Excuse me while I laugh my arse off. Landing an airplane is a delicate balance that takes time and dedication in REAL aircraft to learn. Sims are a wonderful way to learn procedures and get a general look at how it may go down and real life. But when it's real life with your butt in the actual seat, things are completely different. I have thousands of hours in simulator time. Greaser landings, navigating, managing systems, I was a pro! Know what it taught me for my real life training? Theories of flight, how the controls work, and familiarity with the gauges. Everything else is different. Why? Because your life is on the line. People act and react differently when death or dismemberment is a consequence.
Here's a situation that may put it in perspective. You head to a gun range, have a friend point a loaded weapon at your head while you target shoot. There's your simulator. The situation is there, you're going through the motions of shooting the gun, but you also know there's no way in heck that your buddy is pulling the trigger. Your heart rate may go up and your accuracy may be a touch off, but it's all good. Now imagine being at the gun rage when some lunatic walks up to you with his gun pointed at your head. Think it may be a bit different? Screw up and you die. Puts a bit more pressure on ya eh?
Landing STILL isn't a magical feat. It is certainly difficult, and quite dangerous, but it isn't magic, and it isn't some insurmountable wall. I remember my first, after years of Sim practice. It was remarkably easy. Yes, I was freaked out. I was terrified. But having seen the runway before, having seen myself slide down that glide-slope on a computer screen before, It gave me a bit more of an advantage than a kid who had never done either before, because I knew what is SHOULD look like. When I was a little high on final, I knew it, because the runway didn't look as wide as it should when I passed over the first fence (I was so terrified I wasn't bothering with any gauge but my airspeed indicator and my variometer). I knew I needed to get lower, so I did. I was off center. I had seen that before in Sims. It took me a second or two to realize it, but I knew as soon as I got off center, something was wrong. It didn't LOOK right. As I floated down over the runway, I got that n00b temptation to flare WAY too early. Again, It didn't look right, so I held off for just a second or two more... I flared, felt a slight bump, and I was on the ground. My instructor was VERY impressed. I will gladly say I would not have done as well had it not been for years of playing flight Sims. There is a reason the Military uses Sims to train pilots. It's not just saving fuel, but it gives them the opportunity to experience situations over and over, to develop a mental picture of what it SHOULD look like, what it SHOULD feel like, so that if the begin to do something wrong, even if they cannot identify their mistake immediately, they know something isn't right.
Cobra: I'm curious, having spent so many hours in the air and in Sims, do you feel Sims are sometimes harder because of the lack of physical input?
except for someone pretending to be ATC.
And therein squats the toad. Maybe it's just me, but the very first thing I would do after assessing the situation would be to contact ATC and let them know what happened. This gives you a little advantage: YOU might not know the speeds and altitudes for this aircraft, but ATC can find out. They can, at the very least, radio you the numbers you need to aim for. As for heading, if you have worked with navigation equipment in the Sim and can get someone to find a sectional in the cockpit (Or better, a GPS) you can probably figure out where you are. Or, the easier route? Call the tower. These planes have transponders for a reason. They can most likely tell you where in god's name you are, and can direct you to a suitable field. Again, if you know how to read a sectional, you can do that yourself as well. If you fly the plane by the numbers on your dials, and you can line them all up, you have a pretty good foundation for a landing. You need to perform a function but cannot identify the proper switch: Tell the tower. Diagrams of the cockpits of these aircraft ARE available, and you can bet your arse that if ATC heard there was a plane being piloted by someone with no experience preparing for an emergency landing, they would FIND one of those diagrams. It will be difficult, yes, but so long as you don't get hit with some obscure function in the flare, it's not the end of the world. Better yet, find another MSFS guy on the plane and get him in the cockpit as a copilot. One of you focus on flying, the other focus on the knobs and buttons. As for the alarm? Ask ATC again, and look for the little flashing light. Chances are SOMETHING is flashing, and that at least gives you a basis for your guess. Again, this won't be easy, it won't be pretty, but it CAN end well. The key is remaining calm, which I grant you, actual pilots have a huge running head-start at. But you aren't alone, and just because you don't know some number doesn't mean you can't find out.
The level D sim flys just like the real thing, complete with motion, it really isn't all that different - the fact that I was actually in the air with passengers back there wouldn't affect my flying ability.
My super-Sim experience was with the Navy's P-3 simulator on Kaneohe Marine Corps. Air Base. I didn't have motion with it (They had shut that part down for maintenance) which made it INCREDIBLY more difficult, but otherwise it flew like the real thing, all the knobs where there, and I had a very sadistic pilot friend (Who flew the P-3, hence my having access to the Sim) who liked to randomly toss emergencies at me to see how I handled it, and his Bulgarian wife who was so terrified of flying she was having a panic attack behind me even in a non-moving Sim. My first landing wasn't pretty, but I got down. After 20 minutes of playing with gauges and being told (Via intercom, he wouldn't point and demonstrate) what the basic displays were, how to use the radio altimeter, the TACOM, etc. I was making almost perfect landings with terrible crosswinds, one or two gauges out, and a screaming Bulgarian woman in the Flight Engineer's seat.
