Microsoft Driving Simulator
Josette Werst
It was surprisingly hard for me to find simulations that match the UK driving experience. I'd love a great virtual reality UK driving simulator, but on the Quest 2 there are barely any driving games at all. I settled on Forza Horizon 4 because it's free with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, it's all set in sprawling countryside and occasional towns (just like my driving route) and its open-world style means I can just keep going, on and on, without having to worry about the artificial constructs of a race.
In the world of VR, simulations are remarkable pathways to brain training. Pilots and car designers and athletes use it all the time. I experience that kind of brain training when I play Beat Saber, or create some virtual art, or explore a new place for the first time and use VR to get my 3D bearings.
I've been hungering for more VR games that can be used for driving simulations like these, just to even get a feel for the dimensions of cars, car height, staying in lanes. Roundabouts. But without that, Forza Horizon 4 did the job in a pinch. After an hour or so driving around aimlessly, then taking a few direction-guided paths, I felt like I was understanding the flow.
I got used to the feeling of staying in the left lane and passing on the right. I got the hang of left vs. right turns and where to look as I turned. I tried night driving, too, because my cross-country trip was in the middle of the night. Sure, I would have loved it if I could have picked the exact car I rented, to simulate the whole dashboard layout. Whatever. I settled for my random Audi.
Racing video games don't simulate actual real-life driving conditions well enough to truly perfectly prepare anyone for actual driving, but it did help train my brain to accept the left side of the road and understand turns. The only thing I didn't get a sense of was how it felt to have the car's dimensions change with the flipped steering wheel (the cars I drove still had left-side steering wheels in Forza Horizon 4).
I was still terrified when I rented my car, sat in front of the right-side steering wheel, pulled out onto the highway and got on the M5. I also had a new car interface to figure out along with navigation on a new screen.
I'd recommend anyone taking a trip where they'll be driving on the opposite side of the road to play a realistic racing game for a little while to get your mind trained. I'm glad I did. I'd love if VR could help me in the future on this.
Or for when you're navigating the strange world of rural one-lane UK hedge driving, where there are absolutely no lights at night and the hedges rise on both sides like the walls of the Death Star trench. Encountering another car means backing up to find a turn-off where the other car can squeeze through. I guess I'll have to develop that Night Hedge VR game myself, but in the meantime I'll always have Forza.
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.