Real life is much easier, in terms of actually handling the aircraft. We get used to the differences,and it's asking a lot to get total realism,  but they are still obvious, and sometimes annoying.

Especially without Track IR... compared to RL, it's like flying with a really stiff neck.    That's my #1 peeve (which I will rectify eventually by getting or making an IR tracker)... in RL, you don't want to whip your head around too much (unless you're in a dogfight, race, formation or aerobatics), but you can easily flick your eyes around the panel, around the view outside... you can look over your shoulder very quickly, etc. I don't know how anybody flies in the sim with only 2D views... VFR, anyway.

Then there's the models. No matter how realistic they are, they're not the same. It's not very noticeable with very large aircraft (for example, I have handled the real Ford Tri-Motor in flight, briefly, and it turns pretty much like the default model in FS9), and in general it's not very noticeable in typical maneuvers in any airplane, but on the ground they're all lousy, including taking off and landing.

Then there's comms... VATSIM, I hear, compensates well for this, but it's annoyingly robotic in the sim (I don't mean the voices, I mean the whole approach to contacting and conversing with ATC). In real life, it's much, much more flexible and smooth, even if the controllers are not always flexible or smooth, LOL.


And there's other little things... the air itself is not modeled realistically (not that it's reasonable to expect that, or expect the average PC to handle such processing!).
No terrain-induced turbulence or lift, no effect of terrain or ground objects on wind, and gusts and turbulence are just not quite right. Even the add-ons are not very good with some of this... Active Sky allows vertical air movement, but I can't use it, because it's very heavy-handed, to the extent that in a light single you can spend an entire 100-mile leg battling either an updraft or downdraft; the real world is very rarely like that; usually you get a bubble here, a sinkhole there. True, in RL there's a lot more variation in air behavior in RL, but RL pilots learn how to predict it, and often use it to their advantage.

And I've tried using thermal add-ons for soaring in FS9, but again, it's not right. The thermals are not where you'd normally expect to find them, nor are they dependent on weather conditions, as they would be in RL.

The only advantages to the sim, IMHO, are that it's cheaper, and I get to enjoy operations, destinations and aircraft that would not be possible for me in RL.

I think for recreational flying, real life is easier, but for more complex stuff, life IMC and heavy metal, sim is easier.

Seat of the pants flying.
It's easier in real life because you can actually feel what the plane is doing, instead of relying on gauges alone.

The way I see it, flying ATP in simulator would probably teach you just enough to be able to make an emergency landing in a real 737 if your pilots were unconcious, assuming you know where to look for gauges and manuals.

It is far easier to stay alive in the simulated world

Matt

expat wrote on Mar 14^th, 2010 at 4:29am:



Hmmm..  considering how unlikely it is that you'd die flying an airplane.. compared to the unhealthy aspect of spending hours in front of a computer.. I'm not so sure about that 

I had the chance to go up in a CAP 182 a few months ago.

From that, I would say that real life is significantly easier than simulated, primarily because you can fell what the aircraft is doing, rather than have to get all your information from a screen.

That has its downsides however, mainly in the form of airsickness... 

Only ever been airsick twice. Once in the 182, and once when I was in the back of a C-130 250' off the deck in the mountains around Albuquerque.

DaveSims wrote on Mar 16^th, 2010 at 5:25pm:



You forgot the "pause" button too

Matt

I’m going to disagree and say the flying in real life is not easier than flying in the sim… no matter which way you slice it. I agreed that aircraft control is easier in real life than in the sim (extra sensory input, as mentioned). However, this is only on part of what it takes to operate an aircraft. In a real aircraft, even seat-of-the pants GA, you have to be well aware of airspace, weather, other aircraft, communications, navigation, monitoring systems. All of which can be easily ignored in the sim.

When you step up to more complicated operations, even more things fall off the table. There is no communications menu in the air with a list of responses and frequencies. Even with failures turned on in the sim, it isn’t very realistic as the failures in real life failures are often subtle or intermittent (fouled mags, poor radio reception, etc.). Systems, especially jet systems, are poorly implemented. You are not worried about managing complex electrical, hydraulic, pressurization, autopilot, and other systems as you would be in a real jet.

Anyway, I guess the point is that there is a lot that goes into “flying” beyond aircraft control.  There is a non-stop flood of information that you need to understand, process, and take timely and decisive action on; none of which is well represented by the sim.

Splinter562 wrote on Mar 18^th, 2010 at 12:58am:

I think all of that goes without saying, as well as the knowledge required to qualify for any kind of pilot certification... but the OP, as far as I can tell, was about "flying the plane" as opposed to "flying the plan".


When you slice it that way, I still maintain that real flying is easier.

And you can certainly get into all of the things you mentioned using even a modest non-certified simulator program... if you want to... but that's beside the point.

On a side note: you mention the lack of an ATC menu in real life... for me, I find that to be absolutely maddening in FS9 and would prefer realistic comms.
For example, you can't contact whoever controls a controlled airspace until you penetrate said airspace, and you can't just say "wind check" on final at a towered airport... those little things make flying much easier, even in complex aircraft on complex flight plans.

And AFAIK there are no emergency radio options....

'We have an engine fire'
'Oh, just follow the aircraft on approach' 'You've gone in too fast, go around and try again'
'We're finally on the ground'
'Just leave the runway when you can, it's not as if anything different has happened here compared to a regular landing'

Which kind of kills the realism. I don't bother using failures because there's usually no difference, atleast not when it comes to landing the thing.

I definitely don't have FS9, haha, and it's pretty much a miracle that I can run FSX on my laptop. Anyhow, as for the studying thing, I leave flightsim running... like I'll choose a place somewhere in the world, and a destination a few hours away, and pretty much leave the whole flight on autopilot, doing little things here and there, and focus most of my attention in a From the Ground Up book, or more recently the Canadian Instrument Rating Workbook. I don't always study like that, but sometimes I do. I don't have to pay attention that much to the flight, because it's flight sim, don't get any emergencies, the weather's always good, stuff like that. I would never study in an actual airplane that I was either in control of or right seat in, that's just asking for trouble I think.