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Rocky_53

Simmer flies for real!

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I got my PPL while still in my teens and flew regularily for 7 years before other things in life crowded out the flying. I found my way into simming around the late 90s.  Yesterday I hired an instructor and a C152 for one hour and piloted a real plane again for the first time in 35 years. It was amazing to be back behind the controls and feel the aircraft again. Even with all the simming and my distant past flying experience, I felt like a fish out of water for the first bit. The seat of the pants feeling and the effect of the wind and turbulence on the aircraft were a bit overwhelming at first, but as the flight progressed everything started to feel familiar. After a scenic flight around the area we had time to do 2 touch and goes followed by a full stop landing. There was a moderate crosswind and lots of convective heat bumping us around but by then it all felt very familiar and all 3 touchdowns were smooth and on the center line. I felt pretty elated after being away from it for so long.  

Clearly, the big difference with desktop simulation and real world flight is the feedback the body gets from the aircraft, controls and environment. There is really no comparison.

I do believe having experience flying an actual aircraft enhances the sim experience, because our brain helps fill in some of the missing elements based on our actual experience.  Simmers who haven't had the oportunity to pilot a real aircraft, likely miss out a little in that respect.

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Martin 

Sims: MSFS and X-plane 11

Home Airport: CYCW - Chilliwack, BC Canada

i5 13600KF 32GB DDR4 3600 RAM, RTX3080TI  HP Reverb G2

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As others have rightly said, approach and landing is very much different.  The wind, even a small wind moves you around and even light variable winds can keep your hands busy.  FSX and Prepar3d have almost none of that variability.  Even trying to create it by setting gusty, variable wind gives odd results...you start to see the mechanics of how the sim manipulates the air every 1 second and it's not realistic.  Better just to leave it alone.  (You'd think they'd make a vector field of wind that you'd be flying through but, I digress.)  On landing, you have so many visual clues...peripheral vision, textures of the runway and of the grass.  If you had VR and 60+ fps with crisp textures, you might get close but I don't have VR and seldom get 60 fps.  You also get gently jostled around which you very much see when someone's trying to hold a camera still and the airplane is being nudged around. 

Having said all that, things do keep getting better and better.  The A2A Comanche has one of the nicest flairs I've seen (I don't have it...but I've watched it carefully compared to real world video...really spot on) and there are others that are excellent.  I, generally, fly the airliners more, these days since bigger airplanes aren't affected as much by all this so it seems a bit more realistic all the way down to the smaller transports like the J41 (which was a hoot!).  I still do like flying the smaller airplanes but I have the same sense that something important is not there...like it's always a morning on a high pressure day with little wind.  Still fun, still nice to be up, but not as realistic as it could be.  Someday a sim will have realistic wind and that will be a great time indeed.


Gregg Seipp

"A good landing is when you can walk away from the airplane.  A great landing is when you can reuse it."
i7-8700 32GB Ram, GTX-1070 8 Gig RAM

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45 minutes ago, turnandbank said:

I got my PPL while still in my teens and flew regularily for 7 years before other things in life crowded out the flying. I found my way into simming around the late 90s.  Yesterday I hired an instructor and a C152 for one hour and piloted a real plane again for the first time in 35 years. It was amazing to be back behind the controls and feel the aircraft again. Even with all the simming and my distant past flying experience, I felt like a fish out of water for the first bit. The seat of the pants feeling and the effect of the wind and turbulence on the aircraft were a bit overwhelming at first, but as the flight progressed everything started to feel familiar. After a scenic flight around the area we had time to do 2 touch and goes followed by a full stop landing. There was a moderate crosswind and lots of convective heat bumping us around but by then it all felt very familiar and all 3 touchdowns were smooth and on the center line. I felt pretty elated after being away from it for so long.  

Clearly, the big difference with desktop simulation and real world flight is the feedback the body gets from the aircraft, controls and environment. There is really no comparison.

I do believe having experience flying an actual aircraft enhances the sim experience, because our brain helps fill in some of the missing elements based on our actual experience.  Simmers who haven't had the oportunity to pilot a real aircraft, likely miss out a little in that respect.

That is an excellent point you make. It should be the goal of all simmers to try and get into the air once in a while. I think it does go a long way towards filling in the missing elements.It's been a while for me and I think I will look into it in the fall. I do not need a refresher flight to remember how hot the ramp gets here in NW Florida during August. LOL

  • Upvote 1

Sam

Prepar3D V5.3/12700K@5.1/EVGA 3080 TI/1000W PSU/Windows 10/40" 4K Samsung@3840x2160/ASP3D/ASCA/ORBX/
ChasePlane/General Aviation/Honeycomb Alpha+Bravo/MFG Rudder Pedals/

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What a fantastic thread this has been so far.

Simmers with R/W experience of being behind the controls of a real aircraft coming to the fore. Excellent. Hats off to you guys.

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1 hour ago, shivers9 said:

That is an excellent point you make. It should be the goal of all simmers to try and get into the air once in a while. I think it does go a long way towards filling in the missing elements.It's been a while for me and I think I will look into it in the fall. I do not need a refresher flight to remember how hot the ramp gets here in NW Florida during August. LOL

Definitely need money and time, but I have done this once.

 


Captain Kevin

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Air Kevin 124 heavy, wind calm, runway 4 left, cleared for take-off.

Live streams of my flights here.

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Hello everyone, I have my PPL and currently training for my CPL/ATPL. I agree with everything you guys have said. The factors that stand out the most for me is human performance and physical factors. Most of these were pointed out but for example flying a C172 while you are parallel to the runway and beginning to flare there is a point while you are holding the yoke back with some back pressure and you begin to feel the aircraft to "fall" so you put a tad bit more of back pressure really trying to grease the landing. You won't feel that in any flight sim unless it's a professional sim on hydraulics which airlines use and companies that offer type ratings. Same idea when practicing stalls you can literally feel the aircraft stop flying its an incredible feeling. Basically all seat of the pants flying you won't get in the sim.

Human performance is another huge factor in real flying compared to sim flying. In real life there is just so much more going on. Comms,traffic,birds, obstacles, etc... I know some of these things are in sims but it's just not the same. Another human performance factor that stands out is how you react to meteorological conditions. Winds, thermals, turbulence, etc in real life these really have an effect on you that in a sim you won't experience. Try navigating  with your VFR charts out, writing down times, constantly verifying your position, checking engine parameters, tanks, fuel consumption, etc with turbulence, variable winds or strong thermals rocking you side to side or up and down. Trust me it affects your performance whether you like it or not( obviously with more experience you get use to it) especially for us pilots that may get nausea easier than others. 

I have to say though flight simming is terrific for studying instruments, procedures, failures, and even a general feeling of how aircraft behave. There are some great addons out there! I do agree that once you have flown in real life at the command of an aircraft it enhances your flight simming and vice versa as well. 

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Elpidio Sánchez-Marcos

 

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3 hours ago, shivers9 said:

It should be the goal of all simmers to try and get into the air once in a while.

If you can budget for it, it certainly is. I certainly won't wait 35 years again. The end goal doesn't have to be getting your pilots license. You can just book an hour with a good instructor once and a while.  You'll learn alot, have an amazing time and help your imagination fill in the gaps when simming.

  • Upvote 2

Martin 

Sims: MSFS and X-plane 11

Home Airport: CYCW - Chilliwack, BC Canada

i5 13600KF 32GB DDR4 3600 RAM, RTX3080TI  HP Reverb G2

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I had almost exactly the same experience as the guy in the video about two years ago. Having flight simulation as my main hobby since my early twenties (I'm now in my mid fifties) my kids bought me an introductory flight lesson for my birthday. With thousands of hours sim experience I had never flown a real aircraft before. I did my 30 minute introductory flight and was absolutely blown away. Loved every second of it. Instructor let me take off and we flew a circuit. I kept glancing to my right to check the instructor and his hands were in his lap, I was flying! I was amazed at how familiar everything was and kept having to pinch myself "you're doing this for real". Definitely the biggest difference is the forces you experience at the controls. The bumps and turbulence etc. Would do it again in a heartbeat. Like the video as well the instructor let me line it up for final, told me to keep that picture of the runway/threshold in my head and in we came. To be honest I had my hand on the stick and my eyes glued to that threshold the whole way down so I never glanced across to see if he hand his hands on the controls but we did a nice landing and he commented afterwards that my flight simulation had served me well. I think he was impressed. Sadly I haven't had the chance to go again.

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Matt Williams

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