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You forgot the LAQ: "Can someone who only 'trained' on a Flight Simulator be able to take-off and land in a real plane?'
by noname123 13y ago
You forgot the LAQ: "Can someone who only 'trained' on a Flight Simulator be able to take-off and land in a real plane?'
- lisper 13y agoThe answer is yes. Someone actually did this experiment. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJT_CACIZqs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJT_CACIZqs But it's pretty challenging. Today's simulators are pretty good, but there's something about having your life actually on the line that can't be captured by a sim.
- jeiting 13y agoI had a ton of sim experience when I jumped in a trainer for the first time. It helped a ton with the systems and comms but pretty much nothing for my landing and takeoff ability.
- lutusp 13y ago> It helped a ton with the systems and comms but pretty much nothing for my landing and takeoff ability. Yes, a common experience. Landing and taking off involve some subtle things that most simulators don't capture, like the fact that in a small propeller-drive plane, at slow speed, the propeller torque twists the body of the airplane, so you have to apply some counter-rudder to straighten out the fuselage and maximize climbing efficiency. And landing has risks that simulators certainly don't capture, like the all-too-common stall-spin on final approach, which turns out to represent a high percentage of all GA accidents. Most simulators won't even imitate this common problem -- in most simulators you can't force the plane into a spin, either at altitude or while landing. That by itself might make a student overconfident about how much he's learned. In reality, a student or new pilot turns too slow on final, realizes he's not lined up, so he banks too steeply and applies some aggressive rudder, which causes the inboard wing to stall, then unless the pilot knows exactly what to do and does it instantly, the plane will stall-spin, do a 1/4 turn and hit the ground before an inexperienced pilot can react. A very common accident scenario.
- marvin 13y agoYou must have flown crappy simulators. All flight sims I have flown incorporate this in the aerodynamics model. (I also fly gliders). The biggest differnces I figure between real life and the simulator are the acceleraion, the sense of moving very fast and the fear of dying.
- dagurp 13y agoThere's also the ground effect. It's impossible to get a feel for it on a simulator.
- arh68 13y agoDo you think a 3-D image could enhance the 'feel'? Could a flight sim feel significantly more real w/ Oculus Rift?
- Filligree 13y agoI can see VR being a dramatic improvement for flight simulators, but you'll still need a good flight model.
- lutusp 13y agoA 3D simulation would represent a big improvement for formation flying or landing and taking off, but not so much for flying at altitude for obvious reasons. But the absence of body accelerations in a simulator is a big obstacle standing in the way of realism. Big, expensive simulators have a cockpit mounted on hydraulic actuators to partially address this issue -- the cockpit moves around to provide some accelerations and try to improve the subjective sense of being in motion.
- dav- 13y agoPerhaps you could integrate some type of death instrument into the simulator to increase the realism. Crash your plane, and a stack of exercise machine weights falls onto your head. Something like that.
- btgeekboy 13y agoTake off is actually quite easy. On your first lesson, it's likely you'll be doing the takeoff. Just point it straight, compensate for the left turning tendency, and gently pull back. Landing is a different story...
- tzs 13y agoA friend of mine was given as a gift one of those "Discovery Flights" where you are taken up and get to fly the plane, which is supposed to entice you into signing up for lessons. Not only did he get to do the takeoff, they let him do the landing. He had a little trouble keeping it from turning on the takeoff, and a lot of trouble with that on the landing. Afterwards, they found out why. Something had punctured a tire before takeoff, and it was a little flat during takeoff, and a lot flat during landing.
- gruturo 13y agoTook off and landed on my very first time as well :-) (San Diego, Montgomery Field, March 2011). The explanation my instructor gave me for the landing were perfect: Line up to the runway like this. Lower throttle and add flaps at these intervals. At the last checkpoint, point the nose of the plane at the numbers on the runway, like you were trying to collide with them, except that at the last moment you pull up and cut power to idle. Worked like a charm. Maneuvering on the runway is harder than flying and landing. ($$@#!#$%! pedals working 2 ways and in the opposite direction from what I expected :-) )
- Cthulhu_ 13y agoI used to fly flight sim games. Takeoff is simple: * FULL THROTTLE * AFTER BURNER ON * PULL BACK ON STICK * AAAAAAaaaAAAaa
- foobarian 13y agoYup followed by destroying the SAM radar at Bandar Abbas, and shooting up a terrorist camp outside Baghdad. Hopefully not running out of fuel :-)
- ubernostrum 13y agoBaltic Aviation Academy has a lot of rather good and sometimes amusing videos on YouTube, including this one where they simulate talking a flight attendant through landing an Airbus A320: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkOT3fbc1O4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkOT3fbc1O4 Obviously it's a bit unrealistic, but still pretty neat.
- dysoco 13y agoActually I've heard it can be easier, since you get the real feedback from the plane/yoke