"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
Peter Duniho writes:

If that happens, you trust what you see out the window.

I don't.

What in the world does that mean? You have never, and will never, be in
that situation. Any personal claim on your part regarding what you would or
would not do is meaningless.

[...]
However, it's also likely that about half of the people DO have
instrument
ratings. Your "impression" (such as it is, based on your own highly
flawed
"understanding" of aviation and piloting) is unlikely to be anywhere
close
to correct.

You just speculated that half the people here are not instrument
rated, therefore I'm pretty close to correct.

Maybe it's some whacked out French thing (or wherever you're from), but
around here the word "mainly" is not at all a synonym for "only half".

The mindset that is willing to believe optical illusions and
misleading sensations over instruments.

No one is suggesting that one believe optical illusions and misleading
sensations over instruments. Those things simply aren't present during good
daytime visual conditions.

Why bother with instruments
at all, if one is magically endowed with the ability to perceive
reality perfectly with eyes and semicircular canals?

It's not magic. It's biology. And the answer to your question is, you
don't. That's the point. If you have information available via your eyes
and other sensations, you have no need for instruments. The instruments are
for when you are deprived of those biologically-granted abilities (in
particular, the visual aspect, as that's the sense that keeps everything
else working correctly).

[...]
I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean.

If they have no clue about the use of their instruments, then they are
going to be helpless if the weather deteriorates. If they are
convinced that instruments are less reliable than their perceptions,
then they'll be in even deeper trouble.

What does "if the weather deteriorates" have to do with this discussion?
We're not talking about instrument conditions, we're talking about visual
conditions.

No one is claiming that instruments don't have their use. They do, in
instrument conditions. That's why they call those conditions INSTRUMENT
CONDITIONS. But we're not talking about that.

A pilot not trained for
instrument flight is unlikely to do well is instrument conditions, just
as
you are unlikely to do well flying an actual airplane. So what?

Well, apparently the non-IFR pilots don't hesitate to talk about IFR,
but they don't like it when non-pilots talk about piloting. Hmm.

What non-IFR pilots have been talking about IFR? And even if they have, how
does that make your own insistence on writing about things on which you have
no actual knowledge any better?

Some minimal training is required, yes. But so what? The training is
intended for when the pilot encounters INSTRUMENT conditions. When in
VISUAL conditions, there is no need to use any instruments in the
airplane
at all.

You see it as a need; I see it as a convenience.

Again, please read what I wrote. The words I wrote are "NO NEED". I don't
see instruments as a need. For that matter, you do NOT see them as a
convenience...you have specifically written that you see them as a need.

No, they are not. In visual conditions, the likelihood of the external
view
becoming compromised in a way that affects the safety of the flight is
practically nil.

And what is the probability that the instruments will fail?

Relatively high. As in, any pilot with any reasonable amount of experience
has likely had at least one flight instrument fail during a flight.

Yes, they are. There's no magic switch in a full-motion simulator that
disables your sensation of acceleration.

Simulators trick your sensations, and your imagination fills in the
rest.

That's true. But they don't trick your sensation of acceleration.

I do indeed know how they work, and the tricks they play to make
pilots think they are actually moving.

Then why don't you write about that, instead of making stuff up that has no
basis in facts?

As I have already pointed out, full-motion simulators take advantage of
the
acceleration of gravity, combined with misleading visual information, to
fool the body into thinking they are under a state of constant
acceleration.

It's much more complicated than that.

MORE complicated? IMHO, the description I gave is plenty complicated. The
point isn't whether it's complicated, it's whether your sensation of
acceleration is being fooled (or rather, whether someone's sensation
is...obviously, since you've never been in a full-motion simulator, none of
your sensations have ever been fooled, sensation of acceleration or not).

If visual cues were sufficient, you'd get the same sensation of
acceleration
at your PC.

Sometimes you do, especially with multiple screens. That's why many
people get motion sickness playing Doom. They aren't moving, but the
effect of the visual input they see is strong enough to convince their
brains that they are.

Wrong. They get motion sickness for the very reason that their sensation of
acceleration is NOT being fooled.

You seem to be confusing the sensation of acceleration (that is, the body's
direct acquisition of data indicating acceleration, a biomechanical process)
and the mind's impression of acceleration (which is a mental process that
integrates a number of biomechanical processes into a single perception of
reality).

The reason a person gets motion sickness is that their vision sends signals
of acceleration and other motion, while the sensory organs that provide
direct data of acceleration do not. The conflict results in the motion
sickness. If the simulator were effectively fooling all sensation of
acceleration, there would be no motion sickness.

[...]
If the body were so accurate, it would notice the simulator returning
to a neutral position, and it would notice the rotation of the
simulator when the net acceleration vector shifts. But that doesn't
happen.

Again, how would you know whether that happens or not?

With respect to returning to neutral position, if it happens quickly enough
(the one way to fool one's sensation of acceleration is to sneak up on it),
it does happen. This is not uncommon if the simulator gets frozen
mid-flight and reset, for example. As far as noticing the rotation, this is
accounted for in the motion of the simulator, and the rotation is combined
with the forward motion that obscures it from one's sensation.

No, it's not. If you'd ever seen a full-motion simulator in operation,
you'd never even think of saying such a silly thing.

I have seen them in operation.

Why weren't you paying attention then? Why did you not notice that the
simulator pitches up even before the airplane itself has been pitched up?

Pete