I know he’s a long time real life private pilot, and a certfieds flight simulator instructor, but he’s not certified to teach real life pilots is my understanding. Regarding spins and stalls, maybe he alters them because the behaviour in a sim is different to real life?
He might also be simplifying things for his audience. The skillshare courses are a lot more focused and serious than his fun lessons on here, although I’ve learnt a lot from these lessons too. Not enough to fly a plane in real life, but enought to give me an a appreciation of aviation.
But again, the chances of a flight simmer ever legally being allowed up in a plane on their own with no proper training doing spins and stalls is unlikely to the point of being impossible.
Agree, that is why in MPL and ATPL training we always kept solo hours down to the bare minimum at the school I worked for. You could notice some would become sloppy after a couple of hours and needed a session to get back up to speed. It doesn’t add much above the legal 10 hrs or whatever it is.
I don’t know, I have read some stuff here and there and seen some reactions on this forum, I’m not impressed. I doubt he is a simulator instructor (SFI - Synthetic Flight Instructor). Furthermore FS9 and FSX were way more focused on what we are discussing here, the lessons from Rod something (whatever his name was) were on another level.
The whole educational part is missing in MSFS, the tutorials are bad and don’t actually teach you anything, the landing challenges don’t teach you how to make a safe landing (rather the opposite). The briefing material is not didactical, it uses aviation slang as “bird” instead of Flight Path Vector, its not professional. Just do one of those landing tutorials, nowhere anybody states “control speed with nose attitude - path with power”, “you are a bit low, add a few hundred RPM and raise the nose to maintain speed”, there are no useful instructions at all. Instead:
During the approach no real guidance is being given on how to fly the approach, while being exactly on PAPI (two white, two red) the objective to remain on glide path is not green anymore and you’ll get a subtraction of points, sorry but a PAPI just isn’t more accurate.
Around 400 ft AAL you are being told to look at the end of the runway which is way too soon, the focus should shift from the aiming point markers towards the end of the runway when transitioning into the flare.
The lesson landing the C152 starts with a weird saying: “the best part of flying is landing in one piece”, I guess this is the butchered version of “every landing you walk away from is a good landing” or so. Anyway, not much help from the “instructor” explaining how to fly a proper approach.
Telling you to cut the power to idle even before the threshold, little early if you ask me
Look to the end of the runway (thats a good tip), and set the nose slightly above. That is way too high for the beginning of the flare, it also depends on the players eye-height .
Just compare this briefing material and lessons to what we have now:
Then look at this, I still don’t even get what they mean with this:
The statement is demonstrably untrue, as previous threads on this forum show.
A few years ago a woman in her 80’s safely landed her pilot husband’s plane after he died in the air.
There was a thread a couple of weeks ago about a case where a non pilot landed the plane, (including video of the event) when the pilot became unconscious.
And then there’s the world famous case of Taffy Holden, a British engineer working on a Mach 2 capable English Electric Lightening who accidently engaged the afterburner and took off. He managed to land the fighter jet safely even though he’d never flown a jet before.
For it to be impossible for someone with sim experience to make a landing then it would mean that flight sims are worse than having no knowledge which is obviously absurd.
I have watched a few of ForderLearntoFly twitch streams, and I cannot see why the guy is getting so much negative critism.
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It is clearly stated, and the start of each stream that he is NOT a real world Flight Instructor, and that these streams are only for Entertainment purposes, and any instruction or advice is directed 100% only towards MSFS Sim pilots, and specifically NOT for Real World Pilot training.
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Accepting that, his streams are both Entertaining and Instructional (For SIM Pilots), and fill a great VOID left in MSFS for any sort of decent Sim Pilot Training.
I’m sorry to day, IMHO, the IN-GAME, Instruction Training modules are worse than useless, even compared with FSX!! - but for many, they are better than nothing – and all there is …
Why is it that so many Real World pilots here in the forum, both have and use MSFS, but then seem to feel the need to act so Elitist and Superior, because they have been lucky enough to have had Real Words Instruction, to fly in the Real World, and feel the need to knock those, trying to help the SIM Pilot make sense of MSFS… ??
I asked my current flight instructor whether I should continue to use MSFS while I’m trying to learn to fly a real plane, or whether it would interfere with my training. He didn’t seem to think it would have much effect either way. “Go ahead and have fun,” he said.
I guess you are right, as long as its clear that its for entertainment purpose only then there is not really any problem. And yes, the “lessons” currently in MSFS are completely pointless. You could actually learn something form the lessons in FS9 and FSX with this Rod guy, loads of briefing material for each lesson and what not.
I don’t disagre with that, but again, as I said before that is more a lack of instruction than a problem with flight simulation specifically. I’ve just started working through FS Academy’s VFR training, it’s pretty decent, and I can retake the lessons and reread the material as often as I want so I can understand the basics.
I totally get the lack of physical forces present in a simulator, but being aware of the ideas behind can in no way disadvantage me versus someone who has no experience/knowledge at all.
I mean if I did get stuck in a plane on my own, I would at least know how a yoke operates, how rudder pedals operate, how to use the throttle and mixture, and how to slow a plane into a controlled descent by slowly reducing power and trimming. I’d know that at underr 80 knots I can apply 10 degrees of flaps to slow my speed and improve my cockpit view, and I’d be aware of the stall speeds that if I was in danger of stalling I’d need to lower the nose to gain speed to bring me out of it, which is not obvious to someone with no experience.
I don’t see how doing all of this in the sim is a negative versus having no experience. With a real plane, I’d learn to fly a real plane, and that training would correct any misconceptions I have and errors that I might naturally have picked up. That’s why they train people.
It does work a bit better the other way around, if you ARE a pilot, you can get some practice playing off the shelf flight sims. Of course, fully rated commercial sims are a different story.
The thing I like about Howard is that he has given my sim a sense of purpose. As a non pilot without his lessons I’ d have no idea what to do and how to make it interesting. His videos give me things to work on and a reason to fly. I also agree, that structure and education is not in the sim itself, so he’s a welcome addition imo.
I think also the elitism is why the question grates on me, not Nijnte91 at all, he’s been engaging in the converstion in a very rational, and informed way. It just seems like it’s real pilots reminding simmers that they aren’t real pilots which is unnecessary and also obvious. But then they take it a step further and suggest that it would make it even harder to be a real pilot because of all the incorrect things you have learnt, even whilst presumably owning and using the software themselves.
It’s a bit like the church in the middle ages burning William Tyndale and others for translating the Bible into the vernacular. Their book was not for the common man and they had to keep the source of knowledge…
Because still with all that its possible to develop bad habits, I’m not saying its a problem for everyone, you seem to have your act together and know the limitations of using a simulator, but some don’t. Be aware that MSFS is not doing a particularly good job when it comes to the flight model, right turn tendencies, stalling of inboard versus outboard wing, accelerated stalls, stalls in turn and with the new CFD model on the C172 spins look like something directly from GTA V. But what you are saying is correct, people I have flown with who have used flight simulator do usually understand the basics and have already a decent technical knowledge. Also if a student would tell me he/she has never used a flight simulator I would question their motivation for becoming a pilot . But there are persons who have been fooling around (doing their best, don’t get me wrong) for thousands of hours on their own without supervision, I think you can understand that this could be a problem when they have been doing something wrong for so long and suddenly have to learn do it the proper way.
Yes, we probably don’t disagree at all in fairness. I am annoyed with the idea of a preachy pilot in my head that isn’t you, and you have in mind a more casual user of MSFS which isn’t me.
It was the OP’s statement that if a sim pilot jumped into the cockpit seat of a 737 and programmed the FMS and took off he could get people killed that triggered me! Like in what conceivable universe could that ever happen!?
Anyway, I’m sorry if I sound argumentative, I’m actually enjoying the discussion.
Well, flying a plane is not exactly rocket science either. There isn’t anything super human about flying an aircraft. When you become a commercial pilot and you HAVE to fly when the weather is (but within limits) and having to deal with passenger, ground handlers, technical issues and what not, that is where a lot decision making is involved (especially when something goes really wrong) and that might not be for everybody, but also that can be learned. The actual flying is not difficult, you can learn a monkey how to fly if you have enough bananas. Being a private pilot you can just park your plane in the hanger if the weather is bad or if something is broken, if you have an average intelligence and not being cognitively impaired, you can learn to fly a plane at least to private pilot level.
Well if your pilot keeled over and you were the only one left to fly the plane you’d definitely be in WAY better shape than someone who only plays Bejeweled Blitz. I would also say a person whom actually builds/flies/designs RC aircraft may also be far better informed than an actual pilot as far as to WHY their aircraft is flying. It’s a mixed bag, getting a pilot’s license does not make one a genius. Pretty much anyone of sound mind can take lessons and become one. Plenty of great pilots out there that had zero interest in the details of aeronautical engineering nor ‘airplanes’ in general before getting a license. From time immemorial, the TRUE thing that makes aircraft fly is money. If your instructor asks you on day one what makes an aircraft fly, that’s the correct answer. Not many pilots know what different profile NACA airfoils mean.
I have written a lot of course material over the years, I can’t stand this kind of nonsense. If it isn’t 100% clear, correct and didactical, it’s not helping the student, chuck it in the bin!
The chances of a real world pilot ever legally being allowed up in a plane, on their own, with no proper spin training, doing spins is also unlikely to the point of being impossible.
i’m 10 years old have 3000 hours on racing and Grand theft auto sim but they wont let me drive a formula one race car, I can beat the best on all racing sims. Please sign my petition below …
. But there are persons who have been fooling around (doing their best, don’t get me wrong) for thousands of hours on their own without supervision, I think you can understand that this could be a problem when they have been doing something wrong for so long and suddenly have to learn do it the proper way.
(but within limits) and having to deal with passenger, ground handlers, technical issues and what not, that is where a lot decision making is involved (especially when something goes really wrong) and that might not be for everybody, but also that can be learned. The actual flying is not difficult, you can learn a monkey how to fly if you have enough bananas. Being a private pilot you can just park your plane in the hanger if the weather is bad or if something is broken, if you have an average intelligence and not being cognitively impaired, you can learn to fly a plane at least to private pilot level.
