Flight Sim to Flight Line
My Journey from Sim Pilot to Sport Pilot
by Frank "Dart" Giger

"Every virtual pilot is convinced that he could, in a pinch, take the controls of a light aircraft and credibly fly it to one degree or another. Owing to my poor skills in flight sims, I’m in the “another degree,” convinced that not a lot of what we do with our TrackIR’s, HOTAS, rudder pedals, and wide screen monitors would translate to actual piloting."

http://www.simhq.com/_air13/air_451a.html

That is a great article. I had a similar-ish experience!

Great article Dart.

I too am always amazed when I can't spot traffic that is only a mile away and a few hundred feet difference. It is somewhat disconcerting to have traffic whiz by you called out by a controller and never put eyes on it despite trying very hard.

Did that LSA have TCAS too? That is a great piece of avionics/technology.

Look forward to reading more..

I too had a similar experience. Apparently, it's a common problem with the sim to real conversion where sim pilots have a fixation on the gauges.

If I had written this article I doubt it would have been very different. A list of the common pitfalls that sim pilots fall into when learning to fly the real thing would, I think, be of great interest to flight simulator developers looking to improve the realism of their products.

Cheers

- Argy

Frank,

Outstanding piece!

I've seen (and been a part of) that age old discussion for years now. Many folks have told me that, if I and the F/O (heaven forbid) drop dead in the cockpit, they could step up and use their "Sim Skills" to get the machine back on terra firma in one piece. I recall putting Frugal in the 757 simulator once while he was visiting me here in the US, and well, let's just say it was "interesting".

LOL....

Great article. Love the "Graphics of the Real World could use an upgrade" (you owe me a new keyboard there pal)!

Have fun with your flying. Be safe and keep us up to speed with the NEXT installment.

Thanks again for a great piece.

William "BBall" Ball
Captain, Boeing 757/767
Delta Airlines

Keep it coming Dart, good reading. I used to be a CFII myself and always wondered why they came up with the sportpilot license. It took my part time students between 15 to 25 hours to solo. The fulltimers did it in between 5 to 10 hours. Add the required cross country and solo hours and you are pushing the 40hr mark for the PPL. Most of my part time students got their PPL between 70 to a 100 hrs. Again the full timers did it mostly around 40-60 hr mark. I guess if you're a quick learner and have the cash to take three or four lessons a week you can do it in 20 hours.

@BeechAV8R, you might have overlooked me, I used to fly a lot around Charlotte. 12 Years ago I talked with a CMC King Air crew in PGV. Seemed like a fun bunch to work with. Even now with a Garmin traffic display and call outs from ATC I've missed traffic. It almost seems that on those 50+ mile visibility days, close by traffic is harder to spot.

Brilliant article!

I actually did things the other way round. I first learned to fly (getting a GFPT in Australia - it stands for General Flight Proficiency Test, and lets you putt around in the training area, but not leave the airport vicinity) before picking up realistic flight sims (and turning realistic options on).

Still - 'gauges are fascinating' definitely applied! I was constantly being reminded to look out the window.

Another thing that I found, since I learned to fly at airports with (a little bit of) airliner traffic: 737s are BIG! After years of flying in airliners, I thought of 737s as the little children of the aircraft world. It's a whole different story when you're sitting in a Cessna 152 or 172, and this enormous great thing with engines the size of your entire aircraft comes barrelling through the sky.


I found that my real world skills transferred quite well to flight sims, especially how to land. What it didn't help with was situational awareness (real world doesn't feature aircraft trying to sneak up on you) and acrobatics/combat manoeuvres/not stalling while doing wierd stuff.

Great article. I also had pretty much the same experience. I got my JAR PPL in 45h, the legal minimum in Europe, and I'm sure that I would have taken longer without my sim-experience.

Are you serious about that Nieuport?

This article is dead on!