Mxsmanic wrote:

Yes, yes. I'm getting tired of hearing about this. That's not a flaw
in the simulation, anyway.


Let me jump into it.

First about background --- I am not GA pilot yet, I plan to start
lessons in a fall. I however a small time hang glider pilot (about 25
hours, 83 flights), currently live in Chicago where the weather is not
great for hang gliding in winter. While hang glider is very different
from GA aircraft, it has some things in common --- being stupid can
kill you.

What you are getting annoyed is the following (and here I am
extrapolating from what I know in different flying community) --- there
is invisible hierarchy and you do not accept it. The hierarchy is for a
reason though --- people are not equal, some know more then others,
some have more experience.

Why is this important? Listening to people with experience and learning
from them can help you in a sticky situation. However to assign weight
to what people are saying it is very important to know if they know
what they are talking about.

You however insist on you right to claim experience without having any,
and write about flying from one airport to another without ever
mentioning it was just a simulation. There is extremely small (once in
a million or less), but nonzero chance that some day you give advice
based on you experience which can kill a student who will take it
seriously. I know your background at this point, so I will not take
your advice seriously, but somebody without knowing your background
might. This is why I believe it is important that you know your place
in invisible hierarchy of pilots (I know mine, it is fairly low at this
point but will get higher after I learn to fly these noisy oil and gaz
burning contraptions), mention your background when discussing you
"flights" and avoid giving advice.

While everyone has right to live the life he chooses, it is important
that we use appropriate words lest we stop understanding each other
and words loose their meaning and we are back to this tower of Babel
situation again. Your "flights" are not flights, although they can be
very enjoyable, the distinction is very important. You are trying to
redefine meaning of words, make them fuzzier in a community where
precision of communications means saving lives and surprised at
hostility you are getting. I wonder why?

While sims can be pretty detailed, they are by definition are different
from the real thing, because people who create them are just humans and
their knowledge is limited. Because knowledge of every particular
person is limited, it is possible that no one knows all details how
different they are from the real thing. You may not find out until it
is too late. The difference is often found in a very spectacular
fashion. I do not think anyone who flied any kind of Space Shuttle
simulator had failure similar to what happened to Columbia. Every year
many pilots find there is a difference between their mental model of
airplane ("I still have 1 hour of fuel") and real thing. You expect
your mental model to be perfect. Well, as I often heard when I still
was scientist "In theory there is no difference between theory and
practice. In practice thee is." One difference that real flying (yes,
hang glider too) teaches you that you have a lot of limitations.
Apparently simming does not, because you are not getting scared
enough. In real flying smug feeling is a sure sign that humility
lesson is coming, as one smart guy said. I wonder how is this aspect of
flying is taken care of in MSFS.

I do not have enough time in GA aircrafts (or simulators for that
matter) to say how similar is simulation to real thing --- latest
"Flight training" magazine seems to suggests it might be somewhat
useful. I am absolutely confident that simulation is absolutely useless
for training to fly hang gliders, just like it would be useless for
learning to ride a bicycle. Never mind feeling forces that give you
important feedback, noise of rushing air or squeaking of the
structure that gives you important clues about speed or how close you
are to stall. How would you talk about glider feeling "mushed" to
someone who never experienced it? He might just say "You are not clear
on this point so you do not know what happens and it is not in MSFS
anyway so I might forget about it". Never mind adrenaline when you
make a stupid mistake and find out that problems always happen in
clusters and pile up much faster then you can think about them with no
option to pause, save, think and restore later. What is more important
--- no simulation can prepare you for the feeling when you circle 5
feet away from a young falcon who found first thermal in his life.