So I was riding cross country for about two hours last week with a local flight instructor who let me take the controls of an A36 a few times for a few minutes at a time, including a base leg and turn to final. It was the first time in over 20 years for me. He was impressed at my knowledge and flight management, especially with the avionics. Experiencing that real world feel again seems to have improved my sim technique as well. I spent the afternoon today immersed in FSX with the Carenado Skymaster 337 hopping from airport to airport and shooting a series of hand flown touch and go's at airports I have not been to before. I used the RXP530 that I have installed in the 337 only as a map to spot airports and head for them. Other than that it was seat of the pants! I had a ball!

 

So both experiences beg the question. If you fly both real world and flight simulations does your simulator experience enhance and improve your real world flying? Or does your real world flying improve and enhance your sim flying?

If it was an initial student working on their Private it was hard to break them of staring at the gauges and essentially trying to do all VFR maneuvers like they were IFR maneuvers. If it was a student past their Private, then they would utilize the sim properly.

Skills and habits both ways for me. For instance, when making turns in my sim I do as I was taught - to pick a spot on the horizon and windscreen and keep it level through the turn instead of trying to chase the VSI needle. Harder to do in mountains of course. Similarly, I fly my 737 cockpit as if there were 100 plus passengers on board and so when flying in the real world, I am much smoother on trim and leveling off than some pilots Ive flown with.

For instance, when making turns in my sim I do as I was taught - to pick a spot on the horizon and windscreen and keep it level through the turn instead of trying to chase the VSI needle.

 

Valuable observation. And so true. The way you wrote it caused me to recall similar teachings in motorcycle rider education courses in regard to turns. Look through the turn, pick your spot, keep your eyes level through the turn (despite the bank angle) and manage your track through the turn with throttle application to maintain your speed...

So I was riding cross country for about two hours last week with a local flight instructor who let me take the controls of an A36 a few times for a few minutes at a time, including a base leg and turn to final. It was the first time in over 20 years for me. He was impressed at my knowledge and flight management, especially with the avionics. Experiencing that real world feel again seems to have improved my sim technique as well. I spent the afternoon today immersed in FSX with the Carenado Skymaster 337 hopping from airport to airport and shooting a series of hand flown touch and go's at airports I have not been to before. I used the RXP530 that I have installed in the 337 only as a map to spot airports and head for them. Other than that it was seat of the pants! I had a ball!

 

So both experiences beg the question. If you fly both real world and flight simulations does your simulator experience enhance and improve your real world flying? Or does your real world flying improve and enhance your sim flying?

 

The sim has uses as an introductory audio visual tool going into the student learning curve and after solo as a procedures training tool.

I highly recommend that the sim NOT be used during the dual phase before solo. It is during this period the student is introduced to control PRESSURE vs control RESPONSE for the SPECIFIC aircraft used in training. Dynamic pressures on the control surfaces used on most training aircraft increase with airspeed. It is IMPERATIVE that the student be completely familiar with this all important relationship between dynamic pressure and response before solo can be safely accomplished.

The quality of cockpit replication becoming available to today's market is remarkable, and as this quality comes on line, the desktop simulator is becoming more and more useful when used carefully, at the right time along the learning curve, and always with CFI input.

Hope this information is helpful.

Dudley Henriques

I highly recommend that the sim NOT be used during the dual phase before solo.

 

Valuable comment in regard to flight simulator use in flight training, but this discussion appears to have gotten somewhat off track from what I really wanted a discussion of. Perhaps it is because I mentioned that after years of not flying or staying current (you can read my posts in this other Avsim topic: http://forum.avsim.n...ga-due-to-cost/ for insight on that) I was riding on a recent flight with a flight instructor who is a good friend. It was not a flying lesson.

 

For those who hold IRL licenses and fly at least occasionally, and who are also active simmers, how much does your real world flying enhance your sim flying, and how much does your sim flying enhance in any way your real world flying. Is the contribution more in one direction or the other.

So both experiences beg the question. If you fly both real world and flight simulations does your simulator experience enhance and improve your real world flying? Or does your real world flying improve and enhance your sim flying?

 

Both...

 

1. A properly setup sim (TrackIR, yoke/peddles, great add-on aircraft, good weather generator, and great scenery) either FSX or FS9 can prepare you greatly for what to expect in the real world. A real aircraft won't feel so foreign to you.

 

2. In the real world you can learn proper techniques that you can come home and practice. Case in point the proper way to land an aircraft. Flight (the gutted FS11) has the greatest FDE modeling of any sim I've flown. For example handling a crosswind takeoff must be managed just like in the real world or you will run off the runway. Turning your yoke into the wind (monitoring the wind sock) on your takeoff roll has to be done in the Maule. Same thing for landing. The tail wheel simulation could use some work but you have to take into account wind direction before you start down the runway. You learn this in the real world and can apply all these things to training at home so when you go back to the real aircraft you cut your training time in half. Proper pattern work is another example...

 

If it was an initial student working on their Private it was hard to break them of staring at the gauges and essentially trying to do all VFR maneuvers like they were IFR maneuvers. If it was a student past their Private, then they would utilize the sim properly.

 

Not true in the days of VC's. Back when we were mostly using 2D panels this was the case.

Kinda both...

 

RW flying helps me to maintain my techniques sharp in simulator, while sim flying helps me to stay sharp at all procedural levels, checklists, memory items, emergency procedures, so I really do not worry when I pause RL flight for few weeks that I will forget something critical, and even more, I do not have to waste my money to practice all that stuff in real aircraft as simulator is good enough (beside that its still required to do some practice in aircraft just to develop a muscle memory, but point is when you do simulation of failure, you already know what to do) . VATSIM also helped me a lot, as I was able to maintain all communications with ease from the day one of my RL training, to be efficient and confident with my transmissions, and to listen carefully for important parts of ATC transmissions; yea, there was few minor mistakes here and there, but overall my instructor was very satisfied with that aspect of flight.

highly recommend that the sim NOT be used during the dual phase before solo. It is during this period the student is introduced to control PRESSURE vs control RESPONSE for the SPECIFIC aircraft used in training. Dynamic pressures on the control surfaces used on most training aircraft increase with airspeed. It is IMPERATIVE that the student be completely familiar with this all important relationship between dynamic pressure and response before solo can be safely accomplished.

 

I just really don't go along with those thoughts anymore. My wife often flew with me in the right seat for many cross country flights. It's never a bad thing to learn something about real life aircraft control..................and our desktop CPU could do some farily decent replication of using the stick & rudder pedals. I agree, that landings need to be mastered with the real airplane............yet I find no reason just to stay away from a simulation these days. With good control hardware, you can practice a lot of scenarios with the time to ask questions, get the answers, and practice more............and for a much cheaper price than the real plane.

 

L.Adamson

I just really don't go along with those thoughts anymore. My wife often flew with me in the right seat for many cross country flights. It's never a bad thing to learn something about real life aircraft control..................and our desktop CPU could do some farily decent replication of using the stick & rudder pedals. I agree, that landings need to be mastered with the real airplane............yet I find no reason just to stay away from a simulation these days. With good control hardware, you can practice a lot of scenarios with the time to ask questions, get the answers, and practice more............and for a much cheaper price than the real plane.

 

L.Adamson

 

Your prerogative of course.

DH

Your prerogative of course.

DH

 

IMO, it's like a long time, high hour pilot deciding they want to fly radio control, or perhaps use a desktop flight sim for a diversion. Most likely, they'll over control the R/C or sim aircraft right off the bat. Everyone that I know has done so. They'll have to get use to the differences. I know that using those 2" R/C sticks for many years, made quite a difference when I flew the Pitts, or my RV6. I just never tended to over control on day one. Yet someone jumping from a Cessna172 to a higher performance aircraft, will again most likely want to over control the airplane. Therefor, I don't believe that control pressures are that hard of a mind-set to change. It just takes a bit of time. I'd just as soon have somebody know what the proper control movements are suppose to do, rather than no idea for lesson number one. And, yes, at my 62 years of age, I tend to argue with my own commercial pilot & instructor friends about this & GPS & so on... :smile:

A slightly different experience. I did my PPL when there were no such things as desktop simulators. The closest thing was a Link Trainer which you can find in museums now. Many, many years later as desktop sims became popular and useful, it became a very good tool to practice instrument flying as long as you understood the shortcomings of the sim. In the last several years before retiring I realized that my "professional" approach to sim flying a replica 737 cockpit with FS9 and then FSX made me a more detail oriented and disciplined pilot in a real world GA aircraft.

Not true in the days of VC's. Back when we were mostly using 2D panels this was the case.

 

FSX has been around awhile. I've only been teaching since there have been VC's.

 

Another problem is there is a void as well. You don't have the sense of motion, the feel of the air going over the control surfaces and because of this in a developing pilot it trains their muscles incorrectly. What feels like a heavy pull on the sim might be a very light pull on the yoke causing some massive PIOs.

 

The only time when a sim helped for more than procedural training was when I got my types for the Dash-8 and the ATR in level D's. It is amazing how realistic the visuals and the motion was in the newer level D's. For one of our scenarios it was to basically to see how long we could keep the aircraft up in extreme icing conditions. After flying for 15 minutes in freezing rain I eventually couldn't keep the aircraft flying anymore and it rolled inverted and went into a terminal. I thought that I was going to die right there and it was so realistic that I actually closed my eyes before impact.

 

So for home use they are of some help to knock the rust off. Some are getting better for basic training like the Redbird simulators but they are still basically a newer generation of a link trainer and are not much different.

If the simulator control peripherals are properly tuned, and your sim aircraft responds reasonably accurate, then you are more aware in the real a/c with respect to visual cues in the aircrafts movement/attitude. Of course most of our sims do not have the "feel" caused by movement, but the visual cues are almost identical for all the aircraft I have had the pleasure to fly in the real world when compared to their sim models. If you solomnly believe feel is more important, then perhaps a view of the video 178 Seconds to Live is in order.

 

The opposite is true too. I will often try to find a sim model of any airplane I get a chance to fly, and i find that the real world "memories" translate into a better sim experiance. Essentially, the sim and the real world complement each other quite nicely.

 

With respect to the tail or dog theory...the sim is exactly what you want it to be. If you want to use it to practice smooth maneuvers, or to practice visual cueing, or use it to practice systems and proceedures, then that knowledge will carry out to the real world. If you develop a bad habit in your sim and then your CFI see's you doing it in the real thing, then you will obviously be corrected. But then you will also likely stop the bad habit in your sim too. If you can't break a bad habit, well then you shouldn't be flying an airplane, and hopefully your CFI recognizes this and saves you some money before it's too late.

 

I'm willing to go out on a limb and say that the majority of sim pilots (specifically those who aim to use the sim to it's full learning potential) could quite proficiently handle an aircraft in flight. But then again, the best advice I ever got was "flying an airplane is easy. Landing it is the hard part."

I'm willing to go out on a limb and say that the majority of sim pilots (specifically those who aim to use the sim to it's full learning potential) could quite proficiently handle an aircraft in flight. But then again, the best advice I ever got was "flying an airplane is easy. Landing it is the hard part."

 

Great post...