Do the rest of you have trouble explaining what it is we do to people?

I have been at this for decades now and I still have not been able to explain it to people in a way they will understand in a time frame that does not see them walk away and start drinking with someone else.

I just flew a return trip in the PMDG 737 from London to Sicily and back and it was magical. Truly. To have been at this for what must be 30 years now, it was breathtaking to see how far we, and this has come. However, I'm still at a loss as to how to make someone understand it. To such an extent that I try to avoid the subject if it comes up. People seem to think it's like Grand Theft Auto or something and there is no way to convince them or explain what flight sim is or does or can do. The only way I have found to even begin to get it across is to stick them in front of the machine and ask them to start up a 737 or something. Only then do you see their preconceived notions fly out of their ears and a state of bewildered wonderment fill their eyes.

The result of this is that it has always felt like my "dirty little secret" all my life.

Have any of you mastered this? Do others in your life enjoy that you enjoy this? Do they show interest? Or do they dismiss it and ridicule you despite the fact they have not a bloody clue what they are talking about?

 

Edited January 1, 20233 yr by Jazz

Ah, the secret, glasshoppa, lies in a paraphrasing of an old Harley Davidson commercial:

 

People ask me, "why do I fly simulators?"

For those that do, no answer is necessary.

For those that do not, no answer is possible.

For an old guy like me who can't get around much anymore it's my link to not ever getting bored.  I spend most of the day at it.  Not just flying but also collecting aircraft and adding new airports,

Betty says I'm obsessed with it.  She might be right.  It's my link to the past when I was more than I am now.  I can reprise the flights I actually flew from the Luscombe on floats to the Piper Aztec.  I can lose myself in it.  But I can't explain it.

Like flying itself.  You can't explain that to an earthling either.  No use trying.

Noel

Let's say we just looked at IFR procedures, instrument failures, maintaing a proper scan, windy ILS approach near minimums, etc. I think PC flight sims from the mid 1980s, maybe early 1990s onwards were already excellent tools, not games, for sharpening such skills.

Whether it's a game or a training tool is entirely up to the user, regardless of official criteria. The same could be said for chess simulators perhaps. It's the familiarity that sinks in and the moves become second nature.

Running around and shooting virtual reality zombies might come in handy some day, but to me it feels far more abstract than flying, car racing, chess, sailing etc. But explaining all that to someone who has zero interest in aviation to begin with is certainly difficult.

BTW for me it was recently flying around Sydney on a beautiful summer evening in the Grumman Goose in MSFS, touching down and taking off in various little bays and around the harbor. Really stunning! It doesn't matter if it's a game or a sim, it has some connection to real life.

19 minutes ago, Antipodeslonghaul said:

Whether it's a game or a training tool is entirely up to the user

Please, not another one of those game or not game threads. That really wasn't the intention of my post although I can see now that it can be interpreted as such.

12 hours ago, Bob Scott said:

People ask me, "why do I fly simulators?"

For those that do, no answer is necessary.

For those that do not, no answer is possible.

It's a passion. And so, as people here say, "no te lo puedo explicar, porque no lo vas a entender🎶" (I can't explain it to you, because you won't understand it). 'Nuff said😉

Many years ago, right after I moved to Roswell, I met a man (I was in my early 60s and he was in his late 60s) at the Roswell Little Theater.  My next-door neighbor had convinced to try out for a part in the new play and I got it.  

During our rehearsals this other actor and I discover we were both pilots.  So we arranged to go out to the airport and get checked out and signed off by an instructor at the local FBO.

We rented a Cessna 152 about twice a month and split the cost.  One of us would fly out to Sierra Blanca or Carlsbad or Tatum and land.  Then we switched seats and the other would fly back.

Jim, my flying partner, had a hard time figuring out right base and left base when approaching KROW and getting landing instructions.

I had FS 2002 or 2004 or whatever MSFS was current at the time.

Jim would come to the house and I would sit him down and let him fly the approaches on my simulator until he knew right base from left base.

Jim never got interested in flight simming but we had great fun flying twice a month until I couldn't get my medical renewed.  

Flight simulators, whatever brand or number, serve two purposes;  they let you sharpen your procedural skills and when you can't fly anymore they become, for former pilots, great nostalgia devices.

And now I think I'll go flying in my Quest Kodiak someplace in the mountains.

Noel

Interesting. My flight sim posts on FacePalm have inspired two people to take up simming, and when I used to post pictures of "party flights" from San Jose to Lake Tahoe, listing who was sitting where in a Beechcraft 350, people would chime in and say "Hey, I want to go on the next one!". Never had a problem explaining it - universally, people I know thought it was cool. 

deleted

 

Edited January 1, 20233 yr by bravolima
does not fit

When I tell folks who ask what I do with my time since I retired and I try to explain flight simming, I can read their minds. This old man plays video games all day.  

Hey Vic...we're old.  We can play video games all day if that's what they think.  We've paid our dues and now we can do anything we like.

We have a pest control guy who comes over every three months to spray for roaches and scorpions and such.  Every time he comes into my room to spray he sees me flying something on my computer.  He asked my wife once, "Is that all he ever does."  She said, "No, in the morning he makes himself breakfast and in the evenings, he watches movies on television."

Noel

2 hours ago, Patco Lch said:

When I tell folks who ask what I do with my time since I retired and I try to explain flight simming, I can read their minds. This old man plays video games all day.  

I experience a similar thing but often, it's almost as though people are confused by it shortly before they turn hostile at the idea. It's not unusual to see them scowl.

I find the reaction quite curious.

I wonder if it's an "attitude of my area" sort of thing.

Edited January 1, 20233 yr by Jazz

1 hour ago, birdguy said:

He asked my wife once, "Is that all he ever does."  She said, "No, in the morning he makes himself breakfast and in the evenings, he watches movies on television."

🤣

A lot of pilots I fly with still are a little confused by pc simulation but they often look over when I’m sat reading a copy of pcpilot on the flight deck (oh the irony ) and look interested, so I show them some pictures of how advanced modern sims are and they’re genuinely taken aback.

Others scoff at it yet think their own hobby of flying radio controlled aircraft is somehow much more grown up.

Edited January 2, 20233 yr by jon b

I never got any interest in flying RC planes, once it dawned on me that they are flying quite often at a scaled "ludicrous speed!"

I quit showing off my model RR layout primarily because visitors would invariably ask "why aren't the trains going faster?"  They simply couldn't grasp that they were running as fast as track and traffic conditions allowed. The concept of "scale speed" never occurred to them!