Flight Simulation World – The Pros and Cons
My introduction to the world of Flight Simulation came back in 2003 (yes, I am still new relative to the other folks I know on some of the forums out there). I purchased a spanking new copy of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002 (the first edition to include AI aircraft and ATC communications). My goal was to become a real certified Pilot so I decided to become acclimated to the peculiarities of aircraft handling before I dealt with the real thing.
I also purchased a pair of headphones with an attached mouthpiece, a Flight Yoke and Rudder Pedals (courtesy of CH Products) and optimized my stereo sound system for surround sound. It felt like a religious experience even from early on! I then went on sites like Avsim and Posky to download add-on aircraft. I then experimented with sound file replacement so that the airplanes sounded like the real thing!
I learned later on that even though I could now be considered a hardcore simmer, there were folks out there with far more impressive software AND hardware! I saw a couple of uploads of images of Simulators with multiple monitors to simulate 3D views of the outside cockpit environment, and stacks of manually workable flight instruments! I began to feel rather inadequate with my single monitor and my yoke and pedals! I could only look around outside the cockpit as far as the hat switch on my yoke would allow!
I noticed some issues arising as I transitioned from Flight Sim to the real thing…
There was the real issue of my constant tendency to become fixated inside the cockpit. Whilst learning to land in a real airplane with an instructor, I also had to unlearn some potentially dangerous habits I had picked up in teaching myself to land using the Microsoft Flight Simulator.
Flight simulators can be fun and exiting as a basic learning tool, but I am still out when it comes to analyzing them for the danger they could present in terms of developing flying habits that could prove difficult to undue once you decide to fly in the real world.
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um, hey, jw your post just kinda…..ends, what habits did you pick up from flight sim that were dangerous
I recently attained my Private Pilots license so I can now talk more “authoritatively” (for the want of a better word) about my experiences. I talked in the earlier blog about the tendency to become fixated on the instruments as opposed to maintaining a visual balance between instruments in the cockpit and queues outside the cockpit. It takes a combination of outside and inside queues to keep you accurately appraised of what the aircraft is doing. Besides, the Private Pilot training is to qualify you as a VFR pilot… not an instrument pilot.
In regard to my desktop Sim software, my computer system was a clone. This meant that computer performance with my flight sim game was not always consistent. In addition, Microsoft Flight Simulator software is notorious for using up astronomical amounts of computer power! You can measure online game performance by analyzing what the Microsoft folks call frame rates (with 2 button clicks, you could constantly monitor your game’s frame rates as it is running). Higher frame rates indicated a higher performance computer. Lower frame rates of course indicate the opposite. My frame rates dropped noticeably when I was flying traffic patterns and setting up for short finals. The aircraft movements became rather choppy and did not flow smoothly. The changes in aircraft movement fluency always prompted me to cautiously drop/raise the nose to remain on a constant flight path towards the runway. In addition, it also caused me some confusion in terms of depth perception (i.e. my proximity to the ground and my actual distance from the runway on short final). Unfortunately, in my efforts to make my patterns uniform, I developed the habit of raising the nose of the aircraft as I was turning from base to final – which is an extremely dangerous practice in real flying. As you know – low airspeed and a fairly steep bank at a low altitude can result in an unrecoverable stall. Also, the changes in computer/ game performance made it difficult for me to maintain the runway center line on short final.
One other note. It is always useful to use the ATC option whenever you fly… and talk along with the animated voices to become acclimated with the aviation jargon! The flight sim pilot can become so comfortable with the “virtual pilot” doing all the automatic ATC responses that it becomes an additional burden when he does decide to pursue a license! Then ATC communications can pose major challenges when you suddenly realize that you have to actually fly the plane, monitor the flight instruments/systems, maintain a constant visual of the outside environment for other aircraft – and speak to ATC/Ground/Center (deciphering the machine gun chatter from ATC while remembering your aircraft call sign!)
Finally, stress piled on in the cockpit (from the outside – or instructor induced!) can cause one to revert rather quickly to old negative habits picked up on the old desktop if he is not careful!