Co-pilot gets sick, stewardess helps land airplane

Mxsmanic wrote:
Bob Myers writes:

But the simulator experience you're talking about is absolutely
meaningless without real-world flight experience.

I don't share that opinion, nor is it widely held.

In fact, it's possible to pursue simulation as an end in itself. It
does have certain advantages that real flight does not.

For that matter, the "simulator" in your case really isn't one.
It's a computer game, something which is VERY far removed from
what the airlines call a simulator.

Clearly, it's been a long time since you last used a desktop
simulator.

Wrong again. And to think that you were just complaining
that *I* had no idea what *you* knew. Mr, Pot, meet
Mr. Kettle.

MSFS is a computer game. It is by no stretch of the imagination
a "flight simulator" in the sense of something that would actually
be useful for flight instruction, except possibly re some very
basic procedures training.


The U.S. military disagrees with you, and has for the past decade
(that is, through several versions of MSFS). So do many pilots,
flight schools, and instructors.

No, they don't disagree with me at all. I know what they're using that game
for
- do you? And just how many pilot certificates have been awarded based
on MSFS hours, do you think?


Bob M.

Bob Myers writes:

MSFS is a computer game.

It's a simulation, which is why Microsoft killed it. The market for simulators
is very small. The market for games is very large.

It is by no stretch of the imagination
a "flight simulator" in the sense of something that would actually
be useful for flight instruction, except possibly re some very
basic procedures training.

As I've said, it is widely used as a learning and training aid.

No, they don't disagree with me at all. I know what they're using that game
for do you?

Yes.

And just how many pilot certificates have been awarded based
on MSFS hours, do you think?

None. In every jurisdiction I know of, you have to have hours in a real
aircraft to get a pilot certificate, at least currently. That may change in
the future, but even then the requirement will be for full-motion simulators,
not desktop simulators.

On Jun 26, 8:39*am, Mxsmanic wrote:
Bob Myers writes:
MSFS is a computer game.

It's a simulation, which is why Microsoft killed it. The market for simulators
is very small. The market for games is very large.

WRONG. Guess you can't even speak for Microsoft correctly.

http://www.microsoft.com/games/flightsimulatorx/

READ THE URL. It says GAMES. What part of that do you not
understand??????????

writes:

READ THE URL. It says GAMES.

A game does not incur liability. A simulation does. Additionally, games have
broader appeal than simulators. However, MSFS has always been a simulation,
from its earliest days. That's one of the things that limited its market,
since gamers quickly lose interest in something that doesn't have prizes,
goals, action and adventure, etc.

FSX moved slightly towards games, with more eye candy and "missions" to please
the kiddies, but a total rewrite would have been required to truly make the
product a game. Microsoft, in its increasing lack of wisdom, therefore killed
development on the product and fired the development team.

On Jun 26, 12:58*pm, " wrote:
On Jun 26, 8:39*am, Mxsmanic wrote:

Bob Myers writes:
MSFS is a computer game.

It's a simulation, which is why Microsoft killed it. The market for simulators
is very small. The market for games is very large.

WRONG. *Guess you can't even speak for Microsoft correctly.

http://www.microsoft.com/games/flightsimulatorx/

READ THE URL. *It says GAMES. *What part of that do you not
understand??????????

Lord, you'll NEVER know how I absolutely HATE to chime in on this
thread again. 235 postings back and forth, everybody shouting at
everybody else with the same old tired song. Man, I mean you guys
might actually be going for a Usenet record here :-))))))))))))))))
Kidding aside, about MSFS; there's a right and a wrong to what's being
said about it. As someone who actually worked with Microsoft on the
program as a realism and fidelity advisor I can speak to the issues at
hand directly.
Respectfully submitted of course, and with deference to others
opinions that might vary, MSFS is neither as bad as some have said
here, nor is it as good as others have stated here. Actually, the
program is sort of in the middle of it all.
As the program exists out of the box, as far as real world aviation
training and usage goes, the sim has excellent use as an introductory
and sales tool for the training community. Later on, the program has
some limited uses as a cross country, procedures, and instrument
procedures tool if used PROPERLY and under the direct supervision of a
certificated flight or ground instructor.
I've always recommended that if the program is indeed present during
the student pre-solo period, that it be NOT used between the period of
first dual and solo due to the importance of actual aircraft visual
cues and actual control pressure vs response interfacing the student
with the exact aircraft being used for training. During this period,
the use of the sim can actually be detrimental and flatten the
learning curve.
As for reality, accuracy, and authenticity of the program to actual
aircraft, there are limitations as the program exists due to various
reasons, among them the need by Microsoft to keep the performance of
the program within certain parameters for a targeted end user sales
demographic. The depth of fidelity and depth of accuracy of ANY
aircraft flight model and systems simply isn't a requirement of the
program as designed and marketed.
NOW, all this having been said, I can tell you with certainty as I am
working on these programs as we speak, that there are after market
developers out here designing flight models for add on aircraft for
FSX that will define a paradigm shift in fidelity and accuracy in the
program. As we speak, I am working on a P51D for FSX that will be
using code outside the base sim engine and based on exact aircraft
performance data that will come extremely close to being good enough
to use as an additional tool in checking someone out in a P51D.
The accuracy and system fidelity is so deep on this add on that
systems AND the aircraft act dynamically in a standard atmosphere
reflecting all temps and pressures associated with flying in that
atmosphere.
Even this falls a bit short of actual realism as using pressure
altitude defines a performance limit not associated with density
altitude in a non standard atmosphere.
So my word would be not to over emphasize the value of MSFS as a
training tool, but to be careful not to under emphasize the program's
uses either.
Dudley Henriques

On Jun 26, 1:01*pm, Dudley Henriques wrote:

So my word would be not to over emphasize the value of MSFS as a
training tool, but to be careful not to under emphasize the program's
uses either.

I have always agreed with you Dudley for what it's worth. When used
as a TOOL, it's an outstanding training aid as I have said time after
time for learning instrumentation values, IFR procedures and system
failures.

But it MUST be used in concurrence with a qualified instructor, not
like what Mx proposes it does. It doesn't simulate the actual feed
back of an airplane needed to be learned to safely fly a plane. It
doesn't replace the full motion simulator or a real plane. There
won't be a day that I can see one can take lessons on MSFS, walk out
to their favorite flight school and safely fly a real plane.

Realism, yes, MSFS looks real, key thing is looks.

Feels real, I can't say it will ever do that as long as you work on a
flat screen monitor using a function key or mouse to look around the
sides for peripheral vision. Mx is sadly mistaken to think that MSFS
is just like being in a cockpit of a real C172, citation and so on.

On Jun 26, 3:17*pm, " wrote:
On Jun 26, 1:01*pm, Dudley Henriques wrote:

So my word would be not to over emphasize the value of MSFS as a
training tool, but to be careful not to under emphasize the program's
uses either.

I have always agreed with you Dudley for what it's worth. *When used
as a TOOL, it's an outstanding training aid as I have said time after
time for learning instrumentation values, *IFR procedures and system
failures.

But it MUST be used in concurrence with a qualified instructor, not
like what Mx proposes it does. *It doesn't simulate the actual feed
back of an airplane needed to be learned to safely fly a plane. *It
doesn't replace the full motion simulator or a real plane. *There
won't be a day that I can see one can take lessons on MSFS, walk out
to their favorite flight school and safely fly a real plane.

Realism, yes, MSFS looks real, key thing is looks.

Feels real, I can't say it will ever do that as long as you work on a
flat screen monitor using a function key or mouse to look around the
sides for peripheral vision. *Mx is sadly mistaken to think that MSFS
is just like being in a cockpit of a real C172, citation and so on.

I hesitate to say it as I REALLY don't want to get in the ring with
the Mx thing but I will say that if his comment is that MSFS in ANY
capacity can take the place of the actual aircraft for training
purposes, I would have to professionally disagree with him on that
basis alone.
DH

On Jun 27, 9:05*am, Dudley Henriques wrote:

I hesitate to say it as I REALLY don't want to get in the ring with
the Mx thing but I will say that if his comment is that MSFS in ANY
capacity can take the place of the actual aircraft for training
purposes, I would have to professionally disagree with him on that
basis alone.
DH

Sadly with him its an all or nothing world.
I came from an age where people learnt to fly on instruments in a Link
trainer

wrote:

On Jun 26, 1:01 pm, Dudley Henriques wrote:

So my word would be not to over emphasize the value of MSFS as a
training tool, but to be careful not to under emphasize the program's
uses either.

I have always agreed with you Dudley for what it's worth. When used
as a TOOL, it's an outstanding training aid as I have said time after
time for learning instrumentation values, IFR procedures and system
failures.

But it MUST be used in concurrence with a qualified instructor, not
like what Mx proposes it does. It doesn't simulate the actual feed
back of an airplane needed to be learned to safely fly a plane. It
doesn't replace the full motion simulator or a real plane. There
won't be a day that I can see one can take lessons on MSFS, walk out
to their favorite flight school and safely fly a real plane.

You can fly a real plane, you just don't have to get into one...

On Sat, 26 Jun 2010 11:01:22 -0700, Dudley Henriques wrote:

Lord, you'll NEVER know how I absolutely HATE to chime in on this thread
again. 235 postings back and forth, everybody shouting at everybody else
with the same old tired song. Man, I mean you guys might actually be
going for a Usenet record here :-))))))))))))))))

If so, we have a loooong way to go.

Here's one of the middling-length *ahem* "discussions" I've seen on
Usenet:

http://groups.google.com/group/comp....browse_thread/
thread/ce27f65ea7256d97

"Messages 1 - 25 of 5277" should be your first hint of how far we still
have to go here. :-)

If you browse that thread, you'll see it all: flames of all kinds, from
horrible sex-related accusations to the usual assortment of epithets
("idiot", "retard", "nutcase", etc.) and swear words; star ratings on
Google Groups that show clear signs of heavy voting by multiple
participants on each side (e.g. 3-star ratings with 9 or 10 voters --
nobody actually votes three stars and hardly anyone votes anything but
one or five); the same points being reiterated hundreds of times.

It's a vi/emacs editor war of course, via topic drift about thirty posts
in. Abortion and gun control can't hold a candle to which editor is best
when measured by how much passionate debate they can generate in a single
usenet thread. The twist, if you'll pardon the pun, is that there's a
third side in this editor war advocating Windows GUI editors over both
traditional Unix editors, for some reason unfathomable to the computer
geek mind.

Me? I use vi. And I mostly stay out of editor war threads, though
sometimes I lurk in them. This one bored me by about the 300th post, but
eventually I got mildly interested again when I kept seeing it bumped to
the top of my newsreader even after much of a whole year had passed.

It actually has MORE than the listed 5277 posts: by mutual agreement the
participants stopped cluttering up cljp with this crap and moved the
discussion over to alt.offtopic. Google's archive for that group is
*dominated* by the results, another several thousand posts spread among a
couple of dozen threads mostly titled "Lies, damn lies and statistics".
Subsequently, it seems to have petered out gradually, terminating this
January.

Yes, that makes it a single editor war that lasted almost two and a half
full years and consists of around 8000 individual posts, some of them
quite long.

(For those that are curious, the last words were "I wouldn't know. I've
never tried it. Why the wild tangent? Picking up some more bad habits
from Bent?" posted by someone calling himself "Handkea fumosa", which
Google tells me is some kind of puffball fungus that grows in California.
It was a comeback in response to "How does it feel sticking your head
into the sand?" posted by a vi advocate that was there from the very
start in August 2007. But the insult exchange that ended the debate
apparently arose from discussion not of vi but of emacs.)

So to beat that, we'd have to debate the relative merits of Microsoft
Flight Simulator vs. *real* aeronautical training until Mayan doomsday
(literally) and destroy several whole newsgroups.

And I've seen *worse*, elsewhere on Usenet. More than once. The most
recent actually-worse one was in alt.conspiracy and involved 9/11
"truthers" vs. their debunkers. It exceeded 10,000 posts. Rumors exist of
flamewars exceeding 20,000 posts, however.