Nomen Nescio writes:

Totally different. An ultralight is stick & rudder (real flying). A hang glider
is controlled by wieght shifting.

Neither incorporates dual FMCs or autopilots, weather radar, or TCAS.

Because I can!

It's not very realistic.

Maybe the only noticable difference would be the fireball, torn metal,
and a few dead bodies scattered around.

Or a flawless autoland and a taxi to the gate.

Not at all. It's kind of a Zen thing with me. There's me, there's an opponent
(sometimes several opponents), and everything else starts to disappear.

That doesn't sound very Zen. Sharks are like that, too.

I'd bet that if you measured my heart rate and blood pressure in the heat of
battle, it would be lower than normal.

Just like Hannibal Lecter.

Sensations are a much larger factor in real flying that you seem to
think.

I think they are being overrated here in order to rationalize the
claim that time in a real cockpit is a sine qua non of flying.

But I will say that the most unreal, and annoying, thing about flying
a computer sim is that I actually have to look at the screen to know
what's going on.

Like flying on instruments, you mean?

I can fly a real plane fairly accurately for maybe a half
minute without looking at anything for attitude and position information.

I take it you don't fly IFR very much.

After that, small errors in perception start to compound and then I'm in
trouble without any references. But a half minute of flying by "feel" alone
can be quite useful at times. I'd bet, though, that there a LOT of other
pilots that can say the same thing.

Interesting, but I don't see any advantage to this.

Now you've got me wondering what my current G tolerance is at age 50.

As I recall, G tolerance is not necessarily correlated with age.
Women are better at it, though.

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