Did flight simulators make you a bad pilot?

I’m curious to hear from people who got inspired by our PC flightsims to take real lessons.

Based on my own assumption (and possibly / maybe first step towards a real lesson somewhere in the future), that these simulators might make you a very sloppy pilot, conditioned by the idea that you can always walk away after you mess things up? I do like to rush things, skip this, skip that, let’s get flying.

Perhaps I shouldn’t even consider trying it for real?

Or is the whole thing so incomparable that it doesn’t play any role?

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I would not say that sims make a bad pilot. You have to take them for what they are: a tool to practice and learn. If you treat them like you would in a real aircraft, you don’t develop bad habits.

That said, as a recently retired flight instructor and full-motion sim instructor, I have seen pilots take risks in a simulation that they would probably not do when the real-world “pucker factor” sets in. It’s good to have a safe way to find your personal limits, and I’d argue that failed landings or similar error experiences in a sim are extremely valuable and actually make better pilots… If they incorporate a corrected behavior into their habits.

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No no no no not this nonsense again.
Happy to be the first to respond you to put a definitive end to this BS.
Commercial pilot and CFI, been a simmer since forever before getting into the real thing : was way ahead in any matter during any phase of training compared to any non simmer, period.
As a CFI it takes me a few seconds in the plane to know if a first time student is a simmer or come out of the blue with no experience whatsoever.
There is no discussion possible on this subject. Especially with today’s simulators.

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Not relating to the flight but when I was very young I played with Train Simulator and I am now train driver

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Funny topic, I did pick up bad habits from Flight Sim and brought them to the real airplane. The most notable one being using the instruments and keeping my eyes inside too much. In the real airplane you can go by so much more feel… in the sim I watch the instruments to determine when I am level etc.

BUT for the most part I was way ahead of the game, understanding more than most due to simming.

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I found likewise.

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I took my first IRL introductory flight in a Cub after years of sim flying. The instructor did the landing but I did the takeoff and flight.

I was embarassed to mention that I used sims for some reason but I did mention it after the flight. He told me that my turns, speed and altitude control made him suspect that I was a ‘ringer’ which he said was an experienced pilot that takes introductory flights to mess with the instructor.

Sim use made it really easy to do the basic flying but nothing prepared me for landings. I got the feeling that the sims made me worse at landing if anything. There was something very disconcerting to me IRL about intentionally flying into the ground that made it hard for me to get the right glide slope. I didn’t have that reluctance in the sim.

That was my experience anyway…

EDIT- I should mention that I went only about 16 hours into my PPL before having to give it up and that was about 10 years ago.

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Not relating to the flight but when I was very young I played with Super Mario and I am now plumber

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Most grown adults are capable of distinguishing between a video game and reality.

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I guess I did phrase the title a bit too provocative, cause obviously no one is going to admit they’re a bad pilot and blame a sim. Sorry for that.

Maybe something more like ‘Can flight sims make you a bad pilot?’

@Goodman98155 That last bit, are you talking ‘thanatos’ (death drive / death instinct)? Like the eerie feeling you get when a train passes you at full speed in a train station and you’re standing a bit too close?

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LOL

That was funny… :slight_smile:

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Yes, for the CFI this habit is a one lesson fix.
In the meantime the student already knows how to taxi, takeoff, climb, fly level, turn, descent, what flaps are, where you adjust power, what mixture is, what is our speed alt and Vs, fly an acceptable 3deg glide path, some knows good radio works, some are checklists masters, some already knows the aerial surrounding bu heart, etc. You get the picture.
You still have to teach them the flare.
Imagine the difference of knowledge between such a student and a complete newbie (no offense, completely normal).
As a CFI I have very good results with simmer, because I also can direct them in specific training on the sim. Think about Xcountry training.
Thrust your sim for actual training.

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@ememPilot For sure! My body did not want to make the plane go down, and the closer I got to the ground the harder it was.

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I compare use of ‘sim’ everytime due accidents that happened, take this only as point to think.

Take simple situation, when you fly so long f.ex. on Vatsim and also had some real experience, have also very good experience with IFR problematic, flew long time any type of arrival, approaches, you then can very quickly ask yourself what that pilots did in cockpit that crash must occur. You simply due your never ending trainings on sim with serious IFR experience simply don’t understand why they select visual approach and start descend quickly as was NOT needed in that time and also was ‘prohibited’, also on night when you have no good reference with ground. Think about that…

But that’s kinda intriguing. Not to question anything here, but when you write ‘… that they would probably not do…’ the ‘probably’ sort of stands out. In your experience, if they would do what you observed in the sim… disaster? Or minor thingies?

Had my first flight in a C172 last Thursday.

Instructor let me loose when he figured pretty quick I was familiar with what was going on. Took off, got an altitude to hold and maintained VFR and was free to fly within Toronto’s class charlie airspace with flight following.

On our way back towards the field, I asked if we could do a touch and go at Downsview and he said nope because its a private field and we needed to call well in advance, so he had me orbit the CN tower like 2-3 times with a 20-25ish degree bank while maintaining coordinated turn to make me sweat while he talked on coms and requested a touch and go at CYTZ. In my mind, I was like are you sure? Water on both ends of that runway. He was pretty comfortable with my skills, had me enter the patern and I too a shot at my first landing. Slightly off center to the left but overall did okay. Re-entered pattern and nailed it on the fullstop after.

When we shut her down, he asked me how many hours I had, and I was pretty much jittry and amazed that it all just happened. Said none, and he said something along the lines of nope. I explained it was just home sim experience over the years and he said that it showed, and that my instrument scan was on point. I asked if that mean’t I wasn’t looking outside the aircraft enough and he said no, did really well managing both.

To be completely honest, I didn’t really get to enjoy the scenery as much as I thought i would because looking outside was constantly traffic scan, then when given an instruction (i.e maintain 2500, I was constantly playing with the trim wheel getting used to how a real aircraft felt). Was a lot more workload than in the sim, esp without electric trim with a 10kts wind gusting 15ksts.

Overall, I would say experience in a sim helped immensely. Even just being familiar with the tools you’re given when flying vs understanding what things do, what’s important and what can be ignored. I still wouldn’t wanna do it alone without him there, no where near that confident yet. But without a doubt, for the solid 1.5 hurs he let me fly while he monitored. Can’t wait to do it again!

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Did you get over it during that 16 hours?

Private and Airline pilot here,

Without a doubt simming helps in all aspects of training, especially IFR and manual handling.

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Yes,

simply with new times simulaters, with so perfect and close avionics operations, users can have good habits but also negative :slight_smile: better say, if someone start simming and then start pilot career, sometimes they can say after some time that have bad habit from sim but can step ok to next…

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Wow, sounds like a great first lesson.

And of course there’s a flight instructor, so my initial assumption that you can just mess around is also wrong. Just wondering about bad habits.

I have some music teaching experience. And whenever people came in for lessons, the ones that had practiced that saxophone for a few weeks, all by themselves, had a way rougher start. Usually I had to spend an equal amount of time getting rid of that awful sound first.

Maybe I’m relating the two.

Of course, there’s no saxophone sim. So I probably shouldn’t.

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