On Tuesday, October 25, 2016 at 3:43:08 PM UTC+3, JJJ wrote:
;930909 Wrote:

JJJ

Welcome back to soaring.

You may want to consider using computer-based glider flight simulation
(a.k.a. Condor) to augment your training.

I would be happy to help you get started.

You can contact me via my website: gliderCFI.com

Cheers, SRM

Okay, I spent a few minutes skimming your site. I imagine I'll take a
more detailed look later. I also googled Condor and found some other
stuff on it.

To be honest, I'm a bit skeptical about how much one could accomplish
sitting at home flying a sim -- however, I say that having exactly ZERO
experience trying it. And several of the student pilots in my club have
suggested it to me too. But, for example, can any amount of sim spin
training prepare one for real live spin training in a real live
aircraft?

Spins are one of the most aerodynamically complex situations to model and make realistic in an simulator. Condor maybe does a better job of it than many, but it's still not good.

I don't think that's what it's for.

Condor can definitely help aerotow and landing skills, including coping with cross-winds. Speed control, turns, use of the rudder. Finding and using thermals and ridge lift. Cross country flying and racing (including against other pilots online).

Minimum equipment is as large a screen as you have access to and a good joystick with twist control for rudder and sufficient buttons and/or levers for airbrakes, trim, quickly changing the direction of view. Optional: buttons for flaps/undercarriage. A lot of people (including me) use Logitech Extreme 3D Pro (about $35)

At my club we have an old Cirrus cockpit with all the standard controls (stick, rudder, trim, airbrakes, tow release, undercarriage) connected to Condor, a small LCD display as the instrument panel, and a huge corporate surplus projection TV for the scenery.

We find skills practised in Condor transfer well to the real glider. An hour in Condor is not as useful as an hour in the real glider, but it's a lot cheaper! Flying Condor should be done in a reasonably serious manner, and (for early students) under supervision of someone at least solo-rated.

When time and manpower permit we put trail flight people in the simulator while they're waiting for the glider to be available. Then they have a much better idea about the controls and instruments than can be absorbed from a normal quick briefing before takeoff, and they perform much better in the air.

We find the ASW28 settings in Condor give quite realistic handling and performance that seems to match our DG1000-18 training gliders quite well.