GPS is fun killer for me, I do not use it unless I need it.

 

It's a choice thing for sure. As technology advances I like to try it on for size. I remember back when the Navy was doing the acceptance tests on the F14. They invited me down to Strike Aircraft Test to try the Cat on for size. I set up the INS per the checklist on the ramp. Then somebody decided they had to move the airplane to let an A4 taxi past. They put a tug bar on us and moved us about 50 feet. I looked at the INS readout. It had changed to reflect that 50 foot move. Amazing stuff!

The little Garmin I use for road traffic really comes in handy. I don't have to worry any more about my wife yelling "turn left right here" in the middle of the intersection I was looking for.

:-))

Dudley Henriques

Exactly... New technology is just amazing, but its so powerful it feels like a cheat to me. GPS is like god's eye :smile:

Man oh man but has this topic become a study in personality. Not at all what I intended. Let's revisit. For the first time in many years I had the pleasure of handling the controls of an aircraft while in the air, riding with a qualified flight instructor, but as a right-seat ride-along, not as a student. Since abandoning the cockpit of a shared A36 in 1984, my flying had been confined to various versions of MSFS, over two thousand hours with subLogic Flight Assignment:ATP, Propilot, and Fly. So recently I had the long overdue privilege of "feeling" and applying the controls again, after nearly 30 years. As I spent two hours in the right seat managing the systems, and a few minutes at a time with the controls, this discussion began in my mind. Please understand that it has virtually nothing to do with basic flight lessons. It was to do with experienced flying. And what benefits what! Period.

 

Given experience with actual flying. Actual feel of the controls; yoke or stick pressure and other sensory inputs; orientation to the horizon, et al. Given also significant hours of simulator flying. Is one dominant over the other in influencing and improving flying in the other? It is a question only for those with experience in both!

 

Has your FS experience had more influence over your real world flying? Or has your real world flying had more influence over your FS flying? The question had zero to do with flight instruction. It had to do with experience and influence.

 

Please take your flight instruction discussions/arguments over to a topic dedicated to that subject.

 

Thank you!

For the first time in many years I had the pleasure of handling the controls of an aircraft while in the air

 

Like you, after flying flight sims for many years, I got a ride in a Cessna 172, a birthday gift from a friend a year ago. I hadn't been in a light plane since the early 70s, when I was taking lessons in a C150.

 

It was quite an experience. Lots of things I hadn't thought about for years. For example, the first flight was in pretty nasty turbulence, and I tended to avoid that in the sim. Now I crank in some turbulence even for calm weather flying. I never much cared for flying a pattern in FSX, although I'd do it occasionally, but after that fight and experiencing a real pattern again, I've started flying patterns, even entering on the upwind when I could just as easily have flown straight in (I typically fly uncontrolled airports).

 

I won't be flying real world aircraft except flights like the one described above, but it definitely affected my simming. When the A2A C172 comes out, I'm going to invite the pilot over to have a look, and I'm also planning to do a bit more flying with him.

 

Hook

I never much cared for flying a pattern in FSX, although I'd do it occasionally, but after that fight and experiencing a real pattern again, I've started flying patterns, even entering on the upwind when I could just as easily have flown straight in (I typically fly uncontrolled airports).

 

Ahhh! Now that's what I was looking for! Thank you so much for sharing!

For those who fly general aviation sims, but have never been up in a real plane, I'd suggest an hour in a real aircraft as one of the best FSX addons you can get.

 

I was thinking earlier about making a post asking if people usually fly patterns in FSX at uncontrolled airports.

 

Hook

 

 

Given experience with actual flying. Actual feel of the controls; yoke or stick pressure and other sensory inputs; orientation to the horizon, et al. Given also significant hours of simulator flying. Is one dominant over the other in influencing and improving flying in the other? It is a question only for those with experience in both!

 

Has your FS experience had more influence over your real world flying? Or has your real world flying had more influence over your FS flying?

 

Thank you!

 

Addressing your specific question only, based on years of actual flying experience in all types of aircraft from J3's to high performance jets, and about ten years of working with and using MSFS I have found that the actual experience was extremely helpful in helping add on developers to make accurate flight models and to help make systems more realistic.

I can't say using the sim helped my actual flying but conversely my experience helped me tremendously in giving the advice needed.

I use the sim for enjoyment and recommend it to both pilots and non-pilots alike.

Hope this serves your purpose a bit better.

Dudley Henriques

GPS is fun killer for me, I do not use it unless I need it.

 

For sim flying, I don't use a GPS much. For the real thing, it's all mountainous around here. VORs are line of sight. And to use them, you always have to be high enough, and use published routes, more than not. I just like to go where I want, and more direct. In my case, I used satellite weather. It's overlayed on the GPS moving map, and I can see weather patterns for hundreds of miles in the distance. In flight weather decisions are much easier, especially in mountain areas. The GPS is also tied to the auto-pilot & fuel totalizer. In fact, if you need real accuracy for your distance above terrain height, GPS with WAAS is much more accurate than the plane's altimeter, unless you have a very current setting. My GPS has a "six pac" function which duplicates basic instruments. The animated GPS altimeter, and the plane's barometric altimeter will exactly follow each other for a few minutes, when a current altimeter setting is used. They will then drift apart, as barometric pressures change.

 

I would plan cross country flights with paper charts & flight planners off the internet. These plans are then entered into the GPS database, for current & future flights. My flight plans contain points of interest, more direct routing, the ability to see current TFR's on the moving map, as well as terrain, obstacles, and most importantly, all of the restricted military spaces around here.

GPS is not cheating...try finding your way out of northern Canada when your GPS is frozen and won't turn on because it's -35C in the front seat (carry two units...1 in your parka, the other on the glare shield. Switch as required). It is even harder to recognize lakes and other charted features like eskers when the entire world below you is bright white with snow cover. Interpreting the charts and using pilotage to traverse 500 miles in these conditions is a mentally draining experiance. Or the reverse situation....your customers are sitting on a frozen lake in -40C temperatures expecting to be picked up on time. You are expected to know what little lake out of the 100,000 or so around you that they are sitting on. The GPS is a gift from God...not at all a bad thing and one should never be ashamed or so full of pride to reject a technology designed to help them because they believe it is cheating. Cockpit Resource Management. Use all the tools at your disposal.

I'm not in a contest with you.

 

 

FAA Airplane Flying Handbook

FAA-H-8083-3A

Chapter 3

Basic Flight Maneuvers

Page 3-1

Right Column

Paragraph 3

 

(In reference to the issue of control pressure vs control movement when discussing MSFS vs the real flight instruction environment)

 

As per the manual;

" The flight instructor should explain that the controls have a natural "live PRESSURE while in flight and that they will remain in neutral position of their own accord if the airplane is trimmed properly.

 

With this in mind, the pilot should be cautioned NEVER TO THINK OF MOVEMENT OF THE CONTROLS but of exerting a force on them against this live PRESSURE or resistance."

 

End of quote.

 

Just a general head's up for those involved with this thread.

The above post was NOT meant as a shout or disrespectful to the person to whom I posted it. ! It was a copy and paste from a lecture PDF file that I assumed would be reduced to the forum's font as it was pasted. The CAPS are simply speaking emphasize points meant as lecture cues.

Don't know why the font remained so large. Haven't had this issue elsewhere. Could have been my MAC.

Sorry for any confusion.

Dudley Henriques

Of course GPS is not a cheat tool. If you run a business and GPS allows you to finish a job more efficiently, there is no doubt you should use it or not. I always carry one portable device in my FB, its really much more than GPS, and if I think I need it, I would not hesitate to use it. But, as I said, its fun killer for me.

Of course GPS is not a cheat tool. If you run a business and GPS allows you to finish a job more efficiently, there is no doubt you should use it or not. I always carry one portable device in my FB, its really much more than GPS, and if I think I need it, I would not hesitate to use it. But, as I said, its fun killer for me.

 

I use the GPS to document crash sites, where the pilots didn't have the useful utility of a moving map, terrain based GPS. Became interested in the causes & prevention of CFIT (controlled flight into terrain) , after a United Airlines DC-8 cargo jet crashed into the mountain above my home in 1977.

GPS & especially synthetic vision.................beats the old methods by a long shot.

For those who fly general aviation sims, but have never been up in a real plane, I'd suggest an hour in a real aircraft as one of the best FSX addons you can get.

 

I was thinking earlier about making a post asking if people usually fly patterns in FSX at uncontrolled airports.

 

I've done the hour in a 172 and I agree.

 

I do fly patterns at uncontrolled airports, including an upwind to check out the runway state. Of course, there's never anything on it.

 

H

I was thinking earlier about making a post asking if people usually fly patterns in FSX at uncontrolled airports.

 

On flights in VMC and when not practicing approaches, absolutely. The only time I wouldn't is when flying an IAP, either practice or in IMC.

 

Scott

I use the GPS to document crash sites, where the pilots didn't have the useful utility of a moving map, terrain based GPS. Became interested in the causes & prevention of CFIT (controlled flight into terrain) , after a United Airlines DC-8 cargo jet crashed into the mountain above my home in 1977.

GPS & especially synthetic vision.................beats the old methods by a long shot.

 

I lost a pilot friend in 1997 due to his CFIT. He was flying a LOC approach to Leesburg, Va in IMC and all I could guess from the accident report was that he intercepted the LOC radial and started down from the IAF as if he were intercepting at a fix closer to the field. I'd bet he would not have made that mistake with one of today's GPS.