I thought that a hundred different cold and dark starts and full flights would make for a “yes” to this question and then I took a discovery flight on a 172 and have laughed at myself ever since. Passenger flights in an A320 and B737-900ER have since confirmed my folly. I’d look around and recognize a few familiar buttons and dials and my competency would pretty much end right there. There’s nothing like the real thing.
I find the comments saying learning on a sim alone isn’t enough to do the job and you need real life experience and all that silly because ya know… we have these people called “astronauts” that learned solely on simulators and Earth bound simulated events before anyone ever actually lifted off into space on a rocket, performed in-orbit rendezvous, or landed and walked on the moon.
Simulators serve a purpose, to learn on. To get familiar with the systems and how they function, to learn proper technique, etc. Sure hands on real life added on to simulator learning is the best possible way to go but acting like someone can’t perform a task having simply learned on a simulator is plain silly. It’s already been pointed out that air traffic control has on many occasions been able to successfully guide a non-pilot to a safe landing. I’d think it silly to think having a long history of flight simming wouldn’t give someone a great advantage.
1 Like
Do you sim in VR by chance? I found the experience to be quite familiar during my first lessons. (Note that I haven’t been given the chance to land during my lessons yet)
1 Like
I think this entirely depends on how one is using the simulator. If you pay attention to proper procedures, memorize sight pictures, use checklists, have realistic controls, etc, the flight simulator could be a great help in real life flight. However if you use it like I often do–casual sightseeing or flying on autopilot from point A to point B with no thought to proper navigation or communication, then bad habits can develop. Believe me.
1 Like
I wish! I’d do VR if I could, but I sim on Xbox.
1 Like
Ah, you mean the cream of the crop test pilots with Post Grad qualifications coming out of their ears and many years of aviation experience? Those guys…yes, a NASA grade real life sim is enough.
Your average flight simmer? As I said ages ago in this thread…50/50 they could get a light aircraft on the ground without bending it and or the airfield. That’s assuming the could find an airfield. Anything bigger? Not a chance in merry hell.
Seems you missed most of the point. Clunky primitive old 1960’s technology simulators were apparently adequate enough to prepare people for something as advanced as space flight before they ever first went up. Docking with the Agena is not something you can try IRL hands on a few times with a trainer beside you. And yes they were very smart top grade picks and had plenty of aviation experience but aviation and zero G space flight are two completely different things.
Point simply is simulators teach. Of course it depends on whether one uses something like MSFS as a real learning tool with study level add ONS or as a game for sight seeing, that’s fairly obvious. But landing a GA plane isn’t the most miraculously difficult task on the planet and point is simply that having a lot of sim experience makes the chances of a safe landing exponentially more likely than someone with zero experience.
2 Likes
Like so much else, the answer is: it depends.
A nosewheel, low perf Cessna? Sure.
A taildragger? No.
Something high performance or heavy? Probably not.
There just isn’t an easy answer. There’s no doubt that simming can help a person to understand the fundamentals though.
How did it go?
Nailed it! I actually got to take off and land. We did slow flight, power-on stalls and I worked the comms, thanks to PilotEdge!!
Been practicing slow flight, clean to dirty transitions all morning! 
3 Likes
To answer the OP’s original question, “yes” a simmer CAN land a plane IRL.
I had my first lesson yesterday out of a towered airport. I worked the comms, took off, did slow-flight, power-on stalls and landed. (greased it, as far as I could tell)
To be fair… I’ve built a full motion sim, fly in VR with a fully functioning panel, and use PilotEdge for radio training. I’m probably as prepared as any simmer could be.
3 Likes
Awesome, I’m happy for you!
It’s weird - I’ve done three flights so far and haven’t been given the chance to land… hopefully that’s coming up soon because that is something that I’ve been looking forward to doing for a long time.
It does look like you have been doing more structured training in your home setup though - I haven’t been practicing radio calls at all so I’ll be a bit more behind on that front.
1 Like
Thanks Lynn! You’ll get there soon I’m sure. Heck, you may just have a more cautious CFI than I do?
I’ve built several panels over the years, and VR is a game changer, so I did feel pretty prepared.
I highly recommend PilotEdge for radio communication. They have a series of progressively more complicated challenges (“ratings” they call them) that will improve the user’s confidence. You’ll be communicating with real people in a dynamic environment. Too cool.
Funny story - A few months ago I freaked out on the easiest Rating #1 because there was a single pilot on the CTAF when I got to the airfield, and I’m pretty sure he was as nervous as I was. 
It was hilarious. Yesterday… I spoke to real-life ground and tower, receiving and responding with instructions in-flight. No way I do that without PilotEdge.
Ps, Keep us posted on that landing!
1 Like
I don’t think anyone is suggesting a simmer can’t land a plane in real life. Anyone can…otherwise how would anyone ever learn to fly?
The crucial difference though is that you’re doing it with an instructor sat next to you telling you what to do, how to do it, where to go, when to speak, who to speak to. You don’t realise it, but that instructor has got hundreds more things going on in his/her head that they’re constantly monitoring that you won’t even be aware of, and just having them there allows you more capacity to do the very basics. If you take that instructor away the capacity bubble will pretty quickly collapse in on itself.
It’s awesome you’ve taken the step to getting into a real aircraft. I guarantee that as you get towards doing your skills test (assuming you do) you likely have a different perspective on this topic.
2 Likes
You are making me quite envious learning irl.
I have been sim flying since the Spectrum and Bruce Artwick days on the Amiga. 30 years ago my wife bought me a trial flight for my birthday. I remember the instructor pulling out a model aircraft to explain the control surfaces and then saying “Oh, if you flight sim you don’t need this then”.
He taxied us out in a Piper Warrior and lined up then asked “What’s you take off like?”. When I said I have never taken off in a real aircraft he said “Well, there’s a first time for everything. You know where the throttle is, open up and pull back at 80 knots” and away we went. We went through power on and off stalls, coordinated and uncoordinated turns etc. He was going to let me land but a cross wind came up and we needed to get down to let a commercial flight get away.
Before lockdown my son gave me a session in a commercial full motion A320 simulator with an Airbus captain. I was really pleased I managed to line up on the glide slope and land it at Heathrow.
From my time in the 320NX I now know just how much work he was putting in managing the aircraft so I have no illusions as to my capabilities to land it coming to it cold. What I would say is feeling the movement in a full motion sim felt easier and more intuitive to control flight than a fixed sim.
I still sim 40 years on from those early days but always regret never being able to justify the cost and time to join those if you who fly irl.
4 Likes
Probably a familiar story for many of us. Not enough money to justify it when we are younger, not enough time to justify it later in life when we could afford to, or the money is prioritised elsewhere. 
4 Likes
I do wonder though if I added up all I have spent on a succession of PCs, upgrades, hardware etc over the years if it might have been cheaper getting a pilot’s licence and using a club aircraft.
I hesitate to do that calculation though as I will probably only depress myself.
4 Likes
Well, this is based on my experience. Just two years ago, I completed my PPL. I been a flight simmer for over 10 years now. When I first did my discovery flight on a Cessna 172, my instructor asked me if I had any type of experience. I told him just many hours of flight sim. After I told him that, he asked me to go through the starting procedures on the Cessna and when he saw I knew what I was doing, he gave me a little bit more freedom of the plane. I basically took off and landed the Cessna all by myself while instructor was just looking over me. I felt I had more control of the situation as I used what I already knew from systems and procedures and mixed it with what I was missing which was the actual feel of the plane itself. I also went in very confident that I could do it and tried to calm my nerves as much as possible.
Now, I’m on path to get my commercial and hopefully get into airliners.
So as of now, I fly only 737, CRJ’s and A320 in sim with the goals of some day getting to fly one of them.
So yes, I do believe a well experienced sim pilot can get a plane landed. If he can control his nerves.
2 Likes
Can’t fly an airliner anywhere you like with high-end PC money + sim with all of its add-ons.
I think a medium-to-advanced simmer could land a GA aircraft. Who knows, maybe a smaller airliner, too, in favourable weather conditions. Flight Simulator not only teaches you how to operate a plane but also the basics of aviation. With practice you can better judge altitude, distance, you know what flaps are, what the basic instruments and screens show, what the basic physics of flight are.
I think the hardest part of aviation is not flying the planes themselves, but following procedures, communication, proper flight paths, approaches, restrictions, etc. Being prepared for all kinds of failures and such. In an emergency, when the only task truly is just to land the plane, I think that’s doable for an experienced simmer.
1 Like