Home flight sims

[cimmaronjim]

This forum is too quiet so I thought I'd spice it up a little.

As I train for my sport cert I find myself hampered a bit by only being able to fly once a week.

There are a lot of mixed opinions on home flight sims as a training aid, some people going as far saying they hurt rather than help.

I have been using sims extensively between lessons and would like to share a few thoughts.

I would first make the qualification that there is no substitute for being in the actual aircraft and if I could trade every sim minute for flight time I would, however I can't right now, so I want to share my simulator experiences.

I already had MS FSX and have also tried P3D but I prefer Xplane, and am mostly using the Remos LSA with a stick, throttle and rudder pedals.

One of the most widely stated problems with sims is that students who use them tend to fixate on the instrument panel. Being mindful of that, I have made it a point to keep my head out of the virtual cockpit as much as possible.

I believe that if I had hundreds of hours flying the sim it would not be as helpful as how I have done it, which is to only practice things after being instructed first as I then know what to look for and can tweak the settings to best replicate the real experience.

I use the actual area I am flying in which are represented fairly well in these sims.

I believe that where the sim will really shine is in navigation, and ATC procedures on Vatsim or Pilot Edge, but for now, I will focus on maneuvers.


What I feel has been most helpful is to practice multitasking and attention division and believe it or not, shooting approaches.

Instrument scanning and keeping consistent altitude in the pattern is not reliant on realistic flight forces and is mostly a pay attention thing and I believe sim work has helped me there.

I have heard that once on final, the sim is completely worthless. I disagree. I was having difficulty timing the flare and after watching this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rv5HEJCyTuk I replicated it in Xplane. I have improved on center line tracking and flares and I believe the ability to simulate these dozens of times every day between lessons has helped.

I have tweaked the sim to provide mild turbulence and slight wind gusts and it feels very much like what I have experienced in flight.

I am a very new student pilot and my opinions should be taken as such but despite once a week lessons and some being scrubbed due to weather, only once have I felt I have regressed even slightly and that was between the first and second lesson.

I have no personal test bed to compare how I would have done with no sim practice, but I think it is much better than just reading a book or watching videos.

Just thought I would share this from a student pilot trying to find a way to supplement my training until I can make it more frequent.



Cheers
Jim

[CTLSi]

I have been using sims extensively between lessons and would like to share a few thoughts.

I have XPLANE and did train and finish my Private Pilot in a Flight Design CTLSi.

Sims are fine, but you are correct, they don't have 'feel' and they lack traffic and other real world elements of flying (and radio unless you hookup to their volunteer ATC network).

The best you can hope for in a sim like XPLANE is to practice flying a heading and holding an altitude...which are critical skills in all the checkride maneuvers (turn around a point, s-turns, slow flight, steep turns etc).

You can also simulate a stall, but it won't provide the feedback a real stall gives in a real airplane, all you can do is react to the instruments.

In regard to landing, sims are not very close to the real thing. The critical skill in landing is round-out and performing the flare and touchdown on the mains, a sim will let you land the plane with no problem on all three wheels, even a nose wheel first and not complain...in the real world, you will get into big trouble that way...

In the end, I never used the sim during my training at all...but would like to use XPLANE to practice instrument work...Sadly, XPLANE doesnt have the G1000 so one can only practice with simulate standard round gauges for now...

[cimmaronjim]

I have been using sims extensively between lessons and would like to share a few thoughts.

In regard to landing, sims are not very close to the real thing. The critical skill in landing is round-out and performing the flare and touchdown on the mains, a sim will let you land the plane with no problem on all three wheels, even a nose wheel first and not complain...in the real world, you will get into big trouble that way...

This is true, you have to be mindful of the differences but the "runway expansion effect" in the video linked translates pretty well in the sim. It has certainly helped me in the timing of the round out and flare.

It has really helped me in multitasking and attention division.

[BrianL99]

This forum is too quiet so I thought I'd spice it up a little.

As I train for my sport cert I find myself hampered a bit by only being able to fly once a week.

There are a lot of mixed opinions on home flight sims as a training aid, some people going as far saying they hurt rather than help.

I have been using sims extensively between lessons and would like to share a few thoughts.

...

Just thought I would share this from a student pilot trying to find a way to supplement my training until I can make it more frequent.



Cheers
Jim

There's a young guy who works in the flight school at my airport. He was a big Flight Sim user and when he graduated college, he decided he would fly for real. He took his PPL at 41 hours. After 10 more hours, he was ready for his Instruments. I have 500 hours and an instrument rating and if I was taking a long cross country, he's the first guy I'd ask to come with me. He knows as much about flying, particularly instrument flying, as anyone I know.

As others have mentioned, the "feel" isn't the same, but in today's airplanes, it's about cockpit management as much as anything else.

[HAPPYDAN]

Here's a (laughable) endorsement for sim training. The Barefoot Bandit stole a plane in Bloomington Indiana and flew all the way to the Bahamas before he crash-landed. His only flight experience was a Microsoft flight sim program. Makes me think about all the thousands I've spent so far on traditional training.

[cimmaronjim]

Here's a (laughable) endorsement for sim training. The Barefoot Bandit stole a plane in Bloomington Indiana and flew all the way to the Bahamas before he crash-landed. His only flight experience was a Microsoft flight sim program. Makes me think about all the thousands I've spent so far on traditional training.

Yeah, but you can land better.