On Thu, 15 Feb 2007 01:49:45 -0600, boB <kuma70xx.RemoveThis@xxgmail.com> wrote:
>
>Damn MX! You sure do piss off a bunch of people over on
>rec.aviation.piloting...
>
>I'm waiting for their answer answer to your question:
I'll try to give you and honest answer from a pilot's perspective.
And to put that into perspective, I have well over a 1000 hours flying
high performance, complex, retracts, AND many hours on every sim MS
has published as well as time in sims designed for flight training.
Again it may be schematics, but to me IRL flying is a game. It is a
very serious game with real life consequences to mistakes and
failures. Now days I fly for fun and no other reason. My airplane is
a toy to me. Some would say an expensive toy, but it costs me no more
to operate than those who take their 4-WHD "mudding", or go "boating".
>-----------------------------------
>Why is it okay when a "real pilot" treats a simulation realistically,
>but not when a non-pilot does so?
I'd not phrase it that way, but it does come down to perspective.
Once you have flown IRL a non motion sim such as FSX appears
different. Although visually it looks fairly realistic there is a
great deal of realism missing from the actual feel of the flight to
the feel of the controls. Another very important psychological piece
missing is the accountability and responsibility. For many IRL pilots
that can have some profound consequences in learning to fly. It even
keeps some on the ground and out of training. After all, although
flying is not inherently dangerous it is very unforgiving and you can
get killed due to carelessness or inattention.
Flying is like driving, but in three dimensions and you are far more
at the mercy of the elements than when driving. We think nothing of
two cars passing within 3 to 6 feet of each other with a closing speed
of 120 to 140 MPH. (157 to 183 Km/Hr) It takes a _very_good_ and
well trained pilot to get within 10 feet of another airplane in
formation when they are going in the same direction. You are
constantly correcting for turbulence and look no where except at the
plane on which you are holding position. Professional pilots who do
this are a notable and outstanding exception.
To me, most of the sims available today make a good supplement for IRL
flying. They do help with procedures and even VFR navigation.
As to the phrase "treat a sim realistically" there is realistic and
then there is realistic. As I said, visually Both FS9 and FSX are
fairly realistic and with some local add ons they can be very
realistic visually. None and I emphasize the none...None of the sims
present a realistic flight, or the feel of the flight. They do present
a visually realistic presentation which to me is quite different. If
you've been to an IMAX theatre you know that given a large enough
image your body responds as if the image were real. Take three wide
screens to give a better visual representation so you are sitting *in*
the image and it will feel different. Different enough for some to get
a bit of motion sickness. Still both the feel of flight and the
controls are missing. That feel is a good portion of the difficulty in
learning to fly IRL. FF yokes and joy sticks do not come close to
feeling real.
For instance with the controls, the faster you go the more force it
takes to move the yoke or stick a given distance. Also at any given
speed the farther you move the yoke or stick the more force it takes.
The same is true with the rudder pedals. If you haven't flown for a
few weeks and then spend a couple hours practicing maneuvers you will
feel it in your legs the next day. If the CH pedals were to give a
realistic feel they'd need to get rid of that center stop and put in
some good strong springs, or use door closers. They'd also have to
bolt them to the floor if the pressure were any where near realistic.
If I'm coning in to land and at the last minute do a "go around', it
takes considerable forward force on the yoke to hold the nose down.
Probably some where between 20 and 40 pounds. If you don't hold the
nose down it'll come up so abruptly it'll overshoot and darn near
stand on end, putting the plane in a very dangerous attitude from
which it will stall unless prompt action is taken. This type of feed
back is missing from the PC based sims. You may see it, but it is a
long way from realistic. The same is true for doing slips where you
add aileron to roll one way and apply opposite rudder. Keeping the
nose down they adds a lot of drag, slows the plane quickly and allows
you to lose a lot of altitude quickly. However IRL it takes
considerable force on the rudder pedals and a fair amount on the yoke
or stick. This lack of feel makes doing slips in a sim very difficult
compared to real life.
Even with all the effort put into realistically modeling the flight
dynamics of the different airplanes and they are modeled quite well,
they do not feel real. However the dynamics of both FS9 and FSX are
good enough that "I think" were they hooked to a 3-axis simulator it
would feel real.
I think the difference between *some* pilots and *some* simmers is in
what they perceive as realistic. Some of us are in agreement and some
are worlds apart. Flying FSX may look real but it does not feel real
to me. Still, as I said earlier, it makes a good supplement to the
real thing and particularly for procedures.
BTW I have flown planes that had zero breakout force (required no
force to move the stick from center) and zero stick gradient (the
force to move the stick did not increase the farther I moved it from
center) and it required very little stick movement to make some major
control surface deflections. It was sorta like using a game joystick
with no springs. To say it was an interesting plane to fly would be
an understatement. Less than a year after I flew it the pilot was
killed when it crashed.
>-----------------------------------
>
>Since I'm now flying a "motion" simulator, does that mean I'm running
>with the "Big Dogs"???????
More like most of us puppies. To graduate you have to get air sick in
it. <
)
Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com >> Stay informed about: Simulator- Game or Simulator 
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