I will list some suggestions to pilots to make our flying community more realistic. Suggestions will especially focus on those operates that are not that professional but pretty commonly seen in the expert sever done by the pilots.
1, Keep your strobe lights off until your are just about to enter the runway.
Also, turn off strobe lights once you exit the runway.
This is a tip has been displayed on IF loading screen, but I still see pilots keep the strobe lights on all the time pretty often.
2, Real commercial flights don’t cruise at a 0.88-89 mach speed.
Pretty a lot IF pilots cruise there flights at 0.88-0.89 mach level of speed. Real flights don’t actually fly that fast due to cost control of fuel and maintenance concerns. 0.82-0.83 level of cruising speed would be much more realistic. Pilots may use Flightradar 24 or similar platforms to check the usual flight time of your planned flight in the real world to help you adjust your cruising speed (also your route plan).
3, More about lights, If you wanna do it more professional.
3.1 Only turn on your beacon lights after being approved to push back by the ATC, but before you tag. Turn it off once you shut down your engins.
3.2 Shut your landing lights once you are above 10,000ft, and turn it on once you are below 10.000ft.
These are normal procedures running in the real world.
If you have any other suggestions, feel free to comment below.
As long as it is under the maximum Mach speed it’s fine, but other things you said should have that much of an effect on you, or anyone else really, but I guess it gives a more realistic feel.
For beacon light use, the pilots activate it when the aircraft is getting ready to do something. Not only when push back has been approved. The beacon lights around the terminal are used to alert the ground crew that the aircraft is active and should stay away from it. For example the pilots may use the beacon light to signify that the aircraft will be moving shortly or that the engines are still on or other hazards. The light is also used for alerting other aircraft of an active or moving aircraft. For total realistic practices, activate the beacon light while you are in the process of requesting clearance and deactivate the beacon light when the fan blades in the engine are moving slowly or stopped completely. Do not turn them off/on while on the taxiway, runway or during the flight.
Additionally, make sure to use strobe lights when approaching/crossing an active runway and during flight when in poor visibility or nighttime. ——I’d assume nav lights are used when taxiing or flying at night or in low visibility conditions.——
EDIT: Apparently nav lights are actually used whenever the plane has power.
Turn your NAV lights on when you’re about to push back.
Turn your beacon lights on when you’re about to start your engine (I usually do this mid-pushback).
Keep these two lights on when you’re moving. Only turn off when you park and your engines are completely shut down. We don’t want anyone getting sucked into the jet engines just because we don’t turn on the beacon lights and people around the aircraft fail to notice it.
Turn your landing lights on when you’re cleared to enter the runway by the ATC (can be LUAW/TO clearance) until 10,000ft. When landing, the same rule applies if you’re below 10,000ft until you fully vacate the runway. In absence of ATC, I would turn the landing lights on only when I have crossed the hold-short line.
Don’t use autostart, just turn on one engine (or two if it were A380 which has 4 engines) for taxiing and turn the other one on just when you’re approaching a runway to take off.
Don’t exceed operational speed when cruising. Also, pay attention to your vertical speed (VS) and indicated airspeed (IAS) to avoid stalling. I recommend checking my logbook here.
Step climb, if possible, to save fuel.
In absence of ATC, please pay attention to the wind direction. Green means headwind (favorable for landing and takeoff), yellow means crosswind (less favorable but still OK), and red means tailwind (not favorable neither for landing nor takeoff). Also, if possible, check FR24 as you can see the runways used for landing and takeoff IRL.
If you want to be more realistic, use aircraft that is used IRL for your selected route. You can see that in FR24 or FlightAware. You can also see the assigned gates in Flightera, although airports outside the US rarely show the gates, it’s still showing the terminal.
Use a well-tailored flight plan. You can use SimBrief or FPLtoIF. You may encounter a strong headwind mid-flight if your flight plan only consists of SID, STAR, and approach. Also, if you’re using SimBrief, there will be many route choices. Try to avoid conflicting airspaces (Ukraine, Russia, Afghanistan, etc.) if you want to be more realistic. I personally would use SimBrief, download the Google KML file, then convert it to FPL.
IRL NAV lights are on whenever the airplane has power to it (APU/GPU, and obviously engines running). This is why you see airliners at the gate with NAV lights on.
Ah yeah, I forgot to mention it! I would turn the APU first before starting every flight. NAV lights are definitely a requirement if your aircraft is moving so that ATC can see where you are heading, thus it’s required when pushing back.
Sorry nave lights should activated when ever there is power on the aircraft. Strobe on just before entering runway and beacon on when engines are about to be started and running. In maintenance we keep the nav lights on when we return the aircraft to service.
Ohh yeah yeah yeah I misunderstood… To clarify, IRL, that’s when you would turn on the landing lights but in IF they would already be on as taxi light substitutes?
Doing it mid pushback can me late. The beacon light alerts the ground crew that the plane is about to move. After the plane moving, turning on beacon lights would be late
Depends on aircraft, if it is a heavy one like a 747 or a380, you would start 2 engines at once only after the plane has stopped pushing back, if in a a320 then mid pushback startup is fine. I think it depends on a airline
Not too long for 2 engines, I do a one engine taxi and start the other one later. I DO NOT start it just before takeoff that’s unrealistic and the engines are meant to be started 3 mins before takeoff MIN. Otherwise the engine can suffer damages.
um, I didn’t say that I turn on the other engine just before takeoff, I said that I turn it on just when I’m approaching the runway, that could mean 1NM of distance to the runway base on a 15-20kts ground speed, and that itself takes 3-4 mins in my calculation