Quote:
Originally Posted by erco
While it's true that simulators make excellent procedures trainers (and are superior to simply tacking the cockpit poster to the wall...) you CAN learn to fly using a flight simulator. Could you learn enough to pass the private pilot practical? Maybe not. But you could certainly learn enough to takeoff, fly about and then land. Maybe not with a lot of flair, but completely doable.
I come to this conclusion based on years of flight instructing and the experience of giving introductory flights. Giving intro flights to people who had never been in an airplane before, I found that I could talk around 75% of people through a takeoff and around 25% through a landing without me ever touching the controls. I am convinced that a person who had access to a decent flight sim with controls that are similar to the airplane available (yoke, rudders, engine controls) and they became proficient at taxiing, takeoff, flight, and landing in the sim, then they could do the same in the actual aircraft.
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I actually did this so it's true. My wife bought me a flying lesson and when I told the instructor I played flight sims he skipped the briefing and we hopped straight on the plane. I then taxied, took off flew around for an hour(in Blackpool, England) and then landed. All down to flying sims on the PC.