Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: sluggish on February 28, 2009, 04:57:01 PM
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If the flight attendant asked the question that every flight sim geek fantasizes about ("IS THERE ANYONE HERE WHO CAN LAND A PLANE??!!?!!), could your years of dedicated flight simming help you cut the mustard?
http://www.flightsim.com/main/feature/question.htm
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Heh, good read.
Anyone that can consistently fly, fly the approach and land well Microsoft Flight Sim will have no problem flying/landing the real thing. Granted I had a lot of time flying with my dad in his Super Cub. But I really believe that anyone that flys well in MS Flight Sim could do it.
I took the 737-200 Level D sim around the pattern at Hartsfield when I was 14, it flew exactly as MS Flight Sim, which I had been flying frequently. Greased it on the numbers a few times, flew one ILS to near minimums as well. I had basically memorized the approach from the plates I was using for MS Flight Sim, so I knew the freqs, cross-radials, fixes, headings, altitudes, etc. I had to work the spoilers to get down on one approach though, - I don't think that's standard procedure in the final approach phase :lol - but it worked out nicely.
On one of the climb-outs he told me to go ahead and roll it - I told him I thought we were too low & slow to get it around without stalling it on the bottom half, so I continued to climb to about 3,500, pitched up to ~45 and threw in the aileron/rudder and around it went. On the backside we were pointed about 50* nose down with a ~60* right bank - I was pulling it a bit to get it on around and get the nose up and the stick shaker went off, I dumped the nose a bit and coaxed it on out of the dive completing the roll. They were impressed.
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If they recover the black box from my 'landing', the last message would say 'You have ditched'
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I got the balls to do it :aok
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If they're ever desperate enough to ask, I'd be desperate enough to try.
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:rofl
Do you know how much confidence the general public would have in you when you say "I think I can land! I've got 1,000 landings under my belt in microsoft flight simulator!" Talk about pathetic, geeky, middle-aged wish fulfillment. :lol
That said, people who have experience with both simulators and the real thing are sometimes more open minded. A friend let me land his 152 with only auditory help; it's not so difficult. Now, landing a big passenger jet at 3x that speed is a whole 'nother ball of wax.
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yea i think if they come back and ask i would definitely raise my hand!!!
after all we are already sc@@$#ed :rofl
but then again i been flying for o 30 years already, just nothing that big,
Cherokees,aircoop's, steermans, sitabra's,once in a t-38(thrill of a lifetime) stuff like that.
none of which i think could prepare you for a big passenger jet,, more than knowing what you were doing if you flew microsoft flight sim, and landed some of those aircraft more than a few times.
in a small plane you still get the feel of the aircraft that cannot be simulated, in that size jet i doubt that the feel of it would have as much effect as the fact that you knew what you were supposed to do, then again the tower ,and air control guys say the pilot is just an after thought, bet those people that went down in the hudson might see it a bit different!!
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Anyone that can consistently fly, fly the approach and land well Microsoft Flight Sim will have no problem flying/landing the real thing.
I have only one response to your response.
:rofl
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If they're ever desperate enough to ask, I'd be desperate enough to try.
LMAO Damn straight!
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:rofl
Do you know how much confidence the general public would have in you when you say "I think I can land! I've got 1,000 landings under my belt in microsoft flight simulator!" Talk about pathetic, geeky, middle-aged wish fulfillment. :lol
Yea but I bet if given the choices of nobody being at the controls to land the plane. And some flight sim geek.
They would be more then enthusiastic in convincing the sim geek t give it a try.
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That said, people who have experience with both simulators and the real thing are sometimes more open minded. A friend let me land his 152 with only auditory help; it's not so difficult. Now, landing a big passenger jet at 3x that speed is a whole 'nother ball of wax.
I don't know, with my real life experience, Sims IMHO are MUCH harder. I get at least 25% of my input IRL from the way the aircraft feels (Assuming im in a situation where vertigo or disorientation aren't likely to act on me) so without it on the computer, I feel lost, lol. Yeah, I would trust someone with the Sim experience to give it a go, seeing as we're probably gonna die anyway.
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Better yet:
Two guys raise their hands. As the plane plummets earthward, they begin to argue over who is the more qualified sim pilot by debating the finer points of flight models. :rolleyes:
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Better yet:
Two guys raise their hands. As the plane plummets earthward, they begin to argue over who is the more qualified sim pilot by debating the finer points of flight models. :rolleyes:
I have a K/D ratio of 5-1
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I have only one response to your response.
:rofl
But - did you read my post? I did it, several times - and I had 0 prior 737-200 time at 14 years old. :lol
I also got a chance to fly the F/A-18A sim at Dobbins NAS when VFA-203 was still around. I trapped on the carrier on the first approach, granted it was smooth seas and calm wind, but it illustrates how well flight sims can help one get a feel for an aircraft. It flew just like a video game, I had been flying Janes F-18 prior to that. Shot a night approach as well, just flew the needles and AOA.
For some reason people seem to think that landing an airplane is some magical feat - it isn't. They also think that the bigger the airplane - the harder it is to land - not true, it is much harder to get a nice landing out of the Super Cub on a breezy day than it is to land a 737.
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I'm pretty sure I'd be able to ground loop a jet just as good as I could a cartoon plane.
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For some reason people seem to think that landing an airplane is some magical feat - it isn't.
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?
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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?
Yes, but you'd have an exponentially larger chance of surviving than someone who's never touched a gun before.
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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.
I've been flying since I was about 6 (with my dad in our Cub), solo'd on my 16th birthday and got my license at 17, I know about flying - I also fly flight sims. I know what you're trying to say.
It's funny that landing a C-172 in real life and landing one in the sim seem quite a bit different to me, there's just more finess involved in real life, your hands/feet are working more on a breezy day than in the sim. However, the 737 on MSFS and the Level D sim flew very similar, it's mainly because it is a much more stable aircraft and you're not dancing all over the controls in the flare. Once you're stabalized on the approach you're set, the flare is quite easy.
I told you my story about how I landed the 737-200 Level D sim several times, and the only other experience I had was in MS Flight Sim (well, and in the Super Cub). It's pretty evident that the flight sim experience helped me out quite a bit, I don't see how you could not agree.
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Having done so a billion times in x-plane and MS-FSX with somewhat realistic controls (yoke, levers, pedals.. etc etc) I dont know for sure if I could pull off a landing the captain would be proud of, but I bet I could get it down without killing anyone.
Read around on some real flightsim forums, for example X-Plane forums, you can read what many real pilots think about the comparison between their real ride, and the ones presented in the sim.
that being said, if anyone thinks they could land a corsair on a carrier because they can do it in aces high... :devil
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This question comes up every now and then and invariably some Microsoft pilot stands up and tell us he can handle it. :rofl The author of hte original article comes across as an arrogant ass. Despite all his supposed expertise he makes this remark:
And in real life, the copilot is the one who flies anyway.
. Making a stupid comment like that makes we wonder about the rest of his story.
Like Cougar, I laughed my bellybutton off at Cobra516's comment about landings. No, landing an airplane isn't magical, it takes skill, training and practice. But even most experienced pilot screws up from time to time.
The fact that you flew a 737 sim aged 14 proves nothing. The fact that you have thousands of Microsoft hours counts for nothing because the day you find yourself up there in the real thing, alone, scared and overwhelmed will be the day you realise you know nothing about flying an airliner. Landing any aircraft from a set up approach isn't that difficult. The real issue to getting the approach right as any pilot will tell you.
Let's set up a scenario, it's all happened and you approach the flight deck, past the stricken bodies of the crew. You sit down, heart pounding and take in the situation. You establish you're at FL370, you can see your speed and your heading. Now what? Where are you for one thing. You know you need to descend, you know you need to change heading to route to a suitable airport. Once you manage to descend you need to configure for landing. You need to know when you lower flaps, what speed to use on the approach. What if the weather is bad, it's at night, there's turbulence, crosswinds. What if the aircraft you're in, doesn't resemble the flight sim you were playing with. Which switch, does what? What is that alarm going off in your ear? It's an utter nightmare.
Now I'm actually a working commercial pilot with several hundred hours and I have 'played' with MS flight sim. In the aircraft I normally fly. I have occasionally found myself in a situation where a little tension fills the air, in cloud, with turbulence with the main Artificial Horizon and stand by AH having an argument as to which is correct and the stall warning chirping away. Your ears tell you one thing, your eyes another and the disorientation begins to kick in. You don't get that in MS FSX. Never mind your mythical 737, could you take over if I fainted in fright?
No we'd both die, although the skydivers would probably get out. :D
The reality is that in all probability even a fairly experienced but non airline pilot would probably scatter wreckage all over the airport even if they managed to get that far. The Microsoft ace would do the same thing only sooner.
It's all a Walter Mitty fantasy. Having a fun day out in a 'real' sim is not the same as finding yourself actually sitting in a hurtling piece of metal at high altitude.
But it's fun to speculate, Interestingly it has never happened in reality. The closest was the Helios flight in Greece. With both pilots unconscious, the steward who happened to be a commercial pilot actually got into the cockpit too late after the aircraft ran out of fuel. It was too late and we'll never know if he would have managed to land it safely. But I wouldn't have bet on it.
Maybe someone should hire out a sim and ask for a random flight to be set up and then be dumped into the Captain's seat and left completely alone except for someone pretending to be ATC.
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I fly a Super Cub, I can fly anything!
I know what you mean but I really don't think it would be as challenging as you make it sound.
Getting down wouldn't be a problem - don't stall it or overspeed it, pretty damn simple. You've got spoilers out there to help get you down. Configuring for approach wouldn't be tricky either, it may not get done in accordance with company OpsSpecs but you could make it work, get it slowed down, get the flaps and gear coming out and fly it on down.
Center control would already tuned in, so if you didn't know where you were then ask for a vector to the nearest suitable airport. They'd give you vectors all the way to the final approach course - the only thing you'd need to do would be keep the speed under control.
I can see where problems might arise if you went IMC in your descent, someone who hasn't experienced that in the real airplane might very likely succomb to spatial disorientation.
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.
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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.
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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?
Yeah that is certainly a notable limitation to PC flight sims. Landing a Super Cub or C-172 in MS Flight Sim is quite a bit easier than landing them in real life. It's also much harder to fly formation in a flight sim than in real life.
With heavier aircraft like an F/A-18 or a 737, the difference between MSFS and the Level D sim is much less pronounced. Yeah it was quite a bit different at first in the 737 sim, the motion, the feel of the controls, the movement of the throttle quadrant - but I was able to get used to these differences very quickly. The Hornet sim was literally like flying a game, they are easy aircraft to fly - they have to be, so the pilot doesn't have to use all his attention to fly the damn thing, he can divert attention to other tasks.
Having the HUD, flight path marker and AOA indicator makes it a no-brainer to land, as long as you know how those work together, and that is what Janes F-18 can teach someone.
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i'm confident in my ability to make sure the plane hits some farmers field instead of a urban area. if i can hit the runway, all the better...who knows i might even get lucky and not kill everyone.
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I'm not saying that experience in a flight sim wouldn't help, it absolutely would and it absolutely helped my own flight training. I also think a well versed sim pilot would stand a decent chance of getting the airplane on the ground in a survivable way. What I disagree with is the "it's not really that hard, FSX has trained me well" line of thought. Landing is not magical, but it is a very difficult feat that requires concentration, training, and practice. Landing a desktop simulator is one of the areas that it completely has wrong. There is no feel, no seat of the pants, no short little blurp of wind to unsettle the plane a bit.
I fly a Super Cub, I can fly anything!
Surely you jest!! :)
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.
This statement alone tells me all I need to know. If you actually believe that a few hundred lives in your hands wouldn't affect your ability, you need a reality check.
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I'm not saying that experience in a flight sim wouldn't help, it absolutely would and it absolutely helped my own flight training. I also think a well versed sim pilot would stand a decent chance of getting the airplane on the ground in a survivable way. What I disagree with is the "it's not really that hard, FSX has trained me well" line of thought. Landing is not magical, but it is a very difficult feat that requires concentration, training, and practice. Landing a desktop simulator is one of the areas that it completely has wrong. There is no feel, no seat of the pants, no short little blurp of wind to unsettle the plane a bit.
THAT I can agree with.
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THAT I can agree with.
I concur as well. But I still think that landing a 737 in MSFS is very much like the sim I flew. Maybe I don't realize how much real life flying helped me fly the 737 sim?
Surely you jest!! :)
There aren't many other airplanes that are as challenging to land on a breezy day.
It's common knowledge that taildragger pilots are better sticks!
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The first time I heard this idea was in an article in (IIRC) FLYING magazine back in the 70's. I think it was called every private pilots secret fantasy or something like that, the premise being could a PPL holder with just a background in GA light aircraft land an airliner if the situation arose. Remember, back then PC's and MS FLight Sim were still a few years off. I can't remember what the outcome of the article was . . .
Like others on this board, I started flying lessons at 15, soloed at 16, and got my PPL a few days after my 17th birthday. I look at the question of Sims vs real-life backwards from the common point of view. I feel like my background in RL flying helped me do better in Flight Sims when I eventually got into them. Knowing how to read an altimeter, artificial horizon, airspeed, rate of climb/descent gauge, etc., made it easier to just hop in the sim and go. The two main differences I notice that make sims somewhat ackward compared to RL are the lack of movement and g-forces for physical feedback, and the viewing system.
I've been lucky enough to get to "fly" in two USAF simulators - a T-38 and an F-16. While I did ok in them and managed not to auger either one, I'm under no illusions that could just hop in either a/c for real and be successful - no matter how many hours and landings I've made in Falcon 4.0. I'd be too nervous because when you crash and burn in RL, there is no "reset" or "fly again" button.
Oh well, enough of all this hypothetical talk of simulators and fantasy flight - it's time to get back to AH! :)
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Well it is a fantasy and unlikely to ever happen. But my blood runs cold at the thought of Serenity's scenario of two MSFS 'pilots' up front. :O As for Cobra's comment that F18s are easy to fly, tell that to the US Navy. I'm sure they'll explain their washout rate in training.
Interestingly a good friend of mine with about 400 hours flying time has just gone from flying a big single to the right seat of an airline Boeing 737-800. He would have a good insight into how different it is. Of course, he would have plenty of sim training before he ever flew the real thing but it's probably the closest you can get to getting an idea of what it's like. He owes me a drink, (I gave him a reference for the airline job). I'll ask him when we get together, that is if I can coincide with his roster.
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As for Cobra's comment that F18s are easy to fly, tell that to the US Navy. I'm sure they'll explain their washout rate in training.
They are easy to fly - they don't wash out because they can't keep the damn thing in the air, they wash out because they fail to pass the various checkrides dealing with systems, weapons, tactics, procedures, etc.
The flying part is easy, but being able to employ the aircraft effectively in combat is completely different and MUCH more involved than just steering the thing around the pattern. Do you understand what I mean now when I say they are easy to fly? It flys like a video game.
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I say they are easy to fly? It flys like a video game.
:rofl Stop please you're killing me :lol You're a pilot yourself, you should know better. It's like saying flying a taildragger is easy. :rolleyes: I imagine if I was up in an F18, (an ambition of mine BTW) and the pilot said. 'Do you want to fly it, I would have great fun boring holes in the sky, loops, rolls etc. That's easy, but if say the pilot ejected and I was left alone. Would I try to land it? No way, bang I'm out of there. Sometimes flying looks easy, sims often make it seem easy. Sunny day flying in a light aircraft makes flying seem easy. But once you start moving onto more complex aircraft, there's a lot more ways of getting into trouble. Flying isn't that easy.
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Cobra, you have no real F-18 or 737 time. You simply can't speak as to how they fly.
I understand the ground handling of tail draggers, but I've never really heard of a super cub being called a widow maker.
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Why do you think landing a Hornet on a 10,000 ft runway is difficult? What do you think would make you unable to land it? You know what the throttle does, you know what the stick does, you know what the AOA indicator is showing you, you know what the velocity vector is on the HUD and what that is telling you - and you know what to change to make the airplane do what you want. It is not complicated to land the damn thing. You fly it onto the runway, there isn't even a flare! Hold that flight path marker around where you want to touch down, use the pitch to regulate AOA and throttle to move your touchdown point.
A Super Cub is a lot harder to land well than a Hornet - it just is. The Hornet sim I flew illustrated that point to me quite clearly - I was surprised as to how stable it was and how easy it was to fly, to get it configured for landing and to land it - there really isn't anything to it - there was absolutely no dancing around with the controls as I got close to the ground (like there is in a light airplane/Super Cub), once you're stabilized on the glide path just fly it right down to the runway, touched down at about 600 FPM.
Maybe I have a hard time understanding how someone couldn't land one, because what seems simple to me may not be for someone else.
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Why do you think landing a Hornet on a 10,000 ft runway is difficult?
I don't know if it is or not, seeing as how I've never flown an actual Hornet. I might remind you that you haven't either. Go find a Hornet pilot with real flight time and ask him how the sim compares to the real thing.
A Super Cub is a lot harder to land well than a Hornet - it just is.
Prove it. I think tripling the approach speed in a real life situation may make up for the Hornet having an extra wheel up front. But again, it's all mot until you get actual flight time for the comparison.
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I don't know if it is or not, seeing as how I've never flown an actual Hornet. I might remind you that you haven't either. Go find a Hornet pilot with real flight time and ask him how the sim compares to the real thing.
Prove it. I think tripling the approach speed in a real life situation may make up for the Hornet having an extra wheel up front. But again, it's all mot until you get actual flight time for the comparison.
I have talked to Hornet pilots that have flown Janes F/A-18 and they said that the game was harder to land than the real airplane :lol They said that what you have to do to land the game is exactly what you do in the jet, they explained that landing a Hornet on a runway is really not a hard thing to do.
When you touchdown in a Hornet, it doesn't try to swap ends with you, it won't bounce if you hit a little too hard, and it isn't nearly as affected by wind as a Super Cub. After touchdown it wants to continue tracking straight down the runway, you're not dancing all over the rudder pedals to try and keep the tail from coming around - the Cub will get away from you much quicker than a Hornet.
Hey, the thread title says "real pilots need not bother" - woops - sorry about that! :lol
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This thread is way to funny. A guy trained to fly a Hornet will find landing a Hornet easy, and if he has no experience landing a sim plane, he will find that hard.
Being a sim pilot does not mean you can land a real jet. Or warbird. Or Cessna 150.
Forget the fantasy, if you haven't flown a real jet, you do not understand all involved.
Also, because you play Guitar Hero, you are not a rock star, and can't play FreeBird on a guitar.
Because you play Code of Honor, you are not a Ranger or Delta Force member.
Because you play driving games, you would not be able to drive in a NASCAR race. (you would die)
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It is a pretty good thread, I'm glad I could keep it going! :lol
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Well it is a fantasy and unlikely to ever happen. But my blood runs cold at the thought of Serenity's scenario of two MSFS 'pilots' up front.
Yeah, lol, It PROBABLY won't end well, but I would bet dollars to donuts it has a better chance of ending well than two guys with NO MSFS OR RL experience, and it has a one-million-percent chance of ending better than no-one at the controls. I'm not saying it would be easy, or even that it would be guaranteed to work. But it would certainly help having SOME kind of experience.
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This question comes up every now and then and invariably some Microsoft pilot stands up and tell us he can handle it. :rofl The author of hte original article comes across as an arrogant ass. Despite all his supposed expertise he makes this remark: . Making a stupid comment like that makes we wonder about the rest of his story.
Like Cougar, I laughed my bellybutton off at Cobra516's comment about landings. No, landing an airplane isn't magical, it takes skill, training and practice. But even most experienced pilot screws up from time to time.
The fact that you flew a 737 sim aged 14 proves nothing. The fact that you have thousands of Microsoft hours counts for nothing because the day you find yourself up there in the real thing, alone, scared and overwhelmed will be the day you realise you know nothing about flying an airliner. Landing any aircraft from a set up approach isn't that difficult. The real issue to getting the approach right as any pilot will tell you.
Let's set up a scenario, it's all happened and you approach the flight deck, past the stricken bodies of the crew. You sit down, heart pounding and take in the situation. You establish you're at FL370, you can see your speed and your heading. Now what? Where are you for one thing. You know you need to descend, you know you need to change heading to route to a suitable airport. Once you manage to descend you need to configure for landing. You need to know when you lower flaps, what speed to use on the approach. What if the weather is bad, it's at night, there's turbulence, crosswinds. What if the aircraft you're in, doesn't resemble the flight sim you were playing with. Which switch, does what? What is that alarm going off in your ear? It's an utter nightmare.
Now I'm actually a working commercial pilot with several hundred hours and I have 'played' with MS flight sim. In the aircraft I normally fly. I have occasionally found myself in a situation where a little tension fills the air, in cloud, with turbulence with the main Artificial Horizon and stand by AH having an argument as to which is correct and the stall warning chirping away. Your ears tell you one thing, your eyes another and the disorientation begins to kick in. You don't get that in MS FSX. Never mind your mythical 737, could you take over if I fainted in fright?
No we'd both die, although the skydivers would probably get out. :D
The reality is that in all probability even a fairly experienced but non airline pilot would probably scatter wreckage all over the airport even if they managed to get that far. The Microsoft ace would do the same thing only sooner.
It's all a Walter Mitty fantasy. Having a fun day out in a 'real' sim is not the same as finding yourself actually sitting in a hurtling piece of metal at high altitude.
But it's fun to speculate, Interestingly it has never happened in reality. The closest was the Helios flight in Greece. With both pilots unconscious, the steward who happened to be a commercial pilot actually got into the cockpit too late after the aircraft ran out of fuel. It was too late and we'll never know if he would have managed to land it safely. But I wouldn't have bet on it.
Maybe someone should hire out a sim and ask for a random flight to be set up and then be dumped into the Captain's seat and left completely alone except for someone pretending to be ATC.
I agree with him totally. Having flight time myself (on Cessnas) and in flight simulators, and knowing the difference between them, I can only hope that I am never stuck on the position to replace the professional pilot sitting at the front.
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The heck with landing it, could you get it to take off from a conveyor belt?
G,D,R
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I wasn't going to return to this thread. But I came across this and thought it appropriate. First ever flight in a Boeing 757. Sorry it's a bit long.
I sat in the right seat for the first time on the ramp at Manchester. Not only did I sit there, but I took control once the Captain had taxied us onto RWY24L............
"You have control"
"I have control" of an 85 tonne 757.
"JMC757T, the surface wind is 230/5, you are clear take off RWY24L"
I call for 1.2EPR to be set, releasing the toe brakes. The captain calls "stabilised" and I reach to press the 'EPR button' on the Mode Control Panel. The auto throttle spools the engines up to the derated take off power and we start to roll. Off we go accelerating to V1, Vr and I pull back on the column at 2.5degees/sec, the nose wheel lifts, and then the mains.......I am flying a 757!!!!!!! Boy does it go with no passengers on board! We're climbing at 4000ft/min, on up to FL210 and off to Prestwick for some circuits! Wow, this is just the best.
No time to think about it at Prestwick as we go straight into the first circuit from a touch and go. Whoops, thousand feet, lower the nose, pull back the power, follow the noise abatement and start the crosswind leg. Start the level off in the turn with the flaps retracted to ‘flap 5’ and the speed at vref+40kts. Well that’s the theory. I was 200ft above circuit altitude and 20kts too quick and fighting against the old pitch/power couple! Just about got it sorted as we went abeam the downwind threshold and then it was time for gear and flap 20 and start the watch. Turn base to final at 45secs +/-wind correction, take flap 30 and get on down the hill at 700fpm. Roll out on finals and there you are, right of centreline and with 4 whites! Get it sorted and this one’s a full stop, landed off the centreline but didn’t crunch the mains on, relaxed the back pressure like in light a/c and thought the nose wheel was going to come through the floor and join us it hit so hard! Hmmmn, must remember that next time round. All in all did my six landings and improved with each of them to the point that I was more than chuffed with the days work. The training captain gave me some praise and the Chief Pilot (who was on the jumpseat ‘signing off’ the training captain, just to add a little more pressure!) penned his words of wisdom in my training file. He was very complimentary and I felt this just capped things off as far as I was concerned. I left the cockpit as the next lamb went to the altar and spent the rest of the flight familiarising myself with the forward galley!
Interesting, But this was no Microsoft pilot or someone who flew Cessna 172s. This guy had at least a thousand hours, had just finished a couple of months training on the 757, 3 weeks of which were on a full motion simulator, spending four hours a day in the sim, with six hours a day preparation. He found his first real flight tough going as you can read.
Do you still think you can get an airliner down in one piece on your own? :rofl :O
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Funny story to add to this one for a possible hijack...oh well.
When my wife and I lived in Mobile, AL in our apartment section our neighbors were as follows.
Across the breezeway Coast Guard instructor helo pilot. Down the breezeway was another Coast Guard guy who worked in the simulator areas setting up and organizing times for the HU-25 "Guardian", HH-60 "Jayhawk" and the H-65 "Dolphin" full motion simulators they used at ATC Mobile. The guy who worked in the simulator group had a stripper for a wife and one of their good friends who lived under us was another stripper who was from the same area my wife grew up in...anyway...Both strippers worked nights and the pilot and the simulator guy would get me flight time in all of the different sim units on base. This was in 1997 when you could pretty much walk onto any military installation with just a wave through if they knew the person with you.
Any way I probably got around 30 hours or so of Jayhawk simulator time and 15-20 each of the Dolphin and Guardian time. For the Guardian he would setup a full run where you would take off from Mobile and fly west to just outside of Houston and then back east to Fort Walton and then back to Mobile and land. For me that was a pretty fun setup but I was way out of my level of experience from only playing combat flight sims up to that point.
Back on target though...I would raise my hand and say that I would give it a shot but for everyone to be prepared since we were most likely going to die anyway with or without my help. With my help they would just be there faster.
:D
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(http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/8008/user9846pic843123550810.jpg) (http://img22.imageshack.us/my.php?image=user9846pic843123550810.jpg)
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Yup, no pilots on board that day. :lol
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(http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/8008/user9846pic843123550810.jpg) (http://img22.imageshack.us/my.php?image=user9846pic843123550810.jpg)
still on concrete, no perks lost.