Sims

Lots of posters here have fun bashing MX, but I have to say that one of the
more enjoyable experiences I've had lately was sitting in the family room,
in front of the PC. I am working on my instrument ticket. Ove the years I
have collected the CH yoke and footpedals. I have downloaded a flight model
and graphics for my Sundowner. I was looking out the window at the snow
falling, and I set the sim to real world weather. Damn if the screen didn't
look exactly like the weather outside, and I was once again looking at my
panel. The ATC simulation wasn't bad either, and off I went down the
"runway." I got vectored around pretty much the same as when I fly under
the hood. I thought that was absolutely fantastic, and all for about a
nickel's worth of electricity. No instructor or safety pilot needed.

"LWG" wrote in message
. ..
Lots of posters here have fun bashing MX, but I have to say that one of
the more enjoyable experiences I've had lately was sitting in the family
room, in front of the PC. I am working on my instrument ticket. Ove the
years I have collected the CH yoke and footpedals. I have downloaded a
flight model and graphics for my Sundowner. I was looking out the window
at the snow falling, and I set the sim to real world weather. Damn if the
screen didn't look exactly like the weather outside, and I was once again
looking at my panel. The ATC simulation wasn't bad either, and off I went
down the "runway." I got vectored around pretty much the same as when I
fly under the hood. I thought that was absolutely fantastic, and all for
about a nickel's worth of electricity. No instructor or safety pilot
needed.

Yep, but it wasn't flying, which is the whole point, right?

LWG wrote:
Lots of posters here have fun bashing MX, but I have to say that one of the
more enjoyable experiences I've had lately was sitting in the family room,
in front of the PC. I am working on my instrument ticket. Ove the years I
have collected the CH yoke and footpedals. I have downloaded a flight model
and graphics for my Sundowner. I was looking out the window at the snow
falling, and I set the sim to real world weather. Damn if the screen didn't
look exactly like the weather outside, and I was once again looking at my
panel. The ATC simulation wasn't bad either, and off I went down the
"runway." I got vectored around pretty much the same as when I fly under
the hood. I thought that was absolutely fantastic, and all for about a
nickel's worth of electricity. No instructor or safety pilot needed.


Just do me a favor will you please? Don't go out and try to fly IFR with
all that "no instructor or safety pilot needed" simulator time in your
log book without getting some of that "instructor and safety pilot
needed" stuff as well.
Don't EVER be misled into believing that what you can do and what you
see on MSFS will replace the actual experience needed to safely fly the
airplane.
It's nice to enjoy MSFS, and God only knows I have even reviewed it for
its role in real world aviation and found it has many a useful purpose,
but MSFS will NEVER replace actual flight instruction and produce a safe
pilot, especially a safe instrument pilot.


--
Dudley Henriques
CFI/MVP2007 MSFS

On Thu, 13 Dec 2007 19:17:38 -0500, LWG wrote:

Lots of posters here have fun bashing MX

It important to not hate PC flight simulators just because of MX.

We can argue over their value as training tools, but I bet most would agree
that as entertainment, they can be a hell of a lot of fun.


--
Dallas

LWG writes:

Lots of posters here have fun bashing MX, but I have to say that one of the
more enjoyable experiences I've had lately was sitting in the family room,
in front of the PC. I am working on my instrument ticket. Ove the years I
have collected the CH yoke and footpedals. I have downloaded a flight model
and graphics for my Sundowner. I was looking out the window at the snow
falling, and I set the sim to real world weather. Damn if the screen didn't
look exactly like the weather outside, and I was once again looking at my
panel. The ATC simulation wasn't bad either, and off I went down the
"runway." I got vectored around pretty much the same as when I fly under
the hood. I thought that was absolutely fantastic, and all for about a
nickel's worth of electricity. No instructor or safety pilot needed.

That's only the tip of the iceberg. If you'd like to enjoy simming even more,
consider:

1. Getting an add-on payware aircraft that matches whatever you enjoy flying
in real life (or whatever you'd like to fly in real life). Companies like
Dreamfleet, PMDG, and Level-D offer hyperrealistic simulations of a great many
large and small aircraft that are so accurate that it's almost like flying a
brand-new (and superior) simulator.

2. Use ActiveSky for weather. The simulations are so accurate that it's hard
to distinguish them from real life.

3. Join VATSIM, and you can fly on a network with other human pilots and human
air traffic controllers, with real ATC instead of the computer-generated kind
(which isn't bad, but is very inflexible and predictable).

Desktop simulation is especially nice for IFR, for obvious reasons, and it can
give you useful practice in IFR and in navigation techniques. Using add-ons
and VATSIM allows you to fly commercial routes with terminal procedures (SIDs
and STARs and IAPs) and live ATC support, which the default sim does not.

Kyle Boatright writes:

Yep, but it wasn't flying, which is the whole point, right?

For some people, the differences between flying a real airplane and flying a
simulated airplane simply are not that important, which is why they enjoy
simming. Even for people who prefer flying a real airplane, simulation is
close enough to the real thing and so incredibly inexpensive that it doesn't
make sense to refuse to try it.

In just online sim flying alone I have around 900 hours of time in the air,
for less cost than a single hour in a tiny tin can airplane would cost in real
life (and disregarding the huge cost of just getting a license for a
real-world aircraft).

Dudley Henriques writes:

Just do me a favor will you please? Don't go out and try to fly IFR with
all that "no instructor or safety pilot needed" simulator time in your
log book without getting some of that "instructor and safety pilot
needed" stuff as well.

I didn't see any mention of doing anything like that. Do you think he is
stupid?

Don't EVER be misled into believing that what you can do and what you
see on MSFS will replace the actual experience needed to safely fly the
airplane.

See above. Do you assume that people who fly simulators are stupid?

It's nice to enjoy MSFS, and God only knows I have even reviewed it for
its role in real world aviation and found it has many a useful purpose,
but MSFS will NEVER replace actual flight instruction and produce a safe
pilot, especially a safe instrument pilot.

Never is a long time, although I'll agree for MSFS in its current state and
particularly in its default state.

But you must keep in mind that you can sim as a substitate for flying a real
plane, or you can sim as a replacement for flying a real plane, depending on
what part of flying you enjoy.

"LWG" wrote in message
. ..
Lots of posters here have fun bashing MX, but I have to say that one of
the more enjoyable experiences I've had lately was sitting in the family
room, in front of the PC. I am working on my instrument ticket. Ove the
years I have collected the CH yoke and footpedals. I have downloaded a
flight model and graphics for my Sundowner. I was looking out the window
at the snow falling, and I set the sim to real world weather. Damn if the
screen didn't look exactly like the weather outside, and I was once again
looking at my panel. The ATC simulation wasn't bad either, and off I went
down the "runway." I got vectored around pretty much the same as when I
fly under the hood. I thought that was absolutely fantastic, and all for
about a nickel's worth of electricity. No instructor or safety pilot
needed.

How dare you! Enjoyment! And at this time of year!

Peter
a/k/a Ebby (Scrooge)

..
"Dallas" wrote in message
...
...
We can argue over their value as training tools, but I bet most would
agree
that as entertainment, they can be a hell of a lot of fun.


I play with Condor Soaring http://www.condorsoaring.com/

--
Geoff
The Sea Hawk at Wow Way d0t Com
remove spaces and make the obvious substitutions to reply by mail
When immigration is outlawed, only outlaws will immigrate

Mxsmanic wrote in
news
Dudley Henriques writes:

Just do me a favor will you please? Don't go out and try to fly IFR
with all that "no instructor or safety pilot needed" simulator time
in your log book without getting some of that "instructor and safety
pilot needed" stuff as well.

I didn't see any mention of doing anything like that. Do you think he
is stupid?


You don't fly. You have no idea what you;re talking about. You have no
business posting on this subject.


Bertie