Is virtually learning on a Cessna 172 then for real on a 152 a bad idea?

[MAKG1]

Same with me. I was landing by the 2nd lesson, soloed at 12 hours, and had my ticket at 42 hours.

I firmly believe I wouldn't of come close to that without the basic things I learned flying simulators for years. Furthmore, I probably never would of had an interest in flying without the flight simulators I played as a kid.

Like you said, everyone is different. The worst that can happen is your instructor will correct some things. The best that can happen is it really helps you with some knowledge areas and coordination along the way.

And the sim was invaluable for when I got my IFR.

Actually, the worst that can happen is your instructor corrects everything, and that you have trouble breaking bad habits.

For most people it's neutral. It's clearly a fun toy, and if it helps the motivation (or even if it doesn't), knock yourself out.

Now, you get the lesson about why anecdotes are not evidence. I had a 12 year old CAP cadet in the right seat of a 182 on Saturday. First thing out, I had him fly straight and level at 3000 feet, aiming at targets on the outside (over the San Joaquin Delta on a real nice day, so there were plenty of very distant targets). He had a little trouble with trim, as one would expect. Then, I had him fly a few level turns. Once trimmed, he did them perfectly, naturally seeked out a 25 deg bank, and coordinated it like a pro (182s aren't hard, but they do require some rudder at 90 knots). Then, we did some climbing turns. Once again, the trim was an issue -- the turn was perfect, but the climb wanted to stop. A couple more and he got it. At that point, I ran out of script, so I went off it. Let's try a steep turn. 45 deg. Watch the nose and keep it on the horizon. He lost 100 feet of altitude, not bad at all for a first time. Other PTS variables were right on!

He needed next to no instruction on how to read the PFD (it's a G1000, and I like to use the reversionary mode with cadets, so both screens show the PFD). So, I asked him if he had had any lessons. No. Then I asked him if he was a simmer (most of the cadets are). No. Then I asked him if he had ever been in a light airplane before. Once.

The upshot is that it really is easier for some people than others. This kid was a natural. And unless you correct sim "anecdotes" for that, you have absolutely no idea.

So, take any claims that sims will "shorten time to solo" with a grain of salt. There are many reasons to think it is not so, and a whole lot of wishful thinking that it might be so, and no solid evidence in either direction.

Also remember that nearly everyone goes into flight training thinking they are some incredible ace. Few of us really are.

And of course there are the unverifiable Internet fish stories. Anyone can say they landed on the 2nd lesson. First, you don't really know what they mean (I was "covering" controls during takeoff and landing on my first lesson, but I'd hardly consider that my takeoff or landing), and second you don't even know it's true. Something I've noticed about this board is that all the pilots are above average.

 

[jimson]

Yeah, as a student, I never tell any pilots in real life that I fly sims just because so many people have strong opinions about it, but I think they are a lot of fun and I also think it's fun to practice things I have done in the air.

 

[BigBadLou]

Sims are great for procedures but not for the stick and rudder you need.

That.

A simulator is like any other tool. It must be used wisely. Jumping into it blindly is not a good idea. Using it to hone skills that can be transfered is beneficial.
I personally learned a lot of systems, navigation and radio work in the sim. It made my primary training a breeze. But I was AWARE of the purpose and limitations of the tool and took a disciplined approach. As others have pointed out, YMMV.

 

[EdFred]

Actually, the worst that can happen is your instructor corrects everything, and that you have trouble breaking bad habits.
I had a 12 year old CAP cadet in the right seat of a 182 on Saturday....

Especially when having to correct what non-instructors are instructing.

 

[labbadabba]

I used my sim (and still do) quite a bit when working on my PPL. Often I would head home and try to recreate the entire lesson. Correcting mistakes, getting things to slow down, etc. I found that being able to immediately repeat the lessons really reinforced what I was learning.

I agree it is not a stick and rudder machine but in terms of reinforcing muscle memory and strengthening those mental/physical connections was invaluable. Plus it's fun.

I justified the expense by telling myself that $1,000 can get me a pretty nice sim and save at least 10 hours on my initial training and maybe more on my instrument. I had my ticket in-hand at 44 hours.

Use it as a learning tool rather than a toy.

 

[Sundancer]

Re: the CAP cadet. . .I had a very young cadet in the right seat, and he was holding heading and altitude perfectly. I mean perfect, like the needles were painted on the gauges. I gave him some turns, climbing and descending, altitude targets. Spot on. Really getting interested, I had him doping steep turns, and he was bumping his own wake turbulence.

It then occurred to me he couldn't see over the glare shield. His eye level was well below it. I asked him, and he confirmed. He was flying solely by reference to.

I did a few mild unusual attitudes, and he nailed 'em. Broke some more rules and let him fly it right down into the flare (no crosswind).

He had MS Flight Sim, yoke, and rudder pedals at home. . .

 

[MAKG1]

I keep a big butt pad in the airplane for cadets. 182s have big instrument panels.

The first thing I ask anyone who will be flying (including adults) is, "can you see the pavement in front?" while still on the ground. It's clearly an issue.

Most of the CAP cadets are simmers. The one last weekend wasn't. And he was quite big for his age; no problem seeing with the pad. There are a couple of cadets that couldn't see over the glare shield no matter what. They basically get instrument orientation; there isn't much else we could do.

 

[James331]

Re: the CAP cadet. . .I had a very young cadet in the right seat, and he was holding heading and altitude perfectly. I mean perfect, like the needles were painted on the gauges. I gave him some turns, climbing and descending, altitude targets. Spot on. Really getting interested, I had him doping steep turns, and he was bumping his own wake turbulence.

It then occurred to me he couldn't see over the glare shield. His eye level was well below it. I asked him, and he confirmed. He was flying solely by reference to.

I did a few mild unusual attitudes, and he nailed 'em. Broke some more rules and let him fly it right down into the flare (no crosswind).

He had MS Flight Sim, yoke, and rudder pedals at home. . .

Have him do slow flight, or cover the panel and see how he does

 

[jordane93]

Re: the CAP cadet. . .I had a very young cadet in the right seat, and he was holding heading and altitude perfectly. I mean perfect, like the needles were painted on the gauges. I gave him some turns, climbing and descending, altitude targets. Spot on. Really getting interested, I had him doping steep turns, and he was bumping his own wake turbulence.

It then occurred to me he couldn't see over the glare shield. His eye level was well below it. I asked him, and he confirmed. He was flying solely by reference to.

I did a few mild unusual attitudes, and he nailed 'em. Broke some more rules and let him fly it right down into the flare (no crosswind).

He had MS Flight Sim, yoke, and rudder pedals at home. . .

That's good but it might be difficult to break his habit of fixating on the instruments when he can finally see over the dash. Remember we are VFR.

 

[Sundancer]

Yep, concur; but he'll breeze through his instrument!

Not sure how he's doing now, as I left CAP last summer - reached my SAS limit, after 14 years. . .

 

[petrolero]

It won't really matter.

Yeah. Flying the actual airplane will be so far different from xplane that it won't matter. What you will get from Gleim/Sim is just kind of the general look and feel of a cockpit (Cessnas are all pretty similar) and some knowledge. Nothing wrong with that. Xplane will not teach you much about actually controlling the airplane because so much of that is based on feel and visual cues.

But controlling the airplane is, IMHO, the easy part (xwind landings perhaps notwithstanding). The biggest obstacle to getting your ticket is all the other stuff: knowledge, navigation, flight planning, regs., etc. So many people go fly with an instructor and then quit when they find out it's not just all about actually manipulating the controls.

So your approach is fine, but I wouldn't let it keep you from jumping into a real airplane as soon as possible.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

I can confirm what many have expressed here -- don't try and substitute simulation time for time in the plane. I thought this might be a way to cut down on actual dual time needed, but am still unlearning some bad habits that came from using the simulator.

The lack of feel of the plane moving and lack of the big view provided by the cockpit window are the big problems, in my opinion.

 

[RobertSubnet]

Pre-solo student pilot here with a whopping 3.7 hours flight time under my belt but a long time simmer, so take my advice for the 2¢ it is worth.

I have found the simulator to be a helpful learning tool. There are a lot of concepts you can learn and things you can practice with a sim. However as others mentioned reality is much different from a sim. A sim (consumer grade not military/professional) cannot not transfer all the physical sensations, stresses, demands, etc., that you experience in reality.

So use the sim if you want, I do. But don't think that because you can perform stalls in a sim you can do it in a real plane. You will know how to stall a simulator "plane" you will still have to learn stalling (and recovering) in a real plane. I hope that distinction makes sense.

Good luck!

 

[455 Bravo Uniform]

I think it's not a bad idea to use just to get procedures down also. For instance, the first time I got in the pattern in real life, I didn't get all the altitudes, rpm, airspeed, descent rate, flaps, etc totally ingrained. Came home and did touch and goes on the sim. Helped get some of the procedures "memorized" so that the next couple times I was actually flying, I could work on my landing technique and smoothness. It definately helps. You'll be fine with all the advice here. Just go do it and you'll be a little bit more prepared. Be ready to shed bad habits. Have fun!

 

[SmashTime]

I think it's not a bad idea to use just to get procedures down also. For instance, the first time I got in the pattern in real life, I didn't get all the altitudes, rpm, airspeed, descent rate, flaps, etc totally ingrained. Came home and did touch and goes on the sim. Helped get some of the procedures "memorized" so that the next couple times I was actually flying, I could work on my landing technique and smoothness. It definately helps. You'll be fine with all the advice here. Just go do it and you'll be a little bit more prepared. Be ready to shed bad habits. Have fun!

What you said might be okay, as noted.... if you fly a real airplane, get the basics and then sim, it can be useful. But straight SIM for hours, expecting to k know how to fly in real life.

 

[jimson]

Seems to be 2 camps on home simulator use. I wonder if age is a factor in that younger people might be more open to it.

The only consensus seems to be that sim work causes one to be over reliant on instruments, so guard against that.

I'm curious about the Gleim program, not enough to spend $150 since I already have Xplane, but I'm thinking it might be more helpful than just playing Xplane on your own.

Have fun with it. but use it as an augmentation rather than a substitute.

If I could, I'd certainly trade every minute I had in sims for real stick time, but for me, playing the sim is better than just day dreaming about flying in between lessons.

 

[BigBadLou]

Seems to be 2 camps on home simulator use. I wonder if age is a factor in that younger people might be more open to it.

1) Yes, flight sim has a camp of proponents and a loud camp of opponents. Thse debates happen here a few times each year.
2) The age is an interesting question to which I have no answer. Yes, the sim world attracts younger people but I have several sim friends who are over 50. Do you have access to any statistical data? I'd be interested in digging in.

 

[Jimmy cooper]

Sims are great for procedures but not for the stick and rudder you need.

As a ATP/CFI, IMO for PPL students, sims arnt that great of a investment.

I agree. One would learn a lot more spending the sim time in an aeronca champ ( for instance) with a seasoned instructor .

 

[Sundancer]

Seems to be 2 camps on home simulator use. I wonder if age is a factor in that younger people might be more open to it.

The only consensus seems to be that sim work causes one to be over reliant on instruments, so guard against that.

I'm curious about the Gleim program, not enough to spend $150 since I already have Xplane, but I'm thinking it might be more helpful than just playing Xplane on your own.

Have fun with it. but use it as an augmentation rather than a substitute.

If I could, I'd certainly trade every minute I had in sims for real stick time, but for me, playing the sim is better than just day dreaming about flying in between lessons.

When in the recruiting business, I found the age thing to be an old wive's tale. Computer literacy, in my experience, was lower in recent grads, higher in mid-to late career hires.

The grads were very social media literate; much less so in using software for real work. Just kinda weak with back office tools, and also using the web for research - real weak on critical analysis, almost naive. Even IT grads - generally excellent development skills, and better on web research in their arena, but kinda not so well developed otherwise.

Mid and late career, generally were more well rounded, a bit less social media involved, though. Good at recognizing new wrinkles on very old ideas (virtualization, cloud, etc.)

 

[jimson]

I went ahead and purchased the Gleim/Xplane software so I can evaluate it in a future blog.

It is a separate disc plus Xplane 10 Global package of discs and is both a stand alone program (Vids and instructions) and installs an Xplane plugin.

It works with my existing Xplane installation but they seem to only sell it as a bundle so I now have an extra copy of XP10.

Initial impression is that there is some value here.

The program include numerous videos explaining the lessons and when you fly them, you get pop up instructions and feedback, and you can view infraction reports that show how long you were out of spec, etc

The first few lessons seem to focus on maintaining consistency (Alt,Speed, etc) during the maneuvers.

One eye opener for me was when I tried the basic instrument flying lesson, I immediately got disoriented and crashed LOL.

I have no idea if doing this program will help you get your ticket faster or not, but if you cannot take lessons right away or don't intend to and want to simulate the experience, this is pretty fun and you will definitely gain a good idea on how things work and what to expect in your training.

I am certain it will help in some of the non stick and rudder things you need to learn.

I spent a long time stumbling around flight sims, not knowing how to do things and what to try and this will direct you step by step.

I like it.

 

[MAKG1]

It is possible to learn to fly and land a sim well (hint: trim).

Then, you'll be able to fly and land a sim.

The real airplane will give you some trouble.

Just yesterday, I tried out a Malibu on FSX, mainly to mess with its avionics (it claimed to come with a pretty good Garmin 430W, which is what I was interested in). In retrospect, I landed it MUCH too slow (PA28 V-speeds are about 2/3 of a PA46), barely above stall, but it was so smooth I thought I was still floating. Something tells me a real one would behave a bit differently….

 

[jimson]

It is possible to learn to fly and land a sim well (hint: trim).

Then, you'll be able to fly and land a sim.

The real airplane will give you some trouble.

Just yesterday, I tried out a Malibu on FSX, mainly to mess with its avionics (it claimed to come with a pretty good Garmin 430W, which is what I was interested in). In retrospect, I landed it MUCH too slow (PA28 V-speeds are about 2/3 of a PA46), barely above stall, but it was so smooth I thought I was still floating. Something tells me a real one would behave a bit differently….

Yeah but it's fun and I think you can get some good things out of it.