A real life pilot's first sim experience

george writes:

Thats the secret Jay.
To have the sim set up by a real pilot who is type rated for the
particular aircraft.

No, that isn't necessary. Just crank up the realism and get some realistic
controls, a good monitor, and a fast machine.

MSFS was largely written by real pilots. Or do pilots who write software not
count?

I found MFS (1990) to be nothing like flying a real aircraft..

That was two decades ago.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Jay, I'm sure you're right when you say with enough additional
components one can get the MSFS to be more realistic. I was interested
in the out of the box experience, I tried the thing again with realism
set high, and yes, it torqued to the side, and was a lot 'touchier'
than the out of the box unit. My limited experience with Mooneys (I
have only logged time in a Ranger simulate that Joe bar landing gear
retraction, boys and girls and an M20J) tells me its soul is a
beautiful, intellegent, and responsive woman. I wouldn't want mine to
know I was messing around with another Mooney. "It's only simulation,
dear, with a younger and faster model" would make my next flight
difficult :-).


I am only a sample of 1, but was led to understand controlling a sim
airplane from a primititive keyboard was difficult. It was not. I
'flew' with not nearly the level of precision that would be acceptable
in RL, but never the less up and down arrowed well enough to not bend
electrons.

I am also more aware that an important part of the flight experience
is wrapping the airplane around me. The seating is low, legs are in
tunnel, view to the side in flight is great, and the control 'feel' is
exquisite . RL flying for me is steak, I was hoping for hamburger, and
got candy cotton.

I don't want to build a pseudo Mooney in my office. I'm sure doing all
of that would get the experience well out of the candy cotton level
and even past hamburger helper, but it's not that important to me.

I appreciate the offer of sim time with your rig, and if I find myself
in your corner of the world (or as a way point) I'll take advantage of
it. My bio technology real life world is not randomly distributed, but
rather is in clusters. So far the upper midwest is one of the leaner
areas (exclusive of the area around Rochester MN). BTW, there are a
couple of good B school theses hidden in that question: how come
Rochester MN, or Cleveland OH?

I'm going off frequency now.


On Mar 1, 12:29 pm, "Jay Honeck" wrote:
This is what I think of PC simulators also.

Tony and Danny, you guys got it wrong. Way wrong.

You can't fly a flight sim program with a KEYBOARD. Try to drive your
car by pushing arrows on a keyboard, and let's see how far you get.
You'll be wrapped around a tree in a few blocks.

You can't expect realism from a sim without real flight controls.
With a real yoke/throttle/prop/mixture, and rudder pedals (with
brakes), trust me, you'll find it real enough.

And, as others have pointed out, you also have to set the realism
levels up. Out of the box, MSFS is designed for 12-year-olds who have
no clue what they're doing. Slide the realism controls all the way to
the right, and I guarantee that you will NOT track straight down the
runway on take-off!

See our set-up hehttp://alexisparkinn.com/flight_simulator.htm

I'll let you fly it all day. I'll set you up in your Mooney, in any
weather, day or night, at any airport. You'll go away with a
different attitude toward Microsoft Flight Simulator, guaranteed.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

On Mar 2, 9:22 am, Mxsmanic wrote:
george writes:
Thats the secret Jay.
To have the sim set up by a real pilot who is type rated for the
particular aircraft.

No, that isn't necessary. Just crank up the realism and get some realistic
controls, a good monitor, and a fast machine.

MSFS was largely written by real pilots. Or do pilots who write software not
count?

I found MFS (1990) to be nothing like flying a real aircraft..

That was two decades ago.

and crap is crap is crap !

On Mar 1, 12:29 pm, "Jay Honeck" wrote:

See our set-up hehttp://alexisparkinn.com/flight_simulator.htm

I'll let you fly it all day. I'll set you up in your Mooney, in any
weather, day or night, at any airport. You'll go away with a
different attitude toward Microsoft Flight Simulator, guaranteed.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Mr. Honeck, that's a very impressive set up you have, I hope I get to
your hotel for a test flight someday, looks like great fun. I assume
N56993 is a Cherokee Pathfinder, roughly similar to my Cherokee 180.
I see what appear to be CH rudder pedals in the photos. How do they
compare to your Pathfinder. I've tried the pedals and found them to
be much more sensitive than my Cherokee's pedals. I think it may be
partly due to their very light feedback pressure. Is there some way
to increase the rudder pressure feedback?

I found MFS (1990) to be nothing like flying a real aircraft..

That was two decades ago.

and crap is crap is crap !

George, c'mon. In 1990, I was running Flight Simulator on a computer
(a 386, if I recall) with less power than a Palm Pilot has today.

Take a look at FS2004, on a good system. You will be absolutely blown
away.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

I see what appear to be CH rudder pedals in the photos. How do they
compare to your Pathfinder. I've tried the pedals and found them to
be much more sensitive than my Cherokee's pedals. I think it may be
partly due to their very light feedback pressure. Is there some way
to increase the rudder pressure feedback?

Well, we're going WAY off-topic here, but yes, the rudder pedals have
been an "issue" with our Kiwi from the start.

The basic trouble is this: The CH pedals are differential, meaning
that they are linked together, When you push the left one down, the
right one comes back, and vice versa.

Thus, the only way to keep pressure feedback on the pedals is to
"train" yourself to keep pressue on BOTH pedals, so that when you push
one, the pressure of your other foot is keeping you from slamming it
all the way to the floor.

After practice, this works fine -- but newbies invariably oscillate
down the taxiways and runways, pushing the pedals to the stops. Also,
it's then very easy to apply the brakes, so you have to train yourself
to only use your heels on the rudders.

Since this is a prototype for sims we want to install at the Iowa
Children's Museum, we're talking about eliminating the rudders
altogether, and just leaving "auto rudder" on in the program, in order
to keep the kids from running off the runway all the time.

I'm looking for a better solution, because I want absolute realism.
Unfortunately, in the absence of "force-feedback" rudder pedals, I
don't know what else to try.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

In article .com,
"Jay Honeck" wrote:

I'm looking for a better solution, because I want absolute realism.

Get in Atlas. :-/

you can't have absolute realism in a simulation.

--
Bob Noel
Looking for a sig the
lawyers will hate

On Mar 2, 4:30 pm, "Jay Honeck" wrote:
I found MFS (1990) to be nothing like flying a real aircraft..

That was two decades ago.

and crap is crap is crap !

George, c'mon. In 1990, I was running Flight Simulator on a computer
(a 386, if I recall) with less power than a Palm Pilot has today.

Take a look at FS2004, on a good system. You will be absolutely blown
away.

It might be Jay but I was playing with a Bantam B22 (Microlight) back
then and the MSFS lost out.
I'm not knocking the 3 axis with all the bells and whistles just
flying the electrons doesn't do anything for me.

On Mar 2, 4:30 pm, "Jay Honeck" wrote:
I found MFS (1990) to be nothing like flying a real aircraft..

That was two decades ago.

and crap is crap is crap !

George, c'mon. In 1990, I was running Flight Simulator on a computer
(a 386, if I recall) with less power than a Palm Pilot has today.

Besides which your sim is named after our little fat nonfler :-)

I'm looking for a better solution, because I want absolute realism.
Unfortunately, in the absence of "force-feedback" rudder pedals, I
don't know what else to try.

Rig up some real rudder pedals (the right distance apart), with springs.
Connect them via bungee cords or other springs to the CH pedals. If
you do it right, you'll be able to press either (real) rudder pedal
independently, but have that motion transferred to the CH in the
differential way it needs. The force fed back to your legs would come
from the (big) springs, and the force from the (wimpy) CH pedals would
be transferred to the (real) pedals via the (only needs to be wimpy)
bungee cords.

Jose
--
Humans are pack animals. Above all things, they have a deep need to
follow something, be it a leader, a creed, or a mob. Whosoever fully
understands this holds the world in his hands.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.