Real-life Landing Performance after "flying" MS Flight Sim

[Jay Honeck]

As most of you know, we've built the "Kiwi" (See it here:
http://alexisparkinn.com/the_kiwi_is_born.htm) at our inn -- a
full-sized flight simulator -- as a prototype for several sims we're
planning to install at the Iowa Children's Museum, as part of a
permanent aviation exhibit.

Naturally, we've been flying it a LOT, these last couple of months, as
guest after guest (and visitors of all kinds, on "Movie Tuesday"
nights) has taken 'er for a spin. Much of this time is spent
"instructing" -- but a lot of people want me to demo fly it, so, of
course -- I do. (It's hell, but SOMEONE has to do it. I really,
REALLY have been having a hard time getting any honest work done,
lately.... ;-)

As the weather has worsened in the Midwest, and the holidays have
approached, we have flown Atlas (our Cherokee 235) less and less. This
is normal for this time of year, but is often frustrating. In the
past, both Mary and I have noticed a slight-but-noticeable degradation
in the quality of our landings, as we went from flying twice a week, to
once a week, to twice a month...

Not this December! I have "flown" the Kiwi so frequently that my stick
skills have remained razor sharp, perhaps even improving over the last
30 days. Mary hasn't flown the Kiwi as often as I have, but she has
still done quite a few demos, and both of us were pleased to pull off
absolutely picture-perfect "greaser" landings today -- the kind where
you simply have a hard time telling when the flying stops, and the
taxiing starts.

Personally, I find it harder to land the Kiwi, due to the more limited
visual cues (even with a 104-inch screen, you don't have an unlimited
field of vision), so you end up doing a lot more "by feel". This
practice has apparently translated into a better "touch" when feeling
for the ground in real life flying.

I find this experience to be convincing evidence that our Kiwi --
besides being a helluva lot of fun -- is a valuable flight-training
tool.

Blue skies -- and Merry Christmas, all!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Doug[_1_]]

Yeah right, now lets see you land a taildragger -- FOR REAL! :-)

[Kev]

Jay Honeck wrote:
> [...]
> I find this experience to be convincing evidence that our Kiwi --
> besides being a helluva lot of fun -- is a valuable flight-training
> tool.

>From the responses before this thread, it seems that a lot of people
use the sims to keep up our scan, practice nav and instrument landing,
etc. If the FAA rule of "all available information" were to be taken
to its nth degree, you could almost argue that any (non-constantly
flying) pilot who doesn't use a sim, is breaking the rules :)

Happy Holidays!
Kev

[Oz Lander[_1_]]

On 24 Dec 2006 16:03:50 -0800, Jay Honeck wrote the following in
skywriting:

> As most of you know, we've built the "Kiwi" (See it here:
> http://alexisparkinn.com/the_kiwi_is_born.htm) at our inn -- a
> full-sized flight simulator -- as a prototype for several sims we're
> planning to install at the Iowa Children's Museum, as part of a
> permanent aviation exhibit.
>
> Naturally, we've been flying it a LOT, these last couple of months, as
> guest after guest (and visitors of all kinds, on "Movie Tuesday"
> nights) has taken 'er for a spin. Much of this time is spent
> "instructing" -- but a lot of people want me to demo fly it, so, of
> course -- I do. (It's hell, but SOMEONE has to do it. I really,
> REALLY have been having a hard time getting any honest work done,
> lately.... ;-)
>
> As the weather has worsened in the Midwest, and the holidays have
> approached, we have flown Atlas (our Cherokee 235) less and less. This
> is normal for this time of year, but is often frustrating. In the
> past, both Mary and I have noticed a slight-but-noticeable degradation
> in the quality of our landings, as we went from flying twice a week, to
> once a week, to twice a month...
>
> Not this December! I have "flown" the Kiwi so frequently that my stick
> skills have remained razor sharp, perhaps even improving over the last
> 30 days. Mary hasn't flown the Kiwi as often as I have, but she has
> still done quite a few demos, and both of us were pleased to pull off
> absolutely picture-perfect "greaser" landings today -- the kind where
> you simply have a hard time telling when the flying stops, and the
> taxiing starts.
>
> Personally, I find it harder to land the Kiwi, due to the more limited
> visual cues (even with a 104-inch screen, you don't have an unlimited
> field of vision), so you end up doing a lot more "by feel". This
> practice has apparently translated into a better "touch" when feeling
> for the ground in real life flying.
>
> I find this experience to be convincing evidence that our Kiwi --
> besides being a helluva lot of fun -- is a valuable flight-training
> tool.
>
> Blue skies -- and Merry Christmas, all!

I went the other way. I couldn't have a flying lesson last week due to bad
weather. I decided to fire up my flight sim, and did the best landing in a
small plane I've ever done on the simulator. Normally I don't do too well,
but since learnng to fly for real, my sim performance has been much better.
--
Oz Lander
I'm not always right, But I'm never wrong.

[john smith]

But not just ANY taildragger....
How about a Twin Beech?
No, no, no! It has to be single engine...
A Pitts! That's what I want you land, a Pitts!

As Norm Crabtree used to say, "The airshow begins when the Pitt's flares
to land!"

(I still have not see 16Right, yet. I was pleased to see the quote of
Norm in the lead in to the movie trailer, though.)

[Jay Honeck]

> I went the other way. I couldn't have a flying lesson last week due to bad
> weather. I decided to fire up my flight sim, and did the best landing in a
> small plane I've ever done on the simulator. Normally I don't do too well,
> but since learnng to fly for real, my sim performance has been much better.

That makes sense.

A few other things I've noticed:

- When I take off in the real plane, after flying the Kiwi a lot, I'm
taken aback by the motion. It actually feels odd, for a few seconds.

- The autogen scenery in Flight Sim 2004 is far more interesting than
the actual view out the window at this time of year. We need some snow
to cover up all the mud!

- It is absolutely uncanny how real the Kiwi is, especially when
compared to flying in calm air, like today. It's difficult for any
non-motion sim to accurately re-create turbulence, so that part of the
experience is not quite "real" -- but, wow, when the ride is smooth,
like today, it is exactly like flying the Kiwi.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Bob Noel]

In article om>,
"Jay Honeck" > wrote:


> - It is absolutely uncanny how real the Kiwi is, especially when
> compared to flying in calm air, like today. It's difficult for any
> non-motion sim to accurately re-create turbulence, so that part of the
> experience is not quite "real" -- but, wow, when the ride is smooth,
> like today, it is exactly like flying the Kiwi.

Clearly you need to get those hydraulic lifters used to trick out
cars so that you can add turbulence to the kiwi!

--
Bob Noel
Looking for a sig the
lawyers will hate

[Montblack]

("Bob Noel" wrote)
> Clearly you need to get those hydraulic lifters used to trick out cars so
> that you can add turbulence to the kiwi!


<http://www.linktrainer.com/WebPages/Business_For_Sale/ant-18_trainer.htm>
Check out the "base" photos <g>

http://www.linktrainer.com/WebPages/for_sale.htm
Main page

http://www.starksravings.com/linktrainer/linktrainer.htm
History of the Link Trainer


Montblack

[Jay Honeck]

> > Clearly you need to get those hydraulic lifters used to trick out cars so
> > that you can add turbulence to the kiwi!
>
> <http://www.linktrainer.com/WebPages/Business_For_Sale/ant-18_trainer.htm>
> Check out the "base" photos <g>

My God! Look at all that "stuff" under the seat!

A friend of mine used to work on Iowa City's old Link trainer back in
the '70s, in exchange for "flight time" in it. He told me that it was
about 1 hour of maintenance for every one hour of "flight". Glad we've
moved beyond that -- although it *could* do some things the Kiwi can't.


Of course, the Kiwi effortlessly does things that were unimagined back
then, so it's a fair trade off.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"