MS Flight Sim As a Training Tool

writes:

Can you log it? No, for one the flight models are rubbish.

This changes with a few expensive add-ons. The standard MSFS aircraft
are compromises, but you can but add-ons that are just like the real
thing ... so much better, in fact, that it's not unlike having a
completely new simulator.

Is it worth paying 5 bucks to a student who can take flight simulator
and see what they can do about flying approaches, especially DME arcs
etc on a sim, which they can pause and see whats going on, instead of
doing it cold turkey in an airplane the first time burning valuable
time and too busy doing the next thing before they grasp the last
thing? Yeah, the 5 bucks goes a long way.

You can also analyze your flights in MSFS, to see just how closely you
followed your intended course or pattern. I do that all the time.
You can see how consistent your climbs and descents are, how smooth
your turns are, how well you can stay in a holding or traffic pattern,
how well you can hold a course over a long distance, etc.

You can also dial up whatever weather you want, including weather that
would be far too dangerous to train in in real life. Want to see if
you can land in a 40-knot crosswind? No problem. Want fog so thick
you can't see the nose of your own aircraft? Coming right up. Have a
particular blend of IMC or VMC that you'd like to try out but that
never seems to actually occur in your neck of the woods? That's easy
to do, too.

Do you need to learn how to use a GPS? The GPS simulations in some
add-on aircraft are _identical_ to the real thing: you can literally
step away from the sim and use the real GPS on a real aircraft without
missing a beat. A great many other instruments behave identically.

Flight models can be very accurate if you purchase add-ons that are
optimized to match the real aircraft as closely as possible. If you
want to spend ten minutes starting the engines on a 737, that's
possible, too. If you like programming an FMS and then watching it
fly the aircraft for you, you can do that.

All of this would be cripplingly expensive and time-consuming--and
sometimes impossible--in a real aircraft. If you've spent tens of
thousands of dollars on real flight, why deprive yourself of
simulation that you could have for just a few dollars more?

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