This is a really great thread! I’m not a pilot, and don’t claim to be one, but I do have a good deal of experience simming going way, way back to the original subLogic Apple ][+ version of Flight Simulator. My view has always been that sims do a very good job teaching you the concepts of aviation, and let you put that knowledge in practice in a somewhat realistic environment. And with the greater fidelity and complexity of modern sims, they also are great (as noted here) at familiarizing you with various flight instruments and how they work, and the general layout of a given plane’s cockpit (if the model is good, that is). But they don’t teach you to fly an actual real-world aircraft. There’s simply too much missing from even the best sim – other than the professional-scale $500k sims that airlines use for training – to give you the real-life experiences of flying.
And I’m pretty confident in that belief, even though I’ve never flown an airplane. Because I’m aware of all the things that I’m not getting from the sim that should be essential info points for a real pilot. Take the trim discussion above – MSFS will NEVER simulate trimming an aircraft in a way that will train you to do it in real life, because you don’t get the pressure feedback on the yoke from the aerodynamics of the aircraft’s pitch. I recently changed joysticks, and the new one has a ton of input switches such that for the first time I’ve been able to map pitch trim to a rocker switch. And… OMG is pitch trim a crutch. It’s the lazy way to fix your descent issues (and often just makes things worse). IRL, I know you’d trim to remove pressure on the yoke, and that’s the only reason you’d trim. But the sim basically lets you use it as fine elevator control, which it absolutely is NOT.
Another example: I almost never do run-ups. Because except for a couple of payware aircraft, no MSFS plane is ever going to have a bad magneto, or a failing oil pump, or any mechanical defect unless you tell the sim to give it one. In the sim, it’s really just a waste of time to do run-ups to check for problems you absolutely know do not exist. If you did that IRL, though, you are literally betting your life that the engine is fine. It would be epic stupidity to skip the run-up, or the walkaround, or any of the other safety checks you should always be doing pre-flight. But again, the sim doesn’t really let you do that, and even if it did, there’s never anything wrong unless you’ve chosen to have something wrong. (Again, there are exceptions to that now, which is a good thing.)
My daughter asked me once while I was flying in MSFS, “so… does this mean you can really fly a plane?” And I wanted to give her a good answer, so I thought about it, and this is what I told her: If I was in an emergency situation where I had to land an aircraft, my sim experience means I’d have a decent chance to walk away from that landing. And if the plane was an A320, I feel like I know enough about the systems of the aircraft that I’d have a decent chance to set the autopilot well enough (with ATC assistance, and with the airspace cleared out for me) to get the plane in a position for the autolanding system to probably work. Maybe. But that’s it. I’d have a better chance of success in those emergencies than a complete novice who’s never touched a flight simulator. But fly a plane properly? Or well? No way. There’s just too much that the sim doesn’t prepare you for.
