Some Suggestions to Pilots to Make It More Realistic

[Lloyd-Aviation]

I see this all the time in flight radar, what does adding a 100 to the cruising altitude does when flying over china?

[tsukki]

I suggest reading this article

How to fly in China Airspace

How to fly in China Airspace Hello everyone! Today I am going to tell you how to fly in China. In this tutorial, we are talking about China RVSM, Beijing No-Fly Zone and Parallel Runways Operation Regulations. China RVSM As we all know, China is one of the few countries in the world that uses metric units. Therefore, when flying in China, we need to comply with China RVSM. The airspace of China RVSM is between FL291 (8900m) and FL411 (12500m). When you fly at every level, you should add an…

[RyanairLander]

In short, China is one of the few countries using meters, so it is safer to add a 100 to the end than converting everything

[tsukki]

But if you’re using SimBrief and you’re passing through China airspace, you would need to convert meter to feet. SimBrief would show something like 1070 in the briefing and you’d read it as 10,700m which converts to FL351.

[Generic_Flyer]

I believe an aircraft crashed due to confusion with the measurements in China once. Should be careful when looking.

[PhorzaSky]

@tsukki

10,000ft

Sometimes it’s 18,000 depending on what airline you are flying. I’ve seen this with Southwest, Delta, and Skywest

[727Wrench]

No problem, the lights on the ground help the ground crew people know what the aircraft state is. When I see the rotating beacon powered up I know engines are running or about to be started, or the aircraft is getting ready to move by tug.

On the China over flights I will maintain my FL at FL**0. As in real life there is a acceptable tolerance to maintain Alt within certain parameters not to exceed 100 feet.

[LaTrixtance]

@tsukki

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

I agree with everything, except this, you can start all your engine before starting to taxi, but if you want to save fuel (if you are doing a long haul) you can start the engine when you are close to the runway entry.

[tsukki]

Here’s what I found on Wikipedia:

Landing lights must be activated when the aircraft is under 10,000 feet in altitude.

I think of FL180 as the altitude when you should contact approach frequency, and it is stated on the Wikipedia that

However, the brightness of landing lights makes them useful for increasing the visibility of an aircraft to other pilots, and so pilots are often encouraged to keep their landing lights on while below certain altitudes or in crowded airspace.

Perhaps you were in a crowded airspace, the visibility was low, or it’s just airliners’ thing. The reason they’re turned on below 10,000ft MSL is that, bird strike is common under that altitude and landing lights are so bright that turning them on greatly reduce the risk of bird collision mid-air. However, there are some bird species that fly at higher altitudes or certain airlines said it should be turned on below 10,000 AGL (not MSL), so that might also be the case.

[PhorzaSky]

@tsukki

or it’s just airliners’ thing

It’s definitely an airline thing. 18000 feet msl is also way more consistent than 10000 feet asl. I saw Southwest do the 18,000 feet msl at 4 different airports (SLC, OAK, OGG, and LAS)

[AlexNine99]

Can confirm SWA has turned on the landing lights way before 10,000 on many of my flights.