In article ,
says...


In article ,
Mxsmanic wrote:

writes:

Then their objective in the game is to crash the airplane.

Everyone has objectives when playing a game or using a simulator, but
simulators do not have objectives built in, whereas games do.

Games without built-in objectives are common enough that there's a name
for the gen "sandbox games".

Just because MSFS is a sandbox game doesn't mean it's not a game.



It's what you make of it really.
I used it during my instrument training to practice holds and approaches.
It's a very poor simulator, in that it does a poor job of emulating the
response of the airplane, but it was - ever so slightly - better than
nothing.

I think it's safe to assume that most users fly it as a game, landing
747's at Kai-Tek when in reality they would not be able to hold heading
and altitude in a C152, but that doesn't exclude that it can have some
limited usefulness in training. It is definitely not adequate for ab
initio airplane training, and it would not be possible to move with any
substantive success from MSFS to an airplane of any type, because it does
too poor a job of emulating the airplane, however if you already know how
to fly it is possible to go the other way - from airplane to MSFS, because
what you already know allows you to compensate some of the insufficiencies
of the program, and well just ignore others.

I gave it to my 9 -year old nephew after I was done with it. He's older
now, and I think he flies fighter jets with it. I don't think he is under
the illusion he could fly any airplane for real.