5 ms·

How realistic are flight simulators? Not an expert but I had the vague impression that it’s pretty realistic in terms of physics, the main difference is the bod

How realistic are flight simulators? Not an expert but I had the vague impression that it’s pretty realistic in terms of physics, the main difference is the body feel (which isn’t relevant to an AI control system). In other words you could run simulated combat with pilots, and self-play vs other AI, and get a control system that works in most environments. (Maybe adverse weather and unexpected turbulence would be harder to simulate? Or maybe ot would be feasible to simulate crazy weather conditions that a human couldn’t train in.)

meheleventyone 3y ago
Realistic enough within normal flight but not at all at the margins and post-stall. Even a lot of CFD models used to assess designs aren’t accurate outside a small range.
- theptip 3y ago
  So real pilots get good on the simulator then push the envelope & stall in training to learn those final edges? (Rinse and repeat?) Do you have a feel for what % of pilot training time is on the stick learning the real dynamics vs. simulator-based? (Excluding time flying that isn’t really used learning things an AI wouldn’t need to learn.)
  - meheleventyone 3y ago
    AFAIK almost all pilots primarily learn in real aircraft from the off rather than starting in a simulator and use of simulators is pretty limited.
    - trashtester 3y ago
      Hmm, I somehow feel that this may be true for people flying smaller civilian planes within their design envelope. But if training extreme manouvres outside the envelope for large passenger or combat jets seems both highly dangerous and extremely expensive. Like practicing to land a 747 with fires in two engines or to recover an F-35 from a flat spin.
      - meheleventyone 3y ago
        That doesn’t contradict what I said. For example no one is going from zero to jumping in an F35 which is why there are several types of training aircraft military fast-jet pilots progress through.

meheleventyone 3y ago

Realistic enough within normal flight but not at all at the margins and post-stall. Even a lot of CFD models used to assess designs aren’t accurate outside a small range.

theptip 3y ago
So real pilots get good on the simulator then push the envelope & stall in training to learn those final edges? (Rinse and repeat?) Do you have a feel for what % of pilot training time is on the stick learning the real dynamics vs. simulator-based? (Excluding time flying that isn’t really used learning things an AI wouldn’t need to learn.)
- meheleventyone 3y ago
  AFAIK almost all pilots primarily learn in real aircraft from the off rather than starting in a simulator and use of simulators is pretty limited.
  - trashtester 3y ago
    Hmm, I somehow feel that this may be true for people flying smaller civilian planes within their design envelope. But if training extreme manouvres outside the envelope for large passenger or combat jets seems both highly dangerous and extremely expensive. Like practicing to land a 747 with fires in two engines or to recover an F-35 from a flat spin.
    - meheleventyone 3y ago
      That doesn’t contradict what I said. For example no one is going from zero to jumping in an F35 which is why there are several types of training aircraft military fast-jet pilots progress through.