Formation Flying as Hard in Real Life?

[HarvesteR]

i can't say i've done any kind of formation flying... other than being towed aloft in a saiplane  ;)

but i think that the sim IS harder on some aspects, many of which apply also to flying helicopters...

first, you have NO depth perception... it would make a world of difference if you could perceive yourself getting closer or farther away from your lead plane

also, the joystick will never replicate an actual control stick / yoke, no matter how good... but it does help to have a high precision joystick... i know my flying improved sensibly when i traded over the old MS FFB stick for the X52

plus, your vision is tunneled by the small area of the monitor... a triple head setup helps a lot, but you'll never achieve TOTAL immersion... even completely surrounding yourself with monitors... and that might be bad for your eyesight  ;)

so the sim has it's limitations... but at least you can harass the air traffic without fear of being arrested later  ;D

Cheers

[Hagar]

In my experience flying by remote control either in FS or with a R/C model is invariably more difficult than the real thing.