Back in 2000 when I was doing my PPL training, I used FS2000 and a wonderful long forgotten freeware Cessna 172 to practice my startup and emergency checklists. Used it on my airfield in the sim and was able to practice setting instruments and radios and doing the runup checklists. Later I used the Cessna in FS2004 to practice instrument approaches at my local airports (6 T's). Now I use the Carenado 172 to practice things like Radio Nav especially when I am deployed and cannot fly because practicing (even on something that is not accurate like flightsim) keeps flying fresh in your mind.

 

Flightsim (all of them in general) are excellent procedural trainers but I can't reliably pactice stalls in them. I can practice the stall checklist but they won't stall right (feel right). I am pretty sure I could startup and operate a 767 but I am pretty sure I would taxi it off the taxiway or crash it if I managed to get it off the ground because that takes practice and feel. :rolleyes:

Do this; lower the ceiling to 00 with fog at your location and at your destination and give it a try. Don't use nav aids. Now you are in how the real world can be sometimes.The training to be a pilot teaches you how to keep from getting in over your head and what to do if it somehow happens.

 

To answer your question; Maybe you would be lucky and not get killed or kill someone else.

Flightsim (all of them in general) are excellent procedural trainers but I can't reliably pactice stalls in them. I can practice the stall checklist but they won't stall right (feel right).

 

In what way do they not stall right? Is it only because of the feeling in RW that can't be simulated in FS?

In what way do they not stall right? Is it only because of the feeling in RW that can't be simulated in FS?

 

Correct--in the RW, in a small aircraft such as a Cessna, when you approach the stall the controls feel "mushy"--something that cannot be simulated. Also as you pass through the stall the sudden shift in direction is also missed. Finally, I can stall the FSX cessna all day long with full right rudder and it will not go into a spin.

 

Finally, I am pretty sure FSX won't "shake the stick" when stalling a jet-these are all sensation based hints that you are approaching a stall. However--I can practice the stalling procedure and recovery procedures.

Wanted to participate in this discussion too. I have been an "avid simmer" since around end of 1980s. This was due to my dad getting his PPL back around that time.

 

So, it's been 20+ years of simming, flying everything possible and doing it with some "skill" I think. Always wanted to do everything "like they do in real life", be it a Cessna or a Boeing 757.

 

This July I started my real-life flight training, after having sat through theory classes and tests during the winter. Obviously I had some experience in flying (ie. manipulating controls myself) small GA planes, mostly PA28 and C172 when I was a kid. And then flying as a pax on small GA a lot. My flight training is on the last bits and am hoping to be certified soon. My findings as to "simulator vs reality" are the following. Everything I say is based on FSX and comparing C172 (RA model) to its real-life counterpart.

 

Flight Instruments:

 

Basic flight instruments can be simulated in FSX about 100% as they work in real life. There might be some small limitations when it comes to reception ranges for nav aids and the kinds of things that do affect radio transmission in real-life. But the instrument functionalities, smoothness etc can all be done in FS.

 

Taxiing:

 

With proper pedals (CH does not count) and proper settings in control settings / FSUIPC, one can replicate C172 taxiing properties to an extent. Real thing is very different to taxi depending on gross weight, CG position, wind and the condition of the bungee system and brakes, even tire pressure affects. In the sim you don't feel any difference in taxiing when something changes. Only thing that I can see is the gross wt affecting power required to break into movement and to stay moving. Wind and CG don't seemingly affect anything, while these have a huge effect in real life taxiing. Also, in my opinion the FS brakes are always way too sensitive and "digital" even when you fine-tune them really well. The "slack" and lag of the real C172 taxiing (dependant on many things) can make real taxiing a real chore, and with good wind you have to "drive it". Sim is always the same, and lacks the control issues that are easily seen in real-life.

 

Flight controls:

 

Obviously the most important thing when it comes to sim is what HW you use. I use PFC Beech yoke with HE sensors. Saitek Cessna pedals with max stiffness adjusted, Saitek Cessna trim wheel and Saitek TQ. I'd say that to simulate realism the best, you need: a yoke that does not "stick" in either axis and is stiff enough to simulate "average" control forces. PFC is very good. You need pedals that are stiff enough, and that simulate the section of pedals that you control with your foot tips, and the surface that you control with your entire feet, ie toebrakes. In the takeoff roll you always remove your feet from the toebrakes, and return feet to the fully covering position on roll-out so you can brake. CH is again not very good. Saitek and Cirrus pedals are good. To really simulate the other chores in real flying you need own panels for basic engine / light controls and radios. Saitek sells nice and cheap panels to make this happen. For throttle your mileage may vary, and it's not important if you use a Cessna or Piper style thrust lever. (our Diesel C172s use a "Piper style" lever)

 

In the real thing the control "throws" / range is also typically 90 degrees either side on ailerons (older Cessnas have slightly over 90 deg, newer slightly less). Typical sim yoke is the CH offering with 45 deg. It's not enough. In the real thing you do need maximum deflection sometimes.

 

Simulation does not change the control pressure / feel with airspeed, as happens in real-life. This is problematic in my opinion, since the feel does change a great deal because of this. You need a different way to handle the elevator in 55KT than when doing 105KT.

 

To summarize: with decent HW you can come close, but the airspeed dependant feel is not there, and some peculiarities (like slack in rudder, and even in aileron control) are also missing. With the cheapest stuff you don't even come close, and I would advise saving up for the PFC stuff and forgetting about those plastic CH yokes. Then there is the trim difference where in real-life the trim moves the elevator to a different setting, and in the sim you have to manually ease up or tighten your grip on the elevator axis. I don't find this a big issue when judging the sim anyhow. It's a small difference.

 

Basic flight maneuvers:

 

Lack of effects of wind as they happen in real-life. As the airplane flies within the air mass, instead of just "against" or "along" the wind (the feeling you get in the sim), some things are duly missing in the sim. Generally speaking what you don't need to do in the sim, but do need (carefully, I need to add) in the real thing is "flying" the airplane even when it's on the ground. Wind affects taxiing, wind affects take-off roll, wind affects landing, and wind affects your control forces as well. And I am not talking about just the drift of wind, but its aerodynamic effects on the airframe. Taxiing in high wind, with your controls positioned the wrong way, is difficult. Do it with the controls in the right position and it becomes a lot easier again. Take-off roll in crosswind without upwind aileron is downright dangerous in real life. In the sim it's irrelevant. Landing sideways (crosswind) in the sim is just a minor "issue", whereas in real life you can skid yourself easily off from the runway, ground loop (mainly taildraggers) or just cause very serious sideways bobbing and motion that leads to directional control troubles. The real airplane flies in the airmass and the "air-to-ground" connection (=transition from coming to/from ground with the airplane still flying in the airmass) during takeoff and especially landing is something that creates lots of troubles for the real world pilot, to make the airplane go straight along the runway without turning it over or doing many other possible mistakes. This connection/transition in the sim seems very very weak and very rarely does an error in piloting produce anything worth mentioning.

 

Ground behavior in FSX is very poor in my opinion. Sideloads, skidding, braking, and generally speaking all wind effects near the ground are poor.

 

Basic flying like turns, stalls and even slips can be simulated decently in FS. Takeoff is somewhat close to real-life takeoff, when you forget the effects of crosswind. Landing is far from it. A friend on the same course with me says wisely "the similarities between the sim and real plane end at 2m height" (talking about landing). In heavy crosswind you really need to align the airplane with the runway with rudder. Even full rudder sometimes. And at the same time you really do need to try to land on the upwind main gear. In heavy wind if you land sideways and/or do not counter the gusts trying to catch your upwind wing with ailerons and drift with bank, you will end up in trouble. Serious trouble.

 

Straight and level flight in the sim can be harder due to the real thing being easier to trim. Of course, with a C172 you always need to accelerate the thing from climb to cruise flight without immediately reducing the power, so that is something to be learnt by the virtual pilot. Otherwise it will manifest itself as "continuous need to re-trim" even in real life . Generally speaking trimming is easier in real-life.

 

RAs C172 model produces a very nice simulation of cross-controlled flight. You can really train heavy cross-wind approaches with it. Very near the ground & at low airspeeds something odd happens and it no longer flies like the real thing, but this belongs to the same category as in "below 2m" as said before. That part no longer is useful for real flight.

 

Seat of the pants:

 

It's true. The real thing can either be silky smooth, (as in Really Smooth) with proper weather. Or it can be dreadfully unsmooth like the other day when I approached my home airfield on a close to 20kt, gusting nearly 30kt direct crosswind with windshear reported by a jetliner before us (had the CFI riding with me that day). Didn't have enough rudder to push the nose from crab during approach. And the gusts were not very nice. I've found that you can find all kinds of WX in real life so it's hard to say if sim is unrealistic or not. Perhaps the physical feeling of being tossed around in bad turbulence is something the sim pilot will never experience. For me it was interesting to see how difficult it was to get used to being "in the airplane" to see things unfold, like bad crosswind situations early on in training and not knowing really what to do and just feeling the airplane doing something instead of me doing the right things to make it go where I wanted. It is imperative to be decisive and use the controls without hesitation to make things happen. In the sim you can kind of fly the sim and it doesn't feel awkward to see something happening as it does in the real thing, inside of which you yourself travel. Everyone with a license knows what I am talking about.

 

Sorry for the long post already, just a short summary of my findings:

 

- ground behavior and the requirement to fly the airplane until full stop in real-life is very different than in the sim

- wind effects on all phases of flight are over-simplified in the sim, especially during landing

- air-ground connection (hard to explain) is too simple in the sim

- basic flight maneuvers can be trained in the sim with proper HW and proper flight model

- sim can give an illusion of being a "passenger" in the simulated airplane, when in real life you can't ever become a passenger when in controls

- flight controls are not ideal in the real plane, and the feel changes with airspeed, configuration and conditions

 

Can you benefit from the hours flying in the sim? YES! There's a lot to be learnt from a million different things, that the simulator can teach you. Radio navigation, instrument flying, "aviation world" ie airports, runways, taxiways etc, procedures and mindset, basic flying and handling "rules" so to speak can be if not learnt/self-taught, at least "observed" in the sim. Plus many more. But real flying does require somewhat more, and the sim can't teach you everything. The rest you only learn in the real thing. And I hear (and do believe) that it's an endless trip and PPL ticket is just the start.

 

Tero

Per original poster's question. The default planes and weather that come with FSX are still set on an arcade game level. After setting the realism settings to max, then be sure to get some weather generation addon like ActiveSky which will at least simulate more gust and wind effects at various elevations and attempt to simulate effects closer to the ground (less than 2m). Then get some decent general light aviation planes such as Carenado.

 

I'm just a simmer, but I've had a friend with a PPL who I showed it to. With just keyboard and mouse controls , it's still just a game to him control wise with no feel. ( he had never played FS on a computer) but he said the flying looked just like the real thing. (virtual cockpit view from a Carenado Cessna 172).

 

I have no real world experience, but I'm guessing its a different game when attempting to simulate a fragile light general aviation plane, when comparing to fly a heavy such as PMDG 737NGX or a regional such as the CRJ or a turboprop ATR72. It may be landing a 737NGX is easier to simulate in FSX as a heavy can ignore the air pressure concerns of fragile light aircraft at less than 2m since power is idled usually at > 20 ft already in a heavy by then and crosswinds are already compensated for at a much more massive systemic, and integral level with the controls. Not to mention there is always the option of monitoring an autoland at supported runway approaches.

 

Taxiing:

 

With proper pedals (CH does not count) and proper settings in control settings / FSUIPC, one can replicate C172 taxiing

 

Flight controls:

 

Obviously the most important thing when it comes to sim is what HW you use. I use PFC Beech yoke with HE sensors. Saitek Cessna pedals with max stiffness adjusted, Saitek Cessna trim wheel and Saitek TQ. I'd say that to simulate realism the best, you need: a yoke that does not "stick" in either axis and is stiff enough to simulate "average" control forces. PFC is very good. You need pedals that are stiff enough, and that simulate the section of pedals that you control with your foot tips, and the surface that you control with your entire feet, ie toebrakes. In the takeoff roll you always remove your feet from the toebrakes, and return feet to the fully covering position on roll-out so you can brake. CH is again not very good. Saitek and Cirrus pedals are good. To really simulate the other chores in real flying you need own panels for basic engine / light controls and radios. Saitek sells nice and cheap panels to make this happen. For throttle your mileage may vary, and it's not important if you use a Cessna or Piper style thrust lever. (our Diesel C172s use a "Piper style" lever)

 

Simulation does not change the control pressure / feel with airspeed, as happens in real-life. This is problematic in my opinion, since the feel does change a great deal because of this. You need a different way to handle the elevator in 55KT than when doing 105KT.

 

To summarize: with decent HW you can come close, but the airspeed dependant feel is not there, and some peculiarities (like slack in rudder, and even in aileron control) are also missing. With the cheapest stuff you don't even come close, and I would advise saving up for the PFC stuff and forgetting about those plastic CH yokes. Then there is the trim difference where in real-life the trim moves the elevator to a different setting, and in the sim you have to manually ease up or tighten your grip on the elevator axis. I don't find this a big issue when judging the sim anyhow. It's a small difference.

 

Basic flight maneuvers:

 

Lack of effects of wind as they happen in real-life. As the airplane flies within the air mass, instead of just "against" or "along" the wind (the feeling you get in the sim), some things are duly missing in the sim. Generally speaking what you don't need to do in the sim, but do need (carefully, I need to add) in the real thing is "flying" the airplane even when it's on the ground. Wind affects taxiing, wind affects take-off roll, wind affects landing, and wind affects your control forces as well. And I am not talking about just the drift of wind, but its aerodynamic effects on the airframe. Taxiing in high wind, with your controls positioned the wrong way, is difficult. Do it with the controls in the right position and it becomes a lot easier again. Take-off roll in crosswind without upwind aileron is downright dangerous in real life. In the sim it's irrelevant. Landing sideways (crosswind) in the sim is just a minor "issue", whereas in real life you can skid yourself easily off from the runway, ground loop (mainly taildraggers) or just cause very serious sideways bobbing and motion that leads to directional control troubles. The real airplane flies in the airmass and the "air-to-ground" connection (=transition from coming to/from ground with the airplane still flying in the airmass) during takeoff and especially landing is something that creates lots of troubles for the real world pilot, to make the airplane go straight along the runway without turning it over or doing many other possible mistakes. This connection/transition in the sim seems very very weak and very rarely does an error in piloting produce anything worth mentioning.

 

Ground behavior in FSX is very poor in my opinion. Sideloads, skidding, braking, and generally speaking all wind effects near the ground are poor.

 

Basic flying like turns, stalls and even slips can be simulated decently in FS. Takeoff is somewhat close to real-life takeoff, when you forget the effects of crosswind. Landing is far from it. A friend on the same course with me says wisely "the similarities between the sim and real plane end at 2m height" (talking about landing). In heavy crosswind you really need to align the airplane with the runway with rudder. Even full rudder sometimes. And at the same time you really do need to try to land on the upwind main gear. In heavy wind if you land sideways and/or do not counter the gusts trying to catch your upwind wing with ailerons and drift with bank, you will end up in trouble. Serious trouble.

 

 

 

Sorry for the long post already, just a short summary of my findings:

 

- ground behavior and the requirement to fly the airplane until full stop in real-life is very different than in the sim

- wind effects on all phases of flight are over-simplified in the sim, especially during landing

- air-ground connection (hard to explain) is too simple in the sim

- basic flight maneuvers can be trained in the sim with proper HW and proper flight model

- sim can give an illusion of being a "passenger" in the simulated airplane, when in real life you can't ever become a passenger when in controls

- flight controls are not ideal in the real plane, and the feel changes with airspeed, configuration and conditions

 

Tero

 

Thank you for your comprehensive answer.

First I can say that I have the CH yoke and rudder and PFC is out of question for me due to the very high price.

What do you mean by removing the foot from the toebreak? I thought you tilted the pedals.

Regarding the control forces how do they feel in real life? Do you need to exert stronger force in RL compared to FSX?

My impression from your answer is that FSX might give you a good idea on what to do but certainly not how. For example when taking of you raise the nose but the details on exatly how is beyond what FSX can learn you.

Have you tried XPlane 10 and if so would the answer be different in some regards?

From this I suspect that the answer on my original question would be.

Doubtful that I could taxi the plane into takeoff position and also being able to takeoff. But if I could get up in the air I might be able to fly somewhere but the landing with be more or less a disaster. Though in this scenario I assumed very good weather with calm winds.

Tero...

 

would you be able to do a similar comparison using X-plane 10 as your basis? I'm very curious to see what RW pilots think about how the planes handle in wind over there. I liked the way you explained it...and found your perception very interesting indeed!