I was just curious how realistic is this game. I mean I've never flown a plane but I sure feel like I could now.
Probably you'd find that you couldn't. But you'd still be ahead of someone who hadn't even had the computer experience.
As others have said, the computer can't give us a lot of the real-world major factors. Chief among these, so far as I'm concerned, are the G forces you get in any kind of aerobatic maneuvering. Flying AH is much more pleasant (I often think of an account of a P-51 pilot who was in an extended engagment with a 109. His oxygen mask was slipping down off his face, his right arm was getting tired, his left leg was getting tired, and he was about ready to throw up because of the nausea caused by the continued G forces). Also, the variation in things like air currents, engine rpms and wind isn't usually present in AH, and they cause a lot more distraction than I ever thought they would.
OTOH, AH does a pretty good job of modeling the main parts of flying. I know it helped me a lot when I was learning how to land - just the notion of pulling back the power, adjusting your angle of attack to achieve the proper speed, and estimating where you're going to touch down were a big help when I started doing it for real.
I've also noticed that my sons, now age 19, and my daughter, 22, all of whom grew up playing various video games, pick up on these things in real airplanes A LOT quicker than I did. Computers gaming really seems to instill a sense of timing and motion that we older folks just don't have.
- oldman
