Are home computer flight sims too real?
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: N. Europe
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FWIW, I had a go at a few FFS's before I had more than minutes of time in actual aircraft. I did have quite a bit of theoretical background at the time but nothing type specific. The hardest part? Getting dumped in the left seat in the middle of a flight and figuring out what 
switch to use to get the avionics into the right mode to help me find my way back to the airport. Nobody who'd planned it would have to worry about that, they'd have other means of navigation.
Circuits of the airport, approaches, landings. Bits of fooling around. Would I have passed a check ride? No, most certainly not. ATC would be screaming themselves blue as I walloved back and forth through their airspace, the pax would have been lining up eager to return their previously eaten inflight meals and the first landing could very well have necessitated a structural inspection. Did I keep it under control? Yes. Wake turbulence, tire blowout on touchdown, various nastiness like that. Did I get the aircraft to about where I wanted it to be? Yes. Irrecoverable engine failure (735) as I applied power to go around after coming in VERY high and hot (nobody was calling out airspeeds and so on) was where I lost it - didn't catch that I was an engine short before the bank was beyond what I could control.
As for finding ones way around ground structures... flying under bridges (and no, not the Golden Gate but something much smaller) in a 738 shouldn't be easier - and at the time I did not find that hard to pull off.
We're not talking precision flying or getting it all right thousands of times day in and day out, year after year. We're talking about getting the plane to where you can see a big friggin city and flying it towards a given fixed point. Even if they'd decided to use the built-in navigation capabilities and even if those would have map shifted themselves ten nm away, it would have sufficed.
Further investigation in and outside the line of duty has made it all too apparent that I am not in posession of supernatural flying ability by birth.
Cheers,
Fred
switch to use to get the avionics into the right mode to help me find my way back to the airport. Nobody who'd planned it would have to worry about that, they'd have other means of navigation.Circuits of the airport, approaches, landings. Bits of fooling around. Would I have passed a check ride? No, most certainly not. ATC would be screaming themselves blue as I walloved back and forth through their airspace, the pax would have been lining up eager to return their previously eaten inflight meals and the first landing could very well have necessitated a structural inspection. Did I keep it under control? Yes. Wake turbulence, tire blowout on touchdown, various nastiness like that. Did I get the aircraft to about where I wanted it to be? Yes. Irrecoverable engine failure (735) as I applied power to go around after coming in VERY high and hot (nobody was calling out airspeeds and so on) was where I lost it - didn't catch that I was an engine short before the bank was beyond what I could control.
As for finding ones way around ground structures... flying under bridges (and no, not the Golden Gate but something much smaller) in a 738 shouldn't be easier - and at the time I did not find that hard to pull off.
We're not talking precision flying or getting it all right thousands of times day in and day out, year after year. We're talking about getting the plane to where you can see a big friggin city and flying it towards a given fixed point. Even if they'd decided to use the built-in navigation capabilities and even if those would have map shifted themselves ten nm away, it would have sufficed.
Further investigation in and outside the line of duty has made it all too apparent that I am not in posession of supernatural flying ability by birth.
Cheers,
Fred
Grim Sleeper
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: UK
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Surely someone should be investigating the terrible scam the JAA are running, forcing professional pilots to undergo these punishing flying training courses and long apprenticeships to gain a seat in a 737.
The whole process could be made much cheaper for everyone by sitting us all in "virtual airlines" for a year or so with our MSFS 2002 (plus "ultra realistic" add-ons, of course) followed by a couple of hours in an FFS to get the feel of the "controls" and the locations of the "buttons", and Voila! the airline pilot of the future emerges, ready to nestle their spotty behinds on the mock sheepskin luxury seat of a bona fide £20m, 60-tonne machine with 150-odd men women and children on board....?
Maybe someone would like to develop a mod for MSFS called "Real Pilot". It involves getting up at 4 am each morning, then sitting on a hard chair in front of a blue/white screen, wearing headphones, which play white noise at a dB level just enough to be uncomfortable, while, simultaneously, heavily accented foreigners gabble gibberish at you for about four hours. You get 5-10 mins to have a tea break and then do it again a couple more times. Finally a large bully comes in at the end of the day to shout at you for using up too much fuel. etc etc etc
Thank **** for pc simulators...!
The whole process could be made much cheaper for everyone by sitting us all in "virtual airlines" for a year or so with our MSFS 2002 (plus "ultra realistic" add-ons, of course) followed by a couple of hours in an FFS to get the feel of the "controls" and the locations of the "buttons", and Voila! the airline pilot of the future emerges, ready to nestle their spotty behinds on the mock sheepskin luxury seat of a bona fide £20m, 60-tonne machine with 150-odd men women and children on board....?
Maybe someone would like to develop a mod for MSFS called "Real Pilot". It involves getting up at 4 am each morning, then sitting on a hard chair in front of a blue/white screen, wearing headphones, which play white noise at a dB level just enough to be uncomfortable, while, simultaneously, heavily accented foreigners gabble gibberish at you for about four hours. You get 5-10 mins to have a tea break and then do it again a couple more times. Finally a large bully comes in at the end of the day to shout at you for using up too much fuel. etc etc etc
Thank **** for pc simulators...!
