As I "progress" in my flight lessons I am more and more finding flight sim to be considerably more difficult than the real thing.I don't mean to be making a presumptuous statement. This is just an observation. Where I used to repeat the flight lessons in MSFS ad nauseaum, I do each lesson a few times until I understand what I am supposed to do and then move on which gives me more of a broad approach as the control in real airplanes is for me far more responsive and finer.Plus, with my real life instructor I don't have to endure Machado's pathetic attempts at humor which at best are embarrassing and at worst clog up the flow of the material.Wonder if any of you who fly the skies AND fly FS have similar experiences.Also, and in the real skies, I seem to have a tendency to slightly veer left. It's not P-factor and I suspect it's a matter of still having a death grip on the yoke although I am now flying one-handed.Time has slipped away since I was here last. Nice to see your smiling faces once again.Louis Eagle Warrior

<<<< I am more and more finding flight sim to be considerably more difficult than the real thing. >>>>Dont worry you arent the first to note that sims are more demanding than the real thing. I noticed that during my training for my PPL/IMC. MSFS, Elite ec etc - found em all harder than the real thing.I feel that the real value in sims is learning navigation, for example if VORs are confusing you, get in FS9, track some VORs..and enable the "highway in the sky" mode..this will help you understand radials and such. (Be aware that NASA is working on a HUD that will generate real-life highway in the sky!). Another winner from using sims is learning the ADF which can be a pig to grasp, dont burn your money, learn the basics in the sim...I think thats what they are really good for.Their value increases with the controls you use IMO - so if you have FS9 set up with a full-on yoke, throttle quadrant & rudder pedals...well you are gonna get more out of it than me with my joystick with auto-rudder turned on!Of course the professional Level-D sims are in another league but even there I hear that they are harder to fly than the real planes!I guess they do it on purpose - Train hard, fly easy :)As for airmanship and seat-of-your-pants stuff..cant come close to the real thing!

The NASA "highway in the sky" you mentioned sounds intriguing. Do you have more details and perhaps an online source of info?The niche in which you put flight Sim (using it to learn navigation) makes a lot of sense to me - .Since I am flying a C172 and eventually a 182, why would I want a throttle quadrant in addition to what I have, the yoke and pedals?Thanks.Louis EW

Eaglewarrior........Yes I'd agree with that- particularly I found crosswind landings much more difficult in sim than in realworld .Regards the "death grip" on the yoke - I remember only too well on my very first flight as P(ut) - the instructor telling me to hold only with the fingertips of one hand.Dave

LouisIt really depends what you mean by more difficult? In some ways they are far easier in other ways they are more difficult.By more difficult I would say twitchier and lacking in feel or realistic aerodynamic behaviour.Easier in the fact that flight sim models do not change in their behaviour much through the speed envelope.At slow speed especially I feel there is poor modelling of sluggish behaviour and controls and no force changes in the controls.Real aircraft at slow speed require large control movements for a given effect while at high speeds require very small control movements.Coupled with these shortfalls there is no real modelling of the airmass that aircraft fly in.This means that the sim pilot isnt really challenged in an ever moving airmass.The result is that the sim pilot can land a sim model a lot easier than he would a real aircraft.My son plays racing games and can beat the likes of schumacher. Put him in a real F1 car.........?The other deficiency is that we have a lack of pheriferal views and poor useability.This means that the sim pilot is forever faced with artificial movements to get a relationship between the sim aircraft and the invironment that he is operating in.Couple this with having to call up pop up windows to change frequencies and operate systems and the whole thing gets difficult and false.In that sense its more difficult but im afraid not real.Peter

Yea sure, the programme is called AGATE (Advanced General Aviation and Transportation Experiments)AGATE aims to give birth to the next generation of general aviation cockpits & displays. So its all about massive LCDs displaying all kinds of stuff...and their trademark will be "highway in the sky" which one day will allow you to land when you cant see a thing outside the window.http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/cdtb/projects/...es/controls.jpghttp://cvib.larc.nasa.gov/agate.gifhttp://lisar.larc.nasa.gov/IMAGES/SMALL/EL-2000-00008.jpeghttp://lisar.larc.nasa.gov/IMAGES/SMALL/EL-2000-00009.jpeghttp://lisar.larc.nasa.gov/IMAGES/SMALL/EL-2000-00010.jpegArticles:http://www.aero-space.nasa.gov/library/eve...hicago/hits.htmhttp://www.designnews.com/article/CA86994.htmlhttp://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/sto...,442773,00.htmlhttp://www.ainonline.com/issues/09_04/09_04_nasa_97.htmlhttp://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_..._12/ai_50350267http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story...7143&ran=177856