He cancelled due to threat of thunderstorms
Holy hell 3,000 hrs !? How do you compare flight sim to that?
I have a Commercial License and used to do simulator research:
This is nice for getting some basic ideas but is a long way from a certified simulator. I think it is a good idea to perhaps get some people into flight school, but this program has suffered from too many add ons and the actual simulation I find lacking.
Aw, that’s a shame. 
Did you reschedule? Thunderstorm season is a very frustrating time for students and flight instructors alike. Hang in there!
Okay, I’m gonna’ admit something: that’s a fat-fingered typo that I didn’t catch! That should say 2,000 hours. Whoops. 
We call that “P-51 time.” 
To answer your question, Nag and I both gave up on the perfectly realistic home flight simulator experience long ago. We used to chase realism—using actual V-speeds, actual procedures, and such—but finally realized that if the flight simulator, the aircraft flight model, the aircraft’s systems, and even the simulated atmosphere aren’t perfectly accurate representations of their real-world counterparts, then the real procedures and performance data are both useless.
As Nag has pointed out, not even the multi-million-dollar flight simulators he trains in fly exactly like the airplane.
What we shoot for is the right “feel.” Does the sim representation give the feel of flying over the real world? Does the airplane feel about right? Do the systems that are modelled behave roughly the way they should? We’re definitely in the “close enough” camp when it comes to flight sim, although we don’t disparage any other opinions. 
I hope that answers your question!
— Pee-Wee
I’ve started taking lessons after getting the sim. Had 2 so far.
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That’s fantastic! The more pilots, the better. What are you flying, and how’s it going?
— Pee-Wee
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1960 Cessna 172A, N9812T
So far, so good. Supposed to start pattern work and touch and go’s next lesson.
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Multi, Instrument, Commercial Pilot w/1450 TT.
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That’s a nice airplane! I have lots of time in Skyhawks, but only an hour or two in an old “fast-back.” I don’t remember much about her, except that with her flaps at 40, she dropped like a brick outhouse and could climb only slightly steeper than Earth’s curvature, and that her “Land-O-Matic” landing gear never did anything “matically!” 
I love researching the history of individual aircraft. Have you seen this photo? She looks almost factory fresh, even though she was about thirteen years old already!
Good luck in your training and remember to have fun! 
– Pee-Wee
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Yes three hours this coming Sunday 
Would have been this Friday except the 172 is in the shop for scheduled maintenance…
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CPL and IR. Flight simming is what helped me through IFR training. I would have been lost without it.
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One more real PPL for 20+ years and also flight simmer for 40+ years.
PPL(A), VFR only, just below 1’000 hours. Live and learnt to fly in France (Paris, LFPZ/LFPN) on tailwheel Robin DR221. Flew PA28, Cirrus, Robin DR400, C152/C172… Here’s a quite representative year:
Was lucky to make circuits at… St-Barth (TFFJ) and Juliana (TNCM) even before being PPL Member of a San Diego, CA flying club and flew dozen of times up to Canada and the classical loop around LA, SF, Monument Valley, Grand Canyon, Vegas, Sedona… with pilot’s friend or my familly. Flew also in Caribean, Bahamas, Florida, over Central Park at 1’500ft, landed at Atlanta…
Finaly simmer for… as far as I can remember with my Sinclair ZX-81 in 1980’s
And I’m an amateur freeware scenery builder - because MSFS wasn’t close enough to my memory - for a bunch of Southern California GA airports.
Now, you know everything.
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I love your SoCal sceneries, they are amazing, and better than a lot of payware ones. :).
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My journey to learning to fly in RL was a bit weird. I was a airplane mechanic (A&P) in the early 1980s, and I had a contract with a local flight school to handle the maintenance on their aircraft. They eventually fell on hard times while owning me money, so I took it out in flight lessons and hours.
Eventually, I was signed off to solo in all their airplanes. And keeping that endorsement current I flew for years, basically for free, and managed to get about 100 hours doing ‘test flights’ on airplanes I’d worked on. And, I’ve never had anything better that a student’s pilot license.
Nowadays, I still fly once in a while. And whenever I have a spare 300 dollars I’ll rent a C-182 and a CFI and just go joyriding around for an hour. As you know the old saying, if it flies, floats, or does that other thing, you’re better off renting it. I even have three hours in Helicopters now, which is very expensive, but a ton of fun.
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Just turned 68, got my PPL when I was 26 and have a couple hundred hours. Started with the PA-28 and worked my way up to a Beech Debonair, then bought a Turbo Arrow with a couple other guys. Had kids and had to kiss it all goodby because the wife’s nervousness and the kids’ tuitions. Been simming since, starting with iFly, then the whole MS franchise. My son bought me an intro flight and five hours with a flight school a year ago. Managed to grease a couple of touch and goes in a 172 with the instructor, so I am ready to get current again and have some fun IRL again. Even with all its warts, and current bugs, I think MSFS2024 will eventually be a stable product. It, and its predecessors, have sure given me the ability to keep this aviation bug alive.
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Hopefully you got to fly on Sunday. How was it?
– PW
Sailplane Pilots Licence (ie gliding), did my 5 hours silver endurance flight last Monday bringing me up to 110 hours.
private pilot, retired center controller
There are some misconceptions. Since most people aren’t aware of these, the fact that xplane is FFA-certified is often used to advertise:
- The FAA-approved version is not the one available commercially for end users.
- The software itself isn’t certified. Simulator systems that don’t just consist of the simulator program itself are certified.
- FAA certification isn’t a quality award. It merely proves that the system possesses certain features and adheres to them within the limits – nothing more, nothing less. It doesn’t mean that it has to be particularly realistic.
In other words:
It’s not xplane itself that’s certified, but a procedure trainer that uses xplane as a basis. And the requirements imposed by the FAA date back to a time when PC flight simulators could only do a fraction of what they can today.
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