5 ms·

Video game experience is absolutely better than no experience. On small general aviation planes, the feature set is quite minimal and most simulators will repl

Video game experience is absolutely better than no experience. On small general aviation planes, the feature set is quite minimal and most simulators will replicate all of it faithfully enough, so the only remaining thing is the “feel” of the plane which you can hopefully experience a bit during flight before landing. In contrast, a big passenger jet has insane amounts of different systems that need to be configured - not only are those typically not fully replicated in consumer-grade simulators (you probably don’t want to spend 30 minutes configuring your plane for takeoff before being able to start a game) but even a complete simulator such as the one used for pilot training won’t be enough to actually learn all those systems - that’s why it takes years of training. Simulator-only experience for a big plane? No chance. For a small plane? Yeah if there’s no damage or other edge-cases and the weather is on your side you have good chances of making it especially if you have an instructor on the radio to double-check everything.

the_af 5y ago
I wonder about DCS "study sims" of combat jets. No, no, I'm not saying one could actually be a fighter pilot just by flying DCS F-18. But I wonder about the realism. It seems every single knob and button and thingy on the cockpit is clickable. Every subsystem is simulated. The manual is reportedly huge (I don't own it, just watched videos on YouTube). With such a realistic flightsim, TrackIR, a HOTAS setup, and all the gadgets, how far is it from the real thing? I wonder how far you can go on an actual F-18 with just DCS experience. I suppose a huge detail that is missing is the pressurized suit and the enormous G forces. (I also wonder how come most of this isn't classified, and is instead generally available to the paying public. I suppose the answer is "because as a private individual, you cannot buy an F-18 with weapons").
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  I think a big part is also to be able to operate under pressure and not panic. It's one thing to operate a complex machine from the comfort of your office chair, it's another thing to operate the same machine when any small mistake could mean death.
- meheleventyone 5y ago
  The biggest issue is that the physical simulation is still pretty rough in modern games particularly when considering stalls and other "out of true" flight dynamics dealing with turbulent flows. Which is quite important for landing and take-off. Likewise whilst flight models are aiming for accuracy they're still full of fudges, guesses for missing data and mistakes so I'd take any correspondence to real aircraft with a massive grain of salt. You will probably be able to turn all the systems on in an aircraft of the right vintage though.
  - lutorm 5y ago
    That, plus the lack of full sensual inputs (G-forces, turbulence, vestibular experiences, the full outside view) makes it quite a bit of a lesser experience than the real thing. There's a reason you don't need much equipment for a procedural flight simulator, as opposed to one that can replicate actual flight.
- Sakos 5y ago
  I could turn on a real F-16. Zero chance I'd try to fly one irl. I just don't think the knowledge/skill transfer is very good for actual flying without any sort of (realistic) haptic feedback for how the plane actually feels to fly. Maybe if you shat money and could afford a 6DoF rig and trained on that?
- Juicyy 5y ago
  Ive been in the sim world for a while and i guarantee the good DCS pilots could make the move to real life flying with no problems. Combat, fitness, and the organization of the military would be the difficult part.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- robscallsign 5y ago
  I've been a fairly serious flight simmer for about 20 years now, including 13 years of DCS, and have flown the DCS F-18 since it's initial release 4 years ago. This topic gets discussed a fair bit within the flight sim community, and we mostly conclude that we'd likely get the F-18 into the air, but would most likely kill ourselves: either passing out from lack of tolerance and training to handle the G forces, lack of familiarity with the sensation of flight which can wreak havoc on your inner ear and result in vertigo, dizzyness, nausea, or paying attention to any of the hundreds of small details and checks that real pilots do that you don't do in DCS (is the OBOGS working properly? cabin pressurization working properly, icing, etc). Simulator pilots would also not likely be able to handle any inflight emergency or problem in the air. Then, assuming we didn't already kill ourselves during the flight, we'd at best damage the aircraft during the landing, or kill ourselves and destroy the aircraft at worst. Still, DCS offers a tremendous value as a low cost training platform. The DCS A-10C module was built for the US Air National Guard to use as a training simulator platform to train A-10C pilots, and other countries and airforces are increasingly using DCS to train their pilots. A Spanish company built the Aviojet C-101 module for DCS because it is used in the Spanish airforce and they wanted to use DCS as a training platform. A Chinese company built the JF-17 module for DCS. An Italian company is currently building an MB-339 module for DCS. You can search online and find images of Chinese fighter pilots using DCS for training. There are a ton of things you can train to in DCS very cost effectively - practicing communications, tactical formations, administrative tasks and procedures, weapon switchology, etc. It doesn't completely replace real flight training of course, but it sure can help countries and militiaries with limited budgets stretch their training budgets. > I also wonder how come most of this isn't classified All of the "good stuff" is very, very classified. Particularly electronic warfare, radar performance, modern beyond visible range tactics, modern weapons performance porifiles, nuclear weapons delivery profiles. A lot of the "nuts and bolts stuff" and basic training materials is unclassified and readily available. If you read through and study all of these documents you'll be well on your way to being a fairly competent virtual fighter pilot: https://www.cnatra.navy.mil/pubs-pat-pubs.asp https://www.cnatra.navy.mil/pubs-pat-pubs.asp Most of the topics discussed there are fairly "traditional" fighter pilot stuff that have been discussed by airforces for over a hundred years now, so aren't really secret, even though they're being flown in a modern jet trainer like the T-45.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
textide 5y ago
PMDG just released their 737-700 plane for the new Microsoft Flight Simulator. It has incredible fidelity, including a nearly fully functional FMC. Some real world 737 pilots have released reviews on YouTube in the last couple of days.
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  A long time ago when I downloaded a simulator I naively assumed it would faithfully simulate the inner workings of the plane (and even run the actual software that the real flight computers ran) - if I pull this circuit breaker, what happens? If I flip it 10 times quickly, does it mess up the network and break everything? I was rather disappointed that it just blanked the screens and they came back up instantly as soon as the power bus was re-powered. Another way to say: don't let me into any airplane's cockpit - not just because I'll crash it, but because I'll manage to break it on the ground before it even has a chance of flying.
tialaramex 5y ago
The biggest problem is communication. The best thing you can have, more than some idea how an aeroplane works even, is knowing how to talk to the ground. If you're talking to the ground, you get both practical benefits (people on the ground know how to fly that plane, and know what you need to do to get it back down safely) and a morale boost. Chances are if you're taking over in an emergency, the radios are already tuned to a frequency with other humans on it, and you just need to know how to talk (there's a push-to-talk arrangement) and how to listen to what they say back. If you need to tune the radio that's already bad news, but if you happen to be reading this thread you want 121.5 MHz aka "Guard" and once people realise you're serious you should get help quickly. The big plane can in principle perform the entire landing and roll out at a suitable runway, it's called a CAT IIIc landing. No hand flying is required, much less knowing the full "from dark & quiet" procedures. But arranging for that to happen is going to need communication with the ground. Most scheduled flights don't actually perform an automated landing of any sort since that would leave pilots rusty, and so your intended destination probably isn't capable or isn't set up to do it - but if a non-pilot is now flying a big plane that's not "most scheduled flights" that's an emergency, and so the fact that the only CAT III runway is currently being used for take-offs, or is closed to repair the markings, or is at a different airport on the far side of the city, does not matter. They will do what it takes to get you down safely. The reason we don't use CAT IIIc landings ordinarily is that unless there was an emergency they don't solve a problem we really have. The CAT IIIc landing puts the aeroplane safely on the ground (good) but leaves it on the runway, where it's a hazard to everybody else. Under IIIc conditions a human can't see a hand waved in front of their face - which is why the landing was automated - so taxiing is impossible. If you're a non-pilot who just saved 200 people's lives that's not a problem, you're down safe now. If you're a commercial pilot with six more commuter jets stuck behind you on a Monday morning it's terrible so we just close the airport to all traffic in those conditions.
- AdamJacobMuller 5y ago
  > once people realise you're serious I know people joke around on guard, but, I have to imagine joking about that topic is rather taboo.
  - 5y ago
cecilpl2 5y ago
When I did my private license 20 years ago, my instructor asked me whether I had previous experience playing flight simulators. She said that people who had usually required more time in the cockpit to unlearn all the bad habits they had acquired from games. Maybe things have changed since the days of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000.
- outworlder 5y ago
  They haven't - unless you are playing in VR, then at least one can be averted. One of the bad habits is looking at instruments all the time, while you should be looking out the windows. VR on the other hand encourages you to look out (because it's fun, and it feels like you are really looking out). Head tracking is a very distant cousin, but may help a little. The rest, I don't think you can avoid. No force feedback, no chair pressure (even if you have pedals you may not know you are uncoordinated), you can't feel the aircraft, and so on. But bad habits are just that. In a life and death situation like this pilot incapacitation story, I'd rather have some bad habits but understand what's happening and what should be done, versus not even knowing which button to push to talk to ATC, and how to keep the plane flying.
93po 5y ago
Decently sized plane was stolen, did many loops, and flew around just fine for more than an hour: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Horizon_Air_Q400_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Horizon_Air_Q400_incident All by a guy with zero flight experience but also credited playing video games
- meowface 5y ago
  Bit of a caveat on that one, though: >About 1 hour and 15 minutes after takeoff, Russell died by intentionally crashing the aircraft on lightly populated Ketron Island in Puget Sound. I suppose it may not count if it was an intentional crash, but who knows if he would've landed it safely if he didn't want to crash it. Pretty interesting that he managed to pull off maneuvers like that without having any experience flying: >Near the end of the flight, the aircraft was seen performing a barrel roll over Puget Sound, recovering a mere ten feet (three meters) over the water. A veteran pilot said the maneuver "seemed pretty well executed, without either stalling or pulling the wings off." >[Horizon Air CEO Gary Beck] said the aerial maneuvers were "incredible" and that he "did not know how [Russell] achieved the experience that he did." During his conversation with air traffic control, Russell said he "[knew] what [he was] doing a little bit" because he had experience playing video games.
  - DocTomoe 5y ago
    While I do not condone the actions of this guy - I have little doubt he could have landed the plane, given the proficiency he has shown. Unfortunately, after landing, life in prison awaited him. In a way, he was tasting the freedom of flight, for the first time, and for the last time. It has a certain poetic touch to it.
- gfosco 5y ago
  Bit of a tribute video (there are many about "skyking") with some video clips and atc audio. https://tv.gab.com/channel/fosco/view/fly-high-skyking-611304517c1168a6863f91e1 https://tv.gab.com/channel/fosco/view/fly-high-skyking-61130...
  - 5y ago
bentcorner 5y ago
I've played a bit of the new MSFS and flying the big jet (737?) is a completely different beast than flying the Cessna. There's so much automation that if you don't know what you're doing you can't even descend to land the plane (because it thinks you want to cruise and will fight you all the way down).
- DocTomoe 5y ago
  On the other hand, if you know what you're doing - and that is surprisingly little to know, it is a lot easier to land a 737 in MSFS2020 than a Cessna. ILS almost feels like cheating. (But then, I'm a self-designated FlightSim enthusiast with several thousand hours of documented simulated flight time over the last 20 years, so ...)
anthk 5y ago
Flightgear did that with the airbus.
t0mas88 5y ago
> but even a complete simulator such as the one used for pilot training won’t be enough to actually learn all those systems - that’s why it takes years of training. Pilot here, the simulator is absolutely good enough. It's not uncommon for the first time landing a real jet after sim training to be on a normal passenger flight, just with a training captain next to you. Learning systems takes about two weeks and is done in a classroom + computer based training (usually an ipad app). What takes "years" in the US is the requirement to first fly 1500 hours in a small single engine plane before you get to the airlines. This requirement does not exist in Europe, here you can go to that simulator + classroom training right after getting your commercial license.

the_af 5y ago

I wonder about DCS "study sims" of combat jets. No, no, I'm not saying one could actually be a fighter pilot just by flying DCS F-18. But I wonder about the realism. It seems every single knob and button and thingy on the cockpit is clickable. Every subsystem is simulated. The manual is reportedly huge (I don't own it, just watched videos on YouTube). With such a realistic flightsim, TrackIR, a HOTAS setup, and all the gadgets, how far is it from the real thing? I wonder how far you can go on an actual F-18 with just DCS experience. I suppose a huge detail that is missing is the pressurized suit and the enormous G forces. (I also wonder how come most of this isn't classified, and is instead generally available to the paying public. I suppose the answer is "because as a private individual, you cannot buy an F-18 with weapons").

Nextgrid 5y ago
I think a big part is also to be able to operate under pressure and not panic. It's one thing to operate a complex machine from the comfort of your office chair, it's another thing to operate the same machine when any small mistake could mean death.
meheleventyone 5y ago
The biggest issue is that the physical simulation is still pretty rough in modern games particularly when considering stalls and other "out of true" flight dynamics dealing with turbulent flows. Which is quite important for landing and take-off. Likewise whilst flight models are aiming for accuracy they're still full of fudges, guesses for missing data and mistakes so I'd take any correspondence to real aircraft with a massive grain of salt. You will probably be able to turn all the systems on in an aircraft of the right vintage though.
- lutorm 5y ago
  That, plus the lack of full sensual inputs (G-forces, turbulence, vestibular experiences, the full outside view) makes it quite a bit of a lesser experience than the real thing. There's a reason you don't need much equipment for a procedural flight simulator, as opposed to one that can replicate actual flight.
Sakos 5y ago
I could turn on a real F-16. Zero chance I'd try to fly one irl. I just don't think the knowledge/skill transfer is very good for actual flying without any sort of (realistic) haptic feedback for how the plane actually feels to fly. Maybe if you shat money and could afford a 6DoF rig and trained on that?
Juicyy 5y ago
Ive been in the sim world for a while and i guarantee the good DCS pilots could make the move to real life flying with no problems. Combat, fitness, and the organization of the military would be the difficult part.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
robscallsign 5y ago
I've been a fairly serious flight simmer for about 20 years now, including 13 years of DCS, and have flown the DCS F-18 since it's initial release 4 years ago. This topic gets discussed a fair bit within the flight sim community, and we mostly conclude that we'd likely get the F-18 into the air, but would most likely kill ourselves: either passing out from lack of tolerance and training to handle the G forces, lack of familiarity with the sensation of flight which can wreak havoc on your inner ear and result in vertigo, dizzyness, nausea, or paying attention to any of the hundreds of small details and checks that real pilots do that you don't do in DCS (is the OBOGS working properly? cabin pressurization working properly, icing, etc). Simulator pilots would also not likely be able to handle any inflight emergency or problem in the air. Then, assuming we didn't already kill ourselves during the flight, we'd at best damage the aircraft during the landing, or kill ourselves and destroy the aircraft at worst. Still, DCS offers a tremendous value as a low cost training platform. The DCS A-10C module was built for the US Air National Guard to use as a training simulator platform to train A-10C pilots, and other countries and airforces are increasingly using DCS to train their pilots. A Spanish company built the Aviojet C-101 module for DCS because it is used in the Spanish airforce and they wanted to use DCS as a training platform. A Chinese company built the JF-17 module for DCS. An Italian company is currently building an MB-339 module for DCS. You can search online and find images of Chinese fighter pilots using DCS for training. There are a ton of things you can train to in DCS very cost effectively - practicing communications, tactical formations, administrative tasks and procedures, weapon switchology, etc. It doesn't completely replace real flight training of course, but it sure can help countries and militiaries with limited budgets stretch their training budgets. > I also wonder how come most of this isn't classified All of the "good stuff" is very, very classified. Particularly electronic warfare, radar performance, modern beyond visible range tactics, modern weapons performance porifiles, nuclear weapons delivery profiles. A lot of the "nuts and bolts stuff" and basic training materials is unclassified and readily available. If you read through and study all of these documents you'll be well on your way to being a fairly competent virtual fighter pilot: https://www.cnatra.navy.mil/pubs-pat-pubs.asp https://www.cnatra.navy.mil/pubs-pat-pubs.asp Most of the topics discussed there are fairly "traditional" fighter pilot stuff that have been discussed by airforces for over a hundred years now, so aren't really secret, even though they're being flown in a modern jet trainer like the T-45.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

textide 5y ago

PMDG just released their 737-700 plane for the new Microsoft Flight Simulator. It has incredible fidelity, including a nearly fully functional FMC. Some real world 737 pilots have released reviews on YouTube in the last couple of days.

Nextgrid 5y ago
A long time ago when I downloaded a simulator I naively assumed it would faithfully simulate the inner workings of the plane (and even run the actual software that the real flight computers ran) - if I pull this circuit breaker, what happens? If I flip it 10 times quickly, does it mess up the network and break everything? I was rather disappointed that it just blanked the screens and they came back up instantly as soon as the power bus was re-powered. Another way to say: don't let me into any airplane's cockpit - not just because I'll crash it, but because I'll manage to break it on the ground before it even has a chance of flying.

tialaramex 5y ago

The biggest problem is communication. The best thing you can have, more than some idea how an aeroplane works even, is knowing how to talk to the ground. If you're talking to the ground, you get both practical benefits (people on the ground know how to fly that plane, and know what you need to do to get it back down safely) and a morale boost. Chances are if you're taking over in an emergency, the radios are already tuned to a frequency with other humans on it, and you just need to know how to talk (there's a push-to-talk arrangement) and how to listen to what they say back. If you need to tune the radio that's already bad news, but if you happen to be reading this thread you want 121.5 MHz aka "Guard" and once people realise you're serious you should get help quickly. The big plane can in principle perform the entire landing and roll out at a suitable runway, it's called a CAT IIIc landing. No hand flying is required, much less knowing the full "from dark & quiet" procedures. But arranging for that to happen is going to need communication with the ground. Most scheduled flights don't actually perform an automated landing of any sort since that would leave pilots rusty, and so your intended destination probably isn't capable or isn't set up to do it - but if a non-pilot is now flying a big plane that's not "most scheduled flights" that's an emergency, and so the fact that the only CAT III runway is currently being used for take-offs, or is closed to repair the markings, or is at a different airport on the far side of the city, does not matter. They will do what it takes to get you down safely. The reason we don't use CAT IIIc landings ordinarily is that unless there was an emergency they don't solve a problem we really have. The CAT IIIc landing puts the aeroplane safely on the ground (good) but leaves it on the runway, where it's a hazard to everybody else. Under IIIc conditions a human can't see a hand waved in front of their face - which is why the landing was automated - so taxiing is impossible. If you're a non-pilot who just saved 200 people's lives that's not a problem, you're down safe now. If you're a commercial pilot with six more commuter jets stuck behind you on a Monday morning it's terrible so we just close the airport to all traffic in those conditions.

AdamJacobMuller 5y ago
> once people realise you're serious I know people joke around on guard, but, I have to imagine joking about that topic is rather taboo.
- 5y ago

cecilpl2 5y ago

When I did my private license 20 years ago, my instructor asked me whether I had previous experience playing flight simulators. She said that people who had usually required more time in the cockpit to unlearn all the bad habits they had acquired from games. Maybe things have changed since the days of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000.

outworlder 5y ago
They haven't - unless you are playing in VR, then at least one can be averted. One of the bad habits is looking at instruments all the time, while you should be looking out the windows. VR on the other hand encourages you to look out (because it's fun, and it feels like you are really looking out). Head tracking is a very distant cousin, but may help a little. The rest, I don't think you can avoid. No force feedback, no chair pressure (even if you have pedals you may not know you are uncoordinated), you can't feel the aircraft, and so on. But bad habits are just that. In a life and death situation like this pilot incapacitation story, I'd rather have some bad habits but understand what's happening and what should be done, versus not even knowing which button to push to talk to ATC, and how to keep the plane flying.

93po 5y ago

Decently sized plane was stolen, did many loops, and flew around just fine for more than an hour: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Horizon_Air_Q400_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Horizon_Air_Q400_incident All by a guy with zero flight experience but also credited playing video games

meowface 5y ago
Bit of a caveat on that one, though: >About 1 hour and 15 minutes after takeoff, Russell died by intentionally crashing the aircraft on lightly populated Ketron Island in Puget Sound. I suppose it may not count if it was an intentional crash, but who knows if he would've landed it safely if he didn't want to crash it. Pretty interesting that he managed to pull off maneuvers like that without having any experience flying: >Near the end of the flight, the aircraft was seen performing a barrel roll over Puget Sound, recovering a mere ten feet (three meters) over the water. A veteran pilot said the maneuver "seemed pretty well executed, without either stalling or pulling the wings off." >[Horizon Air CEO Gary Beck] said the aerial maneuvers were "incredible" and that he "did not know how [Russell] achieved the experience that he did." During his conversation with air traffic control, Russell said he "[knew] what [he was] doing a little bit" because he had experience playing video games.
- DocTomoe 5y ago
  While I do not condone the actions of this guy - I have little doubt he could have landed the plane, given the proficiency he has shown. Unfortunately, after landing, life in prison awaited him. In a way, he was tasting the freedom of flight, for the first time, and for the last time. It has a certain poetic touch to it.
gfosco 5y ago
Bit of a tribute video (there are many about "skyking") with some video clips and atc audio. https://tv.gab.com/channel/fosco/view/fly-high-skyking-611304517c1168a6863f91e1 https://tv.gab.com/channel/fosco/view/fly-high-skyking-61130...
- 5y ago

bentcorner 5y ago

I've played a bit of the new MSFS and flying the big jet (737?) is a completely different beast than flying the Cessna. There's so much automation that if you don't know what you're doing you can't even descend to land the plane (because it thinks you want to cruise and will fight you all the way down).

DocTomoe 5y ago
On the other hand, if you know what you're doing - and that is surprisingly little to know, it is a lot easier to land a 737 in MSFS2020 than a Cessna. ILS almost feels like cheating. (But then, I'm a self-designated FlightSim enthusiast with several thousand hours of documented simulated flight time over the last 20 years, so ...)

anthk 5y ago

Flightgear did that with the airbus.

t0mas88 5y ago

> but even a complete simulator such as the one used for pilot training won’t be enough to actually learn all those systems - that’s why it takes years of training. Pilot here, the simulator is absolutely good enough. It's not uncommon for the first time landing a real jet after sim training to be on a normal passenger flight, just with a training captain next to you. Learning systems takes about two weeks and is done in a classroom + computer based training (usually an ipad app). What takes "years" in the US is the requirement to first fly 1500 hours in a small single engine plane before you get to the airlines. This requirement does not exist in Europe, here you can go to that simulator + classroom training right after getting your commercial license.