poll: Think you can fly?

[mora]

You  guys that think you can fly after playing a game online are too funny!

Well there was this kid in my gliding course who had never been in a real plane before but had a lot of MSFS time and he mastered his plane from the very first flight. According to all the instructors I have spoke with say that instructing is very easy today because a lot of people have done flight sims.

Do your passengers a favor and leave them on the ground to live, they may have family.
Btw, even on the REMOTE, OUTSIDE, possibility that you could
land the damn thing, throw in a 5knot wind and all yer SIM
time is moot.

Is anyone suggesting that you can pilot a plane SAFELY? Handling a plane is no more harder than riding a bicycle, but doing it safely is entirely different matter. Most difficult part in flying is obeying rules, communications etc.

[straffo]

Flying ?
yes as a former glider pilot I'll have no trouble flying but more with engine management, radio procedure (and IFR obvioulsy )

Here it's "piloter aux fesses" Naso

[Golfer]

Originally posted by loser
I honestly think that i could fly something with a really light wing loading and low powered engine with super simple controls and avionics.


Say a DeHavilland Tiger Moth or like Rip's Dad's J-3.

I think that flying such a simple aircraft wouldnt be that hard, but there is so much more to flying than keeping the plane in the air.
So if i was given a simple plane, close to home, during the day, with little or no wind.  Yeah, I'd say i could do it.

Going over my mental checklist for "stable" airplanes with light wing loading and the tiger moth does not come to mind.  high wing loading and a great way to kill a new pilot out for his first trip around the patch.  The most simple airplane to land ive found is a Cessna 152, for some reason even my first flight in that lightweight (compared to a 172, 182, 172RG) ive yet to ever hear/feel the wheels touch the ground.  Its worth the extra hour drive to the FBO that has a 152 available to rent, even if its just for the carefree greasers.  

Thinking back now...::scratching chin and waves come over my life and i am transported into a dream::

As a fresh student pilot with nothing but Sim experience with the exception of hitching rides in a stearman as a younger boy...i found a few things came easy.   Altitude holding, stalls, use of rudder, and all kinds of turns.  flipping to the first page of my logbook in a 0.8 intro flight written in chicken scratch is "Aircraft Familiarity, Straight & Level, Climbs, Descents, Steep Turns, Stalls"   Not bad for my first less than an hour?  One more thing set me ahead of the pack as far as soloing (First solo...first page of the logbook also...ready to go at 7 hours) was the use of radio.  It never hit me keying a button on my joystick and talking into a microphone to my squaddies made me comfortable on the radios and never experienced "mic fright" which plagues many student pilots who are timid on the radios.  Asking around a bit when my initial CFI and myself had a conversation about it, we decided that the use of voice communication in an Air Warrior or Aces High type simulator did the trick and broke in that there is a person on the other end and can make you less nervous thinking so "is the word Super Duper official radio lingo?"  As far as my first landing, well...like many student pilots (read ALL) coming in over the numbers a little hot (75 knots...not bad) and flared a little high (50 feetish?) and the cfi salvaged the landing with a slight bump after doing a move you would expect to see while breakdancing instead of flying.  In short, flying in a game or a simulator will not help you land, but it will help you get through your training a little faster.  i am a firm believer in MSFS 2k2 for instrument "training" (flying an ILS, flying a VOR or NDP approach at minimums without spending 90-100-110 dollars an hour for a plane and Double I) A good supplemental tool, yes.  Substitute for actual flying, instruction, and time in the logbook...not by a long shot.

[Saurdaukar]

Could I keep a plane in the air?  Sure.  Could I land or take off?  No.  Fly on instruments?  No.  Attempt a rolling scissor followed by a flawlessly executed hammerhead stall?  Eh.. no.

Am I gonna die?  Dunno, but Ill let you know when I start racking up hours towards my CFI this summer.  

[Mini D]

I think I could take off and land in a plane... provided there was no crosswind and I had a straight in no obstacle aproach.  Basically, under ideal conditions, I could do it... just like AH... which is always ideal conditions.

Anything other than that and I seriously doubt it... to the point of being confident I couldn't do it without some serious flight training.

MiniD

[crowMAW]

Originally posted by CyranoAH
One thing that can happen to you when flying for the first time coming from a flightsim environment is that you tend to pay more attention to the instruments than to the plane attitude.

Actually, I disagree.  When I first started power lessons when I was a teenager, I always had my head in the cockpit.  My instructor would frequently remind me to get my eye off the artificial horizon.  Part of the reason I stopped taking flying lessons, aside from money, was that I just was not very good at it, even though I loved it.

20 years later, I took up flying again with glider lessons. Flying combat sims taught me to keep my eye looking outside...I almost never look at the instruments when flying a combat sim since you loose SA.  As a result, the only time I looked at the instruments when I stepped into a real cockpit was to check airspeed on landing...and once I got used to the plane, I did not even bother looking at them at all...I could tell how fast I was going by the sound of the air over the plane.  Now gliders do have one heads-up instrument and that is the slip indicator, which is a peice of string taped to the canopy, and I still use that occasionally to help make coordinated turns.  Fying gliders is all about e management and making uncoordinated turns really bleeds e.

One other thing about sims that I've noticed:  I also am an amateur racecar driver (track days, autocross, etc).  Recently, I've seen newbie youngsters (20 year olds) showing up to SCCA events and in less than a year of experience they start kicking the veteran driver's tulips (including mine and I'm an instructor).  I've been in the sport for nearly 15 years and only in the past 5 have I seen newbies do so well.  I finally asked one of the 20 year olds, who has kicked me all season long, how he learned to drive so well in such a short time.  I figured he had been driving karts since he was 5 years old or something.  But he said that he played Gran Turismo...you should have seen my jaw drop.  When he stepped into our sport he already knew how to look ahead and how to correct oversteer using steering inputs and throttle.  All he had to do was learn his car.  I quickly learned that he and all his 20 year old buddies play GT together all the time.  Any driving instructor will tell you the best way to become faster is seat time.  These kids had tons of seat time before the first day they hit the track.

[Replicant]

The one thing my instructor was surprised at was my SA!  I was constantly looking all around me and then having a glimpse at my dials.  Little did he know I was looking out for Rook/Nit bastiges

[Eagler]

the lack of a twisty stick may throw some off

[udet]

Originally posted by CyranoAH
One thing that can happen to you when flying for the first time coming from a flightsim environment is that you tend to pay more attention to the instruments than to the plane attitude.


 

hehe Cyrano, that's exactly what happened to me on my first flight

[Gorf]

My first time with a flight instructor was my last when I asked:

"So, does this joystick have FORCE FEEDBACK??"

[Psyco]

I agree the biggest thing missing is the feel, in gliding for instance I would never look at the variometer, a bit of negative g then a soft, sometimes hard kick in the butt indicating a thermal.

I've flown right and back seat for SE since I was 3 years old, flown gliders, power from a Tiger Moth and Grummon Goose on up to SE's 402, but my greatest thrill was his Pitts S2A. Aerobatic flying is nearly all out of cockpit reference and I believe sims teach you the mental basics, procedures etcetera. With a control tower helping in an emergency, a good simmer would have a good shot at walking away from a landing, solo, man he'd be lucky.

There's no auto level for when you get in trouble and no auto take-off, but, you know about torque and how to deal with it, someone without the sim experience wouldn't have a clue. Sims teach what the gauges do, what they look like, all very important basics.

Psyco

[LLv34 Jarsci]

Got PPL license here, also GPL. Not so many hours but when I got my hands on old DC-9 full motion night vision sim I managed to take off , fly and land it manually.. acvtually that DC9 is easier to land than any plane in IL2, in which I always collapse my landing gears.. Got 5 free hours in that sim, was a blast! Finnish CAA paid everything, was a part of my ATC training ...

When I started I had lots of hours in sims, and on the first flight in sailplane I almost managed to get it inverted, never had thought that you need so much "foot" on that thing.. (It has almost to be floored...)

[Wlfgng]

the lack of a twisty stick may throw some off

lol that's soo true.. I forgot some guys still 'fly' that way.

[Glasses]

I think flight sims helped me quite a bit when I was getting my Flight training towards my PPL especially AH helped me somewhat since the plane I did most of my training in was a lo wing PA-28 it helped me deal with ground effect,torque power on and power off stalls which amazingly enough in RL were more like AH 1.03 although to a lesser degree (no 2k hp engine  ) . I progressed a whole lot and I did solo at 10 hours compared to my class avg of 17+ hrs,the the ticket itself took me longer for reasons out of my control.

Now I'm flying a Cessna 172RG it's a fun lil kite much more responsive and it glides like a shrecker(I like that compared to the 28 that dropped like a rock) it has a less powerful engine,about 10hp less than the Archer, but I am told it's a much mroe cleaner aircraft and that's why it glides and flies the way it  does. I was a little picky about renting an aircraft coming from a PA-28 but now I'm fully confident of my abilities and of the plane I'm flying now and I hope I'll make much more stick time now that I have been checked out in the C172, I love it

[SirLoin]

Nother question..How many of you AH dudes think you could fly and land a 40 sized R/C trainer without training?

A:I did.Age 14...Sig Cadet...Landed 1/2 mile away and it bounced to a stop against a neighbour's wire fence in 1 piece..