Caltrops - Pinback's Web Central





	[quote name="pinback"][quote name="Commander Tansin A. Darcos"]Since you're a licensed pilot, let me ask you, do flight simulators give some realistic "feel" to the actual effects of flying in a plane or a simulator?[/quote] <i>Great question!</i> Microsoft Flight Simulator (the only one I've kept very familiar with over the years) does a wonderful job of conveying the "ideas" of flying. Moving the control surfaces (ailerons, elevators, flaps, etc.) makes the plane do pretty much what it does in real life. In particular, the navigational aspects have a great enough fidelity that if you do it well enough in the game, you can almost (almost) show up for flight school on navigation day and say, "I got this". What it doesn't convey, of course, is the physical experience of sitting in a cramped, hot, loud Cessna cockpit, with everything bumping and shaking and the dials whipping back and forth instead of sitting there with pixel-precision. So, having played MSFS since the early 80s, during my first "intro flight" in real life, I understood most of what was happening, but more than that, my mind was screaming get me the fuck out of this thing I am never doing this again AIAGHGUGHGHH I'M GONNA BARF AUGHGghh. So yeah. They give realistic "feel" to the concepts of flying, but not to... flying. [quote]Also, have you ever done a sit down with or gotten permission to watch actual flight controllers in action, say at a small airport like Hagerstown or College Park? (For everyone else, I used to know Pinback when he lived in Maryland.)[/quote] As part of training, we spent 15-20 minutes in the tower at Manassas Municipal (KHEF). [quote]If you've actually been in an ATC site do ATC simulators give much of an accurate depiction of what is involved?[/quote] Having only been in a tower at a small airport, and not being very familiar with any hardcore tower sims ("Airport Madness 3D", from my Games of the Year post, is not really a simulator, it's purely a game), I cannot speak to that. However, having listened to hours of LiveATC, I am virtually certain that ATC simulators are a lot closer to the experience of the "real thing" than flight simulators are. Have I answered any of your questions satisfactorily? Can I provide any additional information? [/quote]