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Comment by glouwbug | Hacker News Reader

Too soon, my friend

To be honest, I would pay good money for a simulator that could have scenarios for common Air Disaster episodes.

You're in luck -- that exists today!!!!

With the combination of a professional P3D license, weather add-ons, and quality add-on aircraft from companies like PMDG, you really can recreate a lot of those scenarios with exceptional detail. Throw in a high-end VR headset and you can really feel like you are there! Here's an example of me playing around at home ignoring a windshear alert:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04FeelpjzvE

Wow, that's pretty cool. Does P3D have native support for VR or are you hacking it in somehow?

Yes, it does in version 4.5, and it is really good.

it looks like it's not natively supported in P3D, but possible with the additional FlyInside [1] software

[1] https://flyinside-fsx.com

that is incorrect; it has native VR support in the current version.

FSX had a couple missions with scenarios like this. "Limited Options" (see: https://www.fsdeveloper.com/wiki/index.php?title=FSX_Default...) simulated a dual-engine failure on a 737 over the ocean, which required a glide to one of a couple small islands near the Maldives.

Similarly, I enjoyed a mission that required landing a 747 in Singapore during a monsoon. I'm really looking forward to FS2020 and what it'll look like to do the same thing with the graphics enhancements and new weather simulations.

I loved both of those missions! The Singapore mission is so satisfying when flying ILS and then coming out of the clouds right in front of the runway.

I wish ATC/your copilot was as interactive in free flight as it was during the Singapore approach. It made the missions feel much more real when you have some feedback other than text scrolling by in a window.

Many paid and free mods existed to do exactly that. There was even a $20 mod that turned FSX into an airline tycoon game where you purchased aircraft, ran flights, and dealt with emergencies and maintenance of those aircraft

That's in rather poor taste unless you want to use it to learn how to prevent such catastrophes. You wouldn't need to completely replicate a real scenario for that.

Yeah, I bet you if this was available, we could learn more from past accidents.

Maybe challenge scenarios could be included?

"Successfully take off in this helicopter in adverse weather/terrain conditions"

The "too soon" bit gets to me... maybe that's how some people cope.

Flight Simulator 98 (or 95?) already had these. I remember playing one where a small aircraft had to recover from being flipped upside down from following too closely behind a heavy airliner on a landing approach, with limited fuel available. They weren't associated with particular historic disasters, but these days no doubt you'd be able to create and publish your own.

I believe I recall seeing the Gimli Glider scenario in one of the previous versions (Maybe Century of Flight, or FS X?)

If the mission/scenario scripting engine is capable enough, there would probably be lots of scope to build famous (and fictional) failure scenarios.

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