I had my first real flight at the controls since I was a child in a C172R today.
I was startled by a few things.
How little rudder authority there seems to be in the actual airplane compared to the sim. That being said, I found taxiing to be easier in the real thing. It was just more physical than I expected for little response.
What really threw me were the control forces. There were quite a few thermals and we were getting battered around. I felt like I was doing a terrible job maintaining heading and altitude but the CFI seemed pleased. I check my FR24 data and I didn’t seem any worse than anyone else.
The instructor wanted to do some touch and goes. He was saying he doesn’t get to fly much as he likes being a CFI, so he looks forward to discovey flights. Anyway, he asks me to fly the pattern while he does the landing. I nearly had a heart attack.
He let me operate the throttle and flaps down to final without much input. At which point I was praying to hear my controls.
I’m excited to do more. I probably won’t be able to start training until early next year.
I know it’s all basic stuff but it was very strange to be flying a pattern that I’ve done countless times in MSFS. I’d have expected that to come later on. But the process and visual reference were basically the same as they are in the sim.
I’m curios to know from real pilots, do you find it a little more difficult to maintain altitude and heading in the sim vs. real life?
Looking back at my pattern flying, I was way more spot on than I typically am in the sim. It’s kind of easy to drift +/- 500 feet without that gut feeling.
Real life flying to me is much easier than the sim. The controls to me in real life just seem correct and are one with me. It takes some practice then you’ll know exactly what I mean. I hope you do stay with it. You will remember your first solo flight for the rest of your life. It’s an awesome feeling to be up in the sky by yourself for the first time. Good luck!
I almost had that experience when flying the landing pattern on my discovery flight.
Only thing that kept me calm was how relaxed the instructor was. I checked the data on FR24 and I took it down to about 200 feet each time.
If tasked with the landing I’d have probably planted it way too hard. The amount of flair pitch exceeded anything I precieved from the sim. And the landings were butter smooth.
In general I had a fear of getting the nose up too high for some reason. In the sim it doesn’t scare me and I just watch the airspeed.
Things just feel a little more intense than what you experience as a pax on an airline.
I soloed a few months a ago and I spend so much time in VR flying, when my CFI jumped out I looked at the empty seat, exhaled and said “Ahhh… this feels right.”
Congratulations on taking an intro flight. Hopefully you can continue training to become a private pilot. MSFS does not capture the feel of flying at all. There are so many sounds, vibrations, and smells that cannot be experienced in a simulator.
To your other question, I think it is easier to control altitude in real life flying. It’s impossible to feel the airplane moving around to know what inputs are needed in trim.
I instructed full-time for 5 years. Intro flights were fun and not so fun. If someone freaked out, that wasn’t very much fun. Maybe going upside down on the intro flight was a bad idea now that I think of it. Kidding. Most people were afraid to move the yoke too much, but like learning any new motor skill, practice is required and a person who has never flown doesn’t know how much control input is actually needed.
