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Could a DCS player fly a plane IRL?


pegg00

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Lets discuss a hypothetical scenario where a veteran DCS player, with no actual flight experience were to hop inside of a real airplane, (…) Would they be able to start, taxi, take-off, and land ?

 

There are a couple of companies around here that will take you out in an aircraft and let you fly - as they call it 'gentleman's aerobatics' with no prior experience.

 

I've done it a couple of times - once in a Pitts special, and once in a low wing trainer with conventional nosewheel gear (They'd just got rid of their Yak-52 and bought that :( ).

 

The pilot of the Pitts got about 7 (?) m off the ground, gave me the controls & said - climb & turn to follow the river to the coast.

 

Not my video, but here's someone else doing the same thing to give you the idea:

gZi5I6fqXW0

 

He would demonstrate something once, then get me to do it ( so inverted flight, rolls, Cuban 8s, split S etc).

At the end he put it into a spin to lose altitude before he landed, which felt very familiar, and a lot of fun :)

 

I found it very like flying DCS (except I needed to make bigger movements with the stick, & 4G is a lot more uncomfortable IRL than in the SIM).

 

The second time I did it with a different company. She got me to taxi out, line up, took the controls for take-off, but again once a few metres off the ground handed them over and said climb, turn and head out over the lake. We did the acrobatics, and after the flight she got me to fly back to the airfield & fly the approach. She gave a demo of pitch for speed and throttle for altitude & said I could fly to short approach if I wanted - which I flew part of then gave her the controls again.

 

An ex-airforce trainer is not an F-18, or an A-380.

I haven't taken off, and I haven't actually landed.

 

Staring is just knowing which switches to push in what order. That's what a sim is meant to teach.

 

I have taxi'd and flown a flight from maybe 10 m off the ground to altitude and briefly across country to the area(s) where we went through simple acrobatics, flown back, upwind, crosswind, downwind, base and part of final. Nothing seemed very different from DCS. I wouldn't want to have tried it with the Pitts, but I think if my life depended on it (& someone gave the rotate and landing speeds) in good conditions I could have got the more conventional aircraft in the air and back on the ground.

 

 

Lets discuss a hypothetical scenario where a veteran DCS player, with no actual flight experience were to hop inside of a real airplane, in this example a Hornet, but it does not really matter. Would they be able to start, taxi, takeoff, and land(weapons deployment?)? Why or why not?

 

With respect to systems - Wags has a post from early in the A-10C development where he recounts how he was invited to try one of the ANG (?) full simulators.

 

From cold and dark, with his experience with the DCS sim, he started the aircraft, navigated to a target area, dropped munitions on a target, flew back and landed.

Cheers.

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One last word, for the road. The simulators of the military and civil companies are not used to learn to fly, they are there to help you learn the procedures.

And above all it costs less to recycle a procedure on a simu than on the real plane.

They are much more expensive than our simulators on our computers, which could in no case be used for the training of real pilots. Otherwise it would be the case.

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some dcs players would be pretty okay, but i would absolutely not trust picking a name out of a hat

 

10 years in dcs usually means 10 years of baking in bad habits and faulty assumptions


Edited by probad
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Later I am going to visit again a real F/A-18C simulator once the F/A-18C has got out of beta (so can take couple years actually) but it was not difficult actually years back to do the landings and basic flight maneuvers. The weapons systems were odd back then, but now spending more time in DCS it has grown to me better, but that what those simulators are more about, to learn how to perform the specific tasks and react in dangerous situations like malfunctions etc.

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I just watched a documentary about a 77 year old guy who had to land a light aircraft with no flying experience whatsoever. after the pilot died.

in the dark. at Humberside airport.

with no instrument lights because they didn't want him randomly flicking buttons in the cockpit.

 

and its on par with many of the landings I have seen on DCS multiplayer :)

 

everyone, from the rescue helicopter pilot to the flight instructor brought in, thought he was toast.

 

he started flying lessons straight after. he did his first take off a month after his first solo landing :)

 

if I was in his situation, I would be thankful for DCS..

 

video recorded by the raf helicopter is here

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2465884/Caught-camera-Heart-stopping-moment-light-aircraft-passenger-77-brought-plane-land-pilot-collapsed-controls.html

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The way you phrased it, especially for modern military jets, but probably for any plane for that matter, I'd say that there's no chance that DCS player with no IRL time would be able to get the plane safely off the ground.

 

I have no experience with military jets or any powered planes for that matter, but I do have experience with gliders and I can say that during my very first winch launch I had no idea what is going on. And I did play simulators before that a lot.

 

But it happened so fast and the stuff that is happening with you and around you is so completely alien that I don't think you'd have mental capacity to deal with it even if you knew theoretically what you should do. You really need to develop some muscle memory to be able to handle it.

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I woke up and it was nice to see that this thread got going. Personally Id like to believe DCS gives me a little bit of a heads up if I ever start training (or god forbid am in an emergency situation), but i completely see how many bad habits and procedure ignoring I do even now. But hey if offered the chance I might still take a Hornet up solo because yolo.

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I'm 3 lessons in to PPL training on helicopters, that's 5.4 hours up to now, and the first hour was a "trial" flight so no actual instruction going on, just having fun.

I was able to hold a stable hover in the 2nd lesson (we didn't do any hovering in the first lesson) and was doing takeoff and landing in the 3rd lesson (4 days ago)

No doubt in my mind I have achieved this thanks to the helicopters BelSimTek have made for DCS. The sim gives you a great idea of how they behave and has certainly given me the upper hand.

Do I think I could go solo on my first flight coming straight from a sim? absolutely not, that would be suicide.

Hopefully I can get a CPL after the PPL, depends on a couple of medical snags..

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I've had some flights where things got really bumpy and also experienced wind-sheer a couple of times, one in which resulted in a rather hefty return to terra-firma, flight simulators just don't convey that adequately enough to the extent that I think a sim-only-chairviator would probably get way out of shape and be woefully unprepared for such an experience.

 

Excellent points. My two most terrifying experiences were being hit with a down draught at the edge of a serious cloud bank. I + instructor were the last flight of the day before the weather closed in. Strayed too near the edge of the clouds. Going from full lift to barely any was not a pleasant experience, or one that I'd repeat in a hurry.

 

2nd horrible experience was the result of flying above the 0 degree isotherm in a glider. Turned out the meteorological part of the briefing had been incorrect about the altitude of the 0 degree. That also got interesting as the glider got heavier & heavier due to wing ice.

 

This sort of thing a simulator cannot train you for, at least not easily. This sort of experience also reinforces the need to have your emergency check lists down cold. And I mean committed to memory so thoroughly that the responses become instinctive as opposed to conscious thought & reaction.

 

Like I said in my previous post, I'd like to see more options for including the "admin" stuff introduced to DCS. I think it would provide a more complete experience.

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I've sat in and Taxi'd In an F/A-18D, We did not have clearance to do anything more, lol.

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The idea of real flight simulator training is too practice procedures that are not commonly used. Emergency caution indicators and what situation might have led up to this and the number of corrections that must be sorted out very quickly. Systems failure in flight that obviously cannot be implemented in actual flight. Fire, mechanical failure, instruments that are incorrect, fuel, weight/balance, maintenance history and the list goes on.

 

Our simplified simulators do not come close to many events/situiations that come up almost every flight that are somewhat out of the norm. An unfamiliar pilot will be overwhelmed almost immediately if an abnormal event happens.

 

Don't kid yourself thinking you will be able to pilot an aircraft with only flight sim experience.

 

Go for a first time check ride at a local flight school. The easiest trainer, Cessna 152, and of course a CFI, ask if you could be PIC, right seat and you want to do all the flying from start to finish. Tell your CFI that you are proficient in a home type simulator but have zero experience in a actual aircraft. What do you think he will say?

 

Now picture you in a P-51. With only flight sim experience.

Now picture you in a F-18. With only filght sim experience.

 

Look up aircraft accidents and hours, in type, of the PIC.

 

If you make it to the correct runway while taxing without crashing into something or hitting something, and somehow get on the runway and start your take-off run, again without swerving off the runway while adding power...

 

Make it into the air without stalling while trying to make your first turn, as you forget your flaps are extended and you cannot see anything since the nose of the aircraft is blocking your view and the unfamiliar motion and the sudden feeling that you are not sure of the attitude of your aircraft's position but you fight off the vertigo and make it through the first turn only to realize the aircraft is not doing what you are doing with the controls, scares the sh-- out of you and then ....all you have to do is to wonder why the stall warning is still going off and the engine sounds louder than at take-off....

 

and gee all you have to do then is too finish all the check list and probably prepare for your landing. Lets see, nothing is familiar when I look out the windscreen...where the hell is the airport runway, it all looks the same.

 

No, you will not be able to fly a training aircraft, much less a WW2 prop plane and even more doubtful, a modern jet fighter without killing yourself at some point.

 

4 or 5 hours training you will be able to probably taxi a trainer with direction from your flight instructor and may even be able to take-off if you have had ground school and know how to communicate with the tower but even at this juncture you will be very unfamiliar with all the important flight rules, the aircraft and a host of other characteristics that must be almost second nature.

 

If this is a taildragger and you only have 4-5 hours you probably wont be able to take-off and taxing will be quite challenging. You will not be able to land without killing yourself. I have over 1100 hours in real taildraggers.

 

I know... I've heard the stories of folks that have flown without sim or real flight experience.

Thats a Death Wish.

 

Laz :D

 

 

+1!!!

 

 

Sims definitely give you a nice heads up and stuff, but the feeling of reality completely disorientating, you can be calm, cool, and collected in the sim, but IRL will seriously throw you off, you get completely overwhelmed, and can't think straight. There is just something about it that i can't really explain.

 

 

 

But yes, you would be 20x better of with good sim experience then without, and yes it could possibly keep you from dying, but that is a still a small chance.

 

 

I had quite a bit of casual sim experience when i started lessons and it is a very different feeling. DCS does that feeling better than any other sim by far, but it is still like 2%.

DCS only really started helping when i followed procedures and flew with precision (at least tried), and even then it was mainly helpful with just the mental aspect, not stick and rudder (although it did make it easier to focus due to lower mental workload).

 

 

 

Also 4-5 hrs seems about right for taxing around and stuff, i have about 4 hrs (all in tailwheel) and i can taxi pretty well but takeoff and landing i still need quite a bit of help with.


Edited by kolga

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I won't give a real Nascar Race to a kid after playing 1000 hours of Grand Turismo.

 

I won't even give him a Renault on a lone industrial parkway.

 

So yeah, give an armchair pilot a modern jet fighter for which pilots need to train for hundreds of hours, and study 10 times more hours procedures and aviation regulations.

 

I dare you to even find your way while taxiing in your average airfield without ****ing up...

 

Now, when I did my "flight baptism" I was able to keep a Cessna 172 level and I even made two level wide turns, one to right and one to left. And I was able to "more or less" reply at the instructor questions about navigation, VFR instruments and such.

 

So current sims gives you some knowledge about air navigation and the basics of piloting. But I won't be able to even make the Cessna flight ready by myself.

 

Maybe, just maybe if you give me all the checklists and an instructor to peek over my shoulder I COULD, because I'm familiar with the procedures and cockpit instruments.

 

But at the moment I have to react to ANYTHING, I would be dead. In a car you can at least drive to the side and brake to a full stop.

 

In a plane if you **** up, then you are ****ed up.


Edited by Eviscerador
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It certainly seems to be possible in a Cessna 172:

 

 

As far as fast jets go, I highly doubt it. There is too much going on too fast, and the room for error is huge.

 

I could certainly imagine it being done in an A-10, since it is such a stable flying platform.


Edited by Boris

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