How to play Aviation

What is on the screen

Most of the screen is sky. The aircraft starts on a runway strip at the bottom-left, and once the flight begins it traces a rising line across the display. A large altitude readout sits in the middle, counting upward in metres from zero. A single Log button spans the bottom of the screen. To one side, a narrow strip lists your last ten logged readings so you can see your own pattern.

Turbulence is the end condition. At some point in every flight the aircraft hits it, the screen shakes and the flight ends. When that happens is decided at take-off, before you press anything, and it is not influenced by how you play.

Flying a round from scratch

Seven steps, in the order the game presents them.

1. 1

   Watch one full flight before joining in

   Open the game and simply watch a round from take-off to turbulence without pressing anything. You want a feel for how fast the readout accelerates — it crawls through the first second and then moves quickly enough that reading it becomes guesswork.

2. 2

   Note the pre-flight countdown

   Between flights there is a short countdown, usually five seconds, with the Log button greyed out. This is the window to set an auto-log height if you want one. Once the aircraft leaves the runway the settings lock.

3. 3

   Decide your altitude before take-off

   Pick a figure — 400 metres, say — and commit to it before the aircraft moves. The readout accelerates through the interesting range far too quickly for a considered decision mid-flight, so any figure you settle on during the climb is really just a reaction.

4. 4

   Press Log slightly before your figure

   There is a short input delay, on the order of a tenth of a second, and the readout keeps climbing during it. If you want 400 metres, start your press as the display touches 380 or 385. Beginners consistently press late and record less than they aimed for.

5. 5

   Read the confirmation, not the aircraft

   A successful log flashes the recorded figure and adds a row to the strip on the side. Once that appears, the flight is finished as far as you are concerned — the aircraft carrying on upward afterwards has no effect on what you recorded.

6. 6

   Expect flights that end before your figure

   Some flights hit turbulence at 30 metres. No reaction time would have changed those, because the end point was already set when the aircraft left the runway. Treat them as blank rows in the log rather than as mistakes, and fly the next one to the same figure.

7. 7

   Use auto-log to test a target properly

   The auto-log setting presses for you at a height you choose. Set it to your figure, let twenty flights run, then read the strip. It takes your reaction time out of the experiment and shows you whether the figure itself was sensible.

Controls

What a session feels like

A common beginner pattern is several flights that sail past the chosen figure, then several that end well short of it, then a temptation to start moving the figure around between flights. The log strip exists precisely so you can see that pattern written down rather than remembering it selectively.

Pointers for a first hour

• Set the figure before take-off, every time. A height picked mid-climb is a reflex, not a decision.
• Compensate for input delay. Press about a tenth of a second early or you will always record slightly under.
• Use auto-log for the first twenty flights. It separates the question of a sensible height from the question of your reaction speed.
• Do not move your figure after a short flight. The turbulence point is set at take-off and carries nothing over from the previous flight.
• Mute the engine tone. It rises specifically to make waiting feel more attractive than pressing.
• Read the strip before you leave. Ten logged rows tell you more about your timing than the feeling you finish the session with.