Nonsense!

In 1999 I had an opportunity to "fly" the 777 Simulator at Boeing. I
was a two-hundred hour Cessna 172 pilot -- strictly VFR. With 30
minutes of "training" and a bit of coaching I was able to "fly" to the
destination and make a successful IFR approach and landing. I believe
an experienced PC Flight Simulator "pilot" could do as well.

Modern Glass cockpits really do make flying much easier -- when
everything works properly. When it doesn't the the pilot, i.e., Systems
Manger, really earns his/her salary.

I don't have any doubts that the September 11th Terrorists did not fly
the airliners into the targets. Hitting three of Four was probably
better luck than they would have predicted, but even a blind pig finds
an occasional truffle. See Occam's Razor.

- John Ousterhout -




Immanuel Goldstein wrote:
The Impossibility of Flying Heavy Aircraft Without Training

Nila Sagadevan | February 21 2006

Nila Sagadevan is an aeronautical engineer and a qualified pilot of
heavy aircraft.

What follows is an attempt to bury this myth once and for all, because
I’ve heard this ludicrous explanation bandied about, ad nauseum, on the
Internet and the TV networks—invariably by people who know nothing
substantive about flight simulators, flying, or even airplanes.

A common misconception non-pilots have about simulators is how “easy” it
is to operate them. They are indeed relatively easy to operate if the
objective is to make a few lazy turns and frolic about in the “open
sky”. But if the intent is to execute any kind of a maneuver with even
the least bit of precision, the task immediately becomes quite daunting.
And if the aim is to navigate to a specific geographic location hundreds
of miles away while flying at over 500 MPH, 30,000 feet above the ground
the challenges become virtually impossible for an untrained pilot.

[snip]