Flight Sims

[Ds3]

I've read up a bit on these but haven't really found a comprehensive thread, so hopefully not stepping on toes starting a new one.

I'm mid PPL, 30 hours in and now learning nav having done all the excerises, solo work etc. I'm contemplating buying some flight sim software for some extra practice at home, especially whilst the weather is bad.

It seems opinions are mixed, however the over all concensus appears to be that they are no good for practicing operation of the aircraft itself, but quite handy for use of the instruments, and for nav.

So I have two questions, firstly is the above vaguely accurate and will it be worth my time using a sim, or will it just give me bad habits and make me a worse pilot?

Secondly, if I do go for one what are the recommendations and what hardware should I consider? I don't mind spending a bit of cash, but don't want to start turning my spare bedroom in to a 747 cockpit! I have a decent PC and a 24" monitor so it's just peripherals I may need. I'm learning in a Robin HR200 so it would be ideal if this was included in the sim.

Cheers

[RTN11]

Microsoft flight sim X is actually pretty good. There's load of add ons, so you're bound to find whatever aircaft you want.

I'm yet to find a sim where the visuals are so good you can seriously think about practicing VFR nav, even with the VFR scenery pack it's only a bit of fun, not for serious practice.

It is very good for practicing instrument work, particularly using the radio navigation aids (VOR, DME, ADF, ILS, GPS). These are usually skimmed over in an hour on the PPL course, but flight sim would enable a much better understanding.

The bad points - landing is quite unrealistic as you don't have the peripheral vision and It tends to lead to you ignoring the rudder, unless you invest in some pedals.

[GeeWhizz]

I agree with everything above.

FSX is quite good some things. Rather than echo RTN11's comments I'll merely add what I found useful.

IN FSX there is the capability to add varying winds (even real world winds if hooked up to the internet) which will provide useful practice at plogged timings for planned legs and unplanned diversions. Also if you know your next route to fly, it is useful for getting to grips with he direction of arrival and sometimes the layout of the aerodrome you're visiting.

Completely ignore the aircraft handling side of things, and as you are 30+ hours and into the nav phase you won't pick up bad habits.

Make the most of the sim, it can be very useful if used wisely.

[morticiaskeeper]

Have a look at Flightgear - it's free.

XPlane is also good.

I don't have Microsoft, so haven't used FS for yeas.

Practice radio calls and circuit procedures, it beats walking around the coffee table muttering calls :-)

[miroc]

SIM

Also if you know your next route to fly, it is useful for getting to grips with he direction of arrival and sometimes the layout of the aerodrome you're visiting.

To prepare for a crosscountry you can use the sim in Google Earth. Visuals are much better and more realistic than MS flight sim.

BTW, I used every version of MS FS from 98 to 2004. The last one ran on 2,5 MHz processor with 2GB RAM and Nvidia 7500 graphics couple of years ago. Good enough. I would recommend rather to invest in very good controls - yoke + pedals instead of computing power. The experience for me really started as I brought the controls.

Miroc

[mrmum]

Without just retyping what's already been said, my attitude to PC based sim's is softening somewhat (as they improve I suppose). Essentially what was in post 2, 3 & 4 is all pretty good advice IMO and your original take on the subject is pretty sensible.

[thing]

They are great for practising the dials for IFR flying, not much use as an actual 'this is what it's like to fly an aeroplane' type thing as I invariably find them much more difficult to fly than a real a/c.

We have a three screen set up at our club with the yoke, pedals, throttle quadrant etc. I was trying to do an ILS into Doncaster on it when a prospective stude was shown round. I had to explain to him that the sim is 20 times harder to fly than the real thing as I lurched around on it. Most embarrassing.

[Big Pistons Forever]

Personally I discourage desk top flight sim use except as a means of practicing IFR procedures, which obviously doesn't apply to a 30 hour PPL student.

Chair flying is free and IMO just as valuable. If you insist on using a sim I would suggest you consider it a "remote" lesson. So your instructor assigns you an exercise, with defined parameters, and you go away and do it and then sit down for a debrief. So for a Navex, you would be given a route to plan and winds and weather. You go do it and then review your PLOG with the instructor.

Just going out and flying around in your MSFS "airplane" is essentially like flying a real airplane with no instruction. You don't know what you are doing wrong and the danger of picking up bad habits is high.

[Pilot DAR]

Just going out and flying around in your MSFS "airplane" is essentially like flying a real airplane with no instruction. You don't know what you are doing wrong and the danger of picking up bad habits is high.

I very much agree. Added to that, consequences. Like watching cartoon, where no one ever seems to get hurt, you crash your sim a few times, and it begins to seem routine, and meaningless.

Good instruction will give you the tools to learn safely and effectively, and crash free. So, for those who would launch off with little or no instruction in a real training environment, set yourself this standard. If you ever crash the sim, you don't fly it again, until you have passes a flight test. That should inspire you to seek and achieve the appropriate training.

Back in the day, I had "look the other way" virtually unlimited, access to the airline's full motion simulator. The only condition, If I ever crashed it, I never flew it again ('cause I was caught). I never crashed it! - Consequences!

Piloting an aircraft is a real activity, with severe consequences for inadequacy. Treat it with real respect, even if you can seem to participate on your desk.

[172_driver]

Now I must respectfully disagree with Big Pistons and Pilot DAR in this case. That Microsoft FlightSim won't teach you much "feeling" or VFR flying I buy. But that it will teach you bad habits or make you complacent to crashing….!?!?!? I am probably from another generation, where we grew up with computers, where every little kid that have become pilot used to dick around in MFSF, flying inverted under bridges, landing on the roof top of World Trade Center. Obviously nothing someone would try in real life… and ooohh, probably exceeded a few flap limits speeds too! Something I generally don't do in real planes

Provided you've been given a firm SOP (Operating procedures) I believe MSFS can be a good tool to sit down and rehearse and develop memory flows. It's to reinforce habits, not develop new (bad) ones. Since you're in your mid-PPL, developing checklists flows, traffic circuit flows etc. is probably something you've already mastered and need no further training on. In your case increasing precision (or feel) is what you're looking at, in that case MSFS provides limited gain IMO. For IFR procedures it's invaluable. I used it with huge gain. Before every training session I did the flight in MSFS once or twice. Then I went to the school and did the same flight, without surprises.

Standing by for incoming

[aviate1138]

I would try X-Plane 9 and the forthcoming X-Plane 10 [available as a demo]. The sim aircraft actually 'fly' as the aircraft have airfoils and you can build your own aircraft using "Plane Maker". Burt Rutan used the software so it must have some merit.


X-Plane 10 is here.
Welcome to the New Home of the X-Plane Flightsim Community

[24Carrot]

One issue with Sims (at least with ordinary yokes) is that the trim is poorly represented. In a real aircraft the "zero force" yoke position (with associated elevator position) can be anywhere, selected by the trim wheel.

With a PC sim yoke, there is one "zero force" yoke position, because it is just a tube attached to some springs, and the elevator is "moved" with the trim wheel.

And unless the yoke has a central "detente", ie a well defined "zero force" position, (some do), trimming becomes too fiddly to bother with. Which is not good practice.

Imagine climbing 50 feet to get back on altitude. In a real aircraft, assuming you were trimmed, you would just pull back a little to raise the nose slightly, gently get back to altitude, then release the yoke pressure. No re-trim required. In a PC sim with a typical sticky yoke and no detente, the new "zero force" position is a little different now, so you have to trim all over again, and so on every time you touch the yoke.

With those caveats, I have found a sim very useful for some exercises, eg tracking away from an NDB in a strong unknown wind. The sim is also cheaper and the strong wind is easier to arrange

[kesikun]

I would recommend X-Plane 9 (10) ..

I tried FSX but it was too "gamey"....

With the VFR Scenary packs for the UK the visual experience is very good.....

Also there is a strong community providing addons and detailing UK aerodromes..

I use it currently for checklist training & circuit accuracy , in X-Plane you can start from scratch in a C152.... also brings in local metars :-)

but its not a replacement for the "real" thing.....

[Armchairflyer]

Can pretty much second most of what's been said here already: very much useless for training aircraft handling, quite useful for training procedures and checklist flows.

Some personal suggestions for getting more out of it, both concerning fun and potential learning experience:

• Even though trying to gain actual flying skills by PC simming (whether MSFS or X-Plane) is about as useful as trying to become a match for Sebastien Loeb by playing Colin McRae Rally, having a joystick or even yoke with a throttle quadrant and maybe a set of rudder pedals adds big time to the fun. And while not actually making PC flying much more realistic, good add-on airplanes (and/or the modified airfiles by Alexander Metzger for the standard planes as a freebie alternative, see metzgergva.de) offer somewhat of a less arcade-like feeling (e.g., less unrealistic trim behavior which has been described above).

• Consider joining an online flying network (IVAO or VATSIM). Disregard any discussion about which one is better, go where there is usually more traffic in the areas and during the time you like to PC-fly (rule-of-thumb: VATSIM for USA, IVAO for Europe) and/or try both and pick your preference. It's free, it's not too hard to set up, and IMHO it really helps in practicing and/or maintaining radio skills and getting used to operating the aircraft and doing radio work at the same time.

For me, online R/T is one of the aspects probably most beneficial to real flying for the newbie and/or occasional private pilot. Practicing to stress-freely communicate in correct phraseology while going through the tasks involved with flying an airplane (even if it's just PC simming) has made me a lot more relaxed and completely stutter-free during my real flights. Online flying adds considerably to realism concerning airspaces and procedures, too, which are usually quite meticulously followed; you are also expected to have and use enroute and airport charts, even though of course they needn’t be completely up to date and/or approved for real flight operations. Besides, it’s loads of fun.

• For increased "seriousness" you might also want to consider buying FsPassengers. While you can of course crash your FS plane repeatedly without suffering any real harm, losing a virtual pilot whom you have flown to a decent "track record" (every flight is evaluated) and some "promotions" through your own bad decision at least gives you a small sting of frustration (at least it did for me when I decided to bust landing minima and flew a Cheyenne into the ground, killing my until-then successful pilot and having had to start a new career from scratch).

While of course not getting anywhere close to really going up in the air, I find these items to make sitting in front of your monitor and pretending to fly an airplane quite an immersive experience, and IMHO trying to flawlessly execute an online VFR (or even IFR) trip including flight planning and weather briefing (weather corresponds to real-world weather), correct R/T, navigation that respects all airspaces, correct departure and arrival procedures for the respective airports, satisfied virtual passengers etc. is quite an instructive and rewarding experience and nothing that can be achieved by simply starting FS and fooling around a bit. Besides being fun, I certainly learnt quite a lot from the mistakes I made during these armchair trips (luckily before seizing the opportunity to make them in a real airplane).

[Big Pistons Forever]

Originally Posted by 24Carrot

I have found a sim very useful for some exercises, eg tracking away from an NDB in a strong unknown wind. The sim is also cheaper and the strong wind is easier to arrange

I agree, flight sims can be quite useful for practicing radio navigation procedures, However as the original poster asking the question is a 30 hour PPL student I would hope is instructor is not teaching him NDB tracking at this stage in his training. I wonder is this sort of NDB exercise typically conducted during any part of the training for the British PPL ?

[172driver]

Agree with the other 172_driver here. Only thing to add I'd prefer X-Plane over MSFS as it feels more realistic.

[24Carrot]

I wonder is this sort of NDB exercise typically conducted during any part of the training for the British PPL ?

Fair point, no it isn't!

From memory there is a some VOR/DME awareness, and maybe homing to an NDB. The emphasis is very much on visual dead-reckoning navigation.

[Slopey]

The realism in X-Plane (9) isn't really up to much compared to FSX (neither have a convincing fully developed stall of a Cessan for example), and out of the box, XP9 is un-flyable (turn the turbulence down/off as it's bonkers to start with), and looks terrible (turn the quality settings up immeadiately), and has the lowest amount of quality control imaginable, some of the aircraft interiors are just shockingly bad (and half the cockpit controls don't work/pointless GPS etc). What XPlane does have, is non-flat runways which are quite nice. And look for Carenado add-on aircraft as the default are so poor.

XP10, just about released (3rd isn't it?), isn't any better than FSX imho, for a variety of reasons which you won't be worried about as they're to do with the environment rather than the simulation. The Demo puts you in a 747 with the viewpoint so far forward you can't zoom back to see the panel, and performance isn't nearly as good as XP9.

If you are on Windows, just get FSX - it has the most massive support base and add-ons imaginable, and is far far easier to get setup and working than XPlane for a casual user. And it has a useful GPS for crosschecking where you are when necessary, and the weather generation is ok, but ActiveSky is the add-on if you want proper live metars as opposed to an FSX approximation.

As has already been said, Vatsim is where it's at for proper ATC, or RadarContact 4 which is a replacement for the built in FS one really. And a TrackIR is insanely useful.

And as someone's already mentioned FSPassengers, might I also suggest Air Hauler as a worthy addition if you want something that will tell you where to go (under the guise of running a cargo company) rather than fly around willy nilly. (for either FSX, or XP, but I'd recommend FSX).

[AN2 Driver]

Microsoft FS X will tick all the boxes, provided it is upgraded to what is needed.

For the UK, there is a complete set of photorealistic scenery available as an addon (plus as well for Germany and Switzerland and other areas) which will require massive amounts of harddisk space but are worth every penny if you fly VFR.

For the UK likewise, there are tons of airports available, some payware, some freeware such as the excellent smaller airports by Alf Denham (find his work at AVSIM) .

Likewise, there are hundreds of airplanes, you will likely find almost your exact trainer in some form or the other.

If you want to profit from this, fly the FS plane according to the same checklists and procedures you'd fly the real plane.

Of course, a proper set of flight controls are essential. Not all of them are good, as it has been said here before, see that you get one which has no "center point" detent.

What is very helpful is a eye tracking device called Track IR. It fits to your baseball cap and will allow you to move the screen view by moving your head. While it is by no means the same as a 180 degrees visual, it will do the job much nicer than people might think. I had one of those almost forced onto me by a friend of mine, but never ever not even once looked back.


I had a hiatus from flying for almost 10 years due to financial and professional requirements. When I came back, the fact that I have logged well over 10 k hours on FS (from 98 to X in the mean time) helped tremendously to cut short the re-training time. Navigation, procedures, e.t.c. came back as if I'd never left and I was happy to train for my flight test using a very similar performing rendition of my Mooney plus a photorealistic Switzerland Pro X Scenery, on which it was no problem whatsoever to find even the most "obscure" VFR reporting points.

For IFR or if you have one of these, I'd strongly recommend the phantastic Garmin 430/530 simulators by Reality XP. Realistically, you don't have time to train those in the air, but with these gauges, which can be built into any existing FS aircraft, you can at leisure play around with these devices and figure them out, while in "flight" rather than a "dead" simulation which is what you'll find with the stand alone Garmin sim.

Have fun.

For those of you who are critical of those sims, go see a properly equipped one. You don't use Windows "naked" either, do you? You buy office programs and other stuff, because the basic program is not enough. Well, it's the same in FS. The FS Box per se is but an operating system, it's the addon products which will make or brake what you can do with it. I've "converted" several die hard deniers of PC based flight sims in recent years, most of them FI's or TRI's. And with any tool you use, it's up to you to use it well or bad, just as you can use Internet Explorer to either surf pprune or youporn. Your choice.

[Pace]

I used to be heavely involved in MSFS and setup RealAir Simulations with the flight dynamics Guru (Rob Young)
The flight dynamics engine in MSFS is rubbish adjust one parameter and everyrthing else goes out of kilter.
Rob young did some amazing things with RealAir Simulations in getting half decent aerodynamics.
He described the way aircraft handled as a puppet on a string.
They are still best on autopilot for IFR training.
One of the best sims although now bust and antiquated was flight unlimited which had a realism not found in MSFS.
I actually found the sim to be very helpful for keeping a pilot up to speed but as many have said you need a lot of addons aircraft and visuals.

As an addendum work was being done on allowing a genuine instructor to enter your cockpit online and instruct dont know where that got to as i packed it all in several years ago. That would have been a major breakthrough in home sims.

Pace