All, I've started PPL training a couple of weeks ago, and on the first ground lesson, my instructor told me that for some early stage PPL flying like leveling off, keeping nose on horizon, rudder coordination, etc that I could refine those skills with use of a PC home simulator. Obviously he warned me that it's not the same tactile feedback as an actual aircraft, but I was wondering what are the other limitations of using home sim for practicing maneuvers? Are there any modifications I should make to my home sim to make it better suited?

At flight school, we're flying Piper PA-28s with G500 and GTN750 avionics. There's some payware mods for those things for FS2020 that I might have to invest in. I may also have to invest in rudder pedals, etc later on but I don't want to spend too much money yet.

To those with PPL already, will practicing on a home sim make the earlier maneuvers easier? I'd understand that for later, more complex material, using sims is a non starter due to the bad physics and other glitches and bugs. But is it any good for the initial material at least?

Thanks

Just my opinion but I think using sims for your basic private certificate defeats the purpose.

For your private certificate you’re learning to fly the aircraft using outside references. Looking out the window using the outside horizon to maintain level flight not the artificial horizon of your garmin avionics. Using a landmark on the horizon to maintain directional orientation and navigation.

Though it’s ungodly expensive these days, you’ll learn better doing flights regularly consistently - 2-3 flights a week instead of once a month.

I can see using a home PC sim for your instrument rating when you’re focused on using your aircraft instruments for aircraft control.

I guess things have changed a lot in the flight training industry in the last 30 years if they’re using sims for basic private pilot training.

Boeing757100 wrote:

will practicing on a home sim make the earlier maneuvers easier?

Personally, I think this is something you may need to evaluate on your own.

After a couple of lessons in the actual aircraft, it may be helpful to use your home sim to reinforce the basic concepts and procedures you learned in the aircraft; for example, setting pitch attitudes, bank angles, power settings, etc.

Then, when you return to the actual aircraft, compare the control inputs, aircraft response, general feel to that of the sim. If you find it to be quite different, then perhaps discontinue the use of the sim. Your instructor, of course, will provide you with feedback on your progress and can advise on areas where use of the sim may be helpful.

It couldn't hurt initially, as long as you keep in mind that simulators often "fly" much differently than actual aircraft, and at this point in your training, the actual feel of the aircraft, control inputs, aircraft response, and outside references are critical to your training.

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The only thing I can see flight sim helping with is during instrument rating training where you can practice VOR holding all day long. You can do different holding entries, get an idea for how wind effects the inbound and outbound legs. And that's it. For PPL, no way it helps.

Honestly, the best use for home computer based sims is probably working on the light touch stick and rudder and instrument scan needed for instrument flying. It really is not good for maneuvers and work in the traffic pattern. In fact, simming may put you inside the airplane too much to properly fly maneuvers that are much better handled with an outside reference.

As others have noted, learning the feel of the aircraft is very important. My view is that using a sim other than for instrument flying won’t really add value to learning in a real aircraft. The skills test is map and compass navigation (maybe some also Navaids where you are? when I did it in UK it was only identify a VOR). So if simmimg, ignore the gps systems or turn them off, put some winds and direction indicator drift in the settings so you can more accurately reflect the things that can and do change when navigating visually.

Additionally, one of the most important parts of visual flying as you do the PPL is learning what “the picture” looks like out the window during different flight regimes (climb, straight and level, approach etc). This does vary a little even in real aircraft of the same model type and it may also be that the sim doesn’t reflect “the picture” of the aircraft you’re training in.

I’ve spent some time on desktop flight sims and the pitch trim is not easy to use for straight and level. In the real aircraft you set the pitch with the yoke and use feel to dial in the appropriate trim setting to remove control pressure. Can’t do that in a sim.

If you do decide to use the sim, try and ensure that 90% of the time is looking out the windows scanning for traffic for and visual navigation, and not focussing on the instruments at the expense of that. Do of course perform your normal instrument scan though. Seeing other traffic is one of the most important things you need to learn (for obvious reasons!) and keep doing in your PPL training and ever after: at some point you won’t have the instructors eyes and experience in the cockpit with you.

Thanks for the answers all.

I recommend against doing too much sim flying. It's fine for learning procedures and running checklists if the panel is a close match to the plane, but outside of that the lack of tactile feedback will make it tempting to fixate on instruments and you'll get jerkier inputs. If you catch yourself doing this in the airplane, have your instructor put a checklist over the screen to force you to look outside instead of flying the video game.

LH707330 wrote:

I recommend against doing too much sim flying. It's fine for learning procedures and running checklists if the panel is a close match to the plane, but outside of that the lack of tactile feedback will make it tempting to fixate on instruments and you'll get jerkier inputs. If you catch yourself doing this in the airplane, have your instructor put a checklist over the screen to force you to look outside instead of flying the video game.

With PC sims you have to spend a lot on high end computer, VR headset and probably a suitable advanced level add on plane to get suitable realism. I had a great flight sim setup, Microsoft updated it and now it’s so unreliable with crashes to desktop that I don’t use it anymore.

cpd wrote:

LH707330 wrote:

I recommend against doing too much sim flying. It's fine for learning procedures and running checklists if the panel is a close match to the plane, but outside of that the lack of tactile feedback will make it tempting to fixate on instruments and you'll get jerkier inputs. If you catch yourself doing this in the airplane, have your instructor put a checklist over the screen to force you to look outside instead of flying the video game.

With PC sims you have to spend a lot on high end computer, VR headset and probably a suitable advanced level add on plane to get suitable realism. I had a great flight sim setup, Microsoft updated it and now it’s so unreliable with crashes to desktop that I don’t use it anymore.

I agree, VR will actually may make it feasible for VFR practice. You can find a naval aviator try a Valve VR on DCS and comparing it to the real F-18 and carrier ops and he says it's pretty good, search for it on YouTube.

My biggest pet peeve with desktop sims is that it's impossible to trim accurately, not only because there's no tactile feedback on the yoke but also because the trim buttons(there usually isn't a wheel) never have the right sensitivity, you have to try it up and down for like 60 seconds before you can maintain a pitch. In the real aircraft it's instantaneous in comparison.

Also in real aircraft, you can feel when you're slowing down or accelerating, which makes visual approaches significantly more intuitive. In a desktop sim you can't ignore the speedometer even in VFR

Weighing in a little late here, but I found Xplane 11 and the Logitech controls to be very useful in my PPL training, specifically for landing.

Like a lot of people, I found landing to be the hardest "maneuver" to learn. After ballooning or bouncing it in dozens of times, I started spending 30 minutes or so on the sim right before each lesson, landing from a saved short-final position over and over. It helped me (1) get accustomed to the correct "sight picture" during roundout and touchdown, and (2) develop the required touch on the elevator. I landed markedly better if I practiced on the sim before my lesson, versus if I didn't. Then, when I was in the actual airplane, my landings were good enough that I could concentrate on fine-tuning, hitting a spot, dealing with crosswinds and so on.

For that reason alone I consider the $500 or so I spent to be worth it. Then once you have the sim, you might as well use it to drill procedures, like CGUMPS and loss of power emergency, practice VOR nav and that sort of thing.

QAT wrote:

Weighing in a little late here, but I found Xplane 11 and the Logitech controls to be very useful in my PPL training, specifically for landing.

Like a lot of people, I found landing to be the hardest "maneuver" to learn. After ballooning or bouncing it in dozens of times, I started spending 30 minutes or so on the sim right before each lesson, landing from a saved short-final position over and over. It helped me (1) get accustomed to the correct "sight picture" during roundout and touchdown, and (2) develop the required touch on the elevator. I landed markedly better if I practiced on the sim before my lesson, versus if I didn't. Then, when I was in the actual airplane, my landings were good enough that I could concentrate on fine-tuning, hitting a spot, dealing with crosswinds and so on.

For that reason alone I consider the $500 or so I spent to be worth it. Then once you have the sim, you might as well use it to drill procedures, like CGUMPS and loss of power emergency, practice VOR nav and that sort of thing.

This is the kind of targeted training that simulation is good for. In addition to the sight picture, you probably developed your muscle memory with regard to actions e.g. closing the throttle.

There are limitations, however. For dynamic maneuvers like landing, once you've developed the muscle memory and coordination in the real plane, it might become harder to land the sim "nicely". This seems true in full-motion simulators as well. Even the best sim is still a bit colour-by-numbers and the visuals in the real world are more, ahem, real.

PC simulation is really good for procedures, e.g. flows and so forth. But if you're flying a small plane you might as well get into one that's sitting on the ground and do touch drills instead.

Boeing757100 wrote:

All, I've started PPL training a couple of weeks ago, and on the first ground lesson, my instructor told me that for some early stage PPL flying like leveling off, keeping nose on horizon, rudder coordination, etc that I could refine those skills with use of a PC home simulator. Obviously he warned me that it's not the same tactile feedback as an actual aircraft, but I was wondering what are the other limitations of using home sim for practicing maneuvers? Are there any modifications I should make to my home sim to make it better suited?

At flight school, we're flying Piper PA-28s with G500 and GTN750 avionics. There's some payware mods for those things for FS2020 that I might have to invest in. I may also have to invest in rudder pedals, etc later on but I don't want to spend too much money yet.

To those with PPL already, will practicing on a home sim make the earlier maneuvers easier? I'd understand that for later, more complex material, using sims is a non starter due to the bad physics and other glitches and bugs. But is it any good for the initial material at least?

Thanks

My 2 cents from 7,000 hours flown over the last 15 years...

Firstly, dont buy rudder pedals...they are trash.

Use a sim to learn the avionics intricacies and menus and such to save money in the plane.

Use the sim to learn procedures unrelated to pilotage or outside visual reference... things like dead reckoning, radio usage and tuning, flight plan insertion into your avionics, etc.

I personally used flight sim 2004 to learn GPS approaches as opposed to 150/hr in the real airplane.

The seat of the pants stuff needs to be learned outside. You will learn basic instrument reference skills during your ppl training for emergencies, and you can practice that in the sim, but the majority of the flying will be using the outside horizon.

[twoid][/twoid]

Starlionblue wrote:

QAT wrote:

Weighing in a little late here, but I found Xplane 11 and the Logitech controls to be very useful in my PPL training, specifically for landing.

Like a lot of people, I found landing to be the hardest "maneuver" to learn. After ballooning or bouncing it in dozens of times, I started spending 30 minutes or so on the sim right before each lesson, landing from a saved short-final position over and over. It helped me (1) get accustomed to the correct "sight picture" during roundout and touchdown, and (2) develop the required touch on the elevator. I landed markedly better if I practiced on the sim before my lesson, versus if I didn't. Then, when I was in the actual airplane, my landings were good enough that I could concentrate on fine-tuning, hitting a spot, dealing with crosswinds and so on.

For that reason alone I consider the $500 or so I spent to be worth it. Then once you have the sim, you might as well use it to drill procedures, like CGUMPS and loss of power emergency, practice VOR nav and that sort of thing.

This is the kind of targeted training that simulation is good for. In addition to the sight picture, you probably developed your muscle memory with regard to actions e.g. closing the throttle.

There are limitations, however. For dynamic maneuvers like landing, once you've developed the muscle memory and coordination in the real plane, it might become harder to land the sim "nicely". This seems true in full-motion simulators as well. Even the best sim is still a bit colour-by-numbers and the visuals in the real world are more, ahem, real.

PC simulation is really good for procedures, e.g. flows and so forth. But if you're flying a small plane you might as well get into one that's sitting on the ground and do touch drills instead.

That’s where VR in home simulators helps, it improves the visuals. You are actually there inside the plane, in that virtual world rather than just sitting at a desk.

It’s still not 100% but it’s pretty awesome now. But needs an awesome computer to run it also. I had a lot of knowledge from a serious Concorde simulator (and also doing testing of it for a long while). But we didn’t have VR back then. It would have been a quantum leap. It had excellent systems simulation but the visuals were only what was possible at the time without ending up at a 5fps slideshow. Microsoft guessed computers would escalate clock speeds more, rather than going multi core so they designed Flight Sim for high clock speeds. Multi core CPUs didn’t get any major benefits.

I totally agree with the reply above on rudder pedals, the ones I’ve tried are terrible - too much spiking and no use.