, but some of the aircraft are pretty nice, including an Aero Commander which turned out to be really fun, and quite nice when setup to fly in IFR conditions (FlightGear supports realtime weather, and also has a number of presets for various weather scenarios, such as ILS Cat I conditions). Having flown the real thing, this felt pretty familiar.

Once we proved the system was good, we sprung for the MSFS 2020 Deluxe version and got it all installed. It actually runs slightly better on this system than the FlightGear system, and the graphics are awesome! They are based on data from Microsoft's Bing Maps, plus a bunch of AI to render stuff in 3D at lower view points. If we fly over our house, we can see stuff in the yard, including our solar array. And this system seems to be able to render at close to 60 FPS most of the time. The graphics are pretty amazing. Here are a few pictures of some of the aircraft I have been flying in this sim (some of these can be clicked on to see a bigger version):

The BN2 Islander from Nantucket approaching Martha's Vineyard

The BN2 Islander parked on the ramp at Martha's Vineyard

The BN2 Islander in a (simulator) Hanger

View of the panel inside the BN2 Islander

Ryan STA parked at Katama (grass needs to be mowed!)

BN2 Islander parked on ramp at KMVY
(Airport by Burning Blue Design).

Beech 18 parked on ramp at KMVY
(Airport by Burning Blue Design).

DC-3 parked on ramp at KMVY in the Evening
(Airport by Burning Blue Design).

Below are a few video captures of a few flights:

(PC users can right-click on the video to get to Full Screen mode)

Video of BN2 Islander flight from KMVY to Katama

Video of BN2 Islander doing an ILS approach to KMVY

(HD video, so may take a little while to load).

This was on 1/29/2022, the day we had a blizzard on MVY. Used real time weather in the sim. Winds were out of the North, but weather too low to circle to runway 33, thus the landing on 24 in a pretty good crosswind. Actually, the real Islander was easier to land in a cross wind than in the sim.

Video of BN2 Islander VFR night flight from KACK to KMVY

This was an VFR night flight from Nantucket to Martha's Vineyard with real time weather. Landed on runway 24 at the Vineyard.

Video of BN2 Islander IFR flight from KACK to KMVY, Icing, Circle to Land

Another IFR flight from Nantucket to Martha's Vineyard with real time weather (snowed on the Vineyard in the morning). Basically a VOR approach to runway 6, with a circle to land on runway 33 (due to winds).

Video of BN2 Islander VFR Westray to Papa Westray.
This is the shortest commercial flight in the world.

We happened accross an article about the shortest commercial flight in the world, which is between Westray airport and Papa Westray airport in the Orkney Islands in Scotland, just north of the mainland. This flight actually does use a Britten Norman Islander, so we thought it would be fun to fly this in the simulator using the BN-2.

Map of Westray and Papa Westray.

We found the article and map at this site

Video of Husky on floats landing in Edgartown harbor

Video of Husky on floats landing at Katama

Video of Husky - Katama to Tradewind

Video of IFR flight around the pattern in a Beech 18
with an ILS to runway 24 at KMVY (using Realtime Weather).

Always loved this airplane. When I was flying for Edgartown Air out of Martha's Vineyard, there were still a few of these flying in and out of KMVY.

You will notice that the weather gets clearier at the last minute during the landing. During the original flight, there was an object on the runway, so we started over for another landing attempt. See the next video for the original landing...

Original landing sequence for the above video...

Probably should have aborted and gone around (and certainly would have normally, of course!)... ;-) This actually happened to me up in Boston back in the day while landing in a Cessna 402. An airliner decided to cross my runway just before I touched down - had to abort the landing and go around.

Beech 18 VFR flight from Nantucket to Katama.

Just a scenic VFR flight from the Nantucket airport to the grass Katama airfield. We did a lot of flights like this back in the '80s, mostly in the Islander (above), and it was always a really pretty area to fly over. Never got to fly one of these, but it has always been one of my favorites. I'm still getting use to this sim version - seems a bit squirrelly as the tail comes down during the roll out - not sure how accurate this is compared to the real thing. Part of the problem is I haven't gotten my rudder pedels setup yet, so don't have differential braking available yet - still using the twist motion on the joystick, which isn't very natural feeling. I did (after this video) figure out how to lock the tailwheel during takeoff and landing, which does help while the tail is on the ground, but my understanding is that some differential braking is common during the landing while the tail is still up.

Beech 18 Flyby at the new KMVY airport
(by Burning Blue Design).

So, wasn't really happy with the default depiction of the Martha's Vineyard Airport, but found a mod by an outfit called 'Burning Blue Design' that is very nice, and was not expensive. This is just a fun flyby in the Beech 18, but there are some static pictures of the ramp area above as well.

Seeing some of these got me somewhat fascinated with trying to learn how to do these (at least, very simple pieces of scenery). I installed a copy of Blender, and, following a number of YouTube tutorials, managed to create a simple doughnut. I then spent several days learning how to import a 3D model into the flight simulator. Kept missing a few steps, but finally got one to work... Here is a silly video of it...

Beech 18 Flyby of new scenery
(by me!).

Short flight around the pattern at Trade Wind airfield on Martha's Vineyard. Parked next to the old fuel pump that I'm playing around with... I started with an existing model of a old auto gas pump, and modified it to remove the Texaco light globe on top, to include the Avgas logo, and gave it a longer hose.

Around the pattern at Tradewind.