Easier In Real Life?

[Gary R.]

One more thought.

[beefhole]

See my thread here. Several of the forums RL pilots posted there, and it would appear as though the general consensus is that, when it comes to GA aircraft at least, it is in fact easier in real life.

[MattNW]

MSFS suffers from several limitations. First as noted above it seems to exaggerate a lot of things especially the Pfactor and torque. There's also some room for improvement in the stability of the aircraft. In RL an FS airplane would never earn certification by the FAA. Try taking the default Cessna 172 up, trimming it for level flight and then push slightly forward on the stick. It will bounce over and over and over. A real airplane should regain the pitch and airspeed it was trimmed at within a few oscillations. Not so with the default FS planes.

There's also the fact that you don't have the feel that you would in a real airplane. It's like being paralyzed from the neck down and having no inner ear. Everything is sight oriented (yeah I know some people have coupled FS with hydraulics but who has that kind of cash).

Of course a good aircraft designer can compensate for some of this. I've been particularly impressed with some of the Flight One products. The Piper Archer feels amazingly like a light single engine airplane and the Beech A36 likewise. On approach in either of these you can tell it's a light single as opposed to something like say the Cessna 421.

I usually copensate by setting my realism sliders just slightly left of full. This seems to give me the best balance in the default Cessna. Still could be improved however but it's close.

[Nav]

The big difference between the Sim and real flying is in the 'seat of your pants'.  As you climb, descend. turn, add or reduce power, you feel the aeroplane react; and you also feel the effect of wind and air currents.

It helps, too, that you have your feet on the rudder bar as well as a grip on the stick or yoke.  After a while you very much begin to feel part of the aeroplane.  And of course you see things in three dimensions, much easier to judge distances, angles etc.

Having said all that, though, not sure that you could say the real thing is ever 'easy'.  Controlling any aeroplane is a complex thing - a cross between an art and a science - and you have always to be conscious of what could happen if you get it really wrong. So your concentration has to be on the top line all the time.

[Saratoga]

Ya. In all of this we make flying in reality seem easy. I'm not saying getting a Cessna through a pattern is exactly tough, but it's not child's play (except to the F-16 guys...).

Flying in reality and in the sim is challenging. The sim is not perfectly realistic, but I'll live with it. As long as the 757 and 767 I downloaded flys like the real things, I am cool with it.

[beaky]

Ya. In all of this we make flying in reality seem easy. I'm not saying getting a Cessna through a pattern is exactly tough, but it's not child's play (except to the F-16 guys...).

Flying in reality and in the sim is challenging. The sim is not perfectly realistic, but I'll live with it. As long as the 757 and 767 I downloaded flys like the real things, I am cool with it.

I'll bet an active jet fighter pilot would have a hard time with a Cessna... probably panic every time he saw the airspeed...

And I agree that FS9 can be dealt with. Just kinda had to learn to fly again.

[Rocket_Bird]

Im no jet fighter pilot, but I know those F-16s got those sophisticated HUDS with velocity vectors so the pilot knows where they are flying all the time... great for terrain avoidance.  Their angle of attack indicator is top notch for landing, and they simply have to point their velocity vector at a correct attitude for a smooth flare.  

With that said, take all that away and give them a clean cessna 172... hehe, taking into account crosswinds for the little airplane... a YOKE which requires them to fly left handed!  Yup... should be fun  ;)

[Nexus]

[quote]Im no jet fighter pilot, but I know those F-16s got those sophisticated HUDS with velocity vectors so the pilot knows where they are flying all the time... great for terrain avoidance.

[Brett_Henderson]

To me.. the sim is all about position and situation awareness.. both inside and outside the cockpit. Whether it's entering a pattern or getting yourself from one airport to another. Whether you do it in a 172 or a 777.

All the components are there and are QUITE realistic: Startups, runups, take-offs, best rate of climb, navigating in winds aloft, stabilized approaches, round outs and flares... and... if you allow for it in realism settings, mixture/prop/fuel management throughout the whole flight.

Visual and instrument navigation is about as good as I can imagine it being on a home PC (GPS is for sissies).

As for individual plane-handling realism ?  It's not perfect, but it aint bad either and can be tinkered with. A yoke-pedal set helped me through my life-long x-wind landing anxiety. Just being able to TRY that maneuver.. over and over and reinforce in your mind the subtle things that happen and how you compensate for them helps.

I've been flying on and off since 19 (46 now) and have gotten pretty serious about it lately (just got my IFR ticket)(going for multi now). To answer the original question.... yes, real life is "easier".. Partly because you know that from engine-start to shutdown.. it aint a game and your mind is more tuned.. but mostly because of the "seat of the pants" and better visual cues. I'd bet the FS9 172 would  "feel" a lot more realistic with monitors set for left/right views.

Can't wait for FS10

[willg]

ya, it'll always be hard to get a plane in a sim to feel exactly as it does in real life. I know there is a way to tweak aircraft, but how do I do this exactly, do i just need to modify the aircraft.cfg?

i'm not really say FS is unrealistic, id just to like the aircraft not to constantly slip to the sides and drift out of its approach, as this is really annoying me now  :-[

as for fs10(whyfs10 anyway theres only been 4fs's anyway),whens it out? as the graphics are sure to be pretty sweet, add that extra touch of realism to the game  :) i imagine itll probably be fairly expensive though  (in the region of

[C]

I'll bet an active jet fighter pilot would have a hard time with a Cessna... probably panic every time he saw the airspeed...

He'd be asleep by then...

[willg]

lol... or imagine a Cessna Pilot in an F-16

[Rocket_Bird]

You're joking, right?...

lol, in theory, F-16 pilots should be trained quite to the point where if they lost everything, they can bring a crippled bird home.  In theory!  ;)

I have never seen an F-16 pilot jump straight into a cessna 172 to tell a difference lol, but id say its definately a lot... err... less than what they are used to.