Real life pilots?
 

Was reading a thread about aerobatics and it got me wondering if anyone on here is actually a real pilot?

I think there used to be one but I can't remember his name.

i am, but havent flown in years. grew up in the right seat as my father always either had a plane or rented on. that was our sunday afternoon dad/son bonding time. i never did any bigtime acrobatics....was with him when he did some lazy 8s...cubans..chandelles...enough to make my friends puke..haha. but have been toying with the idea of getting back into it or at least getting some glider time...i do miss it. expensive hobby tho.

I flew heticopters in the late 80's and early 90's. I got my private pilots license on a Robby R22, got qualified to fly MD-500D when the Fire Department was considering hiring in-house to fly our rescue bird, but unfortunately that never came to fruitiion. I did get ample flight hours on the 500 though. Sadly I no longer have a current license. I do keep my flight log just for my memories...:grin::grin::grin:

Next question would be..

Do the planes in game react to your movements in the way you'd expect them to? Or do you have to adjust to being a 'flight sim pilot'?



And Branko, that 17 is a beautiful example and you're one lucky lady!

I used to be a pilot.

No, they don't react the way I would expect (even on sim mode) and that has me confused sometimes. Flight simulators have the risk of making you a nervous pilot because you tend to correct for a lot of things that normally you would not. For instance, the p-factor yaw effect on the game is greatly exaggerated and I find myself fiddling around with the trim to adjust constantly. The "ground effect" is also exaggerated. If these things are not exaggerations then it's a "flight sim" thing, because in real life I was not as conscious of them. I mean, you do integrate them to your flying but you are not constantly thinking "ground effect kicked in".

Wake turbulence is not modded in...
The typical shake and shudder before a stall is not there...

Reading my comment I forgot to add about the torque effect on the plane: let's say that you are on a turn, pulling g at corner speed. If you engage the WEP I would expect a roll force on the aircraft large enough to make me compensate during the turn. In BoP I find that this effect is present on some planes and in some it's not.

I am a zoom and boomer mostly and thus I am always thinking in terms of 'how fast can I dive and still be master of my plane'. In BoP compressibility and the Vnc (never exceed speed) are underrated so much that you can approach the speed of sound on a dive and still be able to pull out of the dive.

why did th pilot leave his station?

Wow too cool Branko, you are very lucky. I bet that was a blast! Real loud, cold? What were your impressions?

Yes, that was my job too...
But my aircraft, despite of his reputation, was far different from a warbird :-P

As Dr. Laplace says, no sim game can give you the same sensations as a real plane, as realistic it could be.
Compare to real life, this kind of game induces a very brutal way of piloting. You just have to see the way of piloting of some of the famous "aces" in the top leaderboard, specially when they fly 1v1, to be sure of that :shock:! In real life, no warbird could support such "binary" maneuvers whitout breaking.

But it doesn't change my opinion, BoB is still really good in his category, especially for a "console sim" !The most important thing is to consider it just as its purpose: a game!

Cool, thanks...

I was also wondering if it was a help or a hinderance being a real pilot, I guess from what you're saying it's both!

it is both helpful and frustrating. like the Dr. said...things you would normally feel and would effect you arent there. when i saw i was going well over 600 mph and still had flight controls and no shuttering and shaking i had to smirk. compressibility would have kicked in and made it very difficult if not impossible to recover at that point. not to mention the G forces that would have taken place...especially black outs arent factored in. long time ago ( 90s) i played something on PC...think it was yeagers air combat. when you pulled too many Gs the screen would start to grayscale and fade to black...which was interesting. some of the manuvers these planes could do...in the game you cant...and visa versa...some of the things they couldnt do...in game you can. hmm it would be interesting to hold an aerobatic competition. no combat just pure maneuvers... a time duration of so many minutes and points awarded for different maneuvers...varying for the degree of difficulty. anyways it does help especially landing and having a general knowledge of flight controls and when and why to use them...it does for me anyways..

Exactly,

such games are a good way (a good complement) of developping situation awareness and understanding of flight principles. As for the rest, nothing can really replace real life experience.

Of course, things would be quite different if we were talking about advanced professionnal sims, as used in every Air Force or Airline company. But that's another story !;)

I'm a pilot. I used to captain an RJ for a regional airline but got fed up and bolted, now I fly a tow plane at the local glider club. WAY less stressful than working for an airline, pity it don't pay much. To answer your question, BoP is a video game designed to be fun (and it is!) and is not a flight sim. I don't know any pilots who actually enjoy sim training, I always climb out of the box soaked with sweat and furious at the check airman for making me work so hard LoL. BoP is very good at what it was designed for, keeping us entertained. It is by far the best airplane game for consoles, but it is not by any stretch "realistic".

flynlion, were are you located? i have been toying with the idea of getting a glider rating for years. might live up to my threats this years..

I'm in South Carolina (USA) just across the state line from Charlotte. CLT was my home base hub when I flew for the airlines, now I fly with Bermuda High Soaring near Lancaster SC. Soaring has always been my favorite sport, sort of like sailboats only in 3 dimensions. You should definately get the rating :grin: Sailplanes and video games are lots more fun than airlines LoL.

ah man...was hoping you were in columbiana, oh.... that is not far from where i live. worked the ramp for USscrareways express for years in PIT ( 96 to 00). but left just as the RJs were making their arrival. felt bad... as a ramp supe i was making more than some of the smaller "affiliate" pilots. and i wasnt making JACK! ever think of going to central america? pretty good opportunities there...and NO i am not talking about smuggling....but puddle jumping between islands or CA countries.

Yeah, agree with the sentiments in here.

You have a better understanding and feel for monkey skills needed to do get the sim airplane to do things you want it to. But, there's always a game learning curve anyway. And the best sim will never get to 100% realistic.

Sims are best for procedure training and instrument skills. Otherwise, nothing beats ass strapped to seat, wheels off the deck flying. I also find actual flying in the goo to be easier to deal with than "hooded" instrument flight. Maybe that's just me though.

My dad has a plane Cessna 182 pretty cool little plane i have private but have not flown in awhile need to get a check ride in to get back current. Winny bout the only thing that i can see thats close in BoP and real life is when you play CTA in real or sim. it is so life like its not even funny ..... aside from not having a "shaker" stick ( which is the stick physically telling you you are in a stall ) and cross -winds , head-wind, ect..... thats pretty much what landing is like in real life. i have to laugh everytime we play a short airfield i.e. Templhof or limping and i over shoot runway and smash into tree or building.i'm landing with full flaps on ... sweating and praying...... just like in real life. I live in central Ohio and we have a small grass strip airport we land on called Wyncoop. and its so funny when my dad and i come in for final.my hands are sweaty and its like .. BAM hit the deck and instantly FULL FLAPS and you just sit there and pray that you stop b4 you run out of runway. and BoP in CTA mode Real and Sim remind me of just that particular airstrip where i land .... kinda amazing actually..... So Winny if you land in CTA real or sim @ one of those fields ..... you have pretty much landed @ Wyncoop sweaty palms broken controller and all ......... Have a good day all ......

Definately NOT just you! I agree with this 100%

And it's a proven fact that cool sunglasses make you a better pilot :cool:

Well, that goes without saying. :cool:

Very cool. That is quite the experience Branko, thanks for sharing. People sure are funny when it comes to competition, some take it a little too seriously.

This is probably because the aileron trim is automatic, so it assumes you trim it to compensate at any engine speed. The torque is always there on takeoffs of course.

I don't have a pilot's license, but I'm gonna get one, unless I crash. soon as I got the money.

Colton Harris-Moore mastered flying on his own with sims and now he lives in the woods and steals airplanes. Nobody can catch him, every few months a plane disappears and they find it far away. He did crash a couple of them.

this isnt or well used to not be very hard to do. i dont know post 9/11 but before that if a student was going to do a few hours of night flying, the flight school would leave the keys in the plane under the seat. the student would go and do whatever time he needed then put the keys back under the seat. the runway lights were activated by clicking the mic button a couple times and they would time out after so many minutes.