Is a flight simulator hardware bundle worth it for a new student?

Shawn

Shawn

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Shawn
Howdy Gang!

Just got "clearance" (from family/work/finances) so start my PPL training this summer after two years of delays! Met with the school and I have a few months before I jump in a seat of what will probably be a 172 and want to spend the time getting as much prep time in as possible.

My question is are the flight simulator hardware/software packages worth it for a new student to get some familiarity with the systems and how it all works? Something like the package below:

http://www.marvgolden.com/saitek-vfr-gold-cessna-flight-sim-bundle.html

I am a very hands on visual learner. If I just read it, I have a hard time retaining. If I see it and experience it, it burned in my brain like a picture forever...so would this be a helpful tool prior to and along with flight school? Of course nothing could take the place of being in the seat but if it helps me to be better prepared, I would be all over that.

Cost doesn't bother me unless it would be a complete waste of money.

Any input would be appreciated.

Thanks!
 
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Not for a primary student.

Flying a real airplane is massively different from a simulator.

There are a couple of things it might help on, but it's questionable whether it will recover its cost even at $200 hour for aircraft and (expensive) instructor.

The main thing it will do is train you to keep your head down when it should be up. You'll have to unlearn that. You fly an airplane using outside visual references. The panel -- all of it -- is backup. Many students try at least one no-panel landing during training. It's not nearly as hard as you might think.

I was already a simmer before I started. It helped with VOR navigation, something you might spend an hour or two on. But I skipped a critical step on the sim -- IDENT. At least once, I tuned the wrong VOR station; it's not unusual that they have similar frequencies. Fortunately, I didn't get too far afield before the visual checkpoints started mismatching.

I also bought a pair of rudder pedals thinking they would help me internalize how to use the rudder, nosewheel and brakes. They did that, but it probably only saved me 30 minutes....
 
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MAKG1 said:
Flying a real airplane is massively different from a simulator.
Click to expand...

No question...and I would not expect to be a proficient...or even competent pilot on just a simulator...just thinking in terms of understanding of how the controls work and respond under different scenarios and learning how they all work together and in relation to each other in flight.

...or would it be like playing the Daytona 500 game at Dave and Busters and saying that is race car training? :lol:
 
Not for $473 it isn't. Just get a joystick. Heck...actually, I used the keyboard back in the day.
 
What MAKG said.
 
No, it is not. At your stage, you need realistic physical feel and feedback, and you don't get that with such a system.
 
I used to play the simulator a good bit before I started my lessons. It will help without a doubt to familiarize yourself with the airplane. Now I am 24 hours into my training and when I get on the simulator it just ****es me off. As real as they are before you start flying, is not how real they are after you start. The only true benefit to my training at this point is going to be in relation to instrument navigation. Sims simply do not feel, fly or respond the same as real planes and the only way to know this is to play sims, then start training. but with that said, I would still recommend you buy a sim and play it before you start. I used pilotedge.net and xplane and feel more confident on the radio for doing that and understand many basic and some advanced concepts of flying which has been helpful.
 
That will buy you at least three hours of flight time in a real plane. Seriously, do that. Go for an intro flight now. I have a sim setup and don't even pull it out anymore.
 
I "simed" before my lessons started in January. Personally, the real plane was such a departure from the simulator, my sim time didn't help with my lessons much. As a matter of fact, I made the decision to stop using my setup during the start of my training mainly because I couldn't match the cockpit of the simulator planes to the panel of the Cherokee 180 I train in. It was simply conflicting procedure and muscle memory. Now I only fly my sim setup with the outside the window view and the TrackIr makes my 32 inch monitor a big window. I do "chair fly" checklists to help memorize them.

My setup: CH Products Yoke and Pedals, Saitek TPM system, X Plane 9, and a TrackIr 4 Pro head tracking rig, all used, for less than $300.00 on Ebay & Amazon.
 
Any flight simulator is a FANTASTIC training and familiarization tool for you. There are hundreds of options to choose from when it comes to simulators. It just depends on your needs and your wallet.
ANYONE who says that a flight simulator is not a great way to learn the functionality of an aircraft, basic flight dynamics, aircraft system, and time management is living in lala land! Not only will it save you time in flight training (which equals money spent), but when you're able to stop and debrief mid-flight, with a great pause button - instead of 2 hours later when you land - will be invaluable to you.
My advice for being the best pilot you can be. Get a yoke, and some pedals and FSX and start getting acquainted. (Be careful, there is a massive genre of flight simmers, hardware makers, software developers, and the like that will easily make it an addiction)
Hopefully your flight school has a professional flight simulator of some kind as well.
Using a flight simulator in conjunction with your flight training, will make you a better, safer, and well rounded pilot. Plus it will save you a lot of money!
 
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Archammer said:
Using a flight simulator in conjunction with your flight training, will make you a better, safer, and well rounded pilot. Plus it will save you a lot of money!
Click to expand...

Wrong on all counts.

They might save you a LITTLE money. More likely, it's a wash. It can waste a ton of money if you get a lot of bad habits from it.

Any simming you do without an instructor for ANYTHING is playing, and should be treated as such. For primary training, some benefit can be obtained for a few things, but it is quite limited compared to what you need to learn to be a safe VFR pilot. You will spend most of your training time on things that can't be simulated adequately. Even reading the instruments. A sim won't bounce the airspeed indicator in turbulence or have backlash in the OBS like a real airplane does, for instance. Feel is totally wrong, and disorientation is quite different.

Now, simming can be fun, and I won't discourage anyone from trying it out for that reason. But to say it saves money for primary training is just wrong. It doesn't. It does help for learning IFR procedures, and instructors often use them for that. But that's very far afield from primary training.

Simming can be an addiction; there are quite a number of simmers that claim it's just like training to try to justify it. There are very few pilots that make that claim, though the occasional one comes out of the woodwork.
 
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A sim will not help you learn how to control a real plane during take offs and landings. It will not help you with holding a course, or an altitude. It will not help you learn how to control the plane to make it perform to the check ride standards as you do the required manuevers. It will not help you learn how to properly trim the plane out, or even really give you a sense of what that means.

A sim will not help you with developing dead reckoning naviation skills.

If you are having difficulty using a VOR or NDB for navigation, it can help you practice that.

You can take your check list and run through pre-flight, take off procedures, and landing procedures. You can also practice configuring the plane for the required manuevers. Of course, you can do that in your head just about as well.

If you are completely ignorant about what the control inputs will do, you will be able to learn that using the sim. But I do mean, completely ignorant-- meaning, you do not understand that rotating the yoke provides roll, pushing forward causes the nose to go down (relatively speaking, of course), pulling causes it to go up, and the rudders give yaw control. But that is a lesson of about 15 seconds of actual air time. It will not help you learn how much of each input is necessary to control the plane, or how to correct your inputs based on the response of the plane. This is most of what you are learning during your training time in the air. It is this reason why most knowlegeable people will tell you that the sim is mostly pointless for training for the basic private pilot certificate.
 
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I work in the simulation industry, so I'm admittedly a bit biased.

But, I bought a setup like this (all of those controls plus some others including IR head tracking from TrackIR), and I've been using it in X-Plane for a while. I used it for about a month before I started training for real.

Right now I have about 9 hours of dual training time. Today I did my first several landings 100% by myself. My instructor says I'm doing very well for the amount of training I have, and I haven't had a problem meeting the standards for each of the maneuvers he's introduced.

I have about 30 hours of serious sim time on my setup, and I recently started using pilotedge. If nothing else, the simulation with pilotedge doing ATC has made the simulator worth it. My first time on the radio in real life was no sweat, actually a lot less stressful than my first few flights on the sim talking with ATC via pilotedge.

I have taken the simulator training seriously, and spent a lot of time doing pattern work. I also focused on keeping heading/altitude/airspeed for flights with realistic weather. I'm certain the sim has helped me a great deal, I've noticed that I make the same errors in the sim that I make in the real world.

One word of advice, keep your head out of the cockpit in the simulator. My first time in the plane I had a hard time looking outside, I was obsessed with the gauges. I've gotten a lot better at that now though.

Also, consider the fun factor. I enjoy the simulator like I would enjoy playing a video game, so that figures into the cost/benefit analysis.

Just my $.02 :)
 
kevinbentley said:
If nothing else, the simulation with pilotedge doing ATC has made the simulator worth it. My first time on the radio in real life was no sweat, actually a lot less stressful than my first few flights on the sim talking with ATC via pilotedge.
Click to expand...

I would agree that this is also an area where it might help-- ATC communication where you are practicing with a real person playing the role of an air traffic controller. But that isn't really going to help until you have been instructed (or self taught using appropriate instructional material) what you need to do.
 
It could help if the ATC folks actually know what they are doing. Such a service IS available (VATSIM), but there are also those around staffed by 12 year old kids who have no idea what "#2 cleared for the option" means.

Frankly, learning it the "real" way isn't that hard if you don't play head games with yourself. I was doing ground calls on my first flight, and did almost all the ATC calls myself, throughout training. This is with NO prior experience. I did get a bit tongue-tied at first, and had to rehearse prior to calling, but it became automatic really quickly.

You really don't spend much time on ATC calls in a Class D departure or arrival, at least until you start using flight following and/or transitioning Class C. And the sequence is almost always the same. ClncDel (if available), Ground, Tower, Departure (on FF). Variations are broadcast on ATIS.
 
it's like asking if a an expresso machine is worth it for a new student. It may or may not have value to you as a person, but it has nothing to do with flying.
 
Are you kidding? An espresso machine is the perfect accessory for that empty spot on the right side of the instrument panel in a 172. :)

Of course, it may be a bit of a challenge to get the crema just right as you line up on short final in turbulence.
 
It could help if the ATC folks actually know what they are doing. Such a service IS available (VATSIM), but there are also those around staffed by 12 year old kids who have no idea what "#2 cleared for the option" means.
Click to expand...

Yes, one of the drawbacks of free online ATC is that lack of screening of controllers. Literally anyone can train to control, and the standards for being allowed to progress through the system are not uniform across all facilities, nor are they particularly high at most places.

That's one of the distinguishing features of PilotEdge. The controllers are rigorously screened....I'll leave it at that.

Regarding flight controls...I've been simming for about 30 years non-stop now. My current rig is a Saitek AV8R-01 ($19 from Microcenter) and my CH rudder pedals from 2005.....that's it. The plane I actually fly has a stick, so the Saitek stick was a natural choice when I was getting rid of my CH and Saitek yokes, but even if I was flying a 172...whether you use a stick or a yoke in the sim just doesn't matter a great deal since the control forces are not even close to the real airplane. What's more important is the fidelity of the model in the sim. Does it trim correctly? Does it behave reasonably in the last 3 feet during landings (if you're interested in practicing landings in the sim. If not, don't worry about it). I don't care if it's 3-5kts off in the cruise...but if it can't be trimmed using the same thought process as real life, then it's a problem.

I see people buying amazing rigs with avionics stacks, great visuals, wrap around screens...then I fly the sim and the plane is a train wreck in terms of the fidelity. I'd get the last part right, then worry about adding the first bit as an option.
 
With air traffic control turned on, MS flight simulator was very accurate in showing the order of radio calls. It didn't help me in flight, but certainly did help my radio work.
 
There is a video on another thread of a guy who has 1000s of hours in a sim and then had a bet he can take off and land from his experience in the sim in a 172 and it looked like he did it so go figure.
 
Archammer said:
Any flight simulator is a FANTASTIC training and familiarization tool for you. There are hundreds of options to choose from when it comes to simulators. It just depends on your needs and your wallet.
ANYONE who says that a flight simulator is not a great way to learn the functionality of an aircraft, basic flight dynamics, aircraft system, and time management is living in lala land! Not only will it save you time in flight training (which equals money spent), but when you're able to stop and debrief mid-flight, with a great pause button - instead of 2 hours later when you land - will be invaluable to you.
Click to expand...

Any hard data to back this up, in regards to a zero-time student? -Skip
 
Archammer got his private with 38.5 in the airplane if memory serves. He arrived Skyport with a lot of sim time under his built. Skyport does a ton of training in the sim prior to putting the student in an airplane (and they have approval for no mimimum time in the airplane...crazy as it sounds.)
 
I agree with Coma, Redbird Flight Simulations started a lab experiment with their initial flight training and has been very successful with this procedure. They built Skyport in San Marcos Tx, a first class facility and along with it added all the Flight Simulation equipment which complemented the Pro Flight Academy. There are numerous articles produced on this place from AOPA and Aero TV, Flying Magazine etc. Check it out.

As far as ATC, then the only choice IMHO is Pilot Edge. Yes, it is a pay as you go system, but for anybody wanting a real experience in the ATC world. They cover an area of California (Norcal & Socal) and they use top notch Controllers.

If practicing your IFR skills is needed then this would be the place to visit.

PDR
 
The question was about a home simulator, not a Redbird with an instructor.

I read that Redbird report as well, and it had a distinct flavor of marketing.
 
Yes! Get it!

:yes: I have Microsoft Flight Simulator hooked up to my Flatscreen at home with a CH Products Yoke that looks just like the 172 I fly. I have found it to be extremely useful in my training.

First...what it won't do...
* Hone your flying techniques and help you get an intuitive feel for flying
* Help you perfect your crosswind landings
* Help you simulate an emergency landing

But here's what it will do. These have helped me a great deal, and will continue to do so as I start my IFR:

* Simulate a cross country, with all the nav / VOR techniques; before going on a real cross country, I fly it in the sim first. It gives me more confidence when I fly into unfamiliar airspace.

* Helps with ATC communications. Spend $20 on some earphones and install www.pilotedge.com . You'll be speaking the language with a real person and you'll see other traffic.

* Simulate IFR conditions, including the instrumentation needed to get you wherever you want to go. I love setting the weather so I can't see anything, and then flying down to below the ceiling at 1000' for a perfect landing at a new airport.

* Allows you to have a reasonably realistic fun flying experience at home; for me, I can't get enough time in the air, and having a sim that feels real is a huge benefit.

Finally, a piece of advise. Don't scrimp on the hardware, and buy a scenery add-on for your area. That way your mini sim is that much more like the real thing.
 
MAKG1 said:
The question was about a home simulator, not a Redbird with an instructor.

I read that Redbird report as well, and it had a distinct flavor of marketing.
Click to expand...


I have been using sims since the 80's for everything from racing cars to flying.

I was lucky enough to get a chance in a sim that the helicopter folks use. Its a very expensive unit something way above anything someone would put in a home.

This sim flew just like my FSX system. Felt the same and everything. Oh by the way I flew the helli and did not crash once. Took off flew about 20 miles, landed at an airport and flew back and landed again.

I was told all Helli pilots must spend so many hrs in this unit, and after being in this unit they could not fly for 12 hrs. I could not fly for 2 days, or I should say I grounded myself for two days.
 
A flight simulator on your PC is a TOY.
It will give you bad habits that will haunt you for a long time, if not forever.
Learn to fly in a real airplane and save money in the long run.
Where an actual flight sim (with instructor right there) will be helpful is the instrument Rating
 
Re: Yes! Get it!

VWGhiaBob said:
:yes: I have Microsoft Flight Simulator hooked up to my Flatscreen at home with a CH Products Yoke that looks just like the 172 I fly. I have found it to be extremely useful in my training.

First...what it won't do...
* Hone your flying techniques and help you get an intuitive feel for flying
* Help you perfect your crosswind landings
* Help you simulate an emergency landing

But here's what it will do. These have helped me a great deal, and will continue to do so as I start my IFR:

* Simulate a cross country, with all the nav / VOR techniques; before going on a real cross country, I fly it in the sim first. It gives me more confidence when I fly into unfamiliar airspace.

* Helps with ATC communications. Spend $20 on some earphones and install www.pilotedge.com . You'll be speaking the language with a real person and you'll see other traffic.

* Simulate IFR conditions, including the instrumentation needed to get you wherever you want to go. I love setting the weather so I can't see anything, and then flying down to below the ceiling at 1000' for a perfect landing at a new airport.

* Allows you to have a reasonably realistic fun flying experience at home; for me, I can't get enough time in the air, and having a sim that feels real is a huge benefit.

Finally, a piece of advise. Don't scrimp on the hardware, and buy a scenery add-on for your area. That way your mini sim is that much more like the real thing.
Click to expand...

There are several not-so-positive things these will do, and not do, as well.

Simmers fly heads down as a rule. This is an excruciatingly bad habit. In a related note, simmers like to fly panels, rather than airplanes -- IRL, VFR flying doesn't require very much in the way of panels -- just the 91.205 required equipment is just fine. There is no benefit to flying glass VFR.

VFR cross-countries should be trained using ded reckoning and pilotage -- these are the fallbacks when the brown stuff hits the fan. A sim does next to nothing for this, as the important landmarks are quite different.

You don't have control over the weather, and the REAL training is when something unexpected happens. Like 15 knots of windshear 50 feet over the surface, that no one else knows about until you find it (BTDT). You won't be happy in a 172 at a 60 KIAS approach speed. Common surface level windshear and turbulence just isn't in the sim.

As for VOR nav, the sims I played with are too easy to use. The needles don't bounce in turbulence and have no backlash. Reception is too perfect.

These really are toys. They can be fun to play with. But they are poor substitutes for reality.
 
I can find no studies that show use of home flight simulators create subsequent learning problems for students who first tried to learn flying on home computers. All I can find are personal anecdotes from CFIs.

I have found studies that show either no advantage (in terms of average time to learn vs control subjects) to such use or some actual advantage. The most significant positive result I could find was that of the U.S. Navy which way back around 2000 issued customized versions of Microsoft Flight Simulator to all its student aviators. http://www.baseops.net/flightsimulators/

It isn't clear to me how long they they continued to do that or the amount of advantage they thought it conferred.

There appear to be a handful of things that a home simulator doesn't simulate well, though some are fundamentally important to stick and rudder skills.

If a student is aware of the most common problems (e.g. fixation on flight instruments) it is possible for them to take corrective action. In all the simulators I'm aware of one can actually remove the instrument panel from the display.

Once a student is made aware of the possible common problems and how to avoid them, it makes no sense to me why they should still be warned away from such a tool.
 
Re: Yes! Get it!

MAKG1 said:
Simmers fly heads down as a rule. This is an excruciatingly bad habit
Click to expand...

Any studies you are aware of that support either claim?

Also, are you certain that students will revert to heads down even after being made aware of the problem? That this issue is unavoidable, making use of home sims wasteful for most students?
 
Re: Yes! Get it!

Jim Logajan said:
Any studies you are aware of that support either claim?

Also, are you certain that students will revert to heads down even after being made aware of the problem? That this issue is unavoidable, making use of home sims wasteful for most students?
Click to expand...

It's impossible to control a study like that. The one you cited has a crucial error.

Using a simulator with a flight instructor present is fundamentally different from using one at home BEFORE starting training. The question was about the latter.

If you want to play, play. Sims can be fun. But don't pretend they have benefit, especially with irrelevant studies.

Habits can be unlearned with effort, but that effort takes time and money.
 
Jim Logajan said:
There appear to be a handful of things that a home simulator doesn't simulate well, though some are fundamentally important to stick and rudder skills.
Click to expand...

This is backwards. There are a handful of things a home simulator CAN do.

When you consider training time, it affects a very very VERY small fraction of the total time spent to obtain your certificate. And this can be easily offset by bad habits you have to unlearn.
 
I don't need a study to know that for me personally the sim helps a lot, especially IFR and cross countries. Also, I have a feeling a lot of the folks commenting above have not tried www.pilotedge.com with F Sim. This site is great...provides real people to help you learn ATC communications. Together, these have helped me immensely.

No, my landings aren't better. But many other skills are.
 
I've lost count of how many primary students have self-studied at home and have had a huge benefit on primary training (and an even bigger benefit for IFR).

Yes, there are a couple of bad habits (such as instrument fixation, which I also suffered from) that might get picked up, but that was fixed in 1/2 a lesson. The benefits outweigh the drawbacks.

With a well-tuned PC-based sim, you can meaningfully practice stalls, slow flights, steep turns, pattern work, ground reference maneuvers, emergency procedures and more. Add online ATC to the mix (PilotEdge, VATSIM, etc) and you can have a huge head start on situational awareness, the ability to listen, and learning to talk on the radio.

It really helped with me slips and crosswind landings (thanks, xplane!)
 
coma24 said:
I've lost count of how many primary students have self-studied at home and have had a huge benefit on primary training (and an even bigger benefit for IFR).

Yes, there are a couple of bad habits (such as instrument fixation, which I also suffered from) that might get picked up, but that was fixed in 1/2 a lesson. The benefits outweigh the drawbacks.

With a well-tuned PC-based sim, you can meaningfully practice stalls, slow flights, steep turns, pattern work, ground reference maneuvers, emergency procedures and more. Add online ATC to the mix (PilotEdge, VATSIM, etc) and you can have a huge head start on situational awareness, the ability to listen, and learning to talk on the radio.

It really helped with me slips and crosswind landings (thanks, xplane!)
Click to expand...

You simply have to be kidding. It's not nice to do that to a primary student who may not know better.

While you can make a sim stall, it's not going to buffett the aircraft or break in a realistic way. Even a 172 stall warning doesn't sound the same when they just start to go off. Anything with a sight picture is going to be different because of seat adjustment. Ground reference maneuvers with a known wind are dramatically different from GRMs with unknown wind. Steep turns don't pull G's, and that's quite relevant. Control feel is also stupendously different.
 
coma24 said:
I've lost count of how many primary students have self-studied at home and have had a huge benefit on primary training (and an even bigger benefit for IFR).

Yes, there are a couple of bad habits (such as instrument fixation, which I also suffered from) that might get picked up, but that was fixed in 1/2 a lesson. The benefits outweigh the drawbacks.

With a well-tuned PC-based sim, you can meaningfully practice stalls, slow flights, steep turns, pattern work, ground reference maneuvers, emergency procedures and more. Add online ATC to the mix (PilotEdge, VATSIM, etc) and you can have a huge head start on situational awareness, the ability to listen, and learning to talk on the radio.

It really helped with me slips and crosswind landings (thanks, xplane!)
Click to expand...

I disagree here. As a former simmer, I was well along into having my ticket when a watchful CFI noted my tendency to fly the numbers. He made me do my 1st no panel full pattern at night (at W00 - an already tricky airport in the daytime)!

Stalls and slow-flight are about aircraft feedback and finesse; these cannot be learned virtually...and each airplane has minute variations even amongst same make/model/year (I trained on several 81-83 C172P models).

When weighing a critical item such as the choice to do or not, consider the credibility of the person giving the answer. Then makeup your own damn mind.

I haven't simmed in a long time, however my CFII heartily endorses it for INSTRUMENT and above, not primary. I agree with his reasoning.
 
If you want to play, then play, but if not then forget all about a home simulator stuff until the instrument rating.

There was a study conducted in the 90s by the FAA (I don't have it with me but I will link it later if people are interested) which set out to determine if there was any skill transference between PC based FTDs and actual flying in a flight school environment. IIRC the school in question was the one at the University of Illinois. The results showed positive transference in the area of instrument training but for anything where you need the tactile feel of an airplane it wasn't so hot. Which is ultimately science confirming what most of the CFIs in this thread are saying. The training was done under instructor supervision!

I'm not one to diss desktop sims. They're fun--but mostly for entertainment. Don't be one of those guys who starts taking serious games way too seriously. You can never strap on a desktop flight sim and wind up dead. That statement doesn't apply to an airplane. Learn in an airplane.
 
The fact that the aircraft breaks differently doesn't matter a whole lot. The recovery process is the same. The steps of configuring the aircraft to set up for the stall are the same.

Slow flight is identical (with a decent sim), with the region of reverse command becoming very apparent.

I think people get entirely too hung up on the stick forces being different and the lack of sensations. Their absence doesn't necessarily reduce the value of the sim to that of a toy.

If your goal is to learn the specific control forces required to enter and maintain a 45 deg bank in a 172, then the sims are godawful, no question. Hell, even the new AATD's with control loading don't seem to get it right (which leaves me wondering why they bothered implementing control loading).

However, if you use the sim to understand the principals and the thought process behind the control inputs during a steep turn, then you're golden. Think about how autopilots work...they assume nothing. They apply inputs until they get the desired response. That's not a bad way to fly.

I know it works. The first time we did steep turns, I knew the relationship of the control inputs and did a good job with the maneuver. Slow flight wasn't something I'd explicitly tried in a sim prior to my flight training, but after I was introduced to it, I went home and practiced transitioning from cruise to slow flight, and then approach and dep stalls, back to cruise. It helped immeasurably.

Do they replicate the physical sensations? Hell no...in fact, I was giggling during my first steep turn because the onset of G was new to me...but it didn't change much.

The student will need to incorporate those physical sensations into their perception of what's going on, and that can only be done in the aircraft, but there's still a ton you can practice.

And yes, I did a lot of turns around a point with 25kt winds in the sim, and that helped quite a bit, too.

I'm not saying you can fly the sim and walk into the airplane and know it all. However, I am saying that it helps more than it hurts, and it can help quite a bit. It can reduce your time to train, and also allow the instructor to focus on some of the bigger picture thinking (ADM) rather than repeated exposure to the mechanics of each maneuver.
 
Re: Yes! Get it!

MAKG1 said:
It's impossible to control a study like that. The one you cited has a crucial error.

Using a simulator with a flight instructor present is fundamentally different from using one at home BEFORE starting training. The question was about the latter.
Click to expand...

If no valid studies have been done to test their effectiveness at self-teaching, then there is no study to support your opposite assertions.

If you want to play, play. Sims can be fun. But don't pretend they have benefit, especially with irrelevant studies.
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Sigh. You are being obstinate on a cause that makes no sense. For the record, I'm one person who used Microsoft FS to resolve two issues on my own initiative during training. One use was to wean myself from using ailerons to pick up a wing during stalls. There was a nice way for me to quickly repeat a scenario that caused me to crash if I did the wrong thing and allowed me to recover if I just used rudder until the wings were flying again. On my next live training session I no longer did the wrong thing.

Habits can be unlearned with effort, but that effort takes time and money.
Click to expand...
Again: do you have any evidence to show that simmers exhibit a greater number of bad habits than those who did not sim prior to instruction? If not, why do you insist on repeatedly making this claim?
 
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