I would have to say for a guy with no time in command of a real plane... there would be a mess somewhere in the general vicinity of the airport... Ive got nearly 6000 hours and train guys on over 12500 turboprops... these people have a valid Commericial MIFR rating and the amount of times I need to "save the plane" is rather astounding....

 

I am confident I could get one down... but Ive got lots of time and understand hte importance of power managment ..you get behind the power curve on a plane like that and you're asking for it...

 

Flight sim is a game... a fun game... but still a game...

 

Amen but you have just released the kraken by calling FSX a game. LMAO This is gonna get good now... Anyone care to run to Costco and buy a family pack version of popcorn?

 

- Sent from my rooted, Verizon Samsung Galaxy Nexus LTE smartphone via Tapatalk because haters gonna hate.

 

 

I did get to have a sit in the cockpit of a 767 a while back...and as they owed me a favour I thought I'd ask if I could have a stab at landing the thing at YPPH.

 

The captain did ask me what my flying experience was...but sadly my sim time didn't seem to impress him enough to let me have the left seat.

 

Doesn't hurt to ask - and I would have totally greased the landing if they'd let me have a shot.

LOL Ohhh I know... there are those who think that because they can fly on the sim they can do it for real... I will admit, and use it for IFR practice, and we encourage our up and coming rampies to get a copy of flightsim for the IFR practice...

 

I admit.. I'll load up the 737 dump it in YVR and program it to goto OGG on the weekend.. I don't sit there for 5.5 hours and watch it though.. I just hope some windshift hasn't come along and crashed my plane 200 out of OGG .. ahh one of the many points of it being a game..it has its limitations...

 

Ive been playing fsim for a decade now when I started real aviation... hate to say it... but if its not a real plane, or a certified logable time simulator... its a game.... a good game.. but a game.. no one dies in the end when the poop hits the fan...

 

 

Amen but you have just released the kraken by calling FSX a game. LMAO This is gonna get good now... Anyone care to run to Costco and buy a family pack version of popcorn?

 

- Sent from my rooted, Verizon Samsung Galaxy Nexus LTE smartphone via Tapatalk because haters gonna hate.

One of the things that I really noticed (I only have about 7 hours actual flying experience but I think that's enough to get a fairly solid handle on the difference between a cherokee in a sim versus real life) was the fear factor.

 

This is one thing (among many) that I would say simmers don't realize... the PF (pucker factor).

 

I can still remember my first takeoff... first time I sat in a Warrior... "Here you go... you want to take-off right? Ok there's the power... just have at it. Plane'll fly itself off the ground when ready..." What a kick my instructor must have got out of that. Talk about PF... I must have looked like a surprised Buckwheat. I was 3... 4 hundred feet in the air and my brain was still back where we entered the runway.

 

Then you get to the point you think you got this plane stuff mastered i.e. solo ( :LMAO:)... then you start in on cross-country. Who know how many hours I spent with my brain 5+ minutes behind the actual position of the airplane.

 

Quite a bit of PF as an instructor when having a ME (multi-engine) student do a V_mc demo. And a bit of PF going on with students who have not quite got the proper perspective when to flare. Then some PF with those that have certain "quirks" which I can save for another time.

 

What surprised me coming from RW to sim was you can get some decent PF simming. Try "carrying the baton" / lead racer for a leg during the MS Round the World Race for one of the Race Teams. You get a dozen+ guys on Teamspeak and everyone parked at the airport watching you land... PF from hoping you don't ball it up and cost the team a time penalty (possibly costing the race)... hoping the comp or FSX does not choose this time as the opportune moment to go ape nuts. Hoping there is no terrain issue with the airport (since you were too lazy to check beforehand). Hoping you are not hoping too much to become distracted and miss something critical (and ball it up). "Good Times"...

 

 

hate to say it... but if its not a real plane, or a certified logable time simulator... its a game.... a good game.. but a game.. no one dies in the end when the poop hits the fan...

 

I agree and I have said the same same here.

 

But there are some young'ins here with zero or little RW experience... not realizing how unforgiving flying can be... having never been caught up in a "never again" moment...

 

But... (and I think the Bimmer has said this)... "let them dream"... I think no harm in that.

 

Ive been playing fsim for a decade now when I started real aviation... hate to say it... but if its not a real plane, or a certified logable time simulator... its a game.... a good game.. but a game.. no one dies in the end when the poop hits the fan...

 

So i'm no expert, but i guess that means when you crash the 'certified logable time simulator' someone does die? Who gets killed and how do they do that, exactly?

 

 

I actually do quite a bit of simulation-related work. This is an old topic, but whether its a simulation or a game really depends on how you use it.

 

P3D is a very good case in point - the same program that Microsoft sold as a game is now (with a more 'serious' looking user interface) used for simulation-based training.

 

Oh, and yes I might not have landed the 767 shiny side up...but I've got a lot of NGX hours under my belt since then. I'm guessing from the captains response, though - he doesn't often get requests from the pax to 'give the landing a shot'.

 

 

 

 

So i'm no expert, but i guess that means when you crash the 'certified logable time simulator' someone does die? Who gets killed and how do they do that, exactly?

 

 

 

 

There is a way people "can" die in the sim.

C:\Documents and Settings\computer name\Application Data\Microsoft\FS9\AIRCRAFT\aircraft name

It would require an xml gauge to write to the directory above which has a state file that logs engine time.

For example: the "state.CFG" for the Vickers VC10 is as follows:-

[engine.0]

accumulated_time=1037.920707

[engine.1]

accumulated_time=1036.547757

[engine.2]

accumulated_time=1054.847428

[engine.3]

accumulated_time=1046.553392

[FltSim.2]

atc_flight_number=2578

atc_heavy=0

 

You could write another file that is read by the same or another xml gauge thus keeping a "score!!!"

3: Control resolution. Generally joysticks/yokes/pedals are 16 bit (as is the input that FSX takes for stick and rudder). This means that your input is a integer (no decimal) ranging from -16383 to +16383. Your control deflection is divided over that range. Large control deflections would mean that for every joystick movement, your control is coarser than over a very small deflection. In the real thing (I dont know about digital fly-by-wire systems but i imagine their accuracy is considerably higher than FSX) your resolution is infinite or rather, as fine as your brain and muscles can make it. In short, the precision that you can achieve IRL is way higher than in the sim.

Excellent post overall, but this part is not really relevant to a difference between simulation and real life. Many Level D flight simulators also use 16 bit hardware, some older ones used 12 bits, so their resolution is not a major realism problem, especially with analogue hardware. (Digital controls need higher resolution to reduce aliasing.) 16 bits still gets you 500 steps per degree for a surface which moves +/- 30 deg, that is 0.00198 degrees resolution. It's more than close enough for real training. The main issue is, as you rightly said, control forces. Higher forces and damping prevent the kind of rapid and large inputs people can make in FSX and then complain how sensitive FSX flight models are!

 

The other point to mention is that a typical PC joystick might move around +/- 2 inches full travel. The equivalent control column or wheel in the aircraft moves far further than that, so in effect the gearing between control input and control surface is much higher with such a stick. Using a yoke would improve this of course. Either way, fingertip movement is the key to more realistic responses, not whole arm movement.

One problem with these debates is that the verisimilitude of the simulation does depend on the hardware - as it always does with any sim.

 

If you're flying fsx with a mouse, it's probably not much of a sim. If you've got a full home cockpit, muscle memory as described earlier is going to be pretty good.

 

I fly with a basic home cockpit. I always use a yoke and rudder pedals. All things being equal, the quality of my simulation-based training is better than the guy with the mouse, but not as good as the chap with the full ng home cockpit build.

 

It then depends on what you do with the program. If you're doing 'silly' stuff (barrel rolls and cfit for lols) - you're back at the game end of the spectrum - even in the full home cockpit.

 

But decent hardware and the right mindset means you can certainly learn something. The interesting questions is what you can learn.

 

 

What I endeavour to recreate in my VC10 panel updates is the cockpit workload, the decision making, the reaction to different situations. It's not so important that the clouds are of a certain shape or that that car on the road looks "cool". I'm trying to give the simmer a sample of the mindset a real pilot has. How quickly are you going to react when there is a "real" depressurisation. Managing P7 and N1 at altitude, engine fire(s), bird strikes, gear failure etc. Plus full checklists that take 20-30 minutes from cold to ready for departure.

This is the kind of stuff that can be replicated in the sim very well.

That's right, there's a set reponse to those scenarios and with a decent sim you can practice them. They're all so rare that you won't learn them from real-world experience in most cases. But you can train with a sim for them enough so that if you ever do get an engine fire etc the response is second nature.

Amen but you have just released the kraken by calling FSX a game. LMAO This is gonna get good now... Anyone care to run to Costco and buy a family pack version of popcorn?

 

- Sent from my rooted, Verizon Samsung Galaxy Nexus LTE smartphone via Tapatalk because haters gonna hate.

 

You're right, Efraim, it IS a game; or to put it better, it is an in-depth study of flight that has been taken beyond the game status by many people. I'm wearing my asbestos underwear, so flame wars are only entertainment to me... I doubt that the orig devs never dreamed that FSX or any other sim would have the global following that it does. For those who want entertainment, it's a game. For those with full-blown home cockpits, it goes beyond that and FSX is just the groundwork. I have a lot of sim hardware, and consider myself a decent sim pilot. Although I've real-world experience hands-on with both the yoke and HOTAS at 5000 AGL and 37,500 AGL respectively, I still don't consider myself a RL pilot.

 

For me, I'm making a flight to Munich out of Frankfort after this post. Tomorrow night, it might be Assassin's Creed III...

 

I like simming because it allows me to remain tied to my USAF roots, and when simming, I fly it based on what the RL requirements are (>250KIAS below FL010, don't taxi over 20 kts, etc).

 

Best,

For those who want entertainment, it's a game. For those with full-blown home cockpits, it goes beyond that and FSX is just the groundwork.

I very much agree. Some of us belong to both categories depending on the day and level of concentration.

 

I fly it based on what the RL requirements are (>250KIAS below FL010, don't taxi over 20 kts, etc).

Careful—while I get what you are trying to say, heavy aircraft with minimum clean speeds over 250 KT are permitted to exceed the 250/10000 speed limit. You can also taxi over 20 KT in appropriate circumstances (e.g., long, straight taxiways).

I very much agree. Some of us belong to both categories depending on the day and level of concentration.

 

I fully support this type of thinking. On some days IL2 would be too much of a PITA.

I was wondering when 'FS'ism #1' would rear it's ugly head in this discussion ..... no offence intended but ....

 

based on what the RL requirements are (>250KIAS below FL010, don't taxi over 20 kts, etc)

 

heavy aircraft with minimum clean speeds over 250 KT are permitted to exceed the 250/10000 speed limit

 

It may come as a shock to many desktop simmers but the 250/10000 rule is not absolute & it is waivered on a daily basis IRL & not just for 'heavy' aircraft either ... so long as ATC & airspace can accommodate/allow.

 

ECON SPD is called such for very good reason & it is normally well above 250kts ... it saves gas & time ... the bottom line(s) in commercial aviation today.

 

If you are an online flyer go try & live a little...next time your in the climb out & cleaning up whilst in 'convo' with ATC ... ask if there is any speed restriction... you never know ... your friendly controller might be in a good mood & once the flaps are 'UP' & the light is 'OUT' you might actually enjoy it!....I double dare you!

I repeat again, it is a simulator and it can never replace the RL thing. In RL your situation awareness is very very different than flying on a computer.

 

The only thing you are scared while flying on the comp is the rig crashing, flying is not just about the 737 , it is about the principles of flight , maintaing level flight etc.... .