Plane Simulator X
Manases Yatnalkar
The Cirrus SR22 is a single-engine four- or five-seat composite aircraft built by Cirrus Aircraft. The SR22 series is the most-produced GA aircraft of the 21st century and makes up over 30% of the entire piston aircraft market.
The Cessna 172SP is a single-engine, fixed-wing aircraft with a tricycle landing gear. It has a cruise speed of 122 knots and a range of 696 nautical miles. More C172s have been built than any other aircraft, making it the most successful plane in history.
The Aerolite 103 is a single seat, high-wing, pusher configuration ultralight aircraft that was introduced in 1997. It is sold as an assembly kit aircraft that can take between 60-80 hours to complete the airframe.
The King Air is a twin turboprop plane produced by Beechcraft. It was the first turboprop and has outsold all its competitors. The King Air can seat up to 7 passengers, has a cruise speed of 226 knots and a range of 1,321 nm.
The Boeing 737 is a narrow-bodied, short- to medium-range airliner. It has 10 variants that can carry 85 to 215 passengers. It is the best-selling commercial jet airliner and has been in continuous production since 1967.
The Vision SF50 is a single-engine, very light jet aircraft manufactured by Cirrus Aircraft. The first prototype was shown in 2008 and the first flight occurred later that same year. The Vision can seat 6 passengers and has a cruise speed of 300 knots.
The MD-80 is a twin-engine, short- to medium-range commercial jet airliner that was introduced in 1980. It is primarily used for frequent, short-haul flights and can accommodate between 130 to 172 passengers with a cruise speed of 504 miles per hour.
The ASK 21 is a mid-wing glider aircraft that seats two in a tandem arrangement, with a T-tail and a body made of glass-reinforced plastic. This glider has been in production since 1979 and makes a great training glider.
The Sikorsky S-76 is a commercial utility helicopter with twin turboshaft engines, four-bladed main and tail rotors and retractable landing gear. The S-76 was the first Sikorsky helicopter designed for commercial, rather than military, use and can seat 12 passengers. It cruises at 155 knots and has a range of over 400 nautical miles.
The Stinson L-5 is a World War II-era tail-dragger aircraft that was typically used for observation. It can carry a pilot and observer in a tandem-seating configuration with a range of 375 statue miles.
Microsoft Flight Simulator has "flight lessons" with a virtual flight instructor, some of which teach concepts that are taught during actual flight training. These simulators are becoming very realistic, and I can see them being helpful as an introduction to a subject prior to running the Hobbs meter and paying for actual flight time. Will this experience help or hurt someone who decides to become a real pilot? Is it a tool which can help students/instructors in an actual training environment?
Clarification:
This was written about Microsoft Flight Simulator X (FSX). Parts of the answer probably apply to the new Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020 release), but that isn't what I had in mind when writing this. Maybe a new answer will be appropriate after using MSFS for some time.
Especially when I was a student, I found this incredibly helpful for my long cross country flights. You can look at a map all you want, but its still not the same as sitting in the simulator, and looking around ("I see the mountain on my left.... and the lake below me. I can follow this valley all the way to the airport..." etc). And I've generally found the simulator, with good terrain and textures loaded, can be pretty close to reality.
The night before I did a student flight from KBFI to KVUO, I flew the entire thing in FSX. The next day, it really felt pretty much like making the same flight all over again. Based on the landmarks, timing, views, etc, I knew exactly where I was, and I was confident that everything was going right.
Because of these limitations, I would NOT use a flight simulator to try to learn takeoffs, landings, or certain maneuvers. (You can learn the "procedure" in a simulator... when to reduce power, when to add flaps. But the "feel" will be all wrong).
Typically in real-world training, my instructor told me: "We're going to practice engine-out emergencies" and my mind immediately starts preparing for that... And naturally, we have to do them at a safe altitude in a safe area.
In a flight simulator, you can set up the computer to give you a random emergency at a random time. You might get the problem on short-final, or over a metro-downtown area. Something that you just can't do in reality.
I haven't had any real-life emergencies, so I don't know how accurate a flight simulator is. But I believe that some practice is better than no practice at all, and flight sim lets me fly into storms, icing, get lost in fog, fly approaches below minimums, have an engine seize up on me, etc, all without risking my butt or a $200,000 airframe.
Procedures
Reviewing steps and procedures before going in the air. For example, for a student, steep turns or stall recovery can be a little nerve wracking at first. It may be much easier (and cheaper) to do it in a sim with an instructor, discussing all the steps and reasons for actions. Then when the student gets in the air, they won't have the "feel" for it, but at least the general process is already familiar.
Navigation
Tuning and identifying VORs, and interpreting the needles can be done just as well be done on the ground as in the air. If the sim has good, realistic terrain (I prefer MegaSceneryEarth), it can also be used for some visual reference lessons.
Instrument interpretation
Scanning and cross-checking the 6-pack of instruments can be done in a simulator just fine, and a student can practice doing it for long periods of time for a fraction of the cost of flight time.
On the ground & Outside the plane
Anything on the ground, such as taxiing and parking, or anything outside the airplane, such as pre-flight inspection, or weather interpretation, just doesn't work in a sim.
Radios
I haven't seen any flight sims that really work for the practice of talking on or listening to the radios. (I haven't used VATSIM, which might help). I don't think there's any good substitute for actually flying in a real airspace while simultaneously engaging in real radio conversations.
Feel
Even the best full-motion sim isn't a substitute for the forces a student feels in a real airplane. This is especially true on ground-reference maneuvers, takeoffs, and landings, where I feel sims fall far short of reality. No one will ever get a "feel" for the plane from a simulator.
It can definitely help: when I did my instrument rating my instructor used MS FS to walk through (fly through?) various procedures before doing them for real. He also used it for NDB training because the aircraft we used didn't have ADF. I found it very useful, and if I had bought it myself it would probably have saved me a lot of time and money. The main benefit for me was that it lets you run through procedures to practice getting all the steps right and in the right order; I've never used any scenarios like the ones you mentioned so I don't know how useful they are.
Another very useful simulator I've used is the Garmin G1000 PC trainer. The G1000 has so many features that trying to identify them all while sitting in an actual aircraft is difficult, even if you have the aircraft available and can pay for it. It also lets you practice various failure modes, which is often difficult to do in the real aircraft. Garmin provides simulators for their 'basic' aviation GPS units too, and they're great for the same reason: you can play around as much as you like. There's no doubt in my mind that they help very significantly.
I think that as glass cockpits become more and more common, simulation will become more and more important. They're great tools, but they also bring a lot of complexity and learning how to handle that complexity safely is a lot easier using a simulator. Of course you eventually need to go up, fly, and try out what you've learned for real, but it's no fun trying to flip through a G1000 user guide in flight.
Physical and mental limitations not withstanding, I would say that just about anyone can learn how to fly. But I don't believe that everyone who can learn how to fly could be a good pilot. Flying and pilotage are very much more than successfully operating a flying machine in order to fly. It's even a lot more than doing that and following the procedures (ATC, operating in controlled airspace etc) which accompany it.
A pilot becomes good when the operation of the machine or the following of the procedures is not enough to to produce a safe, successful conclusion. A good pilot avoids the traps and pitfalls that catch the unwary and have proved the rule, all to often, that in the ongoing contest between the earth and flimsy machines arriving in other than controlled circumstances, the earth has yet to lose.
A good pilot takes care of the machine and it's passengers. A good pilot can deal with the unexpected and make sound decisions to continue a flight or not or perhaps even to not commit aviation at all. A good pilot has situational awareness which tells them, via sixth sense, that the bizjet calling left base is a potential threat and is already looking by the time the tower calls.
There is the emotional response; that thrill, that feeling of privilege, that unquantifiable human response to flying that is so much more than operating the machine. There is also a set of skills and mental and physical responses without which, it is not possible to be a "good pilot" (IMHO).
I have only a couple of hundred hours. A handful on fixed wing, the rest on helicopters. I also have about 3500 hours "flying" big tin on VATSIM (if you are serious about PC simming and don't know about VATSIM, Google for it right now!).
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