A question for Crews and Instructors
Permit me to speculate for a moment if you will. One day, science will allow us to interface directly to the brain. After that, all the ironwork, instruments, hydraulics and so on will become a relic of the past, and a simulator will be nothing more than a P.C. and a helmet. Advantages - well the obvious, an end to most of the bits that break, power consumption reduced by a factor of thousands etc. But there may be another, in that a lot of the things we cannot simulate such as sustained G etc will become within the scope of the machine. Another will be fear, which brings me to my question.
While a pilot is flying the sim, somewhere at the back of his mind there is in most cases I suspect a thought that goes something like "I am flying a sim. If I mess up really badly, I may lose my job". The same thought whilst flying the real thing goes more "I am flying a plane. If I mess up really badly, I and a large number of people who depend on me will die".
How many Pilots actually suspend disbelief while in the sim? I have seen a few who I suspect do - they emerge at the end of a detail visibly shaken, but most appear ok at the end of the detail. Does the lack of fear reduce the value of simulation?