As many know, I blame the hero of my stories, James Hayden, for exposing me to the bite of the aviation bug. In the Hayden’s World series, he’s an awesome pilot, and during my quest to learn what the assorted gauges and switches actually did on an airplane I downloaded a copy of X-Plane. You know, for research purposes. My research turned into a full-fledged hobby and I became part of the sim community, flying myself virtually out of my local field on literal flights of fantasy. Eventually I migrated to Microsoft Flight Simulator and was wowed to find the entire world modeled in my PC. Now, the thing is that after thousands of virtual flight hours all simmers develop the same fantasy. In it, a worried flight attendent steps in front of the closed curtains to the cockpit, asking if anyone onboard knows how to land a plane. You crack your knuckles. I’ve got this.
With that swagger, I booked a discovery flight at my local flight school and sauntered into the FBO. When the CFI asked “What do you want from today’s lesson?” and I replied. “I want to fly the plane as much as humanely possible,” I was bristling with confidence. This is where Morgan Freeman’s voice says, “He did not, in fact, have this.” Fast forward one hour where the CFI, who I’d lulled into a false sense of security from my amazing pre-knowledge, allowed me to actually attempt to land the plane. I cannot stress enough how different an experience it is from looking at a 2D monitor while landing munching Doritos with one hand versus hurtling face-down at eighty miles-per-hour towards an unflinching planet. Our aircraft was a non-stabilized mess careening towards an ever-enlarging patch of grass and I was thinking we’re going to die here but all I could utter was “Ground. Ground. Ground is coming up.” The CFI took the controls and bailed us out, wisely deciding it would be a few lessons before we would try that again. It turns out that landing a real plane is, in fact, really difficult. That didn’t dissuade me though. After countless crappy, bone-jarring landings, I eventually figured it out and through enough training and persistence convinced the FAA that it was somehow a good idea to give me a pilot’s license, so here we are.
I still flight sim. Maybe even more than before I started real flying. There’s an expectations curve where you learn how the sim is different and in what ways it’s the same, and how to translate between the two. It’s interesting that there’s a bell-curve of opinions, ranging from die-hard simmers who get angry at the slightest implication that they couldn’t land a real 747 on the first try to real-life pilots who have never tried a sim and discount them as useless video games. The truth is in the middle. I had zero chance of landing a real plane on my first try, even with an F-18 pilot talking me through it (yes, really), but, I actively use Microsoft Flight Simulator as a supplement for real life flying. I’ll practice procedures in it and rehearse actual routes I intend to fly.
One of the nice things about virtual simming is that I can practice flying between my local fields whenever I want. The sim does a decent job of generating Lego versions of them, but I wanted more, so I learned how to work the Scenery Editor and create 3D models in Blender. To date, I’ve created KWBW Wyoming Valley and KSEG Penn Valley, which are both posted for free on Flightsim.to. This past week, I created KHZL Hazleton, but MSFS2024 is full of bugs and one of those bugs ate my airport. When you make an airport, you compile it in the editor and export it. Fortunately I have the compiled version, but the editor devoured the raw code. As such, it’s a mostly-good airport that I can’t further improve. Still, I enjoy flying out of it and like to share what I make, so here’s a link if you want to use it (unzip and copy to your Community folder). It only works for MSFS2024, and as I said, it’s as-is, but I think it’s not too bad:
KHZL Hazleton (Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 version only)
There’s a few objects that required third-party libraries. The airport will still work without these. They just add a little flavor. To install these libraries, download and copy to your Community folder:
Ethnicfs Military Library (required for tank in front of FBO)]
EDHK Lights (night lighting)
I you haven’t seen my YouTube channel, please check it out and subscribe if simming is your passion. Thanks for coming along on this journey.
You can see the virtual flight from KHZL here:
Watch the real-life flight between KWBW and KHZL here;