6 hours ago, scotchegg said:

Good to see 2022 starting with a fresh perspective on our hobby…

Ha ha. Best comment of the year (so far)

Yes hobby is the thing, even fully trained pilots are having to find another profession too many pilots for too few jobs, even fully trained air force pilots are having to find another job when leaving the services and with drones the air force need less pilots.    

And some time in the future self drive cars and pilotless airliners.

Edited January 5, 20224 yr by G-RFRY

15 hours ago, FlyIce said:

I'm so with you on this - I'm 25 hours into my PPL learning and still stuck at doing good landings! My 20 years of simulator flying prepared me very well right up to the last 20 feet above runway where everything begins to fall apart. Just as you said, all those physical factors at the final landing moment were barely modeled in all the simulators I flew (FSX/P3D, X-Plane, MSFS etc), plus something like inertia and turbulent air are just impossible without those full motion platforms. 

B

You can learn to land in he sim just as in real life. I learned to land in a C 152, by flaring at around 10 feet, and then holding the top of the cowling on the horizon line as the aircraft slowed until it touched down at close to a stall. I do the same thing when I land the Kodiak in MSFS. Works every time, and my landing rate is usually around 40-50 feet per minute. 

On 1/4/2022 at 8:37 AM, versus said:

This is what puts me off from playing FS in general. If a person that has never touched a plane can land without crashing on the fiirst attmpt than there is no point in discussing how realistic  flight model or weather is.

I wouldn't know why but simulators are just too easy. Once I have tried approaching a runaway in RL the plane was all over the place I would have smashed it to the ground if it were not for the instructor. The feel of inertia and heaviness of the aircraft + effects of the turbulent air are just not there.  There is unrealistic twitching and oscillations as if the aircraft was made of cardboard but no flutter of the atmosfhere and erratic movements that require subtle yoke inputs and  numerous tiny adjustments to survive. How much I would like to just  try the accurate physics model of flight regardless of all other sim aspects. This is simply lacking all over the flightsim genre. Difficulty. You do something wrong and the plane crashes. Plane simple.

. 

You seem to be unfamiliar with MSFS, which has options for setting the level of difficulty as high as you wish. This allows neophytes and experts, and everything in between, to use the program in a way that suits their needs. I guarantee you that if you fly MSFS with all the settings at ultra-realistic and real weather, you won't find it so easy!

5 minutes ago, cobalt said:

You seem to be unfamiliar with MSFS, which has options for setting the level of difficulty as high as you wish. This allows neophytes and experts, and everything in between, to use the program in a way that suits their needs. I guarantee you that if you fly MSFS with all the settings at ultra-realistic and real weather, you won't find it so easy!

LOL it's very easy to land even the heaviest airliners even with "ultra" realism.

But that's OK, at the end of the day it was made to be fun and to reach the largest possible audience. 

4 hours ago, Lord Farringdon said:

ou may also be aware that in the dim dark past, procedure training was done in front of cardboard mock ups with photos of the flight panels. Two student chairs were placed in front of the mock ups and the pilots would run checklists and pretend to activate switches, levers and dials.

Indeed. I may add that there is this strange notion floating on forums that a home simulator cannot be but a game because, you know, the true airline simulators are minimalist in the scenery department 🙂

That doesn't take into account that

1/ technology evolves and that this minimalist scenery reflects technologies of yesteryear

2/ that airline pilot training is not the alpha and  omega. It is rather obvious that the tech leap we see in MSFS scenery has a great future to prepare missions (civil, humanitarian or military) and cross-country VFR training for instance.

49 minutes ago, MrFuzzy said:

LOL it's very easy to land even the heaviest airliners even with "ultra" realism.

But that's OK, at the end of the day it was made to be fun and to reach the largest possible audience. 

Why don't you tell us about your FPM touchdowns in the DC6? 

Seriously? A FLIGHT sim?

Or even other thunderstorm situations ...

A force feedback yoke that accurately simulates the feel of the plane is the single biggest thing missing from simulators. The yoke in real life is your biggest connection to how the plane feels. No matter what you tell yourself about honeycomb or saitek or yoko it’s a Y shaped Xbox controller/joystick. You can yank it and pull it however you please no matter the situation and the plane takes the input. You are trying to manipulate the plane using sensitivity settings and curves not forces. I am still convinced this is the biggest reason so many people internet rage about the flight model. Sebastian has even eluded to this. 

10 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

Why don't you tell us about your FPM touchdowns in the DC6? 

Actually, I'd love for him to tell me about all the hours he's logged the real heaviest of airliners........

1 hour ago, MrFuzzy said:

LOL it's very easy to land even the heaviest airliners even with "ultra" realism.

But that's OK, at the end of the day it was made to be fun and to reach the largest possible audience. 

Even with FSX, I have read many posts from airline pilots saying that some things were harder in the sim than in real life! But I agree with your second statement. 

I can only go by real pilots in the UK at my golf club we have 2 pilots one semi retired but used by holiday airlines as a standby, about 4 years ago pre-pandemic I told him about my hobby PC flight sim he new what i was talking about but said no good for him, in the UK airlines req them to be updated and if off for some time they must use the airline simulators that are supervised and graded by a qualified instructor who then sends a report to the airlines and logged with the authorities, It may be different in the US.     

31 minutes ago, TravelRunner404 said:

A force feedback yoke that accurately simulates the feel of the plane is the single biggest thing missing from simulators. The yoke in real life is your biggest connection to how the plane feels. No matter what you tell yourself about honeycomb or saitek or yoko it’s a Y shaped Xbox controller/joystick. You can yank it and pull it however you please no matter the situation and the plane takes the input. You are trying to manipulate the plane using sensitivity settings and curves not forces. I am still convinced this is the biggest reason so many people internet rage about the flight model. Sebastian has even eluded to this. 

Depends on what kind of acft you're talking about.  Virtually every real aircraft with a hydraulic flight control system has either an artificial feel mechanism that produces resistance to inputs using springs, pulleys etc, or uses a fly-by-wire flight control system with no force feedback beyond simple spring tension (e.g. Airbus).

When you get down to the brass tacks, all flight controllers send a control position input to the flight controls.  The "feel" may be off, but the flight dynamics based on those control position inputs don't depend on how it feels.  If a slight change in controller position (regardless of how much force it takes to make that change) produces an unrealistic wild pitch up/down, that's a platform and/or FDE issue, not a controller issue. 

7 hours ago, G-RFRY said:

Think of the millions airlines spend on simulators for pilot retraining, now according to this thread they just need a PC MSFS and flight controls they could now save millions (cough).

Why do you feel the need for your sarcastic comments? There is obviously educational value in desktop sims and addons that can help to practice and prepare for a check ride, stay current in procedures, learn about flying a specific type, etc., that's all. No one suggested an ATP check ride or the like could or should be done using a desktop sim. This is by far the most informative, rational and well behaved discussion about sim vs. game I've come across.

 

The original post video isn't an example of MSFS being a game, it's an example of MSFS being used as a game. Big difference.