I wholeheartedly recommend the Microsoft flight simulator as a tool to
introduce flying to prospective students as a pre-enrollment audio-visual
sales aid. Its perfect for that purpose.
The military is using it for that purpose now. I have in fact just finished
this year working on such a program using the simulator to be used by the
Italian Air Force in their training program.
As for using it in the pinch hitter scenario, I would recommend not doing
that; primarily for the same reason I gave for the pre-solo period
concerning control pressures, only in the PH scenario, its even more
critical as the situation relates to control pressures, as the pinch hitter
in almost every case, will have only one shot at taking over and
successfully landing the airplane.
In this scenario, having been exposed to actual control pressure vs airspeed
would be an absolute must for the PH to have any chance at all of landing
the airplane and walking away.
It all points to this very basic concept of "feeling" the control pressures.
This having been said, I wouldn't hesitate to allow your wife to use the
simulator with you there to help her of course, as a tool to SEE how the
controls function and what each control does.
This is not issue in the pre-flying stage but with any commencement of
actual flying in the PH program, I would stop using the simulator completely
at that point.
Dudley Henriques

"Jose" wrote in message
et...
For these reasons, [learning control pressures] it has always
been my recommendation that flight instructors STRONGLY
recommend that their students avoid the use of desktop simulators between
the first hour of dual and solo.

What do you think of non-pilots using flight sim to practice "pinch
hitter" techniques, get comfortable with controlling the aircraft, and
such, along with occasional "would you like to fly" sessions. (My wife is
not too keen on actually flying the plane, though she has landed it with
an instructor; maybe this kind of practice would be good?)

Jose
--
"There are 3 secrets to the perfect landing. Unfortunately, nobody knows
what they are." - (mike).
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