I know that a couple multimillion dollar simulators owned by local airlines have been taken for joyrides.  Bet the pilots had a blast, do some barrel rolls in an airbus, maybe a loop.

 

    I wondered how much was lost on the stock market the day the manufacturers simulator turned in to an arcade game.

I really have a hard time understanding why people are hung up over P3D usage ... it's so irrelevant it boggles my mind that it's discussed so much over and over and over.

 

I'm guessing it's discussed so much because of PMDG's comments?  That's just PMDGs opinion, and it's most likely nothing to do with usage and more to do with moving to XP10 or some other platform, or not moving at all -- in other words it's being used as marketing tool.

 

I've reviewed the agreement and even paid a lawyer to review it (because I was thinking about selling 3rd party content for it, and still am), whatever PMDG's interpretation is, it's not based on any legal recourse ... because there is done.  Again, I think people need to look at what PMDG do and whether or not P3D aligns with their business strategy.

 

1.  P3D is FSX SP2 source code and content (ask Phil Taylor, minor changes to make it ESP) - so whatever FSX meant to you, then P3D will mean the same (and with any luck better when V2 is here)

 

2.  Game or simulator is irrelevant - it's whatever you want it to be.  I do see a few real pilots come here, belittle a product and/or it's users (FSX, P3D, XP10, etc.) for no other reason than their own insecurity.  I don't talk down to people that use iRacing as being clueless because I race real world -- I'm just not that insecure.  iRacing is a tool that one can practice situation awareness, hand/eye coordination, heal/toe shifting, or just have fun with -- and guess what, some of the same skills are things you need with Flying.  I recall some person (a real commercial pilot) coming in here and telling us how lame PMDG's product was and how unrealistic it is, etc. etc. ... then later back pedal out with apologies and hopefully will never return until he's secure about his own career path.

 

Rob

 

Rob, until you put your butt in a fighter plane or chopper and been shot at for real you can't compare P3D or FSX to nothing, I also did some racing, drag racing to be more exact, there is nothing a game can do to make you feel like your life is in danger or the adrenalin kick you'll get knowing you just got out of a bad situation, you can't press on the pause button get out of your seat for a beer or a coke and when ready get back to playing , you can only do that with FSX, P3D, racing games or any other games.

 

When facing real life danger you will NOT react the same way as if you are sitting in the comfort of your home, no way you'r "gonna" dump a log in your pants playing games.....facing a wall at 280 MPH or having a surface-to-air missile coming at you is another story.

 

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE FSX and I have some racing game here at home....just ain't the same no matter what you want it to be, sorry.

Alain, I would say that most real life pilots are not getting shot at for real but that doesnt make time on a simulator (or game) less valuable.

 

    You know that a flight sim doesnt give you a feel for the plane yet there are aspects that help, e.g. using navaids.

 

    Sure a racing sim doesnt give you the same respect for your life but tell all the F1 teams that use them that they don't have any benefits because of that.

 

     In  F1 simulators are a important part of training, part of this is because of the time limits imposed on the drivers i.e. they are only allowed so much time in the cockpit,  For financial reasons the same is true for pilots.

 

    I find it hard to believe that those people starting out in a simulator who learnt to use all the nav aids and instruments properly gained no advantage when moving on to flying IRL.

I find it hard to believe that those people starting out in a simulator who learnt to use all the nav aids and instruments properly gained no advantage when moving on to flying IRL.

I no longer hold a PPL but remained a member of a flying club for some time. The instructors were agreed that new students with experience of FSX needed extra tuition to eliminate the bad habits they'd taught themselves.

I no longer hold a PPL but remained a member of a flying club for some time. The instructors were agreed that new students with experience of FSX needed extra tuition to eliminate the bad habits they'd taught themselves.

 

   I think you guys are missing the point and choosing cases that suit.

 

   I have heard this as well, I have also heard the opposite.  This really depends on attitude, ego, willingness to learn etc.

 

   There are specific things that help rather than hinder.   Thats why in most flying schools you will find a copy of FSX or similar to aid with some procedures.   Not just civ either but also in military as an aid in cockpit familiarity.

 

    Of course you can learn bad habits when you have never been shown the correct way to do things.  This applies to most things.

 

    The point I was trying to address was that at least one person seems to have implied nothing can be learned in this 'game'.   He must find learning hard if he cannot learn anything from it.

The instructors were agreed that new students with experience of FSX needed extra tuition to eliminate the bad habits they'd taught themselves.

 

Presumably at the expense of the students themselves?

january

just ain't the same no matter what you want it to be, sorry.

 

Agree, but I never said they were the same?  I said there are elements that can be used from software that can be applied to real world.  The closer that software attempts to emulate reality, the more useful those elements become in the real world.

 

Game vs. Simulation is really more about how much is transferable to real world ... at what point does it become a simulation ... I don't know, don't really care to be honest ... I always side with more emulated realism (be it visual or systems or whatever).

 

What I've seen here is "large appendage" waving contests and they frankly don't really contribute to anything useful.

 

There are many purposes to training, one being the removal of fear or emotion because it impairs the decision process.  However, if one is an actor then they want to train in the complete opposite direction.  But trying to suggest one is more superior than the other (which is what seems to happen with some of PPL's that visit) isn't really contributing, it's just ego inflation (or an attempt at such).

 

It would be like me saying because I'm a software engineer with over 30+ years experience, I must know everything about FSX or XP10 or P3D or DX11 or a specific texture compression format than anyone else ... which is completely and absolutely false and fortunately I never make any such claims.  In fact, there are people here that have enlightened me.  The computing field (hardware and software) is vast in scope and growing by the hour, no matter how many years experience, I'm always learning.

 

Point being, tossing out a game/simulation as completely irrelevant to real world is only doing oneself a disservice.

 

Rob

Presumably at the expense of the students themselves?

january

why not if they needed more lessons?

About removal of fear, I have a friend who actually overcame his fear of flying (as a passenger not pilot) because of FsX.

why not if they needed more lessons?

Why not, indeed?  Sorry, I was having fun at the expense of instructors.

 

The two great failings of Flight Sim which almost certainly lead to real world bad habits are:

1. The completely unnatural and narrow 45º perspective of the single View Forward.

2. The need to PAN and/or ZOOM to see and READ instruments AND to achieve a  WIDE Field of View.

The solution is straightforward: Use 2D only with triple monitor views integrated into a single º145 view.

The result is an always visible, panoramic view approximating real life -

plus instruments, switches etc that are ALWAYS IN THE EXACT SAME LOCATION !!

 

If you can't see the runway from both corners of your eyes, your landings won't be the greatest!

(The FAA regs re Flight Training Devices effectively prohibit VIRTUAL presentation in simulators.)

january

........The two great failings of Flight Sim which almost certainly lead to real world bad habits ar

.............

The solution is straightforward: Use 2D only with triple monitor views integrated into a single º145 view.

The result is an always visible, panoramic view approximating real life -

plus instruments, switches etc that are ALWAYS IN THE EXACT SAME LOCATION !!

january

( I just went to the last page of this thread to see if P3D had actually released something new, so I'm not sure how this "real pilot" stuff got started.....)

 

I think it all comes down to what you think you are actually doing when simming (are you "simming" or "actually flying"? And being able to separate/segregate the sim from the real thing (but you have to know what the real thing is first, of course).

 

Simming, be it FSX/P3D/XPX/Elite/Frasca and on upwards is a great way to practice flight, and is really excellent in instrument familiarity work. But you should never forget that you are 3 feet away from a 2D (whether it's called "3D" or not) screen, and you eyes are certainly not focussed at infinity as they are in real flight. That's what causes bad habits in a new student who doesn't know what the "real thing" really is yet. I sim and I fly- I know I'm simming when I'm simming, and I'm flying when I'm in the real thing, I love simming and would recommend it to anyone, and I spend countless hours simming and (like many here) have spent literally thousands of $$ in add-ons, but I know I'm not flying...

 

Just like if you watch the SuperBowl on TV, and thoroughly enjoy it and see the entire game (and even understand it, which I don't )...... but you didn't "go to the SuperBowl"..... but that doesn't diminish the enjoyment you had....

 

It's all in perspective and what you think you are doing (IMO).

 

Thanks, Bruce.

A long time ago (1988) I wrote an article for a now-defunct magazine called Private Pilot about whether PC-based flight simulators - the ones current at the time - could be used in training.  The flight training professionals I interviewed were surprisingly open to the idea.  A point that several of them made is that the value of a training device depends on what you're trying to train people to do.  I don't have the article handy, so I'm paraphrasing from memory, but one of them pointed out that if your goal was to teach someone where the knobs and switches were located, and how to go through the flows, a life-size blown-up photograph of the instrument panels was perfectly useful - in fact, they used cockpit posters for exactly that purpose.  Another said that if the goal was to teach what the runway ought to look like when you're correctly positioned on the glideslope, it wasn't necessary to have elaborate graphics - a simple wire frame would do.  And, on the third hand, the utility of even the most elaborate, realistic Level D simulator was limited, because however realistic and white-knuckle the presentation, at the back of his or her mind, the pilot trainee remembers walking into the simulator and knows that this isn't a real airplane.  So at the end of the day, nothing is a substitute for the real thing... but even very basic and "unrealistic" training tools can be useful.

 

I think that those of us who aren't engaged in formal training programs make the mistake of thinking that you have to simulate the entire experience every time you turn on the simulator.  That isn't how training is done.  In a lot of training scenarios, you'd isolate a particular task (like learning the flows) and disregard everything else for that particular session.  It's roughly the equivalent of using the PC simulator in a limited way.  For example, I'm in early days learning to do airline simulation after a lot of years doing GA.  If I'm teaching myself the autoflight system, I might set up the flight with engines running, and turn off AI, so I can concentrate on the one system without being distracted.  Again, not realistic but useful.

 

Now, I'd agree that a complete experience where you can suspend disbelief is really rewarding.  But - at the risk of pouring more gasoline on the fire - the reward in that case has more to do with entertainment (the you-are-there feeling) than with training as such.

 

So, bottom line - complete experience, nice, and fun.  But if you're serious about training, you might accomplish more with something that's a lot less realistic.

What a strange discussion!

 

LM develops and markets P3D to companies and the government of some countries for flight training. If they say it is a simulator and their customers say it is a simulator who are you to judge that it is not a simulator?

 

And simulation does not mean that it is totally realistic (it never is!).

And it doesn’t mean that only real world pilots can use it.

And it doesn’t mean that you can have the entire total pilot training done with it.

Stop that nonsxxxx!

 

If LM says it is a simulator (proven by a lot of professional customers) it is a simulator.

Can you have fun with it? Yes!

Can you have fun with a professional full-motion-simulator? Yes!

Can you have fun with a real F-18? I bet!  (… but never tried)

 

 

LM develops and markets P3D to companies and the government of some countries for flight training

 

I think you will find they are looking at using it as a simulator visual environment add-on to bolt on to other simulator engines rather than a stand-alone flight simulator.

 

 

I work in ATC training and our 3D Tower sim uses a product that requires licence fees of $3,000 per PC and there could be 10+ PC's.

 

Everyone is going simulation from learning to dive tanks, subs, aircraft, battlefield command and control, UAV's, air defence, even infantry training … the list goes on.

 

 

There is big $’s in simulation graphics and having a platform the end user can easily modify or add too makes it a very useful product. MS’s ESP was a bit before its time … P3D is now the right cost effective product at the right time as everyone from the military to private civil companies are looking for up-to-date, easy configurable cost effective simulation graphics solutions.

 

 

To give you an example, a reproduction of a mid-sized, single runway airport for the product a lot of simulation platforms presently use requires a dedicated 3D artist using software that costs around $8,000, 3D development costs around $20 - $50,000 to create the airport and will take 3 – 6 months to produce … with P3D using COTS software the end user can create something similar for much less in a fraction of the time.

 

 

 

Can you have fun with a real F-18? I bet! (… but never tried)

 

You can also toss up your lunch :LOL: