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Real vs. Sim Pilot


TheRigere

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Just something I wondered the other day..  With the increasing realism in most aspects of new flight sims like DCS and FS2020 etc and numerous real pilots on record stating things like, "It's only missing the feel and fear of death" or "DCS is better than any simulator we had in the service to train on" and the like, my thought was how long or is it possible to consider yourself a "pilot"? I mean, there are people with 1000's even 10's of thousands of DCS hours, that could certainly jump in a real aircraft and operate with proficiency (yes, except for the physical and fear of death)  We have many service members who are strike drone or remote pilots. Are they considered pilots because they are remote really flying an aircraft? 

 

I know for me personally, it wasn't even a thought but it came out the other day when the wife asked, "are you going flying tonight?" and she meant in my Hornet on DCS. I catch myself saying , "I need to go fly tonight to chill out and clear my mind"

 

Yes, I have flown aircraft in real life, only about 10 hours in a Cessna, so I'm NOT a pilot, but it just made me wonder. Will there be someday a designation or examination of sorts that would qualify someone as say "Licensed Virtual Pilot"? I dunno...  Its probably not super important but just a thought especially as technology pursues, there will undoubtedly be more and more remote aircraft in the air and it would be a waste if the 1000's of hours flying the "almost the real thing" virtual couldn't be validated and open oppourtunities to VR and sim enthusiasts for potential job opportunities down the road doing something they always wanted to do but maybe couldn't afford in real life (ask me how I know) 

 

Would love your thoughts and discussions

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I am a pilot IRL, not as a profession but for personal enjoyment, for fun.  I enjoy taking the wife, the boy or the girl away for sightseeing, or to visit somewhere new, practice an aerobatic routine or even just have a pointless bimble on a CAVOK day.  But I am relatively limited in real life.  I am never going to be able to fly an F-16 in combat (too old, too blind, too tall).  I am never going to fly Red Flag, or fly carrier ops in a Hornet, or support an infantry column in a Hind. 

 

With DCS I can attain a reasonable level of proficiency in these aircraft in the safe environment of my home, and even though it is immersive and intense (especially with VR), I know that everything I do in game is ultimately free of consequence.  I also know that flying in real life has very real consequences.  Do I think I could jump in an F-16 if someone let me, start it up and take it for a spin based on what I've learned from DCS? - very doubtful ( I have circa 200hrs on type).  There is too much to learn, limitations which don't apply to the simulator, emergency checklists which nobody on here learns because you generally just blow up when hit and mechanical failures are rare.  Real life has rules, procedures, ATC, weather, all of which take up valuable brain processing power.  Could I sit in the back of a D model and throw it around the sky for a bit?  Of course, but so could my 9 year old, it wouldn't make me a real Viper pilot.

 

I use X-Plane to practice some of my real-world flying (given Covid restrictions I have been spending more time and money flying my laptop this last year than any real aircraft) and it is genuinely useful if you can use the same aircraft you would fly IRL.  For example, If I am taking up a PA-28 (a type I don't have many hours on) a bit of time in XP11 can let me practice my scans and checks etc, but I can't say honestly that any simulator I've flown has helped me with the actual stick-wiggling art of flying.  The reason is that while it is possible to fly 'by the numbers', there is still very much an element of 'feel' to visual flying.  That is the one thing a static simulator can't convey. 

 

As Ikarus above correctly states, simulators are a valid method for maintaining and recertifying instrument flying procedures, because instrument flying is very much heads down and watching the numbers, and very much not about 'feel'.  There is a reason airlines invest $millions on simulators, it allows them to practice emergency situations which present too high a risk to do 'for real'.  They do not use these same simulators to train ab initio pilots - for that they use real aircraft.  There is a good reason for that.  QED.

 

TLDR: Lots of hours in a simulator make you a good simulator pilot.  A simulator can help a real pilot maintain proficiency, but it will not make a non-pilot a pilot,  IMHO of course.

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  Actually flying is not that complicated, just some basic concepts and how to manipulate the primary controls. Learning how to operate any particular aircraft is mostly a case of memorising which buttons to push, mostly a case of repetition. Where things get complicated is comm etiquette, interacting with airspace, and the ridiculous amounts of legalistic red tape and regulation you have to deal with.

 

  So, sims are more than capable of teaching what you need to know to fly in general, and to fly any given aircraft if it reproduces it accurately. As far as the quality of simulation required, DCS, Xplane, etc, are far beyond what you need to ''learn the basics''. Most ''real'' sims are considerably more basic than what we have here.

 

  That third part, though, that's the part ''sim pilots'' tend to completely gloss over. So, they're more than capable of teaching you to ''fly'', but as far as teaching you to be a ''pilot'', that part requires a lot of book reading and study effort.

 

 

 

  I talked with a kid once, his dad was a pilot who claimed ''landing a plane is the hardest thing in the world'', which is just exaggerated nonsense and ego masturbation. Then again, I believe he lost his ppl after flying drunk and getting tangled in a power line.... so I guess it depends on your frame of reference. Being toasted probably does adds a fair amount of challenge to the process.

 

 

  As far as real world licensing, everything is about the magic FAA sticker. My controls are probably equal or superior to the ''certified'' controls, but they don't have that sticker so cannot be used. Same with sim software. Is it certified? Then it can be counted as sim hours. If no sticker, then no county. That's been the case for some time. It doesn't exempt you from needing real hours, though, for the actual certification. The USAF as I understand it is dropping the big multi-million dollar sim pods for simple VR gaming rigs. 99% of the benefit, 1% of the cost. They still require seat time, too.

 

  So no, real hour requirements aren't going anywhere, nor should they. A sim can provide a lot, but you still need practical real world experience, too. How a person behaves ingame, and how they behave in real life, are not the same and if a person screws up in real life, they crater their plane in a Walmart somewhere. You need both, and always will.


Edited by Mars Exulte

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5 hours ago, Mars Exulte said:

  Actually flying is not that complicated, just some basic concepts and how to manipulate the primary controls.

 

How many hours do you have IRL Zhukov?  Not disagreeing with you, but you could apply that statement to pretty much any vocation (driving, cooking, coding, etc.).  It took me about 10 hours before they let me loose on my own in an aeroplane, and 22 hours before I was allowed to drive on my own, so no, the actual art of stick wiggling is not that difficult compared with things many non-pilots do day-to-day.  For many wanabees the limiting factor is not ability, it's usually financial or medical (or marital!).

 

There is an adage regarding pilots and experience:

 

After 100 hours, you think you know it all

After 300 hours, you know you know it all

After 1000 hours, you know you will never know it all.

 

You can teach...

 

 

 


Edited by Lace

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I should mention that simming tends to form a lot of bad habits for a RW pilot . Clearing turns , ATC , VFR altitudes , preflighting and emergency procedures as examples .

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6 hours ago, Lace said:

How many hours do you have IRL Zhukov?

   Not a lot, but I have flown some in RL. The knowledge base I built up over the many years of reading and simming was most definitely tremendously helpful. I will say 2d simming creates a weird false perception, because the scale and FoV are off and its usefulness is most of a conceptual nature... VR on the otherhand, I found to be an extremely useful tool for practicing, found myself making the same mistakes in VR I was making in the plane and I was able to correct those tendencies.

 

6 hours ago, Lace said:

Not disagreeing with you, but you could apply that statement to pretty much any vocation (driving, cooking, coding, etc.)

  That statement can be applied to almost any vocation because it's largely true. Most acts are not that terribly complicated in and of themselves, and ''anyone'' can learn to do them. The issue is whether or not someone has a natural aptitude for a task, which is a somewhat nebulous concept, and how well they fundamentally understand what they're doing. As with any profession, there are people who are very good at passing tests, but suck at the actual doing.

 

6 hours ago, Lace said:

 It took me about 10 hours before they let me loose on my own in an aeroplane, and 22 hours before I was allowed to drive on my own, so no, the actual art of stick wiggling is not that difficult compared with things many non-pilots do day-to-day.

  Yep, I think the minimum age for a glider ppl is 14yo, which is even lower than driving... which is... so unbelievably ironic. Especially considering glider pilots are expected to learn all the same airspace and what have you regulations as a powered pilot, etc, yet the roads it's just ''here you go!''... probably has a lot to do with the carnage on the highway and why we don't regularly have planes falling out of the sky. Imo, people hang up too much on ''their right to do a thing'' instead of acknowledging that some things probably need a minimal level of education first @@

 

6 hours ago, Lace said:

For many wanabees the limiting factor is not ability, it's usually financial or medical (or marital!).

  You forgot time =( It's difficult to juggle a fulltime job and all the ''real life things'' and then somehow find a couple hours a week to go fly.

 

6 hours ago, Lace said:

There is an adage regarding pilots and experience:

 

After 100 hours, you think you know it all

After 300 hours, you know you know it all

After 1000 hours, you know you will never know it all.

 

You can teach...

 

  Flying in general has a lot more capacity for learning, there's always room for improvement and expansion, understanding the science of flight and the atmosphere, too. The basic concepts are simple enough ''anyone can do it'', but it takes a lot of effort and education to be ''good'' at it. Those are the best sort of things to learn!

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It's missing the entire organic side of the house.  You press a button and load up with weapons in seconds, in reality its days and hours worth of labor and coordination to get it all to work.  Any mission ready operational flying organization takes years to achieve their readiness capability.  Hundreds of ground hours, tasks, and people just to get that single sortie to work, and even that is no guarantee of success.  It's labor in real life, that doesn't sell well in games.

 

Those virtual drone pilots have something we lack, the expertise and experience of hundreds of people with thousands of hours backing them up with proven training methods and systems.  And an operational plan and structure don't hurt either.

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My wife also always refers to me "flying", whenever I'm in my man cave, on my PC, even if it's not playing DCS World 😄 

 

Virtual flying has definitely had a big impact on my motor skills and spacial awareness (especially in VR). Just before Covid times, I started gliding (soaring) at a local club and the instructors remarked that I had an intuitive feel and learned very quickly. I made my first solo flights very early, after only 30 or so starts, which is no time at all, considering most flights were only 10 to 15 minutes long.

Very unfortunately, only a couple of weeks after my first solo flight, a member of the gliding the club suffered a deadly crash. I couple of weeks later, I did get in the cockpit again, for another solo flight and I had a lot of respect for what I was doing, to put it mildly. The season ended and Covid came along, and I'm not afraid to admit that it also was a welcome excuse to take a break from the sport.

Flying is not to be taken lightly and given my limited RL experience, in the end I was very conscious of any bad habits I may have formed, for the sake of my own mortality.

 

I'm quite happy to do my flying virtually for the time being 🙂  

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Anybody that thinks that nailing a 3 wire on a virtual carrier makes them a real pilot in any sense, please go try!  But put me down as your beneficiary first!!

I sometimes think that’s why this place is so hostile sometimes. Because there are folks here that actually believe this makes them pilots and take themselves way to seriously. 
My guess is even military trainees after hours in a sim, still head up in a trainer with an instructor.   

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I see this really disturbing trend among some of the DCS userbase that they think they know stuff, when they are literally clueless. And don't get me wrong, there's a LOT I don't know. There's a few aspects that I'm professionally involved in, and I've found myself in the situation that people whose only experience was DCS and hearsay explained to me how systems I deploy in real life work, and that I don't know jack schmitt about said systems.

This is sometimes coupled with another disturbing trend I sometimes encounter: People who are looking to establish themselves as some kind of authority. You know, if you have a question about the lantirn pod he/she can't just answer you, they want you to follow them on facebook and "book" a training session. They're essentially looking for padawans.

 

So no, being a good pilot in DCS does not make you a pilot in real life, especially not a jet pilot. Even for civil aviation the fidelity in DCS regarding ATC and procedures is simply not there, as it's a combat sim first and foremost. A really good one, don't get me wrong. And heck, if you end up in a cockpit of a jet all of a sudden you might be able to get the thing down in one piece, as flying ain't that hard. Carrier landing? Maybe, maybe not. But are you a trained pilot? Just... no.

 

There was a fun comparison between RC pilots and manned aviation pilots years ago, with the RC pilot getting into a cessna and basically having very little problem flying, while the real pilot really struggled with orientation and the process of flying a plane that he only sees from the outside. It's entertaining anecdotal evidence, but probably not enough to claim that flying RC planes is more difficult than sitting in the pilot's seat.

 

You might have a head start on people who don't fly DCS if you get into a real jet, but that's not guaranteed.

 

In the end, the best thing IMHO is to accept that these are all different things. If you're good at flying jets in DCS, then that means you're good at flying jets in DCS. End of story.

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1 hour ago, Toumal said:

I see this really disturbing trend among some of the DCS userbase that they think they know stuff, when they are literally clueless.

  I have hardly ever had an argument with someone on the internet that didn't end up claiming to be the foremost authority on whatever it was we were talking about. It's just internet stuff, people are full of shite, etc.

 

Quote

This is sometimes coupled with another disturbing trend I sometimes encounter: People who are looking to establish themselves as some kind of authority. You know, if you have a question about the lantirn pod he/she can't just answer you, they want you to follow them on facebook and "book" a training session.

  Ah, the ''instagram influencer'' mentality. That's a cancerous development in society if ever there was one.

 

Quote

There was a fun comparison between RC pilots and manned aviation pilots years ago, with the RC pilot getting into a cessna and basically having very little problem flying, while the real pilot really struggled with orientation and the process of flying a plane that he only sees from the outside. It's entertaining anecdotal evidence, but probably not enough to claim that flying RC planes is more difficult than sitting in the pilot's seat.

  I've done some RC flying (I have a foam BF-109G with 50'' wingspan). It's not harder or even all that different, your controls are the same and it flies more or less the same. It's just perspective and relative speed is so different. It's really hard to tell its orientation, especially from a few hundred feet, and while ''60-70mph'' doesn't sound like a lot, for a four foot plane it's really whizzing around. Adjusted for scale... yeah, that's pretty damn fast, and you'll be out of view or radio range in seconds (or in a tree or building). Some of the faster ones easily exceed 100mph.


Edited by Mars Exulte

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On 4/8/2021 at 9:37 PM, TheRigere said:

Just something I wondered the other day..  With the increasing realism in most aspects of new flight sims like DCS and FS2020 etc and numerous real pilots on record stating things like, "It's only missing the feel and fear of death" or "DCS is better than any simulator we had in the service to train on" and the like, my thought was how long or is it possible to consider yourself a "pilot"? I mean, there are people with 1000's even 10's of thousands of DCS hours, that could certainly jump in a real aircraft and operate with proficiency (yes, except for the physical and fear of death)  We have many service members who are strike drone or remote pilots. Are they considered pilots because they are remote really flying an aircraft? 

 

I know for me personally, it wasn't even a thought but it came out the other day when the wife asked, "are you going flying tonight?" and she meant in my Hornet on DCS. I catch myself saying , "I need to go fly tonight to chill out and clear my mind"

 

Yes, I have flown aircraft in real life, only about 10 hours in a Cessna, so I'm NOT a pilot, but it just made me wonder. Will there be someday a designation or examination of sorts that would qualify someone as say "Licensed Virtual Pilot"? I dunno...  Its probably not super important but just a thought especially as technology pursues, there will undoubtedly be more and more remote aircraft in the air and it would be a waste if the 1000's of hours flying the "almost the real thing" virtual couldn't be validated and open oppourtunities to VR and sim enthusiasts for potential job opportunities down the road doing something they always wanted to do but maybe couldn't afford in real life (ask me how I know) 

 

Would love your thoughts and discussions

To answer OP, well I believe it's a good base, you can learn a lot with this sim as never could be done before and all of that (not so with FS2020 IMO, very nice looking but crappy FMs and half way physics). Still, I think it's just that, a base, if you go get your license you'll be ready sooner, you know many things before even seating for the first time in an aeroplane, and under the right circumstances of course you could fly the plane in the air without much of a problem. The thing is, there's so many things one overrules in the sim just because it's a sim, even for the most hardcore enthusiasts checking everything and following all the real checklists even though it's pointless in the sim to check you're strapped in, your windows closed and you seat is set and locked. Even for those, it's still a sim and soooo many things are overruled, even unconsciously, just because it's a sim and you know you're safe in the end. A great, so great learning platform, yes it is. So, you know everything and you're ready to fly just with the sim? Not really, and of course it also and still depends pretty much on who we are talking about, I know many people either in sims and real life I wouldn't dare to fly with, or even ride a bycicle…

 

Nevertheless, with a good instructor at your side everything's better. I flew my baptism with one of those, I was plenty of experience in sims (way before current DCS), and I indeed started the aircraft, taxied, took off, flew all the time even with some stalls performed and everything, and landed by myself (C172). Later on I got my PPL from that experience, so stunned I was. BUT, there were good weather, there were no emergencies or failures, it wasn't a Hornet or whatever, and I wasn't alone, remember…

 

S!

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13 hours ago, Mr. Big.Biggs said:

Anybody that thinks that nailing a 3 wire on a virtual carrier makes them a real pilot in any sense, please go try!  But put me down as your beneficiary first!!

I sometimes think that’s why this place is so hostile sometimes. Because there are folks here that actually believe this makes them pilots and take themselves way to seriously. 
My guess is even military trainees after hours in a sim, still head up in a trainer with an instructor.   

My point is more based on the chance of flying remote aircraft commercially perhaps. I did reference in my original post the clear difference bewtweennthevreal thing and sims. It was more to allude to “virtual pilot” persay. Personally I’ll never call myself a pilot unless I’m licensed as one. The thought came to me cause I referenced “flying” when meaning DCS without even noticing. And so did the wife and she couldn’t care less about real or fake lol

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9 hours ago, TheRigere said:

My point is more based on the chance of flying remote aircraft commercially perhaps. I did reference in my original post the clear difference bewtweennthevreal thing and sims. It was more to allude to “virtual pilot” persay. Personally I’ll never call myself a pilot unless I’m licensed as one. The thought came to me cause I referenced “flying” when meaning DCS without even noticing. And so did the wife and she couldn’t care less about real or fake lol

I hear you. My wife pretty much cringes whenever I strap on the goggles. Says I look like a 12 year old. So much for the cool “cyber pilot “ persona. I just don’t talk about it in public to avoid the embarrassment.  It is a pretty darn cool experience tho! 
Regards!

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2 hours ago, Mr. Big.Biggs said:

I hear you. My wife pretty much cringes whenever I strap on the goggles. Says I look like a 12 year old. So much for the cool “cyber pilot “ persona. I just don’t talk about it in public to avoid the embarrassment.  It is a pretty darn cool experience tho! 
Regards!

Heck no!!  I talk about it all the time!!  Then people want to try it and are like damn...now I get why you talk about it all the time

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On 4/20/2021 at 3:23 PM, Mr. Big.Biggs said:

I hear you. My wife pretty much cringes whenever I strap on the goggles. Says I look like a 12 year old. So much for the cool “cyber pilot “ persona. I just don’t talk about it in public to avoid the embarrassment.  It is a pretty darn cool experience tho! 
Regards!

Poor you. My wife likes that I'm "flying". She's playing piano, painting or knitting in the meantime, and I like that, too, so.... "to each his own".

However, sometimes I'm under the impression that some people here think that being a pilot is all about knowing how to take off, shoot down other planes, drop some bombs and land. To me flying begins with knowledge about aerodynamics, flight mechanics and navigation (old-school navigation, dead reckoning, wind calculations etc.). If someone tends to call himself a pilot, he should know about these things in the first place. The knowledge about air combat maneuvering, weapons etc. is just one part of the whole thing, and not the biggest, if you ask me. But this is just my personal opinion.


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On 4/20/2021 at 9:23 AM, Mr. Big.Biggs said:

I hear you. My wife pretty much cringes whenever I strap on the goggles. Says I look like a 12 year old. So much for the cool “cyber pilot “ persona. I just don’t talk about it in public to avoid the embarrassment.  It is a pretty darn cool experience tho! 
Regards!

  I've never described DCS to someone, or shown them my simpit, and them not be extremely positive.

 

  My wife (who grew up in a strictish old fashioned family) gave me a lot of grief about being ''a grown man playing games'' when we first met, until I recorded a lengthy sortie for her (and she saw my simpit). Tldr her opinion changed.

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My wife supports my DCS-VR addiction , as I do her sewing and quilting .

I find it a little disappointing , however , that she has never expressed an interest in trying it out for herself . 

Maybe i should count my blessings , as if she did , she might take over my simpit , as she once did my motorbike .

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“ my thought was how long or is it possible to consider yourself a "pilot"? “
I am a real pilot and a sim pilot. When you get down from flying something that can get you killed if you aren’t being diligent and professional, then you will understand the gulf between sim and real.

 

 

Also there is this telling statement:

 

 "I need to go fly tonight to chill out and clear my mind"

 

In real flying you are not "chilling out and clearing your mind", you are always thinking, always calculating, parsing and assessing all kinds of data,  and always on guard. (at least anyone that wants to stay alive) There is a part of your mind that enjoys what's going on, and oohs and ahhs are appreciated after the fact. Hopefully one enjoys this intense thinking and concentration and balances it with the big picture of the experience. The  The more dangerous the flying  activity the ...just more... everything is. Clear mind and chill out in real flying is a hazard.


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I have read through all of these posts and am quiet amused by some of the responses. Not in a snarky sort of way, but genuinely amused. I am reminded of an old FAA safety poster on the wall in the office of a Chief Pilot of mine way back when that read, "It takes only about 5 to 10 hous to teach someone how to fly but it takes a lifetime to teach then WHEN to fly!" The bigest difference between this computer sim flying we do and the real thing is the finality in the outcome of one's short comings in skill, knowledge or judgement. I have known many folks through the years that I have "flown with" in the virtual skies that I felt certain would, given just a couple of familiarization flights, be able to fly a general aviation plane such as a small Cessna or Piper around the pattern, taking off and landing completely without assistance from me. That however, in no way makes them even remotely safe to get in a real plane and just taxi down to the gas pump for some fuel. Conversely, I know an awful lot of RL pilots that couldn't even begin to assimilate the amount of knowledge that a lot of nonpilots in this community have for a single airframe, let alone multiple types! The skill (hand-eye coordination) and knowledge necessary for flying are certainly big components of it but just as important are the maturity and judgement that each pilot must have in order to safely apply the first two but which are totally not required for this DCS World we fly in! 🤣

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20 hours ago, AG-51_Razor said:

"It takes only about 5 to 10 hous to teach someone how to fly but it takes a lifetime to teach then WHEN to fly!"

  Unfortunately true. I read/watch a lot of accident studies. I noticed early on the most common causes of fatalities is flying when they're not qualified to fly and indecision at critical phases. You don't get to have ''oops lol'' moments in the real thing.

Де вороги, знайдуться козаки їх перемогти.

5800x3d * 3090 * 64gb * Reverb G2

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