"Trent Moorehead" wrote
Was this a simulator that simply spins around? If I remember correctly, it
doesn't do anything spectacular except spin smoothly around and once you're
enclosed inside, the spinning feeling disappears and just feels like light
turbulence.

I believe it's called the Gyro. I 'flew' it at Oshkosh, as did some
of my friends. The different experiences were interesting.

I thought it was no big deal. The controls were pretty crappy and
twitchy, which made it difficult to hold altitude +/- 50 ft, but
otherwise it was easy. When needing to get something, I made it a
point to keep an eye on the AI, and that made it easy to retain
orientation despite the somatic illusions. Of course I was a CFII and
instrument current, so you should expect that this would be my
experience.

An 800 hour VFR-only private pilot with some instrument training was
next. Her impression was about like mine - in fact she probably did a
slightly better job of flying it than I did.

A student pilot with very minimal hood training (less than an hour, I
think) was next, and he found it challenging to keep within +/-100 ft
and +/- 10 degrees, but not challenging to maintain control.

A 600 hour VFR-only private pilot was last, and he hadn't flown at
night or under the hood since getting his ticket years ago. He could
barely maintain control and almost 'crashed.' I think this scared him
- soon thereafter he started instrument training with me, and now is
instrument rated.

The FAA guy running the Gyro told me an interesting story.

He once took the Gyro to a flying club, and all the members flew it.
One of them was particularly cocky, and felt it was no biggie. He
wasn't instrument rated, but felt he could handle it just fine anyway.
The FAA guy threw everything he could at him, but the guy handled it.

Everyone in the club actually did OK with it except the last one. He
was very nervous, and sure enough lost control and crashed. He was
also the only instrument rated pilot in the club.

Michael