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Comment by null0ranje | Hacker News Reader

Flight sims are great for exploring unfamiliar airports, practicing IFR procedures, cockpit orientation (to a point), and other routine tasks. They are terrible for learning to fly, and in fact are detrimental to the task, since it teaches new students bad habits, like keeping their heads down and focusing on instruments.

I fire up the sim occasionally, but I don't pretend it's a digital analog. Instead, I treat it like it's a different aircraft entirely, including simulating preflight checks and running checklists.

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> since it teaches new students bad habits, like keeping their heads down and focusing on instruments.

I'm very much not an expert on this, but I thought that most of the time, at least for recreational flying, the opposite was the problem: things like running out of fuel or doing that thing where you slowly loose altitude over the ocean without realising and then crash into the water because you're not paying attention to the instruments.

My experience with flight sims is that they weren't useful, but a big part of it was that I had no skin in the game. I could always walk away from a mistake, so I got sloppy.

Most recreational flying is under visual flight rules (VFR). Your primary reference is to everything outside of you. You will check your instruments, but 95% of the time, you'll be looking outside. At least in the US, you usually aren't under ATC direction. Thus, it's your responsibility to see and avoid.

Flying over the ocean for any length of time is not a common thing recreational pilots do, and when they do, they should be a lot more prepared or flying IFR.

I fly ifr nearly all the time with exception of local flights like a test flight after picking up the plane from annual (even then I am talking to tower or approach just in case). The main reason for me is that I like having someone (atc) watching over me, and that I don’t need to think much about airspace’s, tfrs, etc - I just do what atc tells me to do (within reasons ;) ).

>since it teaches new students bad habits, like keeping their heads down and focusing on instruments.

The chief cause of pilot error is the pilot trusting what he can see out the window and feel with his body, refusing to use or perhaps even in defiance to the aircraft's instruments.

Having a habit of flying on instruments even under VFR is a good thing because the instruments are generally significantly more reliable than human intuition.

This is just not right, sorry.

VFR flying should be 90% done looking outside, with an occasional cross check of altitude and heading inside. I'm visual conditions, there is nothing your instruments can tell you that your eyes can't, except slight deviations in altitude and heading.

If you need your instruments to avoid hitting things, you are probably in instrument conditions.

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