Shirl writes:

Mxsmanic wrote:
What is the difference in danger level?

You're kidding, right?

No, I'm calling your bluff, successfully.

The subject had nothing to do with airliners, so I'm not even going to
go there.

See above.

To clarify, we are talking specifically about simulated engine failure
practice, not other types of emergencies.

My comments still apply.

But yes, it absolutely IS true that what is second nature *on the
ground* may be different in flight.

Not for someone who knows how to use a simulator correctly.

Part of a successful simulation is in the mind of the pilot.

If a simulator were so real and
accurate that it could teach a person to automatically do "all the right
things", they should be able to complete all the training in a simulator
and then go out and fly the airplane to test standards. Why isn't this
done?

Regulation lags behind technology, and the technology is only just now
approaching this point.

But I have no doubt that if there were no regulatory barriers, people could
learn to fly airliners in appropriate simulators without any time in a real
aircraft, and then move directly from the sim to revenue flights. And that
day will almost certainly come, in time.

Because what may be second nature on the ground in the simulator
may not be second nature in the actual airplane, nor are real world
conditions.

No--see above. It's not a limitation of simulation so much as a limitation of
acceptance.

But handling an emergency in its entirety may often require more
than the rote level automation learned in a simulator ...

For some emergencies, the best possible response is an automatic, by-rote
response. Engine-out scenarios are close to this.

... there will likely be elements of the
emergency that require spontaneous decision making that the sim can't
create.

Some emergencies leave no time for decision-making.

You can't practice those in an in-flight simulated engine
failure, either (because they're case specific), but at least doing the
rote part of the drill in a real airplane and experiencing how that
particular plane reacts with no power won't be a surprise if it is
practiced with some regularity.

It would not be a surprise after simulation, either.

Accurate simulations on the ground are much more like the real thing
than an actual in-flight simulated engine failure?

Yes.

When was the last time you flew? or experienced "the real thing"? Oh yeah, you haven't
done either, so how would you know which is "much more like the real
thing"? Your claim has no basis.

How often do you practice these things in full-motion simulators?

GA pilots practice "a lot of this" in simulators?

No, GA pilots typically don't practice much at all. That's why they get
killed when bad things happen.

For the nth time, we are not talking about airline pilots.

I'm talking about all pilots. I cannot speak for you.

Until you experience it firsthand, your claims about anything on the
ground being a more realistic simulation of something in flight mean
nothing.

Perhaps they mean nothing to you. But that's what you mean to me, so it works
out. I judge arguments based on their own merits, not their sources.

To what degree of realism are you speaking, specifically?

The highest degree obtainable. For dangerous maneuvers, the highest realism
may only be safely attainable in simulation.

Huh? Are you suggesting a pilot applicant should be able to satisfy
these requirements in a simulator vs. in an airplane?

Sure, why not?

And if we hadn't just practiced a simulated engine-out two weeks prior
to the real thing, we might have messed up the real thing and been
killed.

So you could be killed during the drill or during the real thing. Either way,
you end up dead.

Wrong. You don't need to shut the engine down completely for the
simulation to have value.

Yes, you do. Have you tried this in a multiengine aircraft?

And you know this how?

That's what pilots, instructors, and institutions say about it, and their
arguments are cogent.

Stating your opinions as fact don't make them
any more valid than anyone else's.

The same is true for you, only I don't depend on attacks on your personality
to support my arguments.