Introduction to myself and this blog

About this blog

Maybe I'll start with an introduction to the blog first since people are less likely to be interested in me.

I've been flight simming since I was 6-7, with sims such as IL2 and FSX. But I never really took it seriously until I was about 18. After pretty much a decade or so of flying anything from BF-109's to 747's, I decided to go right back to the basics. The more I tried to learn about aviation and flying in the real life, the more I realised just how unrealistic flight sims could be. I guess that's the beauty of them - they cater to both beginners who just want to jump in and fly, and to even real pilots who wish to practice flows and procedures. But I really wanted to use sims to learn as much as I could about real world flying, and this blog documents that journey.

Disclaimer: I recognise that no matter what I do, a sim is still a sim. It will never be able to fully replicate a real aircraft. Computer-based sims like these, especially, lack tactile feedback, which I understand to be very important to mastering the art of flying. I have never been at the controls of an aircraft, and as much as I would like to, I likely never will, so everything I say is based off what I've read or heard and I'm quite ready to correct any misunderstandings I may have. I don't profess to be an expert, and as with anything read anywhere, information should be cross-checked using multiple sources. No matter how proficient I may become at flying in a sim, I acknowledge that I will never be able to fly a real plane competently without formal instruction in a real aircraft.

I flew aircraft that barely had any resemblance at all to the aircraft they were supposed to emulate, as is the case with most freeware addons and default aircraft in FSX. It seemed A380's had A320 cockpits and all the boeing aircraft seemed to share a common 737 cockpit. System depth was very limited, and the autopilot modes and logic didn't work like how they would in real life. Of course, I understand that aircraft are incredibly complicated machines, and trying to emulate them in a simulator is no easy feat. Credit must be given to software developers for putting in the effort even if the end result wasn't very realistic.

The way I flew was pretty unrealistic too - I just took off, turned on the autopilot and set it to track a GPS great circle straight-line route, tried to intercept the ILS and turned off the autopilot once the plane was stabilized on the approach. And even then I had difficulty maintaining centre line! I flew with nothing but a mouse and a keyboard

Somewhere along the line, I decided I wanted to take flight sims a bit more seriously. And this is basically what this blog is about. There's nothing wrong with flying on sims just for fun, but I'm this blog will document my virtual pilot journey, and maybe it can be of some help to other virtual pilots who want to bring their simulation experience to a higher level. I got myself a joystick and a throttle, and some rudder pedals, and purchased X-Plane 11, which is definitely a step-up in my view.

So like I said, I decided to go right back to the basics. I started going through the flight lessons in FSX but I quickly realised that while they were good for those hoping to just hop in and fly, and keeping people with a short attention span interested, they were far from sufficient if one really wanted to get a good understanding about how planes work - and I believe flight sims are a really powerful tool in achieving that.

I tried searching around, and there are some really good resources around the web and in print, but I haven't really found one place that really brings all these resources together. Through the process of structuring my own learning, I hope that I'd be able to make life a little bit easier for fellow beginning flight simmers who wish to do the same. The blog will probably include some of my other opinions, some related to aviation, and maybe some not.

The case for flight sims  

Opinions remain divided about the effectiveness of flight sims, and the kind of student pilots who started flying sims first before real life. I think the common consensus is that flight sims are good for instrument training, and for learning procedures, but are quite useless at teaching actual hand-flying. Given the self-directed learning of most flight simmers, though, there may be quite a few bad habits that arise that may be reinforced through the flight sims. 

I don't think that can be helped, because there is no way a PC flight simulator will give you tactile feedback, and flight modelling and physics will never be 100% accurate. In multi-million dollar Level D sims don't get it absolutely right. But I don't think that means that PC flight simulators can come close in terms of realism. Companies like Precision Flight Controls use X-Plane software and flight modelling in their simulators, which are FAA-certified, so it can't be too far off. 

I think what we can do to help ourselves is, like whatever I've written above, to really go and dig around, reading material written for real pilots to really develop a firm grasp of flying concepts, reinforcing these through the use of a simulator. I believe that you can learn the basics through flight sims - how to trim, how to balance pitch and power, how to read instruments, how to utilise navigational aids, multitasking. And if you ever have the opportunity to transition to the real plane, continue to be open, be ready to disregard all of your flight simulation "experience" and un-learn any bad habits that may have inadvertently been picked up. It's better of course not to pick up these bad habits at all and the common ones that appear online from time to time, and some that cross my mind are: 

• Not looking outside the cockpit enough. 
• "Chasing" airspeeds, vertical speeds, and altitude - falling "behind" your plane 
• Not observing safety - doing preflight checks, thorough planning, scanning for traffic before turns, flying proper traffic patterns
• Dialing down realism settings through things like yaw dampers which may limit the flight simmer's understanding of how to execute coordinated turns 
• Calm weather which may cause flight simmers to become ignorant on how to correct for crosswinds during all phases of flight - taxiing, take-off, cruise, and landing
• Some flight simmers may neglect emergency procedures and fail to practice dealing with failures and emergencies 
• Single-crew environment (which most flight simmers fly in) does nothing to teach CRM (Crew Resource Management), which is definitely an important part of an airline pilot's skillset. 

I think if we are serious about learning, we continually cross-reference what we practice to what is taught in the real world, and if we continue to be open to improving our flying and making it more realistic, flight sims will become a powerful tool to teach and enforce good habits and teach the basics of flying.