Training

10.1 Training

Experimental. An Experimental badge now sits on the page header, the exercise cards and the runners — grading thresholds and behaviour are still being tuned and may change between builds. Feedback goes to the #training-feedback channel on the OnAir Discord, linked under the intro.

Exercises

• Engine-Out Landing — engine cut 2,000 ft above the field; dead-stick onto the runway or the grass beside it.
• Slow Turn Practice — the checkride slot flown solo: a full 360° at minimum speed.
• Slow Flight & Stalls (new) — 3,000 ft AGL anywhere: slow flight clean then full flaps, with a stall and recovery in each configuration. No airport needed.
• Assigned Headings & Altitudes — three successive instructions to reach and hold.
• Precision Landing — touch down 150-400 m past the threshold and stop on the pavement.
• Engine Failure After Take-Off — failure at about 500 ft; land ahead. Turning back is a fail.
• Stabilized Approach — six criteria below the 500 ft gate; break one and the go-around, flown properly, is the pass.
• Crosswind Landing — real wind only: decrab at touchdown and hold the centerline in the rollout.
• IFR Hold — right-hand racetrack anchored where you start: 1-minute legs, two circuits.
• Traffic Pattern — left-hand circuit, downwind at 1,000 ft AGL, landing in the precision zone.
• Autorotation (helicopters) — coming soon.

Two modes

• Free practice — no OnAir flight, nothing sent to the server, grading fully local. The default, open to everyone.
• A free-practice exercise needs the connection all the same: if the link to the OnAir server drops, the app returns to the Lobby or shows its "Unable to connect to OnAir server" screen, and the exercise ends there. Nothing is lost beyond the attempt itself — no flight, no money, no wear. The simulator is put back as it was — engine restarted, fuel restored — on the next connected mount if it could not be done right away.
• OnAir flight — a dedicated round-trip flight, dispatched, tracked and registered under a neutral training category: no XP, reputation or wear, but fuel is consumed and billed. Engine-Out, Slow Turn, Slow Flight & Stalls and Assigned Headings offer it. If the action is unavailable, read the reason shown on the card.

Flying one

• Load your aircraft at the departure airport, click Open exercise, pick the mode, then From Sim to fill in aircraft and airport, check the preconditions and hit Start the exercise.
• Exercises that anchor their targets on the aircraft's state arm instead: a setup card lists what is missing (airborne, height above ground, wings level) and grading starts by itself once you are in position — no second click.
• Engine-Out spawns a 3D marker over the departure threshold at 2,000 ft AGL — the gate that triggers the cut. It failed to appear in OnAir-flight mode; that is fixed, and the 3D-pack check now looks only in the connected simulator's folder.
• Abort exercise stops cleanly at any moment: engine restored, marker removed, fuel restored.

Instructor and limits

Each exercise speaks an intro and in-flight callouts in the checkride examiner voice, and the transcript panel keeps every line; mute the training audio category in Settings for a silent run. The airport must publish precise runway data (very small fields are refused), and the exercises need the modern X-Plane bridge, not the legacy plugin.

10.2 Maneuvering During Slow Flight

Slow flight means flying just above the stall speed, at an airspeed well below normal cruise. It is a fundamental handling exercise: it shows how power, pitch attitude, airspeed and altitude work together when the wing is close to its limit.

This help opens next to Start Tracking when a Checkride is active — the slow-turn leg is a graded exercise. The Training page drills the same technique in two exercises, both marked Experimental: Slow Turn Practice, the checkride's own graded slot flown solo, and Slow Flight & Stalls, which holds slow flight clean and then with full flaps, each followed by a deliberate stall and recovery. Enter high enough to finish no lower than 1,500 ft AGL — the same floor the Training exercise enforces.

Before you begin — clearing turn

Always start with a clearing turn (about a 180° change of heading, e.g. two 90° turns in opposite directions) to scan for traffic hidden by your blind spots.

Entering slow flight

• Apply carburetor heat if your aircraft normally uses it when power is reduced.
• Reduce power below the cruise setting and let the airspeed bleed off.
• Add back pressure to hold altitude as you slow — too fast and the airplane climbs, too slow and it descends.
• Trim away the control-wheel pressure during the transition.
• Near the target speed, add power back to a setting that holds altitude, then make small power adjustments and retrim.

Holding slow flight

• Power controls altitude; pitch controls airspeed. To climb, add power; to descend, reduce it. Pulling the nose up alone will not climb you — it only brings the stall closer.
• Right rudder keeps you coordinated: high angle of attack, torque and P-factor all pull the nose left. Watch the turn-coordinator ball.
• The controls feel mushy and respond slowly — use larger, smoother inputs than usual.

Turns, climbs and descents

Keep turns shallow: a steeper bank raises the load factor and the stall speed. Add power in the turn to protect your margin. Even at full power you can stall if you exceed the critical angle of attack while trying to hold altitude.

Using flaps

If you practise with flaps, lower them one position at a time. After each step, reset pitch for airspeed, adjust power for altitude and retrim. Fully extended flaps add a lot of drag — full power may give only a very slow climb, if any.

Returning to cruise

Apply full power while holding a constant altitude, then raise the flaps slowly, one position at a time so the speed increases gradually.

10.3 Aviation Quiz

The Aviation Quiz is a timed multiple-choice exam covering nine aviation subjects. The server draws the questions, serves them one at a time and grades each answer, then grants XP and Reputation based on how well you did and how hard the level was. The exam can be taken once every 7 days, and the app spends the attempt the moment it starts — whatever your score, and even if you abandon it. It is worth taking seriously.

Setup screen

• Subjects — all nine are always included: ALW (Air Law), AGK (Aircraft General Knowledge), FPP (Flight Planning & Performance), HPL (Human Performance), MET (Meteorology), NAV (Navigation), OPR (Operational Procedures), POF (Principles of Flight), COM (Communications). Questions are loaded in your help language.
• Difficulty — Level 1 is 1 question per subject with 30 seconds each (9 questions), Level 2 is 2 per subject with 20 seconds (18 questions, the default), Level 3 is 3 per subject with 15 seconds (27 questions).
• Availability — if you already took the quiz within the last 7 days, the start button stays disabled and the date of the next attempt is shown. If the 7 days have passed, a note recalls when you last took the exam and when the next lock would fall if you take it now. Before your very first attempt, a note warns that it will start the 7-day countdown.
• Virtual Airlines — a VA does not take this quiz: the entry leaves the menu while you work as your VA. Switch back to your own company to take it. The skill tree reset exam, which grants no reward, stays available from Skills to the VA's Founder and Managers.

Quiz screen

• A thin progress bar shows the current question out of the total.
• The timer bar under it turns from green to orange below half the allotted time, then red below a quarter, with the remaining seconds on the right. If it runs out, the question counts as wrong and the quiz moves on by itself after three seconds.
• Each question carries the coloured badge of its subject, then four answers labelled A to D.
• Once you answer, the right option turns green, a wrong pick turns red, the others fade, and a short explanation appears under the card. Next moves on; on the last question it reads See Results.
• Trying to leave mid-quiz asks for confirmation, so progress is never lost by accident.

Results screen

• Your percentage with a coloured score bar and a grade: Excellent! from 90%, Good job! from 75%, Keep practicing from 50%, Study more below that.
• The count of correct answers, how many questions timed out, the level used, and the total time in minutes and seconds.
• The reward panel shows the XP earned and the Reputation granted — or, below 75%, says no reward was granted this time and that the next exam is available in 7 days.
• A grid with one card per subject (correct out of total, plus a small bar) shows where you are weak.
• A scrollable review lists every question with a green or red marker, its subject code and an hourglass when it timed out.
• There is no replay button: the exam is over once you finish it. If the server did not record it, the screen says so — the attempt is still spent, so you know why no reward arrived.

Resetting the Skills Tree

When you start a skill-tree reset from the Skills page, the quiz unlocks regardless of the 7-day wait and no XP or Reputation is claimed. You need 75% or more; on success the app takes you back to the Skills page and performs the reset, and on failure you wait for the next attempt: this exam has its own counter, one attempt every 7 days per company, spent the moment it starts.