Also, to
what extent can good simulators replace flying time?


It still doesn't entirely replace flight hours, it only augments them. There
are darn few "good simulators" that can remotely compare to the real thing, and
this was over 30 years ago, in computing's dark ages. Even the 9/11 ****s had
to get genuine flight training and even then, they nearly tore the wings off
the second 767. Flying is not only complicated - its dangerous. Simulators
can't trick you all the way, so you are always missing some component of the
actual flight.

In the Navy, we had a minimum of 4 hours per month that we were required to
ride along in any capacity that we could. On some shore duty locations,
meeting that would take genuine effort, but I didn't encounter that situation.
I got 660 helicopter flight hours one year, and when I got back to the states,
my squadron scheduled my first mission as a sortie in the WST. I guess they
didn't see the irony. I slept through the entire "flight". Hey, how was that
for a simulation?

zzzzz...grumble...snort..Wa? GOBLIN GOBLIN...ahhhhh... freakin WST...snort...
snorrre zzzzzz

v/r
Gordon
====(A+C====
USN SAR

Its always better to lose -an- engine, not -the- engine.