Dave writes:

A good sim can make you forget you are grounded.

Yup. And it is surprising how simple the simulation can be in order
to accomplish this. Not every single detail need be simulated; if the
right details are simulated, your brain will fill in the rest, often
in a way that's at least as vivid as the real thing.

The fights were fast,
furious and the sim aircraft were accurately modeled, so you had to
know how to fly each different aircraft, it's strengths and
weaknesses. - and you could die without getting hurt!

My little adventure a few days ago trying to fly IFR from Boston to
JFK was quite taxing. The mere fact that I don't smell the jet fuel
or feel the aircraft rumbling along the taxiway beneath me didn't
matter very much.

I notice that serious simmers are careful not to "step out of
character." Everything is done as in real life, and after a while you
forget that it's not real life. If a controller has to deal with a
pilot who has declared a serious emergency, it gets very draining to
bring him in to a safe landing. The fact that he simply made up the
emergency and then everyone played along with it doesn't matter.

To some extent, I think that people who have trouble taking simulation
seriously may also have trouble taking the real thing seriously. And
simulation also requires following certain rules and exercising a
certain amount of discipline; people who cannot do that for the
purposes of simulation may also have trouble doing it in other
situations ... including while flying a real plane. "Oh, I don't need
to listen to that controller--I know what I'm doing and he's just
following some stupid procedure."

Sims have their place. I picked a friend just after he went through a
"sim" session, (He was training in a new type, 737 I think)

He was a MESS! They had piled several failures on him, he had to
change his clothes, he was soaked, and actually shaking a bit, and
his voice was unsteady. Maybe a sim, but what they put him through
was "real" enough! (he passed)

Full-motion sims have an evil reputation, perhaps in part because the
instructors operating them seem to often have a sadistic streak. But
I think that pilots who have been through the wringer in a sim will
still agree that it's worth the trouble.

--
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