Simulation practice for student pilots. Free to start, no card required.
PRACTICE MODE · Works with Microsoft Flight Simulator and X-PlaneFly tonight's lesson before you pay for it.
Home simulator time is never loggable — even with a CFI present. Only FAA-approved training devices with a Letter of Authorization qualify (AC 61-136B).
The loop, end to end
Everything described in this section works today. Nothing on this page is a preview of something we intend to build.
01
Read the number the FAA publishes
Every mission opens with the Airman Certification Standards tolerance for that maneuver, quoted verbatim, with the skill element it comes from. Those numbers are federal public domain and they are never behind a payment: a free account reads the three free missions in full, tolerance by tolerance, with no card.
02
Fly it in your own simulator
You get the setup that makes the practice mean something — assists off, simulation rate at 1x, live weather enabled, no slewing and no pausing inside the maneuver. Default scenery. No add-on purchase, no launcher, no installer.
03
Write down what you actually saw
Then you self-assess against each tolerance: within, outside, or "not measured" — and "not measured" is the most important option we ship, because an honest blank beats a guess that corrupts your own trend. What you write is kept verbatim against that attempt, and the session stays open to reopen and read.
The eight missions
Private pilot airplane maneuvers, each one anchored to the Airman Certification Standards element that publishes its tolerance. Three are free. What a plan buys is the other five.
traffic-pattern
Traffic Patterns (simulated practice)
PA.III.B · FAA-S-ACS-6C
Free — no card requiredNot in this repetition The sight picture that tells you when to turn base, and the rudder that keeps base-to-final honest, are not here. A monitor removes the peripheral view you actually use to judge the pattern, and with no pedals the skid that kills people on that turn cannot be felt or corrected. What transfers is the geometry, the radio, and the altitude discipline.
steep-turns
Steep Turns (simulated practice)
PA.V.A · FAA-S-ACS-6C
Free — no card requiredNot in this repetition You practise the sequence here, not the pull. At 45° of bank the airplane costs you 1.4 G and the seat tells you to add back-pressure before the altimeter does; at home the yoke got heavy only because you moved it far from centre, which is the opposite mapping. Overbank tendency past 30°, rudder on entry and rollout, and the bump of your own wake at 360° are all absent. Expect to be late on back-pressure, and eyes-inside, for the first three turns.
slow-flight
Maneuvering During Slow Flight (simulated practice)
PA.VII.A · FAA-S-ACS-6C
Not in this repetition At this speed the aircraft tells you through the controls: the yoke goes soft and holding heading takes real rudder. A spring-centred yoke encodes force from CENTRE rather than from trim speed — the opposite mapping — and with no pedals there is no rudder load to learn at all. You will fly this to the airspeed indicator, which is the published criterion, but the two cues that tell you how close you are will not be there.
power-off-stall
Power-Off Stalls (simulated practice)
PA.VII.B · FAA-S-ACS-6C
Not in this repetition The approach to a stall is a force cue before it is anything else — the yoke going light, and buffet arriving through the airframe. A desk delivers neither, and the recovery you rehearse here has no rudder in it because there are no pedals. Fly it for the sequence and the decision; let your instructor own the moment the wing stops flying.
stabilized-approach-go-around
Stabilized Approach and Rejected Landing (simulated practice)
PA.IV.B · PA.IV.N · FAA-S-ACS-6C
Free — no card requiredNot in this repetition This repetition has no rudder in it. In the aircraft, full power at approach speed is a large pitch-up against approach trim and a bootful of right rudder for torque and P-factor; with no pedals and a spring-centred yoke a desk delivers neither, so you can run this sequence forty times and never rehearse the step that keeps it straight. What DOES transfer is the decision and the order.
short-field-takeoff-landing
Short-Field Takeoff and Landing (simulated practice)
PA.IV.E · PA.IV.F · FAA-S-ACS-6C
Not in this repetition The round-out is judged in peripheral vision down the runway edges. A monitor at arm’s length removes the periphery and binocular depth both, so a desk teaches you to judge height from the centre of the screen — a specific and durable wrong habit. Maximum-performance braking has no feel here either.
soft-field-takeoff-landing
Soft-Field Takeoff and Landing (simulated practice)
PA.IV.C · PA.IV.D · FAA-S-ACS-6C
Not in this repetition Holding the weight off the wheels is a control-force task with no visual analogue, and a desk cannot produce it. The round-out is judged in peripheral vision, which a monitor removes. Rehearse the sequence and the power management; the touch itself is not available here.
navigation-leg
Navigation Leg — Pilotage and Dead Reckoning (simulated practice)
PA.VI.A · PA.VI.B · FAA-S-ACS-6C
Not in this repetition Almost all of this transfers — the planning, the timing, the diversion arithmetic and the radio are the same at a desk. What is not here is the workload: no turbulence, no engine noise, no passenger, and no fuel burning while you decide. Expect the same problem to feel harder in the airplane than it did here.
The half a desk rehearses honestly
Stick-and-rudder is the part a simulator degrades — no pedals, no seat, no buffet, and every mission says so on its own card. Noticing, deciding and prioritising is the part it rehearses nearly intact, and it is the half the Airman Certification Standards grade on every task. Each mission carries the FAA’s own risk-management elements for its task, quoted from FAA-S-ACS-6C, with a question you answer before you fly and one after.
“Distractions, task prioritization, loss of situational awareness, or disorientation.”
- Before you fly it
- Before you take off, name the point in the pattern where you will make your radio call and what you will do if a task arrives while you are there.
- After
- how many circuits went by without the call, and where were you looking when it slipped?
One of 16 across the eight missions. It does not make the maneuver transfer — read what this repetition cannot give you on each card above.
What the other five cost
Traffic Patterns, Steep Turns, Stabilized Approach and Rejected Landing are free. Not a trimmed version of anything: the brief, the published tolerance and the self-assessment are identical on all eight.
The other five come with Student, at $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year, with a 14-day free trial. Student is not a simulator add-on — it is the plan a student pilot would be on anyway: the certificate question banks, the mock exams, the flashcards, the AI copilot, and these five missions.
We would rather you fly the free three first. If forty minutes with steep turns is not worth your evening, the other five are not worth ten dollars, and we would rather you found that out for nothing.
Paying changes nothing about what this time is. It is not loggable on any plan, it satisfies no recency requirement on any plan, and no tier buys a wider tolerance than the one the FAA publishes.
What you come away with
Your own write-up, and the published numbers you read it against. The brief, the tolerance for each criterion, the ACS skill element that publishes it and the agency sentence it was read from are read in the browser, and what you wrote afterwards stays on your account for you to read again. Name the field you flew a mission at and you can pull a route file for it from that session — .PLN for Microsoft Flight Simulator, .FMS for X-Plane — built against live FAA data for that airport rather than a stored template.
Planning a real flight is a different surface of this product, and deliberately not this one. A practice session is a video game flown with live weather enabled; a flight plan is built against conditions that actually exist. The two never share a page.
It connects to the reading
Each mission points at the matching study surface, so a 40-minute practice session turns into a 45-minute one that ends on the theory behind the maneuver you just flew. We cross over to that surface rather than rebuilding it here.
If you are still deciding
- Why home simulator time is never loggable
The rule, the exception that needs a Letter of Authorization, and why we say so out loud.
- What a simulator cannot teach you
Written before we had anything to sell you about it.
- Rehearsing the maneuvers a DPE will ask for
The same eight maneuvers, framed for the checkride rather than the evening.
- What a DPE actually tests
The oral, the flight, and where applicants come unstuck.
The limits, in plain English
- Not a flight record
- This summarizes a video-game practice session. It does not count toward any FAA certificate, rating, or flight time — even with an instructor present.
- Never loggable
- Home simulator time is never loggable — even with a CFI present. Only FAA-approved training devices with a Letter of Authorization qualify (AC 61-136B).
- No recency benefit
- Practice here satisfies no FAA recency-of-experience requirement, including instrument recency under 14 CFR 61.57(c), which requires an FAA-approved training device operated under a Letter of Authorization (AC 61-136B).
- Self-reported
- Nothing here is measured by us. You fly the maneuver, you read your own instruments, and you tell us what you saw. We publish the standard and hold your words; we do not verify them.
- Not affiliated
- Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Microsoft Corporation.
Questions people actually ask
Does this get me anything toward a certificate or a rating?
This summarizes a video-game practice session. It does not count toward any FAA certificate, rating, or flight time — even with an instructor present.
Does it satisfy any recency-of-experience requirement?
Practice here satisfies no FAA recency-of-experience requirement, including instrument recency under 14 CFR 61.57(c), which requires an FAA-approved training device operated under a Letter of Authorization (AC 61-136B).
What does it cost to start?
Nothing, and no card is required. A free account flies 3 of the eight missions — Traffic Patterns, Steep Turns, Stabilized Approach and Rejected Landing — with the full brief, the published tolerances and the self-assessment attached. The other 5 come with a plan.
Which simulators does it work with?
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 and 2024, and X-Plane 12. Default scenery and a default trainer aircraft — the brief describes the kind of practice area or runway the maneuver needs and leaves the choice of field to you. No add-on purchase and no third-party utility.
What will my instructor make of this?
Your instructor is the person this is meant to help, not the obstacle it routes around: you arrive having already rehearsed the procedure, and the lesson goes further. Anything you bring them is advisory. Simulation practice only — advisory. Do not use as the sole basis for solo, endorsement, or checkride-readiness decisions.
Are you affiliated with Microsoft or Laminar Research?
No. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Microsoft Corporation. X-Plane is a product of Laminar Research, and we are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by them either. "Works with" is a description of compatibility and nothing more.
What if the desktop helper never ships?
Then you keep everything on this page, which already works without it. Nobody has paid for the desktop helper, because there is no way to — so if it is never written, no one is owed anything. We would say so publicly, with the date and the reason.