fsx-ms If I manage to master high-end add-on planes, would I be able to fly them in real world?

[charliearon 3,024]

One thing I did forget to mention....do the Lessons inside the Sim.  And to see how you do, at the end, as

 

Rob O stated, take the flying test to see if you can pass the Solo, and PPL.  I managed to pass the Solo on

 

the first try!  It took a month, flying 3 times a day to pass the PPL. :wink:

[mikea76 184]

you can learn a lot about the systems in the sim, as far as actual flying goes you will need to take lessons for that.

 

I find real aircraft easier to fly because you get so much more input...

 

 

Ohh one last thing, a retired airline pilot friend of mine told me the big jets are easier to fly, they handle winds better, are much more stable. I have never flown a real jet so I have to take his word on that but I will says LSA is quite a handful in gusty conditions

[Thomasso 224]

Thanks for the updates guys :-)

 

So, let's sum up...

 

The main differences between Flight Sim (considering that one has all the top notch add-ons to create as realistic environment as possible) and real life are:

- fear of crash (the biggest one in my opinion)

- feeling the aircraft (perhaps an advantage in the real world?)

- real life pilots have much deeper knowledge about everything than sim (even very "advanced") documentation provides

 

About the last point... If I study the materials shown on the screenshot, that would kick me way forward, correct? However, that seems like a good 2 year read, considering that I'm also attending to a university  :smile:

 

Cheers,

Tomas P.

[ziggy 47]

Take a look at what this fellow did, yes it can be done, not so much to "pilot" standards but sure it could be done

 

 

 

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jJT_CACIZqs

[sgreen91 182]

When you do take your lessons you should have a better understanding than a non-sim pilot. When I started taking lessons I was able to solo after 7 hours instruction due to 20 years of sim time.

 

But as other have said the real environment is something no sim can teach or prepare you for.

[qqwertz 781]

I have 20 years of experience in flight simulators and one hour in a real Cessna 172. To prepare for that hour I got the A2A 172, learned all relevant number (like speed restrictions etc) and followed an amplified checklist. In other words, theoretically I knew a lot about the plane.

This preparation helped a lot. For instance, I was delighted when I saw that the flight instructor did exactly the same walk-around as you do in the A2A model. I also felt at home in the cockpit right away, even with respect to taxiing and steering with the brakes.

However, there were also very notable differences. First and foremost, I instinctively looked much more out of the (front) window than in the simulator. I have studied a lot about simulators and always read that you should pay very close attention to your instruments, but making sure you're not heading into something is much more important in the real thing. The instructor even advised me to pay not _too_ much attention to the instruments, except for the oil pressure, which I kind of ignore in FSX but which is critical for you to survive a real flight.

I was very surprised that it actually was easier to keep the real Cessna flying at a certain altitude and in a certain direction. However, I wasn't allowed to land the plane, so I cannot compare that experience.

 

I admit I was tempted to go for a PPL after this experience, but I decided against it because it would be very time consuming (it's a long drive to the next flight school) and expensive. I still enjoy the simulator as much, or maybe even a bit more, than before my real plane experience.

Peter

[Thomasso 224]

That is a very interesting video, kind of proves everything that has been said :-) He manages to fly in some capacity but an instructor is there to aid him and it's very noticable that he is no real world pilot. Nasty take off and very chaotic final approach. 

 

Sim definitely speeds up the process then :-).

 

Interesting angle of view Peter, it is true that in the sim, people tend to watch the instruments a lot. Although with ORBX sceneries that changes a bit :-). Oil pressure, I think that A2A 172 simulates this so it's mandatory to watch it as well.

[Flic1 976]

I think the sim helps a lot with instrument training procedures.  When I got my insturment rating back in 1993 I used PC software called 'Elite'..I believe that was the name??  I was able to practice all of the procedures (holds, approaches, etc) on it at my house and it greatly helped me get through that rating.  It was strictly an instrument panel but it did have real-world navaids.  As others have mentioned, you don't have the 'feel' of the aircraft and peripheral views so I don't know how much they would help with actual flying of an aircraft. 

[Great Ozzie 101]

That is a tremendous amount of information you have there, Tomas. Some of it will be very difficult to wade through, like the Aeronautical Information Manual - some topics will be relevant, some not so much. One thing I'd hate to see is that you get overwhelmed with so much material.

Have a look at the Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge and the Airplane Flying Handbook. The student pilot guide has some good basic info in it - but that is geared toward the U.S. pilot (how to go about getting your license etc.).

There's a good book "Understanding Flight" (Anderson & Eberhardt) that is something I wish I first read when learning about aerodynamics.

I was just looking to see if I could find a private pilot ground school syllabus... I found a pdf "Learn to Fly: Private Pilot Ground School - Fall 2014 (University of California - Berkeley). That might provide some structure to your learning process. The recommended text is Jeppesen's "Guided Flight Discovery - Private Pilot Handbook". Maybe you could get your library to obtain a copy if you didn't want to purchase one. Jeppesen's material is used extensively at flight schools. I have not used that particular book, but years past I have used their books, such as  their "Aviation Fundamentals".
 

[YukonPete 586]

Hello everybody,

 

I'm planning on getting a flying licence in the future and I'm just wondering...

 

If I master planes like PMDG 737, 777 or A2A C172 etc., will I be able to fly the actual plane in the real world? I've got all sorts of add-ons to make the environment as realistic as possible.

 

I've been telling this to "non-sim" people and they are pretty much laughing at me :-) 

 

I'd appreciate a real world pilot to answer the question.

 

Thank you very much.

 

Sincerely,

Tomas Pokorny

Nope!  I got my PPL in 2003 and to be honest I do believe using flight simulator really did help me a lot. For starters I was familiar with the C172 layout and knew what the gauges did. Its when you take that first lesson you realize its nothing like flying a desktop. That nervous sick and exciting feeling you get on your first solo. The joy you feel when you complete it.   I would spend hours after every lesson recreating it in FS2002 to practice. I soloed after 8 hours and my instructor said most take 10 -12 hours.

[skelsey 765]

will american manuals help for european standards as well?

 

To an extent. The basic principles of flight will of course be the same (the laws of physics are, after all, universal) and the PPL test standards/manoeuvres/tolerances are broadly similar, but that's about it. Be a bit careful because a LOT of stuff in FAA-land is/will be very alien to a European pilot (and, to be fair, vice-versa). A lot of laws, procedures, phraseology etc are very different.

 

Your local CAA should have details of the licencing procedure and subjects in the local (likely EASA-compliant) PPL course, which will be broadly similar across Europe. You would probably be better off finding some generic textbooks and some textbooks written with your own locality in mind than wading through the FAA AIM etc.

 

If you can find a second-hand copy, NH Birch and AE Bramson's "Flight Manual for Pilots" series is excellently written albeit starting to date a little (though, again, the physics hasn't changed!). In the UK I would also recommend the Trevor Thom series of PPL manuals, but again whilst a lot of stuff will be very similar across EASA there may be something more appropriate for your location.

 

The content, on the whole, is not that difficult -- but, as you have correctly identified, the volume is very great!

[Mithras 87]

I think I have to take issue with some of the advice here. I don't think Tomas was claiming he might be able to fully qualify on his sim, just 'fly the plane' and I am sure he could. I know I could. I've had a trial lesson in a Cessna 150 and had hands on flying in an Archer II, but I didn't learn as much doing that as I did in the sim.

 

crucially, there was a local event at my nearest airfield, a pilot died at the controls and his non-pilot passenger landed the Cessna in the dark, without instruments, being talked down by controllers.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-24450534

 

After the initial panic, I an sure I could do as well or better. I know how to fly a circuit, what the runway should look like at various altitudes, what happens in a stall, how to avoid one, what flaps do and when to deploy them, how to 'round out' so as not to smash up the gear and so on. I know what every instrument does in the cockpit...

 

I am certain I could start up, taxi out, take off, fly a circuit and land. Would I be safe? Hell no... because I have never trained for emergency procedures, and would panic and die if my engine stopped, or caught fire, or if the cabin door flew open, or the flaps came down asymmetrically etc, etc.

[busdriver 258]

Most likely, not...  While certainly it can help with learning systems and how they function, as a real-world Airbus captain, I can tell you as good as some of these sim add-on's are, it would be very difficult to transfer what you have learned in the sim, to a real-world scenario, other than say cockpit flows, FMC programming , etc if accurately represented.

[Lorby_SI 2,038]

Before you can handle any device, be it complex or not, you have to train with it. You have to build up muscle memory, hand-eye-feet-equilibrium coordination, reflexes (the right ones). Computer simulation is not realistic - it looks realistic. All that we do is looking at sophisticated images of what flying would look like (according to the programmers who designed the software that we use) - that is not the same thing as actual flight. Many shortcuts are taken in software development to achieve the right visuals, things are randomized to look believable etc. And there are always things like "Pause", "Restart", "Reload", "Respawn"... This is not the same as "real".

 

I remember my first attempt at piloting an actual C152 very well. The thing was at least as old as I am. The interior was well maintained, but it's design, seating position, available space and general condition strongly reminded me of the Fiat 500 my mother used to drive in 1974 (which probably is no coincidence). I knew where all the switches were, what the dials are supposed to do, what a checklist is, how air traffic works (my father was an air traffic controller, my uncle was captain with a very large airline) and I had 20 years of flightsim "experience" as well. But right in the first 5 minutes, when the instructor told me "Oh no, we cannot switch on the beacon just yet, the battery is so weak that she will not start if we do" and "lucky I flew her in this morning, so she won't take so long to start", when I actually had to look out that nobody had wandered close to the prop and then call out loud "prop clear", then saw that the push-levers for throttle and mixture work very differently than I expected, seeing the small fine tuning wheel-screw on them being adjusted etc...etc... -  I realized again that "real is real", that all my virtual preparation did only get me closer - but not really there. For me personally, the experience was the same as looking at a pretty girl and maybe reading her letters - and then really taking her out to dinner. Mistakes are not taken kindly to in that situation either, but at least you (and other people) don't die (kind of - remember the first time you did this?).

I could fly the little plane alright (they really want to fly, there was no struggeling or working against forces, no jerking around in the sky), but I would never have been able to get her started (because of the quirks of her old engine), take off or land her. Furthermore I was reminded that deep down, subconsciously, I am afraid of heights, and I felt really uncomfortable. A turn with 45 degrees of bank was - interesting. In the end I decided that piloting an aircraft is not for me, although I seem to have a talent for it (that was what the instructor said). I neither have the time nor the nerve to carry it through, apart from the financial aspect, which in my country is a real concern (obtaining a PPL would cost about 8.000 - 10.000€).

[Wobbie 938]

We have a virtual flying club (Cape Virtual) here in Cape Town & we look after & mentor 'the Young Falcons'. It's a 2 year project, every second Saturday mornings & we have 60 kids, 30 juniors & 30 seniors. The course consists of lectures then practicals & flights on PC's, as well as navigational exercises. Once a year they go to our local gliding club for a few launches.

The 2nd year ends with private pilots flying in & taking the kids for flights. The 'real' pilots take off then let the kids fly circuits on their own. We have quite a few kids that have achieved PPL's & a few have joined the gliding club!

 

We are using FS2004 to train the kids!! (We are using our local freeware developers, Aereoworx, for our scenery!!)

Oh, we have also built 2 simulators, an Avro Shackleton & an AeroMacci MB326 twin seater (known as an Impala here in South Africa) We using actual yokes, sticks, pedals, seats in a real fuselage as well. Also FS2004! 

 

So, you do NOT need fancy equipment, fancy planes, (apologies to A2A) to learn to fly. All you need is to know the procedures, & practice, practice & then practice again.

 

Immersion is the winner here. We cannot have realism using gaming joysticks, monitors in front of us & hard fixed seats.

 

Cheers,

Robin.