How Big are yours?
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I suppose that if someone has never flown an airplane before, flying a fighter would be pretty unfeasible. I’ll definitely give you that. I was thinking in terms of simulation combined with other flying experience (such as mine, in the Cessna 150/172), rather than none at all. You made a good point, there. It also probably comes down to the individual person; one person might be able to, another might not. This is definitely an interesting topic. I think we can all agree that as far as operating systems goes, the simulator is an excellent tool. During my first time in the Cessna, I knew what every single control did, and how to use it. It was just the flying part that was hard/different. That, and working in a real environment where mistakes count, and where other people are flying around the pattern.
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A plane is a plane.
A Cessna pilot can deal with another plane especially modern a/c which are much “easier” to fly (except the fact that a jet must be flown with AOA, not just airspeed, this is what simulation like BMS can learn you quite efficiently).
I am not talking about doing the fighter pilot job … I am talking about staying alive and maybe land the “trap”.
But someone who never flew an a/c in real … it is another story. Main point are physiological sensations and possible illusions, flight controls (still different from a Warthog FCC3), and the 3rd dimension which is different from the perception we have on a 2D screen.
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(still different from a Warthog FCC3)
Or a cough Sidewinder 2…
Anyway, I agree with you 100%. Switching from one aircraft to another is much, much easier than going from the simulator to the real deal.
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Or a cough Sidewinder 2…
LOL … yes yes, or a Sidewinder 2
However, it depends on the plane type. A Sidewinder 2 FFB will be closer to the real Spitfire than a Cougar FFSSB
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Well played.
Also, just out of curiosity, do you fly at all?
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On the 8th FS site, I see a photo of you with a fighter. Are you a retired fighter pilot?
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On the 8th FS site, I see a photo of you with a fighter. Are you a retired fighter pilot?
Switching PM.
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I think the issue you guys have is the definition - sure, you might be able to fly thr plane based on sim experience, but it’s not going to be to the same standard at all as someone who has their hours in the real plane, and it certainly will not qualify you to do the rest of the job aside from the basic flying skills.
On the other hand though, I dont think anyone thinks otherwise anyway - thats like suggesting that a fighter pilot could come and do my job as a computer salesperson without any training. Sure, you may be able to tell a good computer from a poor one, but any job has its nuances you only get from experience… making extra dollars/clearing stock for a salesperson, or improving flight safety and airmanship for a pilot…
Oh, and for the amount of work that went into the FM, I do maintain that the number of people who made a successful landing on their first try in BMS surely suggests its possible. Granted its not as safe as starting out on a slow plane and working your way up, but the plane was made to fly reliably and easily, not to replicate the flying qualities of the ‘Spirit of St. Lois’.
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Coupled with my real world flying experience, I feel that I could probably take off and land a Viper…if everything was up and running, zero chance of in-flight emergency, etc. I understand the physics of flight, I know the Viper as it is modeled in BMS. That is probably enough to not die in a perfect world. But flying is never perfect, and a huge part of flying is knowing what to do when something goes wrong, as it always does. I got into a hornet sim for an hour and made consecutive successful 2 and 3 wire traps starting from my first attempt. The naval aviator was impressed, but I know that if they had thrown the most simple of caution messages at me, I’d have plastered myself into the ocean or the back of the carrier. The concept of flight is easy, turning left and right is easy, but being a fighter pilot takes something very few of us possess.
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I got into a hornet sim for an hour and made consecutive successful 2 and 3 wire traps starting from my first attempt. The naval aviator was impressed
Same here! I had the change to ride the real F-18F sim (both pits ), I know nothing about this bird (although have some rl stuff from out there), and did a 3rd-wire catch straight after seating there… Actually the 2 instructors where bored until then so that pull their attention and asked me to do it again to believe it was not by lack, then full free fun ride… lol
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while chatting with a fighter pilot he said “you are not flying unless your B@LLS touch the floor (due to G’s)” he was exagerating of course but i think we all get the point…
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I can’t/won’t answer the question, buy when I was stationed in Korea in the late 90s, a couple of Apache crew chiefs were arguing if one could actually pilot the helicopter, given his hours in a simulator.
Long story short: It came off the ground fine.
Then he landed it in a pond
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@Slanger - I must dispute your comment about civilian simulation being able to confer any base ability only in the realm of dreams. I feel I did perform far better in my first flight for the few hundred hours on FSX I had conducted prior.
I was speaking in generalities, Blu3wolf. Any complex sim can give a pilot a leg up on others, as it were, in terms of procedures and the like . . . that’s what they’re all about. However, a sim can’t (ahem) simulate some of the physiological aspects of flying in the RW. For example, vertigo.
I was introduced to a ‘worst case’ scenario during my training (the ‘vomit comet’ simulator ride) yet I was not prepared a few years later for a visually induced case of vertigo, where my eyes ‘told’ me that we were in a 45 degree dive during refueling. I had an A-10 on the boom, and could not see the horizon because of haze at our relatively low altitude. I checked my gauges first to insure that the 'Hawg was in the envelope, then talked to my pilots on interphone to get assurance that we were indeed flying straight and level.
From a pilot’s point of view, simulator rides are designed, in many cases, to make pilots trust their instruments, most especially when landing during less than ideal weather conditions . . . been there, watched that.
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Now the expanded commentary you provide, I can completely agree with.
I don’t think anyone is saying you can get to the point on a sim where you can do everything a qualified pilot can do IRL. Heck, the manuals call the F-16 the US air forces aircraft most prone to causing said spatial disorientation on account of the large bubble canopy.
Still, in clear weather conditions, I think the more checklist anal pilots in BMS could handle clear weather conditions, and possibly IMC if they stuck to the principles in the IFR manual.
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Checklist anal . . . exactly. The checklists aren’t written by bureaucrats. They are written by engineers (at first) then by test pilots who put their lives on the line wringing out the aircraft in all aspects, from walking up to it to (hopefully) walking away from it. Included in the inflight evaluation is exploration of all four corners of the flight envelope and everything that could go wrong, whether real or imagined.
I’m sorry if I sound ‘holier than thou,’ but I’ve been there and done that, where Emergency Procedures, both observed and done, have saved not only the AF equipment, but my butt and those of my fellow crewmembers.
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I’m sorry if it came across as disparaging. I’m one of those guys who ‘wastes time’ following checklists in BMS, so trust me when I say that I meant no insult. I just know it’s not everyone’s preferred way to sim.
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The goodness of a pilot is how many 9s you can string together in a 0.999… type confidence level of being safe and effective. A FSX-only user piloting a Cessna solo might have a 0.9 confidence value where a 50 hour student has a 0.99 confidence value. Then the chief test pilot in Wichita has a 0.9999 value. This is how I see it. Most people can pass coin toss (50/50) odds in many things. Professionalism is how small you can make the gap between you and perfect. Every increase of the safety envelope is smaller than the last effort with diminishing returns.
And of course flying the thing is child’s play compared to the mission or combat mission environment. Being able to ice skate is just the beginning if you’re in the NHL.
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The goodness of a pilot is how many 9s you can string together in a 0.999….
That is a whole other ball game…:)