Flying VFR with an Airliner

[joomie]

Hi!

Hopefully that question isn't too stupid.
But am I allowed to practice flying the A330
VFR from/ to controlled airports to perform traffic patterns for instance?

Cheers,
joomie

[Keith Smith]

Yes, that's not a problem, although if you're truly practicing the art of pattern work, an airliner is an odd choice.

[joomie]

Sure, it's not a usual case. Imaginable: Young pilots practice takeoffs and landings in flight school without filing a flight plan I assume.
I'm a beta tester of the JARDesign A330 and plan to perform some test flights. Makes for fun with ATC.

[rtataryn]

Not sure it's such an odd idea. I used to fly out to KMWH (Grant County) in Moses Lake, WA just to watch Japan Airlines 747's practice pattern work. Fascinating to park on the ramp and watch those monstrous beasts doing touch and go's over and over - and they weren't always pretty.

[signmanbob]

Not sure it's such an odd idea. I used to fly out to KMWH (Grant County) in Moses Lake, WA just to watch Japan Airlines 747's practice pattern work. Fascinating to park on the ramp and watch those monstrous beasts doing touch and go's over and over - and they weren't always pretty.

I have a really nice cockpit video of Oasis Airlines 747 doing touch and goes at Midland Airport in the UK. The patterns and landings were flown completely by hand. No autopilot at all. Really nice to watch.

[Keith Smith]

Fair enough, I forgot about some of the airlines that actually train in the aircraft in addition to the sims. The coms on the A330 and A320 are known to not work correctly in XP11 due to a change in how the electrical system works. A beta version of the plugin has been prepared for PE, I'll try to get it released to the public with documentation as soon as I can.

[Jim Parish]

Used to pattern work in the B-52D at Carswell AFB. When the Texas heat was too much we would just open the windows.

[joomie]

The coms on the A330 and A320 are known to not work correctly in XP11 due to a change in how the electrical system works. A beta version of the plugin has been prepared for PE, I'll try to get it released to the public with documentation as soon as I can.

Ah, cool! Can't await it

[joomie]

Note that the represented use case may occur when pilots train touch and go's or takeoffs and landings during their time in the flight school as mentioned.
A scenario, where they don't follow a flight plan and just perform traffic patterns like documented in this German video about the flight school events of the Lufthansa:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pa7B-lxvHrQ#t=22m07s

The hyperlink directly jumps to the part (22:07) in the video, where they show such flights.

Just for completeness if anyone is interested and capable of understanding a bit german.

[Keith Smith]

More detail on the electrical system issue. If you can map a button or keyboard to toggle the xplane battery switch on, it appears that this will resolve the issue as well. What's happening is that those custom electrical systems are apparently not switching on the underlying battery master switch, and that's why there is no voltage on the xplane stock bus.

One user on Discord confirmed that mapping a button to the xplane battery toggle function worked immediately.