Students and MS Flight Sim

Krieger said:
Has anyone else had students that are WAY TOO PROUD of their MicroSoft Flight Sim skills? One guy I had even had a MSFS private pilot cert printed out. I didn't even know they had that!

Not really complaining, but I do think it's funny.
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The question is, did you give him his MSFS part 61 endorsement to go take the check ride?
Personally, I think the flight model is X-Plane is massively better / more realistic than MSFS
 
gosleddog said:
The question is, did you give him his MSFS part 61 endorsement to go take the check ride?
Personally, I think the flight model is X-Plane is massively better / more realistic than MSFS
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MSFS for radio communication, shooting approaches, flying IFR : All day long. Learning to recover from a stall, visual reference flying, flying in turbulence, short approaches, engine outs, lazy 8's, chandelles, 8' son pylons, turn around a point, s turns, short field, soft field take off and landings : Nope.
 
TopGunn said:
MSFS for radio communication, shooting approaches, flying IFR : All day long. Learning to recover from a stall, visual reference flying, flying in turbulence, short approaches, engine outs, lazy 8's, chandelles, 8' son pylons, turn around a point, s turns, short field, soft field take off and landings : Nope.
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Disagree. Everything you mentioned above can be practiced in the sim IF DONE CORRECTLY. inigo88 nailed it I think.

You get out of it, what you put into it.

Also for what it is worth, "Condor - The Competition Soaring Simulator" has by far the best flight and turbulence/wind model of any PC sim that I have flown, and I have pretty much flown them all.
 
Mike H said:
A 1.5 hour first solo? with no dual on that same flight? Really? Followed up with a 2.2 hour solo, again with no dual?


I ain't buying it.

When I first soloed, the flight was a total of 1.3 hours .8 of which was dual and only .5 was solo.

Gotta pay attention to details
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Because the way you did it is the only way it can possibly be done.
 
Mike H said:
A 1.5 hour first solo? with no dual on that same flight? Really? Followed up with a 2.2 hour solo, again with no dual?


I ain't buying it.

When I first soloed, the flight was a total of 1.3 hours .8 of which was dual and only .5 was solo.

Gotta pay attention to details
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Uh I did the same thing. My solo was me going around the patten to my hearts content, my flight after was solo to another airport. My instructor had to leave so he signed me off to somewhere we had flown. Sorry you suck.
 
pullup said:
Uh I did the same thing. My solo was me going around the patten to my hearts content, my flight after was solo to another airport. My instructor had to leave so he signed me off to somewhere we had flown. Sorry you suck.
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That's not what his instructor appears to have done. And if that's what your CFI did for a first solo, he's a moron on a number of levels.
 
Mike H said:
That's not what his instructor appears to have done. And if that's what your CFI did for a first solo, he's a moron on a number of levels.
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I did the same thing for my solo as well.

Also where you say no dual on the same flight, I write the dual on a separate line and leave the solo time open for them so they can make their first entry without my signature and writing there. They seem to enjoy that as much as the solo flight.
 
Mike H said:
That's not what his instructor appears to have done. And if that's what your CFI did for a first solo, he's a moron on a number of levels.
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That's basically what my instructor did as well. He also did the dual on another line. The second instructor that soloed me (XC) had me do a couple of landings with him before I left and put it all in the same line. The DE questioned it on my checkride. My instructor had me go do landings, when I went to come in he told me to go do another. He would have let me continue if I wanted I'm sure.
 
inigo88 said:
My biggest flight sim "side effect" with my private training was the desire to fixate on the instrument panel. MSFS is a great IFR trainer but can't replicate seat of the pants flying or proper sight picture. For example in a steep turn, my initial inclination was to look at the attitude indicator to find 45 degrees and the inclinometer ball to coordinate the turn and not look out the window adequately. With some coaching though I was able to get the 45 degree sight picture of the horizon against the panel and "feel" when I had enough rudder to coordinate the turn, allowing me to better divide my time between looking out the window and making quick glances at the altimeter/DG/VSI. Where flight sim really helped was partly because I did some serious extra geeking out and learned to talk to ATC by flying on the VATSIM network. I ended up with a much better understanding of what ATC can and can't do, the 200 word ICAO pilot/controller vocabulary and was able to comfortably fly in congested/controlled airspace from the beginning, despite learning at an uncontrolled field out in the boonies.

Despite its negative stigma here on JC, past flight sim experience can be a beneficial and valuable tool IF your student is willing to approach their lessons with humility and an open mind. It's unfortunate that it seems to breed so many of these idiots that think they're god's gift to aviation because they have thousands of hours at xyz virtual airline (no doubt letting the autopilot land every coupled ILS approach) but like so many things in life you get what you put into it.

And for what it's worth I soloed at 16 hours, but felt like it should have been sooner. ;)
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I agree with this. My instructor had a hard time trying to get me out of the habit of staring at the panel on my training. Made my instrument training easier though. And I was probably way into MSFS as a kid but when I did start my private it made for a less steep of a learning curve. I wasn't the one to question the CFI and think that I was a badass just because I did MSFS.
 
sfgiants13 said:
I agree with this. My instructor had a hard time trying to get me out of the habit of staring at the panel on my training. Made my instrument training easier though. And I was probably way into MSFS as a kid but when I did start my private it made for a less steep of a learning curve. I wasn't the one to question the CFI and think that I was a badass just because I did MSFS.
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Exactly this. Attitude is everything. I played flight sim a lot growing up and think it helped out a LOT in certain small areas.

For instance, I was fairly confident reading and interpreting the instruments. I knew what they were telling me without having to spend a lot of time thinking about, and i feel I had pretty good SA. I knew for the most part how and why the primary controls worked...granted trim and flaps were a grand enigma. Over all I feel like my initial and BASIC stick and rudder skills were enhanced by my flight sim time. Now anything more than basic airmanship and all bets were off.

Where it really shined for me was when I started instrument. What MSFS lacks in airmanship realism it more than makes up for in procedure realism. I could practice holds and NDB approaches till my little heart was content.
 
poser765 said:
Where it really shined for me was when I started instrument. What MSFS lacks in airmanship realism it more than makes up for in procedure realism. I could practice holds and NDB approaches till my little heart was content.
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When I have a student who is having some learning curve issues transitioning to instruments, my first default question is "do you have flightsim?" If yes, I suggest things they can do to practice. If no, well then we have to find alternate things, which usually means them spending more money. Flightsim is golden if you want to keep the costs down on the instrument training.
 
gotWXdagain said:
When I have a student who is having some learning curve issues transitioning to instruments, my first default question is "do you have flightsim?" If yes, I suggest things they can do to practice. If no, well then we have to find alternate things, which usually means them spending more money. Flightsim is golden if you want to keep the costs down on the instrument training.
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It really did help out a lot during instrument. Any chance I had, I would go and practice a DP, hold, and a few approaches on MSFS. It does keep the costs down, and helps to practice everything. We did have one student call in telling us that, "he had over 2000 hours in MSFS, an that should get him at least a commercial certificate, right?" It took everything we had to not just bust out laughing...
 
Mike H said:
A 1.5 hour first solo? with no dual on that same flight? Really? Followed up with a 2.2 hour solo, again with no dual?


I ain't buying it.

When I first soloed, the flight was a total of 1.3 hours .8 of which was dual and only .5 was solo.

Gotta pay attention to details
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This was a very disrespectful post. And then you go on to call other people's flight instructors "morons." And what details need paying attention to?

You're a new CFI and I'd love to explain various ways to accomplish training but honestly your attitude makes me think you wouldn't listen.
 
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