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Ebs

Trainee pilot tells his instructor he 'plays the simulator a lot' I was surprised by the Instructor's reaction...

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I just came across this really great video of a guy training for his PPL. His instructor is a former Naval Aviator and Airline Pilot with 36 years flying experience so it's safe to assume he knows his stuff ;)

Definitely worth watching. Lots of great tips, but I came across a line that I just had to post here.

They're up in the air and the instructor asks the trainee about his flying experience.

Trainee: 'I play the simulator a lot. I don't know what that's worth'

Instructor: 'It's worth a lot. It is worth a lot. These kids that come out and have been flying simulators for 4 or 5 years. They can fly the airplane day one.'

https://youtu.be/Bst5bFSqXkA?t=20m43s (I've linked directly to the line in question)

 

 

 

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Neil Andrews.

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On 18/11/2017 at 6:07 PM, Ebs said:

Instructor: 'It's worth a lot. It is worth a lot. These kids that come out and have been flying simulators for 4 or 5 years. They can fly the airplane day one.'

I totally relate, I have been using flight simulators since FS95, unfortunately due to life circumstances I was not able to become a pilot, but a couple of years ago my wife as a birthday present got me my first flying session towards my PPL, I arrived at the local airport and never said anything about my previous flying experience with simulators, the plane for the training was a Cessna 152 and after 15 minutes of training in the air the instructor allowed me to take control for around 5 minutes, to my surprise he said: You have flown before don't you? I said only on simulators!, he complemented my flying skills and left me land the plane by myself which was awesome!

Upon returning to base my wife ask the instructor: So how was he? the instructor said: He is a natural! he can probably fly anything with wings! I felt amazing.. one of the best days of my life.

Best Regards,
Simbol

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The instructor is absolutely right, sim time definitely helps with instrument interpretation, since most flight simmers have to rely on what the instruments are conveying to tell them what the aeroplane is doing, as there is no movement when sat in your chair at home flying your PC. This means most simmers will probably trust their instruments more than a typical VFR pilot might be inclined to do if accidentally finding themselves in IMC, but...

As the video also relates however, that can mean sim pilots may not be so inclined to have as good a lookout as they should when flying VFR, since they don't have to worry about the consequences of a collision in a PC flight sim, whereas you are very aware of what that would mean when flying for real, or at least one hopes that is the case for a pilot flying for real.

Having had three friends killed in a mid air in the circuit because two of them were not keeping a lookout and flew into the other aeroplane, I know only too well that it is a real risk. Unfortunately, being in the pattern at only a few hundred feet AGL, all three (two in one aeroplane and one in the other) were too low to make use of the parachutes they were all wearing at the time.

So yeah, if a flight simmer tips up to an airfield for a first lesson, there's a good chance they will know all of the six pack and can probably also do VOR navigation reasonably well too, they'll just have to get used to the amount of bumping around a little aeroplane does and be aware that you have to vary your control inputs and be gentle on those controls sometimes because again, in a real aeroplane you can't turn off an option to have stress not damage the airframe lol.

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Alan Bradbury

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 A lot of people get in into there head they can fly if that were true AIRLINES are wasting millions on simulators when all they need to do is go down the local PC shop and buy one,

Some take it to extreme. 

.https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/this-man-is-about-to-launch-himself-in-his-homemade-rocket-to-prove-the-earth-is-flat/ar-BBFt2Ir?li=AAnZ9Ug

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Raymond Fry.

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Oy vey! That man is just a few fries short of a Happy Meal. Or more prosaically, he's as bright as a flashlight with dead batteries!

Obviously he's never been sailing, else he'd know about how ships at sea disappear the further apart they become...

...due of course to the curvature of the earth. :biggrin:

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Fr. Bill    

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I saw a video on youtube which said the Earth was flat, and so that proves it must be flat, because everything on youtube is true, even the things which aren't.


Alan Bradbury

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We need to take a trip to the South Pole to prove once and for all... because..reasons.. :uwe_merm:


Mark Robinson

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5 minutes ago, HighBypass said:

We need to take a trip to the South Pole to prove once and for all... because..reasons.. :uwe_merm:

You'll have to get past the millions and millions of secret Illuminati warships which patrol the seas around the entire 25,000 mile circumference of the flat Earth 24/7 to prevent you from going there. And despite the fact that none of them ever disappear below the horizon (obviously) because the world is flat, you can't see any of them because they have special holographic cloaking devices. Probably.

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Alan Bradbury

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..easy... submarine..because stealthy reasons..


Mark Robinson

Part-time Ferroequinologist

Author of FLIGHT: A near-future short story (ebook available on amazon)

I made the baby cry - A2A Simulations L-049 Constellation

Sky Simulations MD-11 V2.2 Pilot. The best "lite" MD-11 money can buy (well, it's not freeware!)

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That's why FSL and PMDG and A2A are rubbish, because none of their aeroplanes model the special chemtrail tanks which all real airliners have. Real airliners spray us with mind control drugs so we don't notice how flat the Earth looks, and the chemicals have special antigravity things in them so they don't affect the MTOW of the airliners. It says so on youtube, so it must be true.

All of the special chemical tankers which secretly deliver the chemicals to the airport from the secret factories where the chemicals are made have cloaking devices too, as do all the people on the ramps at the airport who load the chemicals onto the aeroplanes. All the pilots and aircraft designers and mechanics and people who make the aeroplanes and the air traffic controllers are in on it as well, but they are all sworn to secrecy. As are the approximately 50 million people necessary to crew and service all of those secret Illuminati warships which patrol the edges of the world to stop us going there. The Illuminati however, despite being able to pull all that off, are apparently powerless to stop people from putting videos up on youtube about it made by people who think NASA is the only space agency in the world, because... reasons.

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Alan Bradbury

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Really enjoyed that video and learned a lot. Thanks for sharing it.

Rick

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Great stuff there! I really like that the instructor had a positive outlook on the sim. It makes it feel all the more important for someone aspiring to become a pilot. Thanks for sharing the video.

Clay


 

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On 11/18/2017 at 11:07 AM, Ebs said:

I just came across this really great video of a guy training for his PPL. His instructor is a former Naval Aviator and Airline Pilot with 36 years flying experience so it's safe to assume he knows his stuff ;)

Definitely worth watching. Lots of great tips, but I came across a line that I just had to post here.

They're up in the air and the instructor asks the trainee about his flying experience.

Trainee: 'I play the simulator a lot. I don't know what that's worth'

Instructor: 'It's worth a lot. It is worth a lot. These kids that come out and have been flying simulators for 4 or 5 years. They can fly the airplane day one.'

https://youtu.be/Bst5bFSqXkA?t=20m43s (I've linked directly to the line in question)

 

 

 

That was my CFI's reaction after he first interviewed me before our first flight.  At takeoff, he said, "it's yours".  The only differences were the chop and the way the air played on the aircraft once airborne.  I find Xplane models these things a bit better than P3D does, especially P-Factor and Torque.  My instructor did admonish me to scan the instruments less and look outside more.  He said that's one trait we simmers bring into the cockpit, that we get too focused on the instruments and the gadgets.  He taught me "seat of the pants" flying.

I quit my lessons after about ten hours because of a: he wanted me to solo and I felt I was unprepared, I knew he was going to walk out on my next flight, and b:, it was gosh darn expensive and hard to reserve the aircraft on the weekends.  My CFI was a fun young man, about half my age, and we used to do sine waves together in the Allegro, in order to feel weightlessness.  I loved doing stall work with him, we practiced stalls on our very first flight.  The sim taught me fairly well, stick forward, a little pressure on the rudder to counter spin, then gently pull and trim to steady flight.  Recovery took seconds but you know with time dilation, it seemed like forever.

I haven't flown fixed wing since 2008, I moved to trikes that year which I have mentioned here before, which is more akin to the real feeling of flight.  Your face is exposed to the blast of the wind, and you are part of the wing, like a bird.  I encourage all simmers to try both a fixed wing demo flight and a trike demo flight.  I am not a big fan of powered parachutes, even though they are safe they aren't as fun IMHO as trike flying or open air fixed wing.  I have flown the Ercoupe with the windows down, a Luscombe with the windows down, and it was a lot of fun.  But of all aircraft, the Luscombe, although supposedly squirrley on the ground, was my hands down favorite.  It trimmed so sweetly in the air and responded like a feather in the wind, and was light sport compliant.  Oldest aircraft I ever flew.

John

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