Jay B writes:

You're the one who claims that MSFS properly reflects RL
flight.

I claim that MSFS, like any simulator, correctly models a portion of reality,
and is thus useful for certain purposes that are satisfied by that modeling.

I do not dismiss MSFS or any other simulator as a training tool or as a
substitute for flying.

However, I don't know how you can draw that conclusion
without any RL experience with which to compare.

Since I did not draw that conclusion, your ignorance of something that did not
happen is understandable.

What about contact approaches and circle to land approaches?

What about them? Match the simulator to the task, and you'll be happy.

Spoken like a true devotee of life in 2D. If you ever do go up for
real, you'll very quickly find that you can find a use for all five
senses.

You're ignoring my point: To fly an aircraft, you must either be able to see
something out the windows or you must be able to determine the aircraft's
behavior from instruments. Sensations alone will not allow you to avoid a
crash, and they are not necessary if you already have one of the other two
sources of information.

So, while you may enjoy the physical sensations you feel in a small aircraft
aloft, they are neither necessary nor sufficient for flying the aircraft.

But in the end, feel is still there ...

Obviously it is still there. But you cannot fly by it, and you _can_ fly
without it.

Read what I wrote again: "I make every effort to offer my non-flying
friends the opportunity to ride along in the hope that they will catch
the bug and want to get their own certificate."

And if they fail to catch the bug, how do you treat them?

If that isn't extending myself for others who may (or may not) be interested in
aviation, then I don't know what is.

It's not. It's trying to convert them to your viewpoint, which isn't quite
the same thing.

All I need separate you from me is the .9 hours I logged on my first
lesson in October, 2004.

Unfortunately there's no clear basis for that statement. Nine tenths of an
hour is nothing. I find it odd that you dismiss 9000 hours that you don't
have, but cling to 0.9 hours that you do have; it does not seem rational.

However, I've seen this before. Many people claim that the minimum essential
experience for some purpose just happens to be slightly less than they
personally have, and that levels of greater experience are relatively
redundant. Odd how the threshold always falls so close to their personal
experience. So if they have one hour of experience, they'll claim that the
first hour makes all the difference, and the rest isn't important. If they
have 100 hours of experience, they'll claim that one needs at least 90 hours
to make a difference, but that additional experience beyond that is just
frosting on the cake. And so on.

It's an insidious manifestation of ego.

Again, this is where you miss the entire point. To me, the other
9,999 hours are supremely important. If a 10,000+ hour pilot speaks,
I shut mouth and become all ears.

You care only about the number on the meter, and not how it was spent?

It's possible to make the same mistakes for a lifetime, until and unless they
kill you.

But, unlike
you, I *know* I don't have the piloting chops to stand there and call
bull**** to his/her face. If nothing else, that's just simply rude.

The perceived rudeness is actually the part that bothers you, isn't it?

Great. And conversely, the world at large reserves the right to
respond as it sees fit to those who are not.

The world at large does not need my authorization to do anything.

Do you have this same lack of respect for all authority figures?

If their authority is statutory or otherwise arbitrary, yes. Anyone who wants
respect from me must earn it.

You gonna tell a Cop he's full of ****?

I'll tell him when he is wrong.

A Dentist when he's up to his elbows in your mouth? How about a surgeon
who has a vital internal organ in his hand at that particular moment?
You gonna ask to see his diploma? Or would you rather quote some
obscure passage from Grey's Anatomy?

If I have reason to believe they are wrong, I'll say so.

Your unspoken point here is that I should allow people to bully me into
submission. You may do that if you wish, but I don't generally follow that
path.

Did you come up with that yourself or did you read it somewhere?

The notion is as old as the hills.

I dare you to go into the Google Archive and find five things that
you've been told (quote the posts) that were later found to be
incorrect in the FARs (quote the regulation.) You've never been a
student pilot, but one of the most important things you learn: You
don't have to know it cold, but you need to know how/where to look it
up.

So if I can look things up, it's okay for me to be wrong? That seems
reasonable, in most situations (somewhat less so during a cockpit emergency,
of course).

Of course, others can do the same. There's no shame in being wrong. But
stubbornly insisting that one is right and that others are wrong can be
counterproductive. And the principles are the same for everyone, with or
without a pilot's license.

The problem I see here is that some people think that a credential equates to
knowledge or ability, and unfortunately for them that just isn't true.

Thing one with most of the poeple here is that you simply will
not do the legwork required to get the knowledge.

I do considerable research on my own.

You don't have to
take anything that anyone tells you as vertias, but for GOD'S SAKE go
crack a book or hit any of the hundreds (if not thousands) of websites
devoted to the dissemination of the information you seek.

Done.

And to a person, every last one of them has said (in effect): If you
don't believe me, here's a book, URL, DVD, other "person / place /
thing" you can consult.

No, they have not. Usually it's more like, "I'm a pilot, and if you don't
believe me, you're stupid."

Ignorance is defined as: "A Lack Of Knowledge."

I am aware of this.

You, by your status as a non-pilot, are as ignorant (note the lower
case "i") as one can possbily be about piloting because you've never
piloted an aircraft of any kind.

Thank you for providing a textbook example of what I've just described above:
you're mistaking the credential for the knowledge. Not pilot = doesn't know.
But it is dangerous to draw this conclusion.

Doesn't matter if you can quote the FAR/AIM chapter and
verse. You are not a pilot, therefore you are ignorant about being a
pilot. You can cure your ignorance on most subjects in the same
manner that I cured mine...read. But until you actually control an
aircraft in flight, you will always be ignorant about being a pilot.
QED back at ya...

See my remarks about stubbornly insisting even in the face of conflicting
reality.

If you had even half the sense you claim to have, the tenor of posts
should tell you that their aren't very many heavy-iron pilots here so
asking those types of questions is simply a way to allow you to sit
there and feel smug.

Why would I feel smug about asking questions? To ask questions is to admit
ignorance, which would be very damaging to some of the egos here.

"If someone is a fighter (airline) pilot, don't worry, they'll tell
you. If they aren't, don't embarrass them by asking..."

So my questions are embarrassing?

The only reason someone "shouts" is because they think the other
person isn't listening.

That is only one of several possible reasons. In any case, shouting
accomplishes nothing.

Don't know about you, but I usually don't
need to be told something more than once before it sinks in.

Unless you disagree with it, in which case mere repetition is unlikely to
work.

Two actually: rec.aviation.questions and rec.aviation.answers.

Those newsgroups are dead.

It simply serves to point out that you don't value the information
you're being provided with (not just due respect) but with any respect
at all.

It also points out that, as I've already said, you care more about being
thanked than about passing on whatever knowledge you have. That seems very
egotistical to me. Why does it matter whether or not people gush with
gratitude each time you deign to reply?

I've looked and I don't see a single post from you (good, bad
or indifferent) where you've shown any appreciation whatsoever for the
time and effort that people here taken.

So? I practice the Golden Rule, and for me, spreading knowledge is its own
reward. If others are more selfish than I am, that's their problem, not mine.

We've had many non-pilots post here (and by here I mean
rec.aviation.*) and by and large they've all received answers from
others. But, unlike you, they know that they are "ignorant" about
being a pilot.

No, unlike me, they kowtow to others whom them believe to be of greater rank.
It's the Superman syndrome. People with strong egos are often hero
worshippers as well. It's an insidious form of pride.

It's simple really. If you were to start just one
post with: "I'm not a pilot but..." or "I've noticed something in
MSFS and I'm wondering if you pilots could help me with..." or maybe
even just "Does X happen in real life...?"

I don't see why the wording of the question is important. Should I start
questions with "My Lord," perhaps?

Once upon a time it was called "knowing your place."

Ah. So what really irritates you is that I refuse to know my place. Kind of
like all those uppity blacks in the Civil Rights Movement, eh?

I'll just refer
back to what I said about me Vs a 10,000 hour pilot. I don't have to
agree, but it's just plain rude to say you know better when chances
are, you don't.

Rudeness or the lack thereof is not important. What is important is getting
things right.

Dunno what you want me to say there bucko. It's 147 hours of real
flight that you don't have.

Yes. The equivalent of less than three weeks of full-time flying.

Would you take the advice of a doctor who had three weeks' experience in
medicine more than you did?

Toss out all the little latin phrases, make your bombastic
and utterly increadible statements of fact about your Barons and 747s
but in the end, I have 147 hours and counting...and you have???

In other words, you're so proud of your brief time in a cockpit that you'll
ignore all other sources of information and assert that you know best because
you've had those few hours. This illustrates the problem I've been
describing. It isn't very rational behavior. It is driven by emotions, and
not particularly healthy ones at that.

People get irritated because an ignorant person has the
unmittigated gaul to post things that make them seem as if they are
what they are not.

People get irritated when other people disagree with them. It's as simple as
that.

You can not attempt to pass yourself off on the one hand as a pilot,
then turn right around and make disparaging comments about aviation.

Pilots aren't allowed to make disparaging comments about aviation?

You're so obviously not a pilot (because a real pilot will not make the kind of
statements about flying that you make) that you simply will never gain
any degree of credability here.

Real pilots never say anything negative about aviation, and never disagree
with those in the club?

Actually, I haven't been negative at all. I like aviation.

Don't care how much you bitch, moan,
whine, complain, cojole, beg, plead, browbeat, implore, agree, deny or
obfuscate. Your cover is blown and It's simply not possible.

There is no "cover." I'm not on a secret mission to destroy the Club.

So you keep saying...

If only people would hear.

Interesting that you snipped my sentence relating to how people are
not immune from the consequences of their actions.

I had no quarrel with it, although I didn't see much relevance in it in the
current context.

It's ok for anyone
to post whatever they want, so long as they agree with you right?

It's okay for anyone to post what he wants, period. USENET is one of the few
remaining bastions of relatively free speech.

So you keep saying...

And apparently it goes into some ears and out of others. Perhaps there is
nothing to stop it along the way.

Don't really care what you think on the matter.

You stop caring when I stop agreeing.

I know that even my measly 147hrs has made a change in me like nothing
else short of the rapture could possibly affect.

But that's you, not me.

In a way, I actually feel sort of sorry for you that you'll never
experience it yourself. And we both know I'm right...you never will.

Never is an absolute, and I prefer to avoid speaking in terms of absolutes.
But right now actually flying in an aircraft seems unlikely for me over the
short term.

I was a wannabee for 43 years but I had the balls to do more than just wish.

It's not a question of courage. Do you find flying to be scary?

So you keep saying...

Well, perhaps you or someone will listen someday, and the discussion of
aviation can resume.

Yourself excepted, of course...

I don't have any ego to speak of.

And you are able to determine that someones ego is bigger than their
deeds, how?

Their accomplishments do not match their claims.

In the specific context of questions and answers, people who assert the
correctness of their answers but cannot substantiate them are usually
overstating their competence.

And I mean specifically in these forums, in print, in
black and white. I don't think anyone else here has ever said that
they "don't fly in real life" then post about flying their Baron, et
al... My God, talk about Pot, Kettle, Black. You have the temmerity
to say that people here have egos bigger than their accomplishments
while you try to come off like Sky King backed by exactly ZERO actual
experience.

Even if that were true, how would it prevent anyone from discussing aviation
with me?

Are you interested in discussion aviation? I can afford to have these
counterproductive discussions within limits as long as nobody is willing to
actually discuss aviation, but if anyone returns to that topic I may have to
abandon this conversation.

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