Flight Simulator Software - Any Help or Just a Game?

On Mon, 06 Sep 2004 21:56:09 GMT, "Jay Honeck"
wrote:

So damaging can the use of the simulator be during this stage, that it's
use can actually retard the progress of a new student.

Another point of view:

I learned to fly ten years ago in 1994. I started "flying" sims in the
mid-80s, when they were little more than wire-frame depictions of flight.
(Anyone remember Atari STs?) By the time I could afford real flight lessons,
I had a zillion hours of sim time.

At least partially as a result, I took to flying immediately, and soloed
with just 6.4 hours in my logbook.

Quite frankly, I'd be willing to bet that my time riding motorcycles was
just as helpful in learning to fly (the physics of riding and flying are
nearly identical) -- but my instructor (who, by the way, was an older
gentleman and quite the technophobe. He believed that computers were evil
devices from Day One.) figured that all my sim time really helped --
especially in the early stages of flight instruction.

Your mileage may vary, of course.

Atari ST? I would have killed for one of those. I was stuck with an
Atari 800 that I had about $1,000 invested in, if you can believe
that. I started flying Bruce Artwick's flight simulator before it was
SubLogic. I also believe that my 30 years of motorcycle riding helped
with my flying. Everything from the similarity of motion to the
attentiveness to weather helped.

That being said, I do think that the simulator can be harmful to a new
student primarily because of the well documented "head in the cockpit"
syndrome. Those that have flown simulators for many years may be over
that problem. At any rate, there is much to be gained from Flight
Simulator, even if not at the beginning of your training. In response
to the OP, it is not a substitute for a real plane or a CFI but it is
clearly more than just a game.

Rich Russell

Well, when I learnt to fly, I had a really hard time getting landings
right. Due to a death in the family I had a month's gap from flying.
Partly to keep my hand in and partly because I was suffering
withdrawal symptoms I loaded up Microsoft FS and flew around a
bit on that. I was mostly practising circuits, especially landings.

When I got back, my landings had improved no end and I went
solo soon after.

Paul

(C Kingsbury) wrote
If you ever use an FAA certified sim (and I've used a couple,
including one with visuals and motion) you will discover that while
the MSFS flight model is not quite right, it's a lot closer to right
than the FAA certified products. Sad but true.

And unsurprising. Regulation slows the pace of innovation, sometimes
with good reason, sometimes with good results, but often with neither.

I would say generally with neither.

In any case, instrument sims are mainly used to teach procedures, so
the flight model is not the most important thing, so long as it's
consistent.

Well, sort of. Part of instrument procedures - at least in a
relatively fast airplane - is speed/power/configuration management.
In a Skyhawk or a Cherokee, you can blast into the approach at cruise
speed and make it all happen with the throttle, but that's just not
the case when you step up to a Bonanza or Mooney, never mind a twin.
Thus the flight model needs to be at least somewhat realistic in terms
of speeds/power settings/configuration. I actually have some
experience making such adjustments to an FAA-certified sim (in other
words - making the speeds, configurations, and power settings match
up), and the capability to make those adjustments is a lot better in
MSFS as well.

I had an interesting experience with FS2004 right after I got it. I
loaded it up, cranked up all the realism fields, and plotted an IFR
flight from BED-LWM, which I'd done a dozen times in lessons. It's a
very short flight and you go from takeoff to approach almost
immediately so it's very easy to fall behind. Sure enough, the first
time I did it, I flew right through the localizer at LWM, just like I
did in the plane half the time!

And there's the value of the sim - scenario training. Sure, you could
chair-fly it - but doing it with real instrument indications in real
time has value. Now if you had an instructor fail an instrument at a
critical point, you would really have something.

But the ATC wasn't smart enough to
vector me back around. Suppose that will wait for add-ons or the next
version...

The real solution is your instructor playing ATC, always assuming he
has enough "in the system" experience to do so realistically.

Still, what FS04 could not create was the sense of urgency you have in
a real cockpit.

Purely a mental issue. Call it suspension of disbelief. Maybe the
hot tip is to put the computer in a dark closet, turn on the vacuum
cleaner... Wait, wasn't that a joke about missing the airline pilot
lifestyle?

For instance, turbulence really monkeyed with me early
on. I've been told a 6-degrees-of-freedom sim can actually replicate
many of the key kinesthetic phenomena quite well

In fact, I've had some experience with a full motion GA sim, and
indeed it replicates turbulence quite well. It certainly raises the
degree of difficulty.

and those seem to be
trickling down into GA training (c.f. Motus) albeit very slowly.

Very. I'm actually only aware of one that is available for the
single/light twin guys.

Also,
while the ATC in FS04 is as pure software really, really impressive to
me, it's still far behind reality. Though if I had the same screen and
my CFII barking at me through a tube, I suppose you could capture much
of that.

Exactly. If there were a way to effectively replicate ATC in
software, would we really need all those controllers?

Being able to replace ATC with computers is still years away - never
if their union has anything to say about it. Besides, how comfortable
would YOU feel with ATC by MS?

Michael

Dudley Henriques wrote:
"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
Another point of view:

I learned to fly ten years ago in 1994. I started "flying" sims in the
mid-80s, when they were little more than wire-frame depictions of
flight. (Anyone remember Atari STs?) By the time I could afford real
flight lessons, I had a zillion hours of sim time.

At least partially as a result, I took to flying immediately, and
soloed with just 6.4 hours in my logbook.

Same here. I soloed after 4.5 hours, but in 1984 during
the wire-frame depiction age, and my sim time was all on
one of those thingies (a Sinclair in my case). Didn´t have
zillions of hours on those either, but probably several
dozen.

I definitely had the impression that the sim time helped
a lot right from the beginning, not only with the direction
the controls worked, but things like minding the speed,
keeping the glidepath towards the threshold and other
details. Even managed a landing on my first lesson without
intervention (except verbal) from the instructor.
(Though I am not sure how remarkable or unusual a feat
that is, on a reasonably calm day).

As for other background there was no motorcycling experience
in my case. But I was extremely motivated. And I had been up
in a glider maybe three or four times as a kid and been
allowed to briefly try the controls (some 15 years earlier,
and total time for that cannot have amounted to more than
about half an hour).

This would actually be an interesting subject to see
investigated scientifically. It is so easy to have opinions.
Not that some of the opinions aren't valid and helpful
sometimes, but somehow they can never be totally convincing.

Cheers CV

"Dave" wrote in message news:aNq%c.1509$sS4.87@trndny03...

Although your motorcycle skills and experience would most certainly have
had a positive effect on accelerating the learning process in the
airplane, the actual effect of flying a desktop simulator would have
limited effect. It's true that the simulator would have taught you the
basic DIRECTION of movement for each control, and that would be a
positive, but for the actual purpose of flying an airplane, it's
PRESSURES and RATES that are the pertinent factors, NOT direction!



This has made me rethink a little. My time windsurfing surely helped in
this regard.

I agree. I liken flying more to sailing than anything else. The
basic concepts of passing air over a movable surface to give lift (in
the air planes case) or thrust (in the sailing sense) are almost
identical. The other thing that struck me as being almost identical
was that if you make a change in trim in either case the craft takes a
moment to 'settle' into its new configuration. I spent a bit of time
chasing dials when I first flew until I made this connection to
sailing. Also the notion of 'staying ahead' of what the craft is
doing is identical (although its far easier to do in a
yacht/windsurfer than it is in a plane IMO, but thats debateable).

On Mon, 06 Sep 2004 21:56:09 GMT, "Jay Honeck"
wrote:

I learned to fly ten years ago in 1994. I started "flying" sims in the
mid-80s, when they were little more than wire-frame depictions of flight.
(Anyone remember Atari STs?) By the time I could afford real flight lessons,
I had a zillion hours of sim time.

At least partially as a result, I took to flying immediately, and soloed
with just 6.4 hours in my logbook.

Perhaps. On the other hand, during the war years it was routine to
solo students in as few as 8 to 12 hours of stick time. This is with
no previous experience and in some cases no previous experience even
driving a car. In addition, the trainer was inevitably a taildragger.

This pre-dates electronic flight simulators by over 40 years so the
ability to solo early had nothing to do with any kind of pre flying
training.

Most of the people who become pilots have ALWAYS wanted to learn to
fly and this tends to create a very receptive attitude for learning
when that time comes.

Corky Scott

Corky Scott wrote
Perhaps. On the other hand, during the war years it was routine to
solo students in as few as 8 to 12 hours of stick time. This is with
no previous experience and in some cases no previous experience even
driving a car. In addition, the trainer was inevitably a taildragger.

True. The standard military trainer of the time was a Stearman.
These days, it's considered a tricky, high performance (sic!) biplane.
There were some important things you're leaving out, though.

Training to solo took place on open grass fields. Cross wind landing
were not taught - or done. The students were all young and eager.
There was no radio work and no instrument work - just airwork and
landings.

Every field had a truck standing by. Each truck had a repair crew -
and a bed full of ailerons. The crews could replace an aileron on a
groundlooped airplane and have it ready for service in SEVEN MINUTES.
Imagine how much practice they got. A groundloop was no big deal.

Most older taildraggers are pussycats on wide open grass fields
landing into the wind - it's landing on paved narrow crosswind runways
with obstructions that makes them exciting. If all I had to do was
teach the average teenager to land, only on grass and into the wind,
and only well enough that I could be certain he would not hurt himself
- the occasional groundloop not being a big deal - I could solo them
in 6 hours all day long and twice on Sunday.

Realistically, I can't solo a brand new student in 6 hours these days.
My home field only has one narrow paved runway, aligned cross to the
prevailing winds and with structures and trees that make any crosswind
gusty. The pattern is busy, and radio use is expected. The FAA gives
me a laundry list of things I have to do with them before I solo them.
These days, if someone soloes in under 10 hours, that's pretty good,
and generally indicates better than average preparation.

Michael

"Icebound" wrote in message
ogers.com...

"pjbphd" wrote in message
news:Nx3%c.213310$sh.156079@fed1read06...
I'm a student pilot and have heard mixed reviews of Flight Sim software.
Some say it's great for a little on the ground practice. Others say it's
really a waste of time.

I don't expect it to really take the place of air time, but I'm wondering
if
anyone out there can tell me if it's really useful, and if so, what
accessories are recommended e.g., yoke and pedals.

Thanks in advance

pjbphd



Pedals for sure. The twist action of a joystick rudder does not translate
well to the real thing. You "push" on the wrong side.

The direction of the twist effect is programmable in the flight sims I'm
aware of. But I agree it's better to have pedals.

Obviously, a yoke-with-throttle-quadrant will also be better than a
joystick, but the left-right-back-forth action of a joystick for aileron
and
elevator will carry over fairly easily.

Yup, it does carry over. I find a force-feedback joystick more realistic
than a non-feedback yoke.

Having said that, most joysticks are designed for right hand with left
hand
throttle, and that is backward to a real-life left seat..... If you do opt
for a joystick, get one of those that allows you to reverse the throttle
so
that you can operate the control with the left hand, and the throttle with
the right.

I prefer to ignore the throttle control on the joystick, and just mouse the
throttle control on the panel (along with the mixture and prop controls).
FS2004 lets you use the mouse's scroll wheel for fine adjustments of the
throttle.

--Gary

"Bob Moore" wrote in message
. 6...
"pjbphd" wrote

I'm a student pilot and have heard mixed reviews of Flight Sim
software. Some say it's great for a little on the ground practice.
Others say it's really a waste of time.

When I encounter a new student who has "learned to fly" using
a Flight Sim program, I usually find it necessary to cover the
instrument panel for the first 2-3 flights in order to teach
him to fly a real airplane.

That's a potential drawback, but not an inevitable one. If a student knows
not to look much at the panel when learning to fly on a simulator, then that
bad habit won't be picked up. Present-day virtual-cockpit views allow you to
glance away from the panel most of the time, just like in real flight.

--Gary

"Tuomas Kuosmanen" wrote in message
news
On Mon, 06 Sep 2004 20:02:59 -0700, Jim Rosinski wrote:
The "stick and rudder" stuff is just one part of flying,
and I agree a simulator can be a limited help in that area. It took me
about 60 landings to "get it" despite (or because of my sim
experience..

The landing flare is the one phase of flying that my sim practice hadn't
prepared me for. For everything else, including ground-reference maneuvers,
I found it quite helpful.

--Gary