Do you find PC flight simulators valuable for actual training?
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Richard S. asked:
I’m considering buying a new computer to run Microsoft Flight Simulator X (my computer is almost 4 years old anyway). I plan on attending an actual flight school to get my ratings. As a student pilot did you or did you not find it a useful tool and why?
Emily
I’m considering buying a new computer to run Microsoft Flight Simulator X (my computer is almost 4 years old anyway). I plan on attending an actual flight school to get my ratings. As a student pilot did you or did you not find it a useful tool and why?
Emily
November 16th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Only for instrument flight practice. Otherwise, useless. Of course, it’s nice to go over a planned cross-country now that the graphics are so cool.
November 18th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
I agree with Bruce. Its good for instrument practice but its also useful for student pilots to practice cross country navigation. If you bring up a typical plane like a 172, and plan your trip correctly using heading, timing, etc. your destination airport will appear right where it should be. Even the navaids like VOR’s work more or less like they’re supposed to.
Yes, do get a new computer. I put X on my old one and it couldn’t take it; bad frame rate, etc. FSX is very memory intensive. Get a duo core processor and at least 3 gigs of memory; a high end video card will also help immensely.
November 19th, 2008 at 7:57 am
I had a tough time learning to use the navigation instruments during my primary training, and now that I’m about halfway through my instrument training, I’m finding that MSFS is very helpful. I think a primary student will find it helpful for learning how to plan and fly cross country trips, and for using the nav instruments. Try some instrument flight as well, because you’ll be doing a bit of it in your primary training. There are websites out there that give flight lessons for MSFS, and that information is also quite applicable to primary training. Have fun!!! You getting Alienware?
November 21st, 2008 at 2:56 am
Hi, I am a student pilot and i use flight simulators (Flight Simulator X and X-Plane) for practice at home. I find them to be invaluable.
Early on in your training, you will be able to get a good intuitive feel of how the aircraft behaves (very differenlty from a car, for example).
you can also use it to practice the procedures for the manouvers that you initially learn - flying straight and level, climbing, descending, turning, stalling, etc and you will get a great intuitive feel of how the aircraft behaves under these conditions.
the only note of caution is that initially, if you fly a simulator, the temptation is to fly using the indicators. however, in real-life visual flying, most of the time is spent in looking out of the window and getting a judgement of the plane’ attitude based on what you see outside instead of what the gauges tell you. this is because the gauges are quite sensitive and one develops a tendency to overcorrect if you fly using the gauges. you’ll see what i mean when you do it yourself.
so my recommendation here would be to first learn the manouvers in real life an then practice them on the simulator. and don’t jump ahead of what you’re learning in real life because you’ll develop bad habits (i did, and i wasted a couple of hours worth of flying in correcting them).
Later in the course, you’ll be practicing circuits (taking off, going around and landing, and then taking of again..). Here too, i found the simulators invaluable. i haven’t come to the instrument stage yet, but i’m sure they’ll be useful there to because that’s where they shine.
If you were to buy one simulator, I’d strongly recommend x-plane over FSX - the flight dynamics infinitely superior, and you can model weather conditions very well. very flexible - useful for practising drills like failures of various systems (when you get to that, at an advanced stage). Also, x-plane works much better on slower computers while FSX can be pig slow on even the faster ones.
also, would recommend a fast computer, with a good graphics card (many people buy a fast processor and add large amounts of memory, but the bottleneck is the graphics card.)
hope this helps,
November 21st, 2008 at 10:29 am
Although I make my living flying the real thing, I can barely turn my computer on and off I’m so cyberchallenged. Good luck though. You’re in for a great ride.
November 22nd, 2008 at 12:18 pm
yes if you get a mod flight Sim like a cockpit Sim that the air force trains in then yea but like flight Sim 2004 i would not be handy