 |
|
|
   |
||
|
Can I learn to fly in a computer simulation?
I'm a low-time student pilot with a lot of time in PC flight sims ... said Chino. Most of that time is in combat jet sims, though I have also played with some civilian sims as I will report. So the following comments are based on my experience and opinions. Your mileage may vary! That being said, I believe that today's civilian flight sims can be a useful supplement to real flight lessons. I recently started back with flight lessons after a 10 month layoff, flying a Cessna 152 trainer with a new instructor, from a new airport. I'm now flying from Worcester Regional Airport, a controlled airport in Worcester, Massachusetts (KORH). At about the same time, I heard about a utility called TerraScene for the FLY! FLY! flight sim. This utility lets you create realistic and fairly detailed scenery for FLY! based on USGS data available on the web. So I bought FLY! and created the scenery for my area. |
High and fast... FLY! already includes all the airports, navaids, and sectional charts for the USA (and many airports world-wide as well). So now I have a virtual flying world that matches my REAL flying world pretty well. It may be possible to do similar things with other sims, but here I will just talk about my experience with FLY! (simulated Cessna 172R) and my real lessons (real Cessna 152). |
|
|
||
|
The contents of this website are copyright © 1998 - 2007 by MiGMan |
||