Thread: KCHD to KMYF
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Old May 6th 10, 05:53 PM posted to rec.aviation.piloting
VOR-DME[_3_]
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Default KCHD to KMYF

Rather than challenging real-world pilots about their own level of experience,
a bit more humility would have incited you to ask how many real pilots also
have experienced MSFS, and what their observations are. I’m sure there are
many present who have experienced this quirky simulation game, as I have. I
certainly cannot boast your own level of experience with it (wouldn’t admit it
if I could) but I have a huge advantage over you in that I had already been
flying airplanes (as well as real simulators) for years before I ever tried
MSFS, which allows me to discern what works and what doesn’t - something you
can only surmise or guess at.

MSFS is reasonably useful and fun for IFR recurrent training, tracking VOR’s
and airways, intercepts, etc. It is less useful for GPS navigation, as the
mock Garmin unit they propose is extremely feature-poor, and lacks many of the
pages and options pilots use every day. Perhaps these is why you resort
automatically to older VOR’s and airways, and consider ADS-B to be fiction,
because you have never seen what a real GPS does.

It is reasonably good at numbers flying, although the numbers are always "off"
a bit for any type of aircraft purportedly being flown, so you’ll just have to
learn the numbers for your MSFS install as if it were another plane. Probably
varies from one MSFS install to another, but then airplanes vary from one
another as well.

Landing MSFS is really hilarious, and is so far removed from landing any
airplane that it really only teaches you, well how to land MSFS. It is much
harder to land than any real plane, but not in any useful or constructive way.
What it is also really poor at is airplane control, particularly pitch
control. Flying a real King Air (or just about any other plane) in cruise and
rolling into a standard-rate turn, one rarely requires much pitch correction.
A quick glance at the VSI will tell you if you need some pitch input (or more
likely, whether you are already over-correcting) but unless you are holding
the turn for a long time very little input is needed. In the MSFS model of the
same plane (and other planes as well) as you roll into a standard rate turn
the airplane falls out of the sky! You have to haul back on it and add power
to maintain altitude. So it’s good for a laugh (games are made to have fun)
but it’s not a high-fidelity simulation.




In article ,
says...

Do you fly a lot of single-pilot IFR? Any time in jets?