On a more positive note: While you're screwing up your landing and killing everyone on board, you can - for the first and the last time of your life - enjoy the most realistic wing-flex ever created.

 

Thats brilliant lol 

I found that flying the A320 full flightsim was piece of cake, and even had the chance, during my 1hr ride, to ask for a couple of tricky approaches to LPMA 05 under showers and gusting winds!

 

Landed in perfection, and by the time I had that spectacular ride, I was using Phoenix's Airbus, and was "an expert" in Airbus :-)

 

This happened during a hiatus of some years away from my RW flying, and when I was probably at the top of my simmer activity.

 

As a pilot, again active, I think that:

 

1) Flying the real thing has always been a lot easier than the simulator ( referring to gliders, which is the only license I own )

 

2) The Airbus ( CAE by that time ) sim was a lot easier to "drive" than the Airbus in fs9... in all phases of flight, although the turbulence and shear effects were much more well done, and I could actually feel them in the simulator. MSFS and PD, even with the best weather add-ons, are far from realistic in the way they translate these weather effects, and that can be the only problem an experienced sim pilot might find if flying the real thing.

 

3) Unless you have invested in a mock-up, with projected visuals, there is quite a difference in perspective from the real thing and the pc-based simulator, but when flying the full flightsim session I easily adapted to it.

 

So, as I have answered many times on this type of threads, Yes.

Jose has highlighted my first response to the OP question. For me, the first answer that came to mind was "Depends on the simmer".

Quite right Henry. The hidden factor is always the stress of the situation. Most wouldn't handle it. I'd go farther and suggest that in almost every situation, the simmer would stay silent rather than offer their services. In THAT situation, under THAT kind of stress, it takes some massively cool-thinking individual (or a total ego-maniac :wink: ) to even think they were the one to `help`. 

 

Down the years I've handed control of light aircraft to quite a number of non-pilots. I've seen all kinds of reaction from cool-confident to near-panic, but probably most common is `brain-freeze`. So fearful of doing something wrong they can't bring themselves to do anything at all.

On one occasion I had to hit someone on the knee with the clipboard to get them to take their foot off the rudder pedal.    I have never, and would never, ask a non-pilot to land a plane while I'm PIC. 

And that is in a controlled environment, in straight and level flight, in perfect weather, with forewarning (never just spring it on someone: "...is there anyone here who can fly a plane...?" - probably doesn't go down too well in a two-seat single-engined aircraft...  :He He:

 

There have been cases where non-pilot passengers have landed light aircraft after the pilot became incapacitated but as far as I know, they've always had some exposure to the controls and the flying experience.