TheSmokingGnu writes:

I find breathing to be quite boring, as well. May I please have a
simulator where I can pretend to carry out aerobic metabolism without
those nasty boring bits like breathing, eating, or excreting waste?

I don't know any way of avoiding these things; if I did, you can be sure that
I would have eliminated them by now.

Assuming that you don't live in the middle of a large bog (as trolls are
wont to do, I'm told), there's a GA airport within walking distance of
your house. Promise.

The nearest airport is about 15 miles away. That's a five-hour walk, and
while I've been known to walk for longer than that at a stretch, it's too
inconvenient to count.

When I did my training, I was paying $80/hour, wet. One of my good
friends knew an owner and could get $39/hour, wet. Hell, I was only
paying $137/hour at ERAU, and THAT was the high price at the field.
$250/hour will get you something between a twin and a turboprop, wet.

I presume you don't live in Europe.

Of course, you should learn the golden concept of pro rata. Bring a few
of your good friends along (you DO have friends, right?), and suddenly
that 250 is only $83 and change.

And what are my friends going to do while I'm flying?

See the above. If putting your name and home address on a form is too
difficult, it's a wonder how you managed to get Usenet access in the
first place.

Unfortunately, it's much more than putting a name and address on a form.

I think you will find that many pilots are hardly Olympic-class
athletes. More like "healthy and generally not covered in green, scaly
warts".

Many of them are in poor condition, I'm sure. But the medical doesn't address
fitness, it addresses a long list of imaginary issues.

Something like 75% of all GA pilots either rent or have a fractional
ownership, neither of which is impossible (or even improbable) on even a
modest income.

That proves my point. Most people don't rent or have fractional ownership of
their cars.

You could die right now, reading this post. BAM, brain aneurysm (caused,
no doubt, by the sudden ingestion of too much logic). They'll find you
two weeks later, clutched over the keyboard, your body offering up the
most odoriferous effluence imaginable.

Pulling negative Gs at altitude would greatly increase that probability.

But the real risk is that of an accident.

I told you to go before we left!

After three hours or so, it's time to go again, depending on many variables.

... or it indicates how important those sensations really are to the art
and style of flying ...

Except that they aren't, as IFR flight proves, and as the accidents of pilots
flying in IMC without special training amply demonstrates. Not only are the
largely unnecessary, but they are often worse than unnecessary, because they
are distracting and misleading.

... (which you have wholeheartedly discounted, not
actually having felt them yourself).

I have felt them myself. I've been in a plane, just not at the controls. But
the whole plane moves, not just the cockpit.

Flying is not all numbers and formulas ...

That depends on the flying environment. It's a lot more numbers and formulas
than seat of the pants.

... do X and Y will always result, a cold calculation done in head
to achieve an unerring sum. There's a feel to this sort of thing.

I do not share this romantic illusion.

And yet reality is what the simulation (and similarly, the "serious" sim
pilot) strives for, in all dealings.

With certain key omissions. A perfect simulation of reality would not be a
simulation, nor would it serve much purpose.

Reading a good murder mystery doesn't make you any more a detective than
flying a virtual 737 makes you qualified to offer edicts on procedure or
operation.

Try me. I wouldn't mind a few hours in a 737 simulator. Specifically, a
737-800. I'm working on the 747-400.

Which is, oddly enough, why pilots spend all that time doing that
"training" lark, so that they can keep from doing any hurtling, much
less uncontrollably so.

Then why do so many of them crash?

Not that you would know, being a feckless, cross/troll-posting,
arrogant, venomous, whingebag shut-in, without the stones to partake in
what he's "trying" to "simulate".

There, now your defeat is signatory on BOTH NG's.

Well, at least you made me smile.

I couldn't possibly
have imagined the depth and breadth of your utter foolishness could
extend as far as it does here. "Surely, they're exaggerating" "He
couldn't be that stupid, could he?", I said to myself.

In contrast, I could have easily predicted the tone and perhaps even the words
of your post. I'm used to it.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.