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Yes, with caveats. If you want the experience to be genuinely useful you really need to go all in. Head tracking or VR, charts, pay for an ATC service (not VAT

Yes, with caveats. If you want the experience to be genuinely useful you really need to go all in. Head tracking or VR, charts, pay for an ATC service (not VATSIM, sorry), plane models that are extremely complete and complex, and decent yoke/pedals/throttle setup. Then turn off every single assist and dial up all the realism. And even then you need to take everything you experience with a pinch of salt. I used FSX while I was learning to fly, with a setup part spec’d with my instructor. Once I was around 10 hours in real flight it became meaningfully useful to augment with sim as well. Especially things like flight planning, leg timing, checklists, etc. Two other things it’s especially useful for is learning the Garmin (again needs paid addons) and for practicing approaches.

giancarlostoro 3y ago
> Then turn off every single assist and dial up all the realism. Maybe for a total beginner this could be done gradually. Would you agree? I'm assuming, as someone who knows very little about flying, other than a lot of flying is automated for the most part, that a total beginner would be overwhelmed. > And even then you need to take everything you experience with a pinch of salt. Fully agree, though I think they're trying to figure out just how much if any do you learn. I think the best way for anyone to learn might just be to go to a flight school. Your fly hours is what matters more than anything because if shows you are capable.
- pc86 3y ago
  While most small planes have some form of autopilot, few have the Flight Director-driven "set it and forget it" type of autopilot most people imagine in their heads. A lot of older planes will just have a 1- or 2-axis autopilot which eliminates some of the workload for a pilot but you're still flying largely manually and making sure the autopilot doesn't kill you by.
  - giancarlostoro 3y ago
    Thank you for the insight, I heard this from someone retired who worked for Boeing, so it is definitely not a good metric.

giancarlostoro 3y ago

> Then turn off every single assist and dial up all the realism. Maybe for a total beginner this could be done gradually. Would you agree? I'm assuming, as someone who knows very little about flying, other than a lot of flying is automated for the most part, that a total beginner would be overwhelmed. > And even then you need to take everything you experience with a pinch of salt. Fully agree, though I think they're trying to figure out just how much if any do you learn. I think the best way for anyone to learn might just be to go to a flight school. Your fly hours is what matters more than anything because if shows you are capable.

pc86 3y ago
While most small planes have some form of autopilot, few have the Flight Director-driven "set it and forget it" type of autopilot most people imagine in their heads. A lot of older planes will just have a 1- or 2-axis autopilot which eliminates some of the workload for a pilot but you're still flying largely manually and making sure the autopilot doesn't kill you by.
- giancarlostoro 3y ago
  Thank you for the insight, I heard this from someone retired who worked for Boeing, so it is definitely not a good metric.