Quality of Sim pilots?

[Kaktus29]

Imagine if we had a test where all of us-sim pilots would be tested in A-G role or A-A role, how good do you think or how many in % do you think would pass?

 

I was thinking like, imagine Su-25A scenario, you are in your plane at runway, you get orders to take off, you get coordinates on the way -CAS scenario- you have to get to the hot-spot, identify the target, fire at it, destroy it, come back to re-arm or debrief..

 

how long this takes, how many targets you destroyed with your ordnance, how many circles around the hot-spot area you had to make before recognizing targets,firing at them etc..

 

comparing with real pilots, how good or bad/terrible do you think the Sim community is?..

 

I myself must say i wouldn't pass the test.. i'm fairly good but it depends, now if the weather is bad, enemy is armed with MANPADS even with A-10C it would take me too long for those troops on the ground to get some immediate relief by CAS..

 

so, how many sim pilots do you think would pass the test and are you one of them?..

 

if i had to ball-park this, i would say maybe 10-15 % would pass the test.. (me is not the one that could pass as i said already)..

[eFirehawk]

I know how to operate the A-10C really well but it ends there. When it comes to tactics, keeping safe and proper situational awareness I wouldn't last long at all. Below Angels 10 the unpredictability is just too high, I end up stung by IR missiles or MANPADS all the time. :pilotfly:

[Flagrum]

Depends totally on the test criteria, i.e. the mission.

 

If it were, start up the a/c, fly x nm, find one truck, kill one truck, RTB, shut down a/c, be alive, I'd say 80+%

 

On the other hand ... if it were like, start up a/c, fly x nm, deal with system failures, avoid SAMs, handle MANPADS, find & destroy one column of T90 among a few dozend other threats, get out alive, RTB, drink a beer with your squad mates (who also survived) ... hrm, maybe < 10%.

 

I would count myself more to the group ... hrm ... c) those who watch the action from afar in my Huey. :o)

[SNAFU]

Maybe I would get a clearance to taxi to the arming ramp, if I don´t mix up stepping time, start up time and takeoff time with different timezone from the mission card. But what do I do form then on? Since I don´t know the arming procedures, I guess I wouldn´t even get a takeoff clearance...

[Kaktus29]

yeah its hard, if i would get a chance to be in a military simulator and military officers would be testing me and grade my performance i just might get so nervous and flip the plane at take-off to complete my short professional career as a military sim-pilot )))

 

but yeah, i think it would be nice to have more strict formation not just training of flying but also in attack, egress point, ingress etc.. i mean, in real life there is quite small space to move with your plane when coordinating an assault on enemy position in regards to the other planes in your formation..in 2WW it was even more strict since plane's were less accurate and had to follow their lead-plane quite closely when dropping bombs, machine-gunning etc.. so the effect would be like a constant barrage on a particular area where enemy happens to be and making sure probability of destruction is high enough to call that mission a success..

 

in modern situation this formations when 4 or 8 planes attack in CAS or in Ground attack are different, but how so, we don't know-at least i don't.. and it would be nice to add this feature on DCS to train in this, and be graded, so if you are capable of performing in a team-squad of at least 4 planes it would count as "PASS" as a CAS pilot ))lol.. i know that when i give my order to my fellow AI Su-25's to attack they use their own thing and fly their own way in formation, repeating the assault over and over again with very high probability of hitting the enemy with each pass, but with me i fly like solo almost, it looks like if somebody would watch TAC view that there are 3 pilots in a squad and one crazy dude doing his own thing there obstructing the air pathways and making sure some sort of collusion in air is possible with his team-mates.. (p.s.:i actually collided once with my fellow Su-25 AI as he was egressing and i was diving in.. ) ..

[gregzagk]

That would be a great qualification type of missions that squadrons could evaluate their pilots . :smilewink:

[Bushmanni]

Training is a full time job of real pilots and they do it often 10+ hours a day so it's a no contest when comparing sim pilots and real pilots. Even if a sim pilot would have no other obligations he would have to be pretty hard core to put in such training hours. Therefore no matter how talented you are there's no way you can bridge the gap created by amount of training. On top of that the real pilots are carefully picked to have the required talent for the job.

 

The rate of learning will diminish with time so it might be possible for some hard core sim pilot to get relatively close to real fighter pilot standards if he can keep at it for a long time like a decade and has proper support. But I suppose that kind of people would be pretty rare. One problem is that we don't have professional instructors and backing of an institution that has accumulated almost century of knowledge and experience about air combat.

[Kaktus29]

@bushmanni .. i know, which is why i would love a more structured teaching course of DCS.. where one could actually learn how to deploy its aircraft together as a team with others..

 

this is what is missing in all sims right now.. there is no real training.. its like, here is the aircraft, this is how the plane goes zoom-zoom, and now go out there and blast away.. no structure, no real "academy" if you will..

 

i know DCS can't recreate 4 years of flight school or even military flight school for us, but some rudimentary things that would test our abilities to listen, respond to orders in correct manner and be proficient enough at bombing, rocket attacks, gun attacks, etc.. would be fun.. like you do this thing and after if you pass you get your A.I. diploma approval )) as somebody said, it would make recruiting new pilots in virtual squads much easier if we had such a "base of graduates" on list somewhere..

[esb77]

Areas where training would probably really help,

 

Landing, landing, landing, landing ( this is after all the MOST important piloting skill, one of the hardest too).

Navigation

Planning (probably the second most important piloting skill, and the most underused one in DCS)

Radio communications

IFR flying

Probably issues with overcontrolling, not anticipating, abusing/leaving the flight envelope.

 

So in short, learning to be pilots before trying to become combat pilots.

[Fifi]

So in short, learning to be pilots before trying to become combat pilots.

 

This is so true.

So many things to learn and master before pressing the trigger :)

[Mike Busutil]

I think DCS is an excellent systems simulator. I have??? Two years experience with the A-10... I feel I know my way in and out of the A-10C pretty well. I am no expert but I feel confident about completing everything in the above "test" except I still seem to get caught every now and then by missiles.... :doh:

 

Keep studying, keep practicing... :book:

[dumgrunt]

In a word, no. The level of complexity modeled is no where near a real life scenario. And those complexities are all to often the difference between achieving the required end state and not.

 

Taking off, flying a course and landing may be a different story.

 

Remember even after training, an apprenticeship of sorts exists, you try and have a hi-lo skills mix so the jewb can learn from the more experiance operator.