I've found that the truth tends to b e in the middle when it comes to using recreational flight simulators for training. Can you learn to fly an airliner professionally by solely using FSX? Probably not. Can FSX be an amazing training aid? Yes.

 

For every turbine aircraft I've sat training for, I've used some flight simulator to help myself study. I always found using a simulated aircraft greatly helped out memorizing profiles and callouts. Lots of pausing and talking to yourself or a study partner. It's way easier to memorize procedures seeing them carried out than it is to just act them out using a cockpit cutout. There's a reason several Asian carriers have new copilots sit jumpseat and observe before they are allowed to fly.

 

I've seen plenty of people use FSX to "study" for checkrides, where they just end up screwing around. These simulations are useful study aids; you do need to study the books to get something out of it.

About 12 years ago, I was running FS9, and my favorite aircraft was the RFP 747-200. I had logged several hundred hours flying it for UPS Virtual Air Cargo. The aircraft was equipped with a triple installation of the CIVA emulation of the Delco Carousel INS, which I got to know very well indeed using it in the sim.

 

I was (and still am) an A&P mechanic and avionics specialist. At that time, my employer (a Part 135 charter operator), had just added an old Gulfstream II - with original steam gauge instrumentation. The aircraft had quite a mix of old and new technology. It had two Universal UNS1-C FMS units which had been recently installed. The pilot attitude instruments were driven by a Rockwell Collins AHRS. The copilot instruments were driven by.... A Delco Carousel 9-waypoint INS!

 

The aircraft was dropped off by the former owner's crew, who left shortly afterwards. Our in-house pilots who were going to take over flying it had a lot of G II experience, bit neither had ever used, or even seen a first-generation INS, and were scratching their heads with the manual open on their laps, trying to just figure out how to turn it on.

 

While I had never seen a "real" Delco INS, I certainly knew how it worked, and amazed everyone by being able to quickly power it up, align it with present position, and demonstrate how to insert waypoints, check alignment status, etc. The pilots were somewhat in awe, and assumed I had been using such equipment for years.

 

And I had... but only in FS9! One case where the sim definitely helped in mastering a real-world system.

Jim, that's actually a really good point. FMS's and avionics are one of the things you can learn really well in a sim or trainer. These days, most systems have similar enough functionality, playing with a Honeywell unit in FS will mean you can probably figure out a Universal box in a real plane. I guess my original comment is mostly targeted at things like callouts and system limitations, things that simply don't enter the averages simmers experience, yet things that you can learn better by using the simulator to supplement traditional learning. 

Thanks to everyone who have taken the time to read and answer to this topic. From the comments ive seen, i think that is clear that the fms and avonics are really well simulated in a lot of fsx/p3d addons so maybe we can just move on to discuss a bit more about the flight dynamics. Are the flight dynamics of high end addons like the pdmg 737 or the aerosoft a320 comparable to the real thing? I know tha some of you have already posted a response to that question but it would be awesome if we can have more opinions and discusions

 

 

 

Thanks

Ricardo Muelle