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Flight-Simulator Enthusiasts Confident of Real-World Skills (wsj.com)
Two anonymous readers share a report: When the ground-services employee who stole a turboprop airliner last week declined air-traffic controllers' piloting advice, saying he had played videogames, it was no surprise to some devotees of intricate home flight-simulation programs [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; an alternative source wasn't immediately available.]. Such software can mimic many phases of aircraft operations, including takeoffs, as well as how to respond to heavy weather and emergencies, pilots and software makers say. The simulators are also more affordable than pursuing a pilot's license and can help satisfy a lifelong obsession with flying.
Last year, two million units of vehicle-simulation games for PCs and consoles were sold world-wide, the most common being flight simulators, according to the market-research firm NPD Group. Home programs have evolved over more than three decades. They can represent all types of aircraft, from wartime bombers to modern-day passenger airliners. A setup can cost a few dozen dollars for a videogame to thousands for software with intricate renderings of cockpits and real-world environments. A new conference called FlightSimExpo held in Las Vegas in June drew around 1,100 people, its organizers said. FlightSimCon held its sixth annual gathering in Dallas in June, according to its website. Many hobbyists say they don't think of simulators in the same vein as traditional videogames, because they aren't trying to rack up points or compete. They simply focus on flying.
Last year, two million units of vehicle-simulation games for PCs and consoles were sold world-wide, the most common being flight simulators, according to the market-research firm NPD Group. Home programs have evolved over more than three decades. They can represent all types of aircraft, from wartime bombers to modern-day passenger airliners. A setup can cost a few dozen dollars for a videogame to thousands for software with intricate renderings of cockpits and real-world environments. A new conference called FlightSimExpo held in Las Vegas in June drew around 1,100 people, its organizers said. FlightSimCon held its sixth annual gathering in Dallas in June, according to its website. Many hobbyists say they don't think of simulators in the same vein as traditional videogames, because they aren't trying to rack up points or compete. They simply focus on flying.
Someone who was learning how to fly hired me to put together a computer system for him to run X-Plane as a trainer/simulator, complete with touch-screen for the instruments and controls, a second monitor for the view out the window, and stick and pedal controls. I put it together and got it all running, but for the life of me I couldn't get the joystick calibrated right. It kept wanting to pull to the left, and the amount of x-axis offset adjustment to the joystick necessary to keep it centered seemed to keep drifting.
After struggling to fix the issue for two days, I called the client and told him I would miss the delivery date and that he'd have to wait a few more days while I exchanged some defective hardware. He asked me what the problem was, and I explained how it was pulling to the left. He swore, and said he didn't realize the simulator was going to be that realistic - the real plane he was training on did the same thing. That's when I realized the torque and gyroscopic effects from the single-engine plane was what was causing the yaw to the left, and X-Plane was faithfully simulating it.
I remember a story about the Tornado simulator the RAF used to use to train pilots, back in the early days of that aircraft deployment. The mission was terrain-hugging at near-supersonic speed for low-level attacks. There are far more sophisticated and computerized simulators now, but the first simulator was built in the 1970s, so instead of software it was literally a TV camera with lenses and mirrors that moved over a physical diorama that was very small scale. What the pilot saw was a view as though they were flying over this "landscape". Of course, to get the most out of the training, the pilots try to immerse themselves in the simulation and think of it as real as possible, and apparently that worked most of the time.
But every now and then a pilot would be doing an attack run and really imagining themselves in the environment while banking around a low hill at 50 feet altitude at mach 0.8 when suddenly there would appear FLYZILLA: What appeared to be a 100-foot tall housefly in their flightpath. I read that there were a few choice words of shock and amazement from those poor trainee pilots as they encountered some poor housefly just trying to relax.