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Old November 14th 03, 04:36 AM
George Lewis
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As a "real" pilot, I enjoy flight sim very much. To be honest, it
keeps me from getting a divorce (by helping remove the temptation to
go and buy a real plane, which would probably make my wife leave me!)
For less than the price of 1 rented hour in a real cessna or piper, I
can buy the sim, and for a little bit more, have realistic controls as
well. Now, that's not a bad deal.

I personally think that the sim is HARDER to fly than a real airplane.
I'd venture to even go so far to say that MOST of the flight training
I undertook was what to do if something went wrong. Flying it is
really pretty easy, it's when something goes wrong that you've got to
react quick and do the right thing.

I personally would have LOVED to have a sim back when I started
learning to fly. I actually got my airplane ride when I was 12 (1977
time frame, Beech 18) and I knew what everything was except the VORs.
That was just from a love of flying and being interested in it - had I
had a sim back then, it would have been so much better. I would have
had a better understanding of things I knew nothing about at the time.

When I took ground school in 1986, there was the Commodore 64 flight
sim version and it was pretty hard to control, and I have to admit it
pretty much wasn't very much help at all. But today's flight sims are
pretty good and while I don't believe that most people that mess with
flight sims will be able to walk into the airport and fly a Boeing
747, I do feel that it WILL help those curious about flying take that
next step, and go into the FBO and take a first flight introduction
and possibly enter flight training, bringing another pilot into
general aviation, and we can never have enough of those!

Also, ground school information retention should be much better, and I
would think that instructors who utilize flight sim as a cheap
alternative for some instruction, could help students visualize what
they are going to do for real in a simulated environment that will
help keep the costs down.

Like I said before, flying the MS flight sims in my opinion, are
HARDER to fly than the real thing - my reasons for this are many - you
don't have frame rate issues in real life, and you can feel the
pressure on the yoke when trimming the aircraft, you can see all
around you and you don't have the ridiculous panel/vision issues like
you have in the sim. The VR cockpit is helping this though, and in
FS9, you can actually set your view and it will stay there when you
look left or right. not perfect, but it's a start.

With all that said, you have your opinion, I have mine. You won't
change my position no matter what you say, nor will any words from me
will change yours.

On 13 Nov 2003 01:26:16 -0800, (mike popken)
wrote:

The following was the original comment in this thread:

"See Wired magazine:

http://www.wired.com/news/technology...w=wn_tophead_6

People have criticized me in the past for suggesting that someone
could
learn much of the skills of piloting with FS, but it seems that I'm in
good company."
==============

If the poster is suggesting a wanna-be pilot could gain some insight
into ATC, he would be right. And ditto for a little background on
using VOR navigation, and with fs2004, the Garmin GPS. I would agree.
It is also helpful for a wanna-be pilot to experience how fast things
happen when you fly, how mentally quick one must be in order to safely
fly a plane. Here I agree again, but as one who has flown real planes,
I cound not disagree more if the poster is suggesting Microsoft
simulator planes fly like the REAL THING. Microsof FS is an eye candy
entertainment GAME. Got that word the:: G A M E!!!!!!!!
That's all it is, an eye candy game, to entertain people, to keep
their minds off the sewer society we are (and have) slid off into, to
keep people preoccupied with utter nonsense so they won't have time to
write or call their congressmen about what a mess the world is
becoming, so they won't have time to organize war demonstrations, etc.
That is the only purpose of this product. MS airplaines do NOT even
remotely fly like the real thing, and all one need do to prove it for
themselves is go fly a real plane and you'll see for yourself. Then if
you still believe MS simulator planes fly like the real thing, then
you are probably a devoute religious person that belives all those
wierd stories about God destroying His own creations, causing fire n
brimstone, hell, devils, etc. And just think, there are a couple
billion people who believe all this crap, so it does not surprise me
that millions of Flt Sim fans believe Microsoft's simulator planes fly
like the real thing.
BETWEEN EVERY MAN AND REALITY LIE HIS MOST CHERISHED ILLUSIONS.
M.P. Hall

Hope this helps
Mike