Mark Levin writes:

I think the use of MSFS can be summed up pretty simply.

It won't teach you to fly a plane.

Sure it will. It will cover perhaps 90% of flying a plane (or some
other high percentage), which is about as much as actually being in a
plane would cover. However, the skills taught by the simulator are
different from those of a real plane. For example, you can learn to
use an FMS or GPS very effectively on a sim, but you can't do that on
a real plane if you don't have this equipment.

You can learn to fly with instruments on a sim; indeed, you don't have
too many other options, although you can fly visually with a somewhat
restricted visibility.

In order to make use of MSFS for procedural training however you can't slack
off. You have to fly the sim identically to the way you would fly the real
plane. Real charts, real plates, you have to change the radios manually,
not just let the sim do it for you. You need to talk *on the radio* exactly
as you would during a real flight even if there's no one to hear you.

Isn't that what all simmers are doing already?

If you use VATSIM, there will be plenty of people hearing you (and
talking back).

Emergency procedures for example are not only thought based but are physical
based as well. You don't have time to translate *fuel selector to fullest
tank*, for example, into a physical motion. You have to have muscle memory
trained and unless you have one of these high fidelity sim cockpits that
some folks build for themselves you're not going to train any muscle memory
on the sim.

Nor are you going to learn that on a real aircraft, since many
emergencies never arise and are too dangerous to attempt in a real
aircraft.

As nutty as this may sound, with some of the added scenery packs you can
actually start to train pilotage as well.

It doesn't sound nutty to me.

Note that none of this has anything to do with the mechanics of flying the
plane.

Nevertheless, it's a large part of flying. A hundred years ago,
flying by the seat of your pants was the be-all and end-all of
flight--there was nothing else. Now there is a lot else.

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