^{From a R/L pilot's perspctive, a lot is the same and a lot is different. Imagine playing a computer game where you have to "walk" a tight-rope across a big canyon. You might try several times to do it then get it right. Then imagine how different that would be if you actually tried it, when making a making a mistake could be fatal. It changes the whole perspective. Then there's the physical movement and sensations, and then the 2D of the sim (no matter how much 3D you think it might be), versus real 3D over an entire global arc (other than just a fixed monitor that the world moves around). If you can accept that things will never be correct just due to the physics of where you are and what you experience, then FSXing is great. I enjoy it, immensly, but I have no delusions that it's the real thing. I always think if you can seggregate those two different worlds in your mind and recognize that they are very different in a physical sense, then simming can be enormously helpful in learning to fly, and even much moreso in practicing instrument flight, where IMO FSX (or any PC sim for that matter) really shines.}

 

^{I often wish that people would at least take a flight demo where they could be in the left seat with a CFI, down at their local airport. It might add some perspective to these types of questions.}

 

^{I must also add that simming is fun, it's educational, and some of our planes have almost all the bells and whistles that real ones do. I am a huge advocate of it, I sim every nigt and am addicted as much as anyone here, so don't take my comemnts to negative ones against FSX. And the people I have "met" here over my simming life of 18 years now (most here at AVSIM, some before when the internet was new and we didn't know what the word "forum" meant) have been among the best that I could have interacted with.}

 

^{Just my opinion. As someone said, you will get many more.... Bruce.}

I could never afford to get the experience I'd have liked to have gained as a PPL, and like many only appreciate the details of APTL's from what I've read and the basics that every pilot learns in a single. The whole point of PPL training is to ensure that anyone granted a PPL will keep themselves and their passengers safe. My late Uncle solo'd in 9 hours as an RAF pilot in WWII and wrote off an aircraft in a forced landing in his 11th hour. There was a war on. He ended up as an instructor with an OCU having completed a tour of 30 sorties flying one of the first "electronic countermeasures" aircraft in the world. A Wellington stripped of everything but equipped with ariels and oscilloscopes that found and fixed the position of German radar sites in occupied Europe. His longest logbook entry was 11 hours! As much as I could afford in a year! However he looked at my charts in the 1980's and was puzzled by all the lines and frequencies on it. "What's all this?" he asked. "Controlled airspace and airspace restrictions, together with their radio frequencies...." "Never had a radio when I was training" he laughed.

 

Basically flying even for a PPL has become much more procedural than the skill of flying itself. A few folk just don't possess the spatial awareness required to land an aircraft. That much is obvious watching some drivers on the road!

 

My first FS was FS98. That was about the time I learned to fly and I thought it so bad I uninstalled it. Coming to FSX some 20 years later I was delighted to find that the performance of the FSX C172 was almost "By the numbers". I't won't do what a real C172 does if you try and induce a stall in a climbing turn! Even if it did you'd need a pretty impressive full motion simulator to replicate that!!! I have however read recently some criticism of the flight model of one of Cessna's most advanced singles. I could never have afforded to fly such exotica in the real world, but the documentation from the real thing is in the model. Practice enables you to fly the model "by the numbers" (in the manual) and if you practice and get that right I found it flew as I'd expect it to fly. X amount of revs, with Y amount of trim, will set up a descent of Z feet per minute. Get that bit right and you can concentrate on the approach, the wind shifts etc. and focus on your touch down. Even "a very average pilot" (my CFI's words when I passed my test) could hack that and improve with practice.

 

Where FSX really excels is in learning or practicing more advanced procedures like IMC navigation techniques, approaches etc.

 

Of course my CFI (25 years ago) had nothing but contempt for the then fledgling GPS systems. He'd flown enough aircraft where even more tried and tested avionics had failed to put his faith in such "gadgets". His arguement was unbeatable. Simply "You're IMC, depending on that ...and it fails! Where are you? How do you know that when that dies? What do you do next?"

 

That's my two cents worth. There are folk with more real world experience than me on here. I had to stop flying over twelve years ago but FSX provides some challenges in aircraft, airfields and weather that I could never have flown on 10x my budget, so that keeps me entertained.

 

Geoff

To answer your original question (yes I'm a pilot PPL ASEL - but not many hours), you're right, a lot of those planes in real life are meant for training (Katana, C172, Cub), and they are "forgiving" compared to flying a turboprop mod like the Duke

 

I remember my first series of landings in the piper warrior... not great that's for sure, but they were safe and got me and/or my CFI on the ground. For a flight sim starter like yourself (apologies if this isn't the case, but your post makes it sound l

->E6B calculations

->coordinated flight

->G forces, effects on pilot in a turn

->Accidental entry into IMC (bad weather)

 

Are they more forgiving in FSX than they should be to be realistic?

What is meant by E6B calculations?

One thing I notice in FSX is that I often doesn't make the turns coordinated I don't doubt that would also be the case in real life.

What effects on a pilot in a turn do you think of?

Some are more forgiving, but in my opinion "forgiving" doesn't have much meaning in FSX, because like others said, you don't die in FSX. Plus many addon planes don't have ultra-realistic systems and/or failures (a few do and those addons will let you know when you've screwed up). Take for example, the recently released Freeware Piaggio P180. By default the thing has failures possible, while flying an online flight the other night I burned up my turbine engines on climbout from a sunny but warm socal airport LOL! I had to make an emergency landing at a smaller airport nearby. The same would not have happened in the C172 because it's difficult to break that engine by applying full power (almost impossible in FSX), and difficult even in real life.

 

E6B is a type of slide rule that's compact and has many aviation calculations/conversions on it, things like ground speed, true air speed, mach, course correction, crosswind components... how many pounds in a gallon etc

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E6B

 

If you weren't making coordinated turns in real life you'd know fairly quick, especially if you were a passenger on small plane. It used to make me a little nauseous (we did it for demonstration purposes)

 

In real life, in a turn, you get pushed into your seat, you might get a little vertigo initially, especially with steep turns where the G forces increase (a 60 degree bank gives 2G's). You might even get nauseous for the first few flights, I know I did especially for steep turns (only 45 deg for USA private pilot test)

If you want to get an idea of how your landings are, put Heidi in the front of the A2A Cub with the difficulty settings all on high and accu-sim on. She'll let you know what they're like.

 

The stresses I found in landing (once I got the hang of it) were that don't provide the same pressure in the sim, in no particular order:

An instructor barking at you

Turbulence

Gusty crosswind

Being told to expedit your approach and seeing the landing lights of a turbo-prop airliner out the back window, and other heavy traffic

Low cloud

End of a long solo nav when you're getting a bit weary

Arriving at an unfamiliar airport

All of those you get used to over time, but must never get complacent about.

I think when it comes down to it, everyone is different and handles the stress of real-life flying differently.

 

I used sims a LONG time before going over to the real thing, and the biggest issue I had was remembering to keep looking outside of the real plane as I'd become used to the relatively poor scenery of simulators so kept my head inside a lot.

 

So far as learning how to control the aircraft, I did gain some benefit from using a sim, and continue to do so; while it won't teach you with exactly the same feel as what you might fly in real life, procedurally, it can be very similar, and with instrument flight becomes a vastly more potent training tool.

 

But to the original question, the answer as to whether you could take a plane off, fly it, and land it relatively safely, I'd say yes, sure, it's possible. This is not to be construed as saying you could do it the first time, or in any aircraft, and also makes the assumption that you not only can actually start the plane but keep it running.

 

That said, FSX "runs on rails" compared to the real thing, as others mention, as in real life you're at the mercy of even subtle atmospheric "happenings" that will nudge you around, cause you to feel like the plane is doing something it really isn't, and seem to work against you to consciously prevent you from doing what you're trying to do... and that's in fair weather. What Ryan notes about the feeling of turns affects a lot of people. You have to learn to just feel whatever you feel but not react with control input if your head starts spinning...

 

The E6B must be learned but it's likely you'd barely ever use it after your practical test, assuming you have an iPhone or another device that will run it virtually. It's still a fun tool to learn, especially wind calculations I think.

 

Good luck!

Andrew

If you want a realistic and challenging flight model, then you need to fly DCS or Rise of Flight. They are two different extremes but they have modern detailed flight models. One is with underpowered planes (you don't rotate, you let them takeoff on their own or you stall), the other is with overpowered aircraft. Try full collective in the black shark and you could be in trouble.

 

ROF will give you the challenge of rudder coordination and depending on the plane, every landing is an adventure. Especially if someone is shooting at you :)

 

For FSX - what Ryan said. It's good for the other things beside flight dynamics. It's good for cementing habits and procedures, IFR, instruments, and what each type of plane is.

I know the C172 is used as a trainer but it wasn't designed as a trainer. It was designed to carry 4 people for a start and is pretty stable in most situations. It's main advantage as a tourer is also it's biggest disadvantage in blustery cross winds. That's it's high wing. It's more like a Volvo estate than any other type of car. My training aircraft are not modelled for FSX and that's a great shame. Generally the best trainers are difficult to fly well and yet have safety margins that will cope with the poor handling of the novice pilot. I soloed in a "Socata Rallye 150ST" Not the worlds most beautiful aircraft and originally manufactured by Morane-Saulnier. http://en.wikipedia....A_Rallye_family. The 150ST was fully aerobatic and so could be safely spun. Spin avoidance is what was taught and tested in the UK back then and any spinning was demonstrated by the instructor. Socata went on to make the much prettier Tobago and Trinidad tourers. As you can see the Rallye had a huge ruddder and full width elevator that could get you out of most stupidity on a students part. It had a long traditional stick which taught you very quickly not to over control. It also had automatic full leading edge slats. These "BANGED" out at about 65 knots on the approach! A near heart stopping performance that must have amused instructors for a generation as the students face turned pale with shock! Of course once you understood what it was and why it made the Rallye so safe they became a useful tool in approach. It gained the rather rude knick-name of "metal parachute" but was difficult to fly "right".

 

Sadly the Rallye was so keen to fly that our infamous Storm/Hurricane in 1987 flipped it over and dumped it inverted on the aircraft next to it. Rallye lift off 60knots, windspeed measured across the airfield that night 100knots :unsure: . A private owner insured me to continue some training in a C172 until a replacemnt club trainer could be purchased but that was very different to the Rallye and although it was all experience that delayed my training in reality. The club then purchased a Slingsby T67C. http://en.wikipedia....sby_T67_Firefly It had a 160hp engine and fixed prop. The military versions were much more powerful and had constant speed props. When you're training you need to fly a lot and the one rule of flying is that "the more hp an aircraft produces, the more £/$/€ per hour it costs to operate"

 

The T67 was also difficult to fly well but when you got it right it was very rewarding. Excellent crosswind handling in my experience. It later got a bad reputation after two or three accidents. None of these should have been encountered in PPL training in the UK but a combination of increasing costs and some newer lower powered trainers meant that the military became the main user for training. Once I'd finally qualified, delayed yet again by the destruction of the first Slingsby we had, (a senior APTL pilot with a club member wrote off the first slingsby attempting to take off too short and too steep on an exceptionally hot day :mad: ....they were lucky to get out alive having spun in from about 150') I spent 90% of the rest of my time flying in the clubs two available C172's. Even these were different with different avionics. Sadly rising costs, EU interference in UK flight rules topped with a failed medical ended my flying and it was like giving up any other addiction. I definitely mourned the loss :( . Living on a pension now I'd need a Lottery win to get back into it for real and the recession has hit general aviation extremely hard in the UK. The biggest training organisation that had been around for years and operated from our airfield as well as three others in the London area has gone bust :unsure: . Fuel costs have increased beyond all belief so I'm sure hourly rates will be very high now.

 

So my hours on FSX keep me amused and the latest scenery and environments keep me challenged. Fly it like a crash could be terminal and not like a shoot 'em up where you can still fight with your last 1% of health and it'll be more convincing ...but whilst your butt stays stationary, nothing flips you sideways occassionaly and you don't suddenly sink or rise unexpectedly you'll never get 100% reality.

 

BTW that was the second time an APTL pilot caused a serious accident at our airfield. The other infamous incident was when a restored Blenheim (WWII) light bomber was written off after an unauthorised touch and go which had it wrecked on the golf course at the end of 27! Luckily without any fatalities. The club next to ours had a lot of BA pilots as members. They came to "fly" because their day job had become so procedural that they wanted the freedom to just fly where and when they wanted to. PMDG jockeys please note :lol: .

 

Geoff

I'm a pilot. I find the real world to be much easier. Different flight models can make a difference - like the a2a cub, realair etc. - but for the most part I find it's not realistic. Real world is all about feel, something we don't have in the simulator yet. If I haven't jumped on the sim in a couple of weeks, but I've done a lot of real world flying in that time, cranking the prop and flying around in FSX is not pretty.

 

 

I used sims a LONG time before going over to the real thing, and the biggest issue I had was remembering to keep looking outside of the real plane as I'd become used to the relatively poor scenery of simulators so kept my head inside a lot.

 

 

That's interesting isn't it? I had the same problem.

That's interesting isn't it? I had the same problem.

 

Yeah, sure is.

 

BTW I agree, flying FSX accurately is actually harder than the real thing. I think it would become a lot easier with a surround enclosure at a reasonable scale, though. But I don't have one of those! ;)

Its actually easier to fly a plane in real life than what it is in the sim. You'll get an incredible amount of feedback out of a real plane you would never get out of a sim, like the seat-of-the-pants feeling

That said, FSX "runs on rails" compared to the real thing, as others mention, as in real life you're at the mercy of even subtle atmospheric "happenings" that will nudge you around, cause you to feel like the plane is doing something it really isn't, and seem to work against you to consciously prevent you from doing what you're trying to do... and that's in fair weather.

 

Andrew, do you think it's more realistic to always add more turbulence (in and outside clouds) and a bit of windshear in FSX?

 

I usually do that since i experienced that in the Xplane 10 demo, the default Cessna and Baron fly more nervy/dynamic/lively in the sense that you must constantly correct to fly stable. On the other hand there has always been the critic that in Xplane turbulence is always exagerated, in the way that you should turn it down a bit when downloading real weather.

 

I use to fly with the excellent free FSrealWX weather engine from Hanse Coders,

 

http://www.hanse-coders.net/

 

but even then i always manually set the turbulence levels in FSX one or two positions higher than FSrealWX does and add a bit of windshear.

 

I feels less 'on rails' then.

Do you think that makes it more realistic?

Andrew, do you think it's more realistic to always add more turbulence (in and outside clouds) in FSX?

 

 

Hi Bart-

 

Well, I haven't tried FSrealWX, but I use Active Sky 2012.

 

Don't know much about how it models turbulence in clouds as I haven't really experimented with it; I did notice in the XPX demo that going into a cloud caused a bit more of a realistic effect than I've seen in a sim before.

 

That said, when entering clouds (which I've only done a little bit as I'm currently in instrument training) I'd describe it less as "turbulence" like you feel in clear air, though it might be, and more like "driving onto a rough road". Could be just my perception though.

 

I do like the idea of the plane moving around a bit, because even in very smooth air in real life, you feel it.

 

Andrew

I sometimes think that flying in FSX is not especially difficult (It probably shouldn't be difficult at this point - I've got hundreds of hours in FSX). But when I look back, I realize that I've destroyed a few planes in FSX, and would have been killed more than once too.

 

I like to think that things would be different in real life, that I would have been more serious and much more careful. Probably so. Still, the thought does give me pause. And maybe FSX isn't so easy afterall.

 

(In real life: I've taken the controls of many planes (including a homebuilt and a glider), landed a Cessna 150, Cessna 152 and a Supercub. No PPL).

Only thing I can think of, is if you where to jump into a real plane and go hell for leather down the runway at full throttle, you would probably end up at the days pyrotechnics display, or as a rather heavy glider if you made it off the tarmac. Plane engines are like women, they need o be treated nicely or they will I TRIED TO USE A PROFANITY HERE - AREN'T I STUPID! and complain and at worst, simply stop working. not a nice thing when in a climb at 500ft and you dont have enough height to gain speed, on the way back down.