The fact is, having flown with FS will help anyone learn to fly, for if that was not so, then the airlines would not use simulators to train and check pilots out, and you certainly wouldn't be able to log time in some of the sims you can get for a PC if they were no use, most of which are nowhere near as good as FS as it happens.More to the point, old school or not, your instructor would do well to remember that the RAF was in fact one of the first air forces to make use of the US-developed Link Trainer, which although completely analogue, was effectively a very basic motion platform flight simulator which showed people how the six pack worked on the panel. So if it was good enough for the guys who flew Spitfires and Hurricanes in the Battle of Britain to learn their craft on, not to mention most of the bomber pilots too, then what does that tell you about flight simulators eh? I bet you they'd have killed for something like FS to train pilots on back in 1939.The one bad thing a PC flight sim will do though, is manifest the bad habit of not looking out of the windows enough when on a real aircraft, although ironically, it will make you a better than average instrument pilot, but since that's not what ab-initio is about, you want to watch out for that and keep looking around for other traffic in the pattern. Try and drill it into yourself to look in the direction of a turn before you move the stick and rudder - Track-IR is good for helping to reinforce that.Stick two people on a flight training course, one who is a flight simmer and one who is not, and I'd put money on the simmer going solo first every time.Al

I'm a long term simmer and I'm currently working on my CFII ticket. FS is certainly a great tool for flight training. In many aspects the amount and quality of FS experience that can be transferred into real flight training is amazing, and increasingly so as you climb up the license ladder. However like flying real airplanes, what matters most is the human factor. How you use FS decides how it will help or interfere with your training. In short, use FS as though it were real flying. What I had a hard time remembering to do in a real airplane are the things I never bother to do in FS. How many times have you seen a great looking FS screen shot but noticed that the radios and xponder are all off? How many times did you take off from a towered airport without talking to tower? How many times did you proceed to make a wild landing after a poorly executed approach that you would have aborted for certain in real life? And how about that constant staring at your panel without scanning for VFR traffic? That can literally kill you. I came very close once in my early flying days. Keep "playing" FS so half-halfheartedly (as 99% simmers do) and it'll bite you one day in the not so virtual skies. Yes you will gain good skills using FS, as was acknowledged by my first instructor and second and third, but you'll also need good luck correcting all your bad habits before they catch you on a bad day. For that reason I'd be more cautious with a student who comes with both than one with neither.

Jason, yeah...I totally agree with your post.There’s the fun sim and there’s the homework sim.It takes rigor and lots of effort to use the sim as a learning tool.I’d even say without concurrent dual-time, self-directed sim training isn’t very beneficial.But once your logging real hours…you can retrace each and every step in the sim...and it will help imprint best practices.But you can’t skip steps...don't skip the instrument check…don’t skip the run-up…and on and on and on:)Also I think, leave the stick and rudder stuff to the cockpit.And I wouldn't even mention you use FS...unless your instructor asks :)Danny

Flight Simulator both FSX and FS9 gives one an advantage on many levels in the real world when it's used with great add-ons, TrackIR, Activesky, and a good set of Rudder/Peddles. The basic stick rudder skills are second nature when you practice them at home with the sim. Once you learn the proper way to land for example in the real world you can practice over and over in the sim at home and be that much better when you try again in the real bird.

Thanks to FS I've been able to understand a bit about navigation, how ADF. VOR/DME works etc...

Come to think of it.............those three items ARE bad habits! :( A few flight instructors will disagree (and a lot more won't), and there is still some requirements for testing; but GPS for real life, is a lot more pertinent information, although GPS might not be as fun for flight simulation.L.Adamson

I'd like to meet ONE CFI who thinks learning and using radio-navigation is a bad habit **eyes rolling**Again.. your instinct response is that being a proficient radio-navigator means not using or appreciating GPS.. :( It's never been an either/or argument.. both skill-sets work together.. and being proficient in both makes you a more complete pilot.

I'm a long term simmer and I'm currently working on my CFII ticket. FS is certainly a great tool for flight training. In many aspects the amount and quality of FS experience that can be transferred into real flight training is amazing, and increasingly so as you climb up the license ladder. However like flying real airplanes, what matters most is the human factor. How you use FS decides how it will help or interfere with your training. In short, use FS as though it were real flying. What I had a hard time remembering to do in a real airplane are the things I never bother to do in FS. How many times have you seen a great looking FS screen shot but noticed that the radios and xponder are all off? How many times did you take off from a towered airport without talking to tower? How many times did you proceed to make a wild landing after a poorly executed approach that you would have aborted for certain in real life? And how about that constant staring at your panel without scanning for VFR traffic? That can literally kill you. I came very close once in my early flying days. Keep "playing" FS so half-halfheartedly (as 99% simmers do) and it'll bite you one day in the not so virtual skies. Yes you will gain good skills using FS, as was acknowledged by my first instructor and second and third, but you'll also need good luck correcting all your bad habits before they catch you on a bad day. For that reason I'd be more cautious with a student who comes with both than one with neither.

I would agree with Jason. FSX/9 is written for a large audience, including the majority who never want to use it in the manner that the OP mentioned. I did my ppl in 2000, frequently using whatever MS sim was curent at that time, and once I got into serious flight, I found that the sim was so different that I ignored it. Then, soon after graduating with my ppl, I starred my Instrument rating and found a great friend in the sim where I could prati holds, approaches,, etc., and then when I had the RXP GNS stuff just when the club fleet was being fitted with them, I couldn't stay away from the sim.Thanks, Bruce.

I'd like to meet ONE CFI who thinks learning and using radio-navigation is a bad habit **eyes rolling**Again.. your instinct response is that being a proficient radio-navigator means not using or appreciating GPS.. :( It's never been an either/or argument.. both skill-sets work together.. and being proficient in both makes you a more complete pilot.

I knew you'd like that one.... :( However, I've been taking real life polls on this subject, for quite a while now, since this is a favorite topic of our discussions. This would apply in the USA, where GPS & WAAS is common. In essence, very few pilots still use VOR navigation for VFR. My commercial pilot friends & acquaintances, use them little for commercial IFR, as the FMS is doing it's job, with the GPS being the number one form of nav (in the more modern airliners). In other words, they don't dial in VORs. And.......there will be some VOR work with GA IFR, but it's mostly GPS flight planning...direct as possible. And farther more, it was more than a few CFI's who stated they won't miss VORs when they're dismantled.L.Adamsonedit: and PS, you need to read some recent pilot reports of synthetic vision, and IFR............when something has gone wrong in IMC conditions. Of course for those who do not know, synthetic vision is like our fligh sims with elevation mesh & runways. It's aligned with the aircrafts position.. with GPS. In these reports, synthetic vision allowed the successful outcome, in IMC conditions where the pilot couldn't see the actual mountains or runway. This is only possible with the accuracy of GPS combined with WAAS. It's something that VORs could never do.

Here's one for you. See if your instructor will let you perform an engine-off emergency abridged circuit from 700 feet diagonally into a small farmer's field on an uphill slope into the wind, followed by a belly landing, deliberately aiming to go into some bushes at the other side of the field to slow you down and prevent you from hitting a dry stone wall. And when he tells you he won't let you, then ask him if he still thinks you can't learn anything from practicing with a flight simulator in preparation for flying an aircraft with ONE engine.Al

I knew you'd like that one.... :( However, I've been taking real life polls on this subject, for quite a while now, since this is a favorite topic of our discussions. This would apply in the USA, where GPS & WAAS is common. In essence, very few pilots still use VOR navigation for VFR. My commercial pilot friends & acquaintances, use them little for commercial IFR, as the FMS is doing it's job, with the GPS being the number one form of nav (in the more modern airliners). In other words, they don't dial in VORs. And.......there will be some VOR work with GA IFR, but it's mostly GPS flight planning...direct as possible. And farther more, it was more than a few CFI's who stated they won't miss VORs when they're dismantled.L.Adamsonedit: and PS, you need to read some recent pilot reports of synthetic vision, and IFR............when something has gone wrong in IMC conditions. Of course for those who do not know, synthetic vision is like our fligh sims with elevation mesh & runways. It's aligned with the aircrafts position.. with GPS. In these reports, synthetic vision allowed the successful outcome, in IMC conditions where the pilot couldn't see the actual mountains or runway. This is only possible with the accuracy of GPS combined with WAAS. It's something that VORs could never do.

I don't disagree with a single thing in this post.. I never have disagreed with any of that.. ever, in all of our debates. If I hop into an airplane this morning; I'll be flying almost exclusively by GPS. And if it's an IMC flight, I'll be using both GPS and radio-navigation.The only time we're at odds, is when you suggest that it's OK to let your radio-nav skills wane.. or like in this thread, when you suggest that learning and practicing radio-nav skills is a BAD HABIT. It's like you have a personal disdain or frustration for radio-navigation, and go out of your way to discourage others from embracing it..

Whereas In the US it seems that the FS sim is used to accumulate hours and "experience" towards a qualification, The UK CAA positively frown on its use for that purpose. To them it is just a game and nothing else. For the CAA what counts is actual real experience. A fully qualified pilot doing a conversion to type on a full blown cockpit sim is different. He/she uses that kind of sim to practise emergencies and specific cockpit drills. Not how to fly!So the reaction of the RAF would be quite normal in fact. My advice would be not to mention that you play with the sim. In many ways it is very unrealistic compared to real flying. As you will see as you accumulate your flying lessons. The sim does not teach proper hand/eye coordination. Nor does it give the required depth of vision. Nor does it teach you to think in the correct manner. And most importantly you do not feel the aircraft. Which means that in the sim you react only to changes in visual cues. In real flying as a pilot you should have already made the necessary correction before the a/c has arrived at that point.Ask your instructor to take you up on a bumpy day and see how he is able to fly straight and level despite what the weather is trying to do to him. That is impossible to recreate on the sim but that ability is a fundamental requisite to being a good pilot.vololiberista

Whereas In the US it seems that the FS sim is used to accumulate hours and "experience" towards a qualification, The UK CAA positively frown on its use for that purpose. To them it is just a game and nothing else. For the CAA what counts is actual real experience. A fully qualified pilot doing a conversion to type on a full blown cockpit sim is different. He/she uses that kind of sim to practise emergencies and specific cockpit drills. Not how to fly!

In the U.S. you cannot accumulate "how to fly" experience, or type certification, or anything like that. All you can do, is accumulate 10 hours of instrument training, and only on approved hardware, and only with a CFII administiring it.It's quite useful, and very effective, as you go through all those drills about primary/secondary instruments referenced during different types of IMC flight.. Pilots get a better handle about cross-referencing gauges, confirming one gauge against the other.. using gauges to setup and maintaing things like constant rate-of-descent turns; partial panel stuff.. etc... before the pressure of being in a real cloud..The absence of visual cues (the monitor is almost always zero-visibility), and other sensations is actuallt MORE difficult, than doing it for real.. and in fact HELPS you shut those senses off and rely soley on instruments.It's a tried and true methodology; definately strengthens your scan instincts, and of course there's no limit to how much you can practice it (even at home), there's just a limit (10 hours) on how much of it you can log toward the rating.For myself.. just the little things, like mastering compass-turns, and the ABC's of VOR use, and executing hold entries.. flying holds, etc.. made it worth the cost/time.

I was just in a Redbird last night doing VOR approaches with partial panel. I swear it's actually harder to fly than a real plane.

I was just in a Redbird last night doing VOR approaches with partial panel. I swear it's actually harder to fly than a real plane.

Most sims (Redbird, Frasca, AST) are indeed harder to fly due to lack of sensory inputs (flying by the seat of your pants) and general quicker updating instrumentation. I have found even lvl C&D's can be trickier than the real airframe. John

The biggest difference for me on the first real flight was indeed the need for visual awareness such as looking left and right when taxiing onto the runway.Also keeping my eyes off the instrument panel and just generally looking outside... its felt very new where as the instrument panel felt very familiar...... probably because it takes up soo much of my screen on FSX.I guess I'll keep quiet about Flight Simulators but I think its a shame not to talk more about it to the staff. My intention was that after each lesson I could ask the instructor what exactly I need to work on, and then I could go away and practice on the sim until the next lesson.I bought a copy of FSX Real World Training just for this purpose...It's a great book!Maybe I'm weird but I quite like using VORs, ADFs on GA ... I find it gives me more to do - GPS takes away the fun - Anyway, even if you choose to fly using GPS, isn't it a mandatory requirement to also have a navigational chart onboard?

My intention was that after each lesson I could ask the instructor what exactly I need to work on, and then I could go away and practice on the sim until the next lesson.

I hope you don't need to ask for that information. A good debriefing is an essential part of any good flying lesson. What exactly you need to work on is exactly what the instructor should tell you during the debriefing. Then go home and practice on the sim? Certainly a good idea. This I think is the simplest form of guided use of FS as a training tool. Know what your practice tasks are and do them to real world standards.