In article
,
"Robert M. Gary" wrote:

On Feb 4, 8:38*am, Mxsmanic wrote:
Robert M. Gary writes:

All the time you've spent on the simulator you could have easily
earned the money for several flights using that time working in a
coffee shop.

I've spent about 2000 hours flying in the past 36 months. *If I had worked
that time at a minimum-wage job in a coffee shop, I would have earned
roughly
enough by now to pay for just 40-50 hours in a real aircraft--and that
ignores
the cost of getting a license to fly in the first place. *If you count the
cost of getting a license, I would not yet have flown my first hour in real
life as a licensed pilot.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say "the cost of getting a
license" but if I were sitting there thinking I could have used the
2000 hours I spent playing with the sim for the last 36 months to earn
the money to fly 40-50 hours I would be kicking myself pretty hard
about now.

Well, different folks like different things. Our friend here probably
really does get 95% of the fun from simulation as he would get in a real
airplane, so staying home and simming makes more sense than working to
pay for fuel and aircraft rental.

For us, where that number is more like 1%, spending so much time simming
when we could put that effort into real flying is silly.

The trouble is that he can't recognize that the tradeoff is different
for different people, so he thinks we're crazy for spending all that
money to make up what he sees as only the last 5%. Trouble is that he's
ridiculously dismissive about it, so everybody hates on him a whole lot
because of it.

--
Mike Ash
Radio Free Earth
Broadcasting from our climate-controlled studios deep inside the Moon