Not me, but i was afraid in high bank angles, in the air it felt to me like the plane will just “tip over” in the air, but i got over it. 
I dont like rollercoasters and the absolutely worst thing in airwork was the controlled stall and spin recovery, ■■■■, i hated it, that feeling in my stomach was so awfull, i was really feared. It was fun after it was over but ■■■■, i would prefer to never be in such a situation again…
I had one guy in my class, he had no aviation background and he had fear of flying and he tought maybe doing the PPL would help him to get over it. And it did, he has his license already.
1 Like
Greetings to all fellow Simmers !
I will not repeat whole my story, which is almost identical to many of us here - I am simmer from over decade, starting from FS9, FSX, P3D, XPlane, but after 2 years in 2012 wanted to compare it with reality. I made my PPL licence and I’ve been flying C152s and C172s every year for just pleasure. All what I could tell here was told already by @SteveX77 or @HXArdito - I fully agree with them - both kinds of passion can be linked, simming helped me significantly in fast understanding instruments, flying techniques etc. All this with having in mind respect to the nature, weather and being humble - flying instructions are written with the blood as my instructor used to say… Anyway, he was former MiG-21 military pilot, very crude instructor and he forbid me even mentioning about using flight simulator - he was convinced that it creates only bad habits ! Having over 180 hours now I do not fully agree with his opinion and I am enjoying both passions successfully.
All the best & happy flights both in real and sim world !
4 Likes
No, I think you shouldn’t fear of this. It’s different when you are flying than being just a passenger. Your body has the feedback from your controling inputs, so it can better deal with air sickness. And a good practise to eliminate this (got this advice form our MD) i regullary spin for example every evening on an office chair (seriously it can help).
And IMHO it’s not off topic. It perfactly shows difference / nuances between simming and real flying. Things that you should consider.
2 Likes
There are both kind of toughts i guess.
My instructor is very open minded to simulators. We even flown to a big exhibition, the “Aero Friedrichshafen”. One of the biggest General Aviation exhibitions and they have a big FlightSim area and he was VERY interested to see this and i told him everything about it and he was quite excited. We even went to a 737 simulator in our area together with a full 737 cockpit and he tought about to buy something for himself… LOL
1 Like
Hard to tell. Definitely both have its pros and cons:
REAL:
- complex experience and feel of filling you passion. No sim can provide this.
- it can be your job (but not so sure in this covid situation)
- you will definitely spend LOT of money on your hobby
- could be dangerous (see my previous posts) so you should really take it seriously
SIM:
- missing some levels of realism
- simply not so complex feel of fulfilling your childhood dreams
1 Like
Thanks everyone with IRL experience who is chiming in here.
This post reminds me of Chickenhawk, which is a memoir by a Vietnam Huey pilot which I very highly recommend. The author was once second in command on a flight where they were in a zero visibility situation, and the older pilot in command wanted to fly only by feel. The author kept seeing the vertical speed indicator and altimeter pitching wildly up or down, and had to yell at the pilot that they were in danger of hitting a hill. There was a marked difference in the trust in the instruments between the two pilots.
3 Likes
In my case it was like this:
I LOVED flight simming, i loved complex AddOns and always tought they are so close to reality.
But as soon as i started flying in real life i quitted flight simming in P3D…
It just didnt feel right anymore, there was no excitment anymore. I was simming since 1998 more or less constantly with breaks but i completely stopped flightsimming basically from one day to the other after i had real life lessons.
This is 2 years ago and only MSFS could bring me back to simming because VFR navigation is now possible without buying a ■■■■■■■■ of AddOns like ORBX areas.
4 Likes
I learned before any sims where available. I first took control of a C172 when I was 8. My Uncle was a CFI and I was hooked! At 17, got my PPL. So I can’t say going from a sim to real life. There’s some aspects of a sim that you can learn from. Not all. Ground school is important.
I say try it. Have an instructor take you up for one flight. Get the feel of it. Go from there.
It is fun. I enjoy it.
3 Likes
Yes, the same experience with my instructors.
One of them (suprisingly one of the youngest) really forces us not to use sim because of danger of bad habbits (this is debatable IMHO and very individual).
The second one recommends us using sim for practising SOME of procedures that are 100% reproducable within the sim.
I’ve been all the time closer in my thoughts to the second of them.
2 Likes
Maybe both are right though?
I keep thinking that ‘some’ people might be more susceptible to bad habits than others. It might not be binary. Perhaps the one instructor encountered that situation and chose the safe option, advising against it.
correct, you can train yourself to work through inner ear woes by inducing them often. For this very reason people who work on ships in horrendous seas don’t ever get seasick anymore or at worst have a short bout of seasickness at the very onset of the trip. While a greenhorn will puke to the edge of death.
You got the point about the MSFS. The exacly same on my side!
I literally instantly stopped simming after I got my PPL.
And I really started with this again because of very real, very close to reality VFR navigation experience out of the box, even in areas not covered by photogrammetry. All the woods, fields, roads, cities, towns, villages, rivers, lakes, … including their shapes are where they supposed to be IRL and this is really cool!
2 Likes
And I relly like these bushflying missions btw…
1 Like
This is the great help of the sim - we could train procedures and flights in the new area or airports. I was able to train procedures before first flight in new airport, patterns, learn area visually with its landmarks so going there was less stressful, BUT this was also my more and more limited usage of FSX/P3D in last years due to growing complexity and problems with conflicting addons - I share the same feeling as @HXArdito and @SteveX77 !
@ememPilot - absolutely right - people can be prone to bad habits and instructors have all possible experiences with various type of candidates 
3 Likes
Absolutely! also the physics seem to be better than any sim i had before. You still cant feel it of course but how the plane behaves (C152/C172) in small turbulences/wind or the down/upwinds in tight mountain valleys looks like i would expect it in real life. In P3D the shakes were just kind of random here and there and way too strong, even with active sky. Here they LOOK like in real, just missing the feeling but somehow i can imagine the feeling i would have in real. Its strange but it is like that for me.
I think the physics are almost right, but the flight models are not on point yet. But thats a completely other discussion…
2 Likes
Just wish the Sims had better physics like when on approach to many airports where it is sooooo bumpy. And sudden Micro burst …wake turbulence etc. Think if they could get that part more realistic then it would help both Simmers and Real world pilots. That being said as with most things what works for you may not work for me. Do what you think is best for your situation, because everyone’s experience will vary
Do the Idaho one made by @DiffuseGecko364 if you haven’t. It’s really good.
1 Like
Btw. My very first MSFS flight on release I planned intentionally was C172 trip from Prague Letnany LKLT (my home) to Innsbruck (LOWI). I have been there with real C172 / 172RG many times and YES. I can confirm that within the sim I had this very special experience again of flying one hour above rather flat country and suddently there is a big mountains area with all these peaks, walleys, lakes, river, towwns and villages. And the approach to LOWI was exactly the same includin these typical mountain valley turbulences… YES, it was there. And that’s why I really started to like (maybe love) this sim.
1 Like
I’m sure that some improvements of flight model will come soon. There is really big pressure to ASOBO to look at this and adjust it.
And btw. I understand why some of hardcore / pedant / enthusiast flighsimmers are so sensitive of these imperfects in flight model and this and that and lot on INOP switches / knobs. But I’m sure for myself that that’s not what flying is really about. Not for all of us.