Some Suggestions to Pilots to Make It More Realistic

  • 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.
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