SIM pilot did pretty darned good!

Sinistar

Sinistar

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Brad
Several of my wife's relatives arrived in from Norway yesterday afternoon. It was a nice night but I figured all were too tired for a flight in a little plane, especially after about 18hrs of travel.

So I find out Anders is really in to sims. So at pattern altitude I hand off the controls. At first he's a bit 2 dimensional handling altitude but heading or vice versa but then within like 7 or 8 minutes he's hold ing altitude to within 50ft...and I still haven't mentioned the elevator trim :) I ask how he's doing and he comments how hard he's having to push.

He likes elevator trim :) And commented quite honestly on how there is this feel / force that he didn't have or expect. We logged a cross country and he flew 1.2hrs. Man that was a long day for him.

And he knew every instrument in the panel and how they worked and was using them quite well.

Passenger #7 was great.
 
I still love "playing" flight sim.
I'm working overseas right now and having to fly MSFS to get my fix.. I bought the Coronado 182....it's not the same :(
 
I do have to compliment this guy, he was looking out the window a lot. Mainly because in Norway there is a mountain or ocean in any direction and all he could see was green squares :)

However you are on regarding the instruments.

I ask each new passenger for a critique. The two kids so far have been "I hate listening to all that radio talk." Okay, working on that one.

But this guy he said "Sometimes you put your right hand up on the dash (glare shield) and it blocks some of the instruments". No one else has ever commented on that as they just aren't paying as much attention to them as he did.
 
Where in Norway is your family from? I grew up in Norway, south of Oslo. Moved to MN in 2002.
 
KaiGywer said:
Where in Norway is your family from? I grew up in Norway, south of Oslo. Moved to MN in 2002.
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Both of the visiting families are from Alesund. My wife's mom is the only one of her family that lives her in the USA. Actually her mom has an identical twin so the families have traveled back and forth quite a bit. My wife and my daughter went over there 2 years ago. Grandma showed my daughter where she lived during WWII (not Alesund) along with her brother, sisters and mom. The dad was taken by the Germans right away to work on ship engines. I think its awesome that my daughter could get that POV.

During our flights around the Twin Cities they definitely noticed how flat it is!!! So @KaiGywer , how do you manage to stay sane without a fjord in every direction :)

I did however take them on a flight along the Mississippi around Red Wing and a bit south and they were really looking out the window and loved the landing at Red Wing. If all goes well, I will fly two of them up to Duluth (SUW) tomorrow early morning, get them a cab over to the Canal Park and leave them for the rest to pick up on their way up north. I have never done that flight myself (fingers crossed on the wx). Anyway, that should give them another "non-flat" impression of Minnesota.
 
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Sim technology is very proven. We use full motion simulators to train our new hires. Before the get into the sim they do a GFS which is basically touch screens of the flight deck.

Of course PC simulation is fun compared to the full motion. I just completed my recurrent training, in the sim. Two words: not fun! The examiner has the ability to simulate any kind of failure. Oh and he does!!!

Point is yes the flight simulators for your computer are actually very good, perfect? No, but darn good at bridging the gap between no experience and climbing into an archer (or whatever) and knowing the geography of the cockpit. My students that played with these simulators, were always way ahead of the game
 
Sinistar said:
If all goes well, I will fly two of them up to Duluth (SUW) tomorrow early morning, get them a cab over to the Canal Park and leave them for the rest to pick up on their way up north. I have never done that flight myself (fingers crossed on the wx). Anyway, that should give them another "non-flat" impression of Minnesota.
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Weather is near perfect for tomorrow morning. I was trying to figure out how to miss some work to get out and fly tomorrow AM before it gets rainy on Thursday. I've done that a couple times where I've flown into SUW then cabbed over to Duluth.

Tim
 
Sinistar said:
Both of the visiting families are from Alesund. My wife's mom is the only one of her family that lives her in the USA. Actually her mom has an identical twin so the families have traveled back and forth quite a bit. My wife and my daughter went over there 2 years ago. Grandma showed my daughter where she lived during WWII (not Alesund) along with her brother, sisters and mom. The dad was taken by the Germans right away to work on ship engines. I think its awesome that my daughter could get that POV.

During our flights around the Twin Cities they definitely noticed how flat it is!!! So @KaiGywer , how do you manage to stay sane without a fjord in every direction :)

I did however take them on a flight along the Mississippi around Red Wing and a bit south and they were really looking out the window and loved the landing at Red Wing. If all goes well, I will fly two of them up to Duluth (SUW) tomorrow early morning, get them a cab over to the Canal Park and leave them for the rest to pick up on their way up north. I have never done that flight myself (fingers crossed on the wx). Anyway, that should give them another "non-flat" impression of Minnesota.
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Alesund is the opposite side of the country from me (they speak funny there, just ask them...lol). And I do miss the ocean sometimes. North Shore is pretty though and kind of like Norway
 
Brian Priest said:
Sim technology is very proven. We use full motion simulators to train our new hires. Before the get into the sim they do a GFS which is basically touch screens of the flight deck.

Of course PC simulation is fun compared to the full motion. I just completed my recurrent training, in the sim. Two words: not fun! The examiner has the ability to simulate any kind of failure. Oh and he does!!!

Point is yes the flight simulators for your computer are actually very good, perfect? No, but darn good at bridging the gap between no experience and climbing into an archer (or whatever) and knowing the geography of the cockpit. My students that played with these simulators, were always way ahead of the game
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That was my experience as well back in the mid 80's. Spent many hours on MSFS prior to my first lesson in a 172 and getting my PPL (a decade later).
I was way ahead of the game, familiar with the instrument panel, terminology and traffic patterns. Have been a flight sim fan ever since.

I did have to break the habit of staring at the panel, as well as learn to use the trim wheel and mixture knob, as well as deal with turbulence lol.

Flight sims have come a long way since the first ones on my Commodore-64/Amiga.

My current setup includes a Yoke, Stick, Rudders, Throttles, Seat vibration motors via USB and recently VR (Oculus Rift CV1), which is absolutely incredible (especially with Aerofly FS2 and DCS World combat sim). I'm also using voice commands (in a limited capacity) with a program called VoiceAttack.

As VR resolution improves with the next generation headsets, a person using one at home will be a much better student pilot if they decide to take real world lessons, IMO. This is because VR puts you IN the cockpit as opposed to looking at a flat 2D monitor (or three as I had setup).

Therefore, you fly as you would the real aircraft, looking around with natural head movements. Judging your altitude, flying traffic patterns and various flight maneuvers becomes much more natural and realistic in VR.

VR has a ways to go, especially for IFR use because at the moment the limitations and difficulties makes it better suited for VFR.

However, I believe this is the future of flight simulation and will probably be used in flights schools in the near future.
 
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I was laughing my butt off watching that. I was a dash captain at the time. In the crew rooms we were getting a kick out of all the theories and so called experts. Only guys I’ve ever seen in a sim that looked like the “pilot” (who only gave private level info), was the sim techs.

Maybe he was legit, but the jeans and facial hair led me to believe otherwise
 
Troska said:
Weather is near perfect for tomorrow morning. I was trying to figure out how to miss some work to get out and fly tomorrow AM before it gets rainy on Thursday. I've done that a couple times where I've flown into SUW then cabbed over to Duluth.

Tim
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We did the flight on Wednesday and he flew it again. Crap is he good on altitude! I did notice a very strong dedication to looking at the panel. He wasn't as on, on heading though. As we flew I challenged him to find each airport, I don't think he found a single one without help...but then again at 2hrs I probably didn't either. However, that really distracted him on maintaining heading which I thought was interesting.

You know the bottom line...he absolutely loved it. I think he now has 3.1hrs of flying time (right seat). As we neared the airport and Duluth he was so busy flying he never thought to take any pictures. So I finally said "My plane :)" flew us about 1 mile offshore (leaving plenty of places to land) and flew back west towards Duluth a bit and said "Take Pictures!". Of course we didn't go much west of the airport as there is then no place to land. He got to see a big ore ship out in the bay, lift bridge (from a distance), etc. I so wanted to fly by the ore ship but I also know how cold that water is from scuba diving there. Great last flight for him.
 
KaiGywer said:
Alesund is the opposite side of the country from me (they speak funny there, just ask them...lol). And I do miss the ocean sometimes. North Shore is pretty though and kind of like Norway
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I thought all you Norwegians talked kinda funny (just kidding).

They are up at the North Shore now. I flew him and his sister up there on Wed and they caught a uber into town to meet the rest of the travelers. From what I hear they are really liking it up North! I think they are up North of Lutsen now. Man is it gonna feel flat when they come back to the Twin Cities :)
 
Interesting. I played flight sim through my teenage years (I miss it!) and then learned to fly. I actually found that while I knew what all the instruments were, and the basics of flight through the sim, I had developed bad habits from it as well. For example, as you said I was thinking 2 dimensional. I would also use the instruments way too much when my eyes should be outside. I would chase the VSI to try and stay level as that was what I did in the sim. I also would use pitch trim in the sim to make fine attitude changes, obviously not the way to use it in a real airplane.

I would say overall it was helpful though, as I did not feel out of place staring at those dials and screens. In fact, I was very well versed with how radios and the 430s operation.
 
denverpilot said:
@Sinistar - if he takes up flying he will be the student who always looks inside and someone will have to cover the panel with a jacket to get him to use the big green AI out the window. :)
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My gag is that even if a pilot isn't into sims, the G1000 has made hoods obsolete, because it has become hard to GET us to look out the window!
 
Palmpilot said:
My gag is that even if a pilot isn't into sims, the G1000 has made hoods obsolete, because it has become hard to GET us to look out the window!
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The cockpit video game systems are a siren call to us tech nerds. Haha. Seriously.
 
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