Question: Who would you rather have, a PPL or Sim Pilot?

[Westozy's missus]

[quote=Westozy;38526]"Drink rate, Drink rate" "Pull up, pull up"

I'm so not pulling up when there's a chardy in the house......

[Bob Reed]

I agree with Gwyn on this. I do get to fly real GA AC from time to time and I think that if you have never "felt" a plane under you it would be different. Here is the way I see it. I am a driver of cars. I have raced and did ok at it. I race NASCAR online from time to time but the biggest problem I have is I can not feel the car under me so I do not have the cues that I am pushing things too far like in a real car. There is a lot of truth in the "Seat of the pants" Because like driving, flying is lot feel and a sim pilot has no idea of this unless he has flown an airplane.

[mauriceb]

Very interesting question indeed. I have a PPL with about 110 hours including 10 aerobatic hours. I don't use it anymore for many reasons, but I can tell you that with a PPL, under ideal conditions, you can land heavy iron if you know the numbers, but I think it would be a coin toss about who would fare better in such a situation.

About 20 years ago, long before PDMG and the likes, I had a chance to land a 747 full motion simulator in one of my previous jobs. At that time, I had probably less than 50 hours (but I was licensed). The instructor put me at the outer marker, gear down & set up for the approach. He told me what speeds I should try to follow and let me loose. Well, I had one heck of a time keeping this thing lined up with the runway and my flight path was all over the place, but I landed the 747 literally by the seat of my pants.

I never looked at the instruments except an occasional glance at the airspeed indicator and I had no idea about following the glide slope indication - I just looked at the runway. It was a rough landing but it would have been survivable.

A few years later, I had a different opportunity, this time to fly an F18 non-motion simulator at CAE for about 2 hours. I was doing circuits and even though I had many more flying hours by then, it took me almost 2 hours before I landed it without crashing and again without any automation (things happen very fast in an F18 .

15 or so years + PDMG later, I had another chance at flying a full motion simulator in Denver (this time a 737). I hadn't flown a real airplane for almost 10 years, but I can tell you that I felt a heck of a lot more comfortable this time and the landing was almost perfect. It was also a manual landing but with A/T & I followed the indicated glideslope until short final.

I still would vote for those who say that a fully trained SIM pilot would probably fare better if all systems are functional & if he can use the A/P & navaids. But without the automation, I think someone with a PPL would have a slight edge. I wouldn't bet my life on it though.

Maurice

[sacad]

GO PPL then cpl then ir then type rating then line traing then a jet pilot !
BUT dont waste time ..how old r u ? do u love to fly ?
good luck

[spiro]

hi all
i agreere with west ozy as i hold a ppl and going for a mep/ir at the moment
i belive that a ppl pilot has the felling just needs the numbers and speeds,a ppl will probable flear late and have a hard landing because of the hight of the aircraft as ga you are much more lower to the ground as for the systemes all ppl pilots and generaly speeking piolts have some idea about the hevey iron systems so thats good too as for the sim pilot ,i myself do lots of sim flying when i can not really fly i belive that simming is harder than flying because you cant feel the movment nor the wind and cant control in the same way it is much difftrent felling when at home in a sim and diffrent in real unless you have a motion sim with porojector veiw and and and !!!!!!!
i vote for the ppl with 150h he will get it down with minor damege i belive

[jaspar]

very interesting topic.

i have over 4000hrs pilot in charge as a flying instructor in sailpalnes teaching basics to areobatics befor retiring and have faced numerous inflight emergencies in that time.
it takes a lot practice exploring inflight emergencys and a natural feel for the aircraft to understand and not panic and forget all training and drills when the s*it happens for real.

a regular sim pilot who flys with a va or similar and who has experimented with his systems might just have a chance as long as he keeps his cool and uses the auto pilot to maintain level flight as he uses the radios to summon help from someone who might be able to talk him through the systems to make an autoland.

im a military sim pilot so dont understand heavy iron but could with guidance work the autopilot so would give myself only a 30% chance of sucess.

[ryanf]

Apart from the very advanced level of technical knowledge and skill that can be picked up from the latest home simulators, in my opinion, the two key factors that a pure sim pilot would lack in this situation are airmanship and the ability the work under pressure in a real situation.

I think it is very easy to underestimate the extra pressure of flying for real i.e. where making a mistake can be very costly or fatal. The pure realisation of "this is for real!" can put an alot more cognitive stress on the sim-pilot. An experienced GA pilot, while lacking the systems knowledge, would still have the experience of flying in a real aircraft, in real airspace, talking to real controllers and trying to land on a real (hard!) runway.

So maybe an experienced GA pilot with a sim-pilot as co-pilot would be way to go - given the increasing popularity of this hobby - maybe its not so unlikely that both might happen to be on the stricken aircraft

[cscotthendry]

One thing that would be worrysome ,,, in my opinion,,, would be that a person soley trained on a simulator ( unless its one of those $15 million level D things) would be quite surprised at how daunting a task it is to land an aircraft in any kind of crosswind or turbulence.

I've done a fair amount of flying and more importantly landing on the sim. In fact I partly attribute my sim time to my success learning to land my trike. My instructors never cease to praise my speedy progress with landings. That said, one area where flight sim is sorely inadequate is the way it reacts to turbulence and cross winds. I usually fly the Baron and it doesn't seem to matter to FSX what the weather is doing, it all seems to work the same. So while the sim guy might know how to push the buttons, if it was anything but a completely smooth day, he might go to water the first time the aircraft got smacked sideways by a strong gust, or hit a thermal or downdraft. The PPL though would have better reflexes and touch.

I'd go for the PPL with some radio assist from the ground for the knobs and dials.

[SBaker]

im a PPL almost at CPL.

I think the best chance would be a Sim buff as PIC and the PPL as co-pilot to help find things in manuals and reference things such as approach charts, frequencies, radio communication while the sim buff just flies the thing.

ive got about 150 hours on a 172/PA28/C152/etc etc... but after learning advanced systems for jets through flight sim I would have to say a PPL holder would not have my preference.

[Ronson2k9]

I agree about the seat of your pants flying and feeling the aircraft beneath you. We are talking about a 747 here though so movements are sluggish and slow to respond. Like driving a city bus when you've been in mini cooper most of your life. Survival is also a good motivator and would focus the mind on the task at hand. Remember you aren't a pilot in a bedroom with the computer reset button within reach. You are there in that situation. Your life is dependent on you making the right moves.

I think the sim pilot even though he has no RW experience lets say that has done automated approaches would have the better chance then the GA RW pilot.

If it were me.. (as we are all placing ourselves in this scenario)

I would want help from the ground. This would keep the anxiety level down knowing your not on your own. Also knowing where everything is located and how to adjust things would be a real plus. Given that you may not have faced the emergency that has incapacitated the crew yourself and if the plane is working at it's best capacity. That is there is nothing wrong with the plane that would require your attention beyond that of a normal flight. A sim pilot would have the greater chance. A GA pilot would perhaps be lost and frustrated easily given the complexity of the 747 and that would add to his or her anxiety.

Of course this scenario has been played out in countless movies were 'ordinary' joes have been called to the cockpit to take over. Some of which I've found quite patronizing given the level of knowledge of the general public when it comes to how aircraft operate. Some how there is a deep seeded need to show that flying a plane is not as hard as it seems.

It would be interesting to find out if that has ever happened where a pilot or crew have been replaced by let's say non professional..