Using Flight Simulator for Flight Training?

BAA are using it to train pilots, at least in the beginning stages - so there’s something and it isn’t FAA certified!

A Day in the Life of Jonathan, a Student Pilot at BAA Training - YouTube at 1:24 you can see MSFS being used.

-It replicates the, pitch/power/airspeed relationship, quite well.

-It replicates the, “power curve” (staying ahead of) quite well.

-It sharpens the instrument scan, quite well.

-It reinforces, “staying ahead if the airplane” theory.

-It simulates compass errors (turning accelerating/decelerating), dead on.

-It teaches flight-planning and navigation (VFR/IFR), extremely well.

It is a very useful tool for a student pilot.

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Sounds like very sensible advice to me. Also nice to hear that you had an instructor and you couldn’t just turn up at an airfield and rent a plane based on having used a flight sim.

Seriously, the people who think it’s dangerous to use a flight simulator, I’d love to hear them describe an actual scenario where this could a problem?

I love flight simming, but I have never flown a real plane. If I learnt to fly I would be starting from the beginning as to actually handling a real plane with real physical forces acting upon it. I’m really struggling to even imagine a scenario where I could cause harm. I presume in my first lesson the instructor is coming up with me, and that he will be in control of the plane. Unless he dies at the controls on my first day I think I’ll be fine, and even then I’d say my simulator knowledge would still give me a better chance of coming down safely than if I had no idea at all what I was doing.

Imagine thinking in your final, plummeting moments, if only I hadn’t played Microsoft Flight Simulator and now have an incorrect perception of how slipping works, if only I could go back to a virgin state of not even knowing what any of the gauges and instruments do I’d be ok.

It’s so silly.

As far as I know no simulation software gets certificates. Only in connection to an hardware simulator. And there are different kind of certifications. Also I know there is a simulator certified for specific training running the FSX in Germany. So nothing special to this and we should not give much weight on this if a software is good or better than the rest.

Of cause you can use a flight simulator for flight training. Many flight schools do this. Only don’t expect to have countable hours for your flight experiance.

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Doubt that is part of the actual training, he is just having fun during his break most probably.

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Its not necessarily dangerous, its just something which can have a negative impact on training when learning to fly a real aircraft, especially when it comes to learning bad / wrong trim techniques, use of rudder and instrument scanning. Especially the latter can haunt you for some time when not taught properly right from the start. The positive thing I saw when I was an instructor is that flight simmers usually have a good technical understanding about flying and aircraft systems (although MSFS has some things awfully wrong here and there), but flying wise its not that much of an advantage, and maybe a disadvantage for some students. It depends on the person. Personally I have never used a commercial flight simulator to improve flying skills, its good as a procedure training, technical skills like reading an approach chart, flying a holding pattern with all the sectors, timing and wind corrections involved, VFR navigation using dead-reckoning, flows, checklists, that is what it is good for.

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If your actually in real world training absolutely let your instructor know.

Some people are fine and others develop bad habits. Just watch out for the following potential issues that some (but not all) sim pilots have when training later in real aircraft.

  • focus on instruments and never look outside
  • some people try to fly with trim
  • on approach combat simmers can tend to lineup the runway with the prop rather than their seating positions thinking they are in a spitfire
  • a tendency to develop “lazy feet” and not use the rudder near enough
  • over dependence on a GPS and difficulty navigating VFR by map and landmarks and clock
  • pushing stick forward when floating and planting the nose wheel
  • not pulling back enough on the stick in flare
  • a tendency to try and keep the runway visible during landing rather than holding the nose up after main wheels touch

There may be others but those are the issues I personally have had in training or heard other people talk about

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I’m not sure how it works nowadays during flight training, most training aircraft are having big G1000 screens today. When I was an instructor we didn’t have GPS on any of our aircraft, one ADF, one VOR, one VHF radio, transponder, some had DME and that is it. Real dead-reckoning and if you got lost, you got lost for real and had to find your way back somehow or ask ATC to help. When practicing holdings or other IFR procedures, you couldn’t see GPS track and groundspeed, we used magnetic heading and mental wind corrections, sin and cosine 30, 45, 60 and 90 to calculate headwind /or tailwind and crosswind components and then determine wind correction angle required and timing correction all by memory while flying the aircraft. I think it is becoming a new norm to just follow the magenta line and read everything from the screen or let the autopilot do it for you. This was all not so long ago even, I was an instructor until 2015 or so :sweat_smile:.

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I would say MSFS has nothing to do with flight training. It does give you a lot of familiarity of what instruments are and where everything is in an aircraft, and a mild idea of multi-tasking. But any and all of it could be ‘wrong’ and if you start flight training consider everything you ‘know’ form it be ready to unlearn. Consider MSFS a game and you’ll be better off. You can play racing simulators, even the best of them for years, but don’t think you’re even going to make one lap in an F1 car, even at half the pace of a pro.

Most of these problems you list sound like they would be due to a lack of instruction rather than being inherent problems with a simulator. For example, focusing on looking outside, and then learning good flying technique like the order of setting attitude, power then trim for steady flight are possible to execute in the sim as well, you just don’t get the real world force feedback.

I’ve not flown a real plane but I’d assume the impact of real world forces like lift, weight, drag and thrust would both necessitate and assist quick learning and retraining when handling a real airplane.

For example, I’ve never felt the physical effects of not having correct trim, nor the physical discomfort of failing to use rudder to keep the ball centered for stable flight, but I can’t see how having a hypothetical understanding of the concepts would harm me. Surely, feeling the effects of these physical forces for the first time would be just as real and impactful to me as someone with zero experience.

The fundamental forces of physics would keep me alerted to the fact that I am struggling to control the yoke because the plane isn’t trimmed and wants to climb, thus forcing to push forward on the yoke to hold it level.

Is it really conceivable that somebody could go through flight training and get a pilot’s license without being able to correct these errors and therefore can’t properly pull back on the stick in flare, or not use their rudders? These problems would self correct during training, and non simmers would be just as likely to have similar issues in the beginning.

Ultimately, as Nijntje91 says, a simulator is useful for proecedural training, and cockpit & flight familarisation, but cannot teach real flying skills. When it came to using a yoke and rudder pedals and actually flying the plane I’d be at the same beginner level as someone who had zero knowledge, but with some basic conceptual ideas of what’s involved. I’d have to learn to fly the plane, but having a little home cockpit setup at home wouldn’t disadvantage me as it’s not a real plane and therefore not the same thing.

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Bad habit can be developed just as easily when flying in RL !!!

The Bad habit that sticks out to me the most in MSFS is rushing and skipping steps and procedures. But just because you may do that in the SIM, does NOT necessarily mean that it will be a BAD HABIT you will carry over to RL.

ie

  • Walk around
  • Checking Oil and tires
  • Checking all documents are in the Plane \etc etc

Then there is the totally incorrect Trimming in MSFS ( unless you have a correctly trimming Force Feedback Yoke or Joystick as appropriate).

But the TWO ways of trimming, ( MSFS vs RL) are so different, that MSFS really does nit develop you a BAD HABIT in trimming.

That’s like saying, driving a Stick Shift (car) will give you BAD HABITS for when you drive an Automatic !!

And at the end of the day, doe sit really matter is you develop “Bad 737 Habits” when flying a 737, when all you are going to fly in RL is a C172 ??

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Actually this is spot on, most people who have used flight simulator a lot focus waaaay too much on instruments when they start flying VFR because that is what naturally happens when looking at a flat computer screen behind a desk without the physical sensation of what the plane is doing. Maybe VR would be a bit better, never tried VR on my potato PC so don’t know. In real life its so easy to look around, check the distance between the horizon and the wingtip to determine if wings are level, then shift your view forward to keep the nose a couple of fingers below the horizon for level flight, lean forward to look a little better over the instrument panel etc. Its a bad habit which is hard to get rid of, its better to learn certain things from scratch than to first have unlearn bad habits. When it comes to rudder, this is simulated very poorly in MSFS, you don’t really need to apply any rudder after take-off to fly coordinated, same with turns. That is a different story in real life.

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Haha yeah I forget some people play on a flatscreen monitor. I’ve only ever used the sim in VR, and when I started I joined Skillshare to watch all of Howard Forder’s instructionals and then his 152 and 172 series on the forum with the community manager Jayne, so I’ve always focused on looking outside, and setting my attitude, then power, then trim to get straight and level flight.

I don’t at all presume to think I could fly a real plane without any real world instruction and practice, but neither do I think any of the learning I’ve done up to now would harm me in any way.

On the contrary, I had previously thought that flying was something unobtainable, almost like becoming an astronuat, but now I feel that it is emminently doable, and that with the appropriate learning I could do it.

I no more feel my sim use has been detrimental than I think school students disecting a frog in biology class might be harmful for those who want to go on to study medicine. Nobody feels the need to tell school kids before they make in an incision with a scalpel that they must not consider this training to be a surgeon or to perform open heart surgery because, its self evident and no possibility exists for a school student to show up their local hospital to help out with major operations.

It’s same with flying, cautioning against possibilities that just can’t happen.

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Oh no, I’m not a fan of that guy at all. Please don’t take those lessons too seriously and whatever he puts on Skillshare.

What don’t you like about him?

I’m a real world IFR pilot. I got a lot from flying IFR approaches and holds to my local airfields in the UK. Certainly it saved me a packet. Flying around the circuit is also good practice.
That was with FSX. I find 2020 is much more realistic especially with the GA planes like the C172 and the Arrow. Now also VRP’s are also possible.

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I guess the key is being smart with it, understanding what a simulator is good for, and what it isn’t.

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I don’t remember anything specific but there is a lot of inaccuracies in whatever he says or shows. I saw him recovering stall / spin with ailerons instead of rudder and what not. I believe he isn’t even a CFI.

This is also a clown able to tell you nonsense with great confidence:

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You also do not get “much” REAL WORLD feedback, once you start to solo or have your PPL, and there is no instructor next to you, to check on you and advise you.

Flying with another, experienced Pilot helps, but them both of you can lead each other down an incorrect way of doing things.

Then IRONICALY, a SIM can help !!! If your are monitored and coached in the SIM by an Instructor.
Far less expensive that a RL flight
AND the advantage that the sim can be Paused at any time, for detailed instruction, with 100% attention by the one being taught.

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