posted on Dec, 6 2013 @ 08:45 PM
It's rather amusing reading this thread I'm going to offer up some actual knowledge about computer generated flight simulators, such as Microsoft
flight simulator which I personally have over 3000 hours of flight time using. But I offer up that I have flown in actual airplanes but could never
afford to do it myself, it's very expensive to do and if you don't have the financial resources, you are relegated to simulators. In a computer
generated flight simulator you can learn to fly anything from an ultra light to a glider to a beechcraft to a Lear jet to a crj700 to a 747 to an fa18
hornet , the kneeboard in the simulators is the exact kneeboard that you will find in each and everyone of these aircraft. For the most part of it
flying one airplane is no different than flying any other airplane it is more about understanding the mechanics of flight, understanding things like
lift , thrust weight and drag. There are prop engines, and turbine jets, both have their own dynamic. There are taildraggers and tripod style. Tail
draggets are more difficult than tripod. Taking of and flying is not difficult to learn landing is. There is taking of and landing on a runaway and
taking of and landing on an aircraft carrier, clearly taking of and landing on an aircraft carrier, is way more difficult to learn as there is the
dynamic of water in that equation. Flying a helicopter is a unique challenge of its own to learn. In the computerized simulators there are missions
that you fly to learn all of the possible scenarios that one can encounter in flight such as stalling, engine failure, multiple engine failure,
adverse weather, fighter jets that are damaged in combat learning to thread a needle with a Lear jet , learning about thermals,understanding
omnidirectional radios, reading and interpreting your instrument cluster, I could go on for hours explaining these concepts, but I'll not bore you
with all of that. What I will tell you is that you can in fact learn to fly real airplanes in a computer generated simulator, the simulators are
unbelievabley realistic, all the way down to feeling wind pressure on the flaps in the joystick, when taking of and flying. With the thousands of
hours that I have in simulator time I could easily walk up to just about any airplane sit down in the cockpit and fly it. However the faa would never
allow me to do that. obtaining your licences comes in stages 40 hours of classroom and 40 hours of flight, time in a Cessna just to get your basic
license, costs approximately $10,000.00, the next stage is I think islearning to fly on instruments alone, tthat stage is approximately double what
the basic is. Then there is turbine jet, commercial license , passenger license, and commercial passenger jet.these licenses are progressively more
difficult to obtain and equally expensive to obtain. But I assure you when you progress through the stages in a simulator program you even begin to
learn stunt flying, like what a hammerhead is flying in formation, racing and other skills, everyone of these skills can be learned in a simulator and
moved easily into an actual aircraft. I hope that much offers up a reasonable knowledge on the dynamics of flight, cause I really don't feel like
spending all night typing an all out in depth description on the mechanics and dynamics of flight, but it at least offers a true life experience on
someone who had spent thousands of hours in a simulator because I can't afford a real airplane.