Okay, thank you Scott, Bruce, and Jonathan for your encouraging remarks
about sims. I'll think more about that now. Can it simulate a Grob 103?

-- 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)

I would definitely need a bit more investment. All I have are five
older PC's that I'm absolutely certain could not support any modern
graphics-intensive app. I'm sure I would insist on having real
rudder pedals. Okay, true confession: I did too play with a sim once,
about 15 years ago, for about 20 minutes, with twist control for the
rudder, and I absolutely didn't get it. I crashed every flight within
a minute or two because of that.

Does a decent set-up of joystick and pedals include realistic tactile
feed-back? It seems to me that would be essential in order to develop
any kind of "muscle memory". That's another reason for real pedals too.

-- 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.

Now there's a thought! That sounds neat-o. My club has a Blanik L-13,
the only function of which anymore is to keep its trailer from blowing
away in the wind. I should suggest to TPTB that we look into getting
a set-up like this.

Are there really computer interfaces available to connect the real
controls of a real glider to a computer? Or was it a home-built job
by some electronics engineer in your club? (If the latter, well, we
probably have that talent in our club too. One of my instructors,
for example, is a retired physicist/programmer.) And can Condor
interface to all that?

-- The simulator training is absolutely of value. Why do you think
-- simulator training is mandatory for many aircraft. I had not flown
-- a glider in 12-14 years before I got back into the sport,and had
-- not flown for 7 years at all. Before I took a tow I did some condor
-- training and it absolutely helped! First tow on condor felt like one
-- of my first tows ever, had trouble maintaining position (and I have
-- been trained in formation flying). Open your mind you will learn and
-- have fun.
--
-- As for spin training never tried that in a sim, spins are easy
-- though but important to be comfortable with.

Doesn't professional sim training take place in a real simulated cockpit,
surrounded by all the mechanical machinery of a carnival ride? I've seen
those, but never flown one. Can a home-style sim do all that?

I'd still be skeptical about that. Can any home-style sim reproduce
the experience of seeing the firmament spinning around your head while
you sit in a real cockpit? (I only did one or two spin and recoveries,
and that was 40 years ago in the 2-33 -- I remember it being neither
difficult nor scary. But I also remember very explicitly how my
instructor's training technique caused that to be the case.) Or the
sensation of stalling or pushing over, or G's in a steep turn (let alone the
feeling of a steep uncoordinated turn), or the turbulence of wind gradient
on tow?

-- J. J.
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