Originally Posted by
airpolice
How sad that so many instructors seem to think that the lower the number of hours required to pass a skills test, is in some way equal to the quality of the pilot capabilities being endowed.
When there are so many different types of flying, how can the use of a PC based sim, of which there are varying levels, be so black and white? Should the RAF stop using PC based sims, despite the results showing how much they help the students?
Hang gliders, Flexwing Microlights and LSA to C172 and PA28 are all used as the first aircraft that a student flies. We can't really say that one is right, and therefore the others are wrong.
I can't see how a one size fits all type of rule can be appropriate. This really smacks of four legs good, two legs bad.
Let me break this down so you can understand it......
Hours are being paid for by the student and they for some reason expect to pass the course in as close to minimum hours as possible. Experience has shown VERY extensively that those teaching themselves to fly on a PC simulator take much longer to pass than those who adopt the standard process. This is because the simmers arrive with pre conceived ideas gained from sim flying on how the aircraft should fly. There are no PC sims that replicate a light GA trainer.
Next, you are wrong on the RAF. They do not use PC simulators for training. I am a QFI on 45Sqn and can assure you that flight training is done in the aircraft and that when they do move to the sim it is for procedure training and nothing to do with basic flight training. Even the G1000 simulators are real G1000 units not PC simulators.
Where simulators really come into their own is for IFR procedures and advanced type training. They do not provide any useful experience at ab initio level. Thats an opinion formed on several thousand hours of teaching and examining.