On Feb 28, 8:51*am, WJRFlyBoy wrote:
On Thu, 28 Feb 2008 12:34:16 GMT, kontiki wrote:
Understand what and how the instrumentation works (shortcomings included)
Own all the fundamentally necessary flight gear (i.e carry-ons in flight
bag or on person)

Obtain hours in flight simulation

See Dudley's comments regarding pre-solo students and simulators.
More...enough for now.

Ye, a point I neglected to mention. We've already had one poster
here who had a disappointing discovery flight by going into it with
a severe case of overconfidence and unrealistic expectations due to
having spent so many hours 'perfecting' his technique on a simulator.

Thanks for the heads up.

Except for the purpose of explaining how the COM and NAV radios and
instrumentation works by a CFI, simulator time should be avoided
by pre-solo students. Post solo, other than to experiment with
navigation methods, simulators should be avoided by students also.

Interesting opinion.

By simulators, I am talking about the basic PC based units, not
the multi-million dollar, full motion simulators used to train
commercial pilots. But even they should not be used pre-solo.

Followed by another one.

So it is fair to say that the outcome of pre-solo sim is generally
negative?
--
Remove numbers for gmail and for God's sake it ain't "gee" either!

First, so you can gauge how much to believe me: I am a recent Private
Pilot (April 2006) who works in the simulation industry.

Yes, it is fair to say that pre-solo sim is not helpful and may even
hurt. Much of what is learned in pre-solo and getting to solo (which
is the point of pre-solo) is physical cues and muscle memory. None of
that is recreated in any PC based sim environment. Also the limited
visual area and field of view (even in a 3 screen uber-setup) causes
dependence on the instruments and prevents using many of the visual
cues which are important in VFR flying. I was quite good at instrument
flying (for a PP student) but not so hot at watching for traffic,
watching the horizon for attitude, etc.

I am now working on my instrument rating and in that environment the
simulator is helpful. I can use it to practice procedures and
sequences. Control pressures, sounds, etc. are still missing. (To be
clear: the sim makes sounds, but the cues do not match what sounds are
important in the real plane. Force feedback controls also do not match
the real world - it's a matter of energy and mass as well as
programming.)

You will hear from simulation proponents how wrong this opinion is,
but those folks (at least the loudest on these groups) do not and have
not flown a real airplane. Those of us who have done both, seem to
pretty much share this opinion. Simulation has its place, but it is
_not_ pre-solo.

John