9 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

When a subset of users started putting on airs and got delusions of grandeur?

 

The best answer to this perennial question that I've seen in a long time. Should be pinned on top of the forum.

9 hours ago, DaveCT2003 said:

And once again we have the longest running debate in the flight sim world which has been posted 1,000,101 times.

Answered many times over many years... it's purely throw and why the individual uses the software and what they do with it.  Why is that so darned difficult to fathom?

 

 

Amen! And endless debate!!!!

 

Well honestly I did not intent to see it turn into what it has...  Would a moderator please lock this one up?

 

 

Edited July 22, 20205 yr by fppilot

Perhaps before it's locked, this might show the opposite perspective.

From the NASA document "Touchdown: The Development of Propulsion Controlled Aircraft at NASA Dryden" (well worth a read, BTW):

"A simulation is a software model of an airplane. The model includes a maze of subsystems, the propulsion system, the control system, an aerodynamic model, an actuation model, a model typically of a specific airport and actual runway, models of weather, wind, turbulence, gusts. In effect, when you stepped into the plywood cockpit of the Dryden 720 sim, you entered an elaborate video game, an arrangement that might answer any number of speculative questions about flight but that at the same time entailed none of the risks of real flight."

 

4 hours ago, HiFlyer said:

When a subset of users started putting on airs and got delusions of grandeur?

Remember the weekly posts, "If I can fly the PMDG 737 NGX in FSX, could I fly the real plane?"

Most answers were "yes".

Funny, no one asked the same question about the A2A Piper J3 Cub. 😄 

Hook

14 hours ago, Ricardo41 said:

Strange question. Flight simulation is a game. Meant for entertainment purposes. It pretty much says so on every box or addon. You play at being a pilot. 

I'm guessing you've never heard of a sim called P3D then? Or an engineering tool called X-plane?

Well as an ATPL student, I’ll definetly say both. It completely depends on your mindset when you open the program.

Some of my schools simulators run prepar3d, and are approved FNPT simulators, where the hours (at least some of them) actually counts towards your ATPL. So definitely here p3d = simulator.

My school also have smaller simulators running fsx/p3d (more or less just a monitor and a joystick, the same as many of us ‘flight simmers’) and even though these obviously aren’t approved and counting towards your hours, because they’re supplied by the school to aid training, I’d definitely also say these are simulators. 
 

So what’s the difference between that and my home flight sim? Well not anything really. 
 

Id say if you fly the ‘program’ as if you’re sitting in a real aircraft, completely adhering to procedures and rules. I see no reason of not to call it a simulator.

However if you’re not, and just start on the rwy with engines running, flying around the city to enjoy the views. It’s a game...

So as others stated, it’s both. Depends on the mindset.

 

 

13 minutes ago, patrickbc said:

However if you’re not, and just start on the rwy with engines running, flying around the city to enjoy the views. It’s a game...

I'm simulating flying around the city to enjoy the views. 😄 

But I'm also starting cold and dark, doing pre-flight inspections with A2A aircraft, sometimes calculating my fuel costs.  For me, that's the gamey part! 😄  Flight sims as an RPG.

Hook

neither word actually have any sort of concrete meaning, so it is futile trying to lock in the definition if the two words, simulation or game.

 

However, in my experience, the people who are most likely to be using these programs as actual simulators, are the least likely to insist that it be called a simulator.  (i.e.  real pilots know exactly how gamey it all is at the end of the day, and gamers, no matter how seriously they take it, don't.)

5 hours ago, LHookins said:

I'm simulating flying around the city to enjoy the views. 😄 

Flight sims as an RPG.

Hook

Never thought of that but now that you tell it...  Sim and RPG, my game library.

14 minutes ago, Dominique_K said:

Sim and RPG, my game library.

I forgot to mention that I usually have some backstory for any given flight.  I might be taking my family somewhere for a visit, or taking a friend along for some adventure.  When flying down the Amazon river, I stopped to pick someone up that I knew had visited there.

Because almost anything you do in a flight sim is realistic with the proper backstory. 😄 

Hook

34 minutes ago, LHookins said:

I forgot to mention that I usually have some backstory for any given flight.  I might be taking my family somewhere for a visit, or taking a friend along for some adventure.  When flying down the Amazon river, I stopped to pick someone up that I knew had visited there.

Because almost anything you do in a flight sim is realistic with the proper backstory. 😄 

Hook

You want back stories ?Writing in the other thread on the Pyong Yang vid, I thought of your RPG analogy. We could have now meaningful flights like "Hunt for the missile sites"  or "Lets look at those strange facilities in the mountains".

Search up the "Pilot to Pilot" podcast episode 126: "The Perfect Aviation Job" and listen to Jame's story. This flight game played a pretty significant role in Jame's path to an incredible career. Call it a game. Call it a simulator. Call it Uncle Fred if you want. It comes down to what you are willing to make of it.

Whether you call it sim/game, I do not care, You can call it a whatever you want, it does not change anything! I would thing that most of people on here would have the wisdom on realize that.

I'm enjoy this thread!

Edited July 23, 20205 yr by jpc55
Remove a word.

9 hours ago, LHookins said:

I forgot to mention that I usually have some backstory for any given flight.

I remember in MS FLIGHT....... Laughing during the chicken runs, the panicked squawks from the birds in the back if you flew the plane inverted........

Tensely doing illegal flights while trying to avoid the police plane.

Hamburger runs.....

Hunting for Aerocaches....

Turning the weather to thick fog and hearing the screams and curses as most of the pilots on the server pretty much instantly fell out of the sky and crashed......

All the silly stuff that identifies me as an immature gamer at heart, not worthy of being an MSFS tester.