I'm no expert myself but recently I did see a flight instructor on youtube with the opposite opinion, saying that people with a lot of flight sim experience were his best beginner students, and tended to get their PPL in the fewest hours.
But it definitely needed to be VR to be helpful, to see your relative position vs the airport and runway, pattern altitude, etc.
Did not help with stalls or landings, which are more based on the feel of the aircraft.
Head tracking (like TrackIR) is another option, perhaps even better than VR for flight sims because you can see your hand and your controllers.
I wish people would stop using the word anecdata like it is correct just because they saw some arrogant self important reply using it in their hackernews comment.
Firstly it is anecdote so the plural would be anecdotes or if you want to continue with being weird, it’s anecdota.
Do the red squiggly lines not direct you at all to thinking “maybe this is wrong”.
Secondly invariably when someone (wrongly) uses the word “anecdata” they only ever produce a paragraph relating to one specific point of view - their own.
ChatGPT: It's intriguing to observe the evolution of language in tech communities, particularly on Hacker News. For instance, the term 'anecdata' seems to be gaining traction, though its usage diverges from conventional language norms. Traditionally, 'anecdote' is the singular form, with 'anecdotes' or perhaps 'anecdota' as a more esoteric plural. It's always beneficial to pay heed to the cues from our writing tools, like the spellchecker's red squiggly lines, as they often guide us toward standard language practices. Furthermore, it's worth noting that discussions enriched by diverse perspectives are more insightful. While 'anecdata' typically encapsulates a singular viewpoint, embracing a variety of experiences could enhance the richness of our conversations here.
Also, “anecdata” has a dictionary definition, which confirms it as correct: https://www.oed.com/search/dictionary/?scope=Entries&q=Anecd... It’ll show up in Merriam Webster and in your browser spell checker sooner or later. (Here’s a sample of brand new dictionary words this year, added because people were using them: https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/new-words-in-the-di...)
Anecdata is different from the plural of anecdote, it can be used correctly and more aptly than “anecdotes” in situations where the alternative is statistical evidence, which is common here on HN. It can also be used for fun in any situation the writer deems, because that’s acceptable use of English (cf. Lewis Carroll).
Maybe take the last clause of ChatGPT’s prosocial answer to heart, and embrace a variety of experiences. Language, especially English, is really fluid and fun when you learn how to use it. There are almost no language police nit-pick meme talking points that are actually correct. Literally has always meant figurative, myriad can be correctly preceded with “a” and followed with “of”, “less” and “fewer” can be used interchangeably in any situation, etc. etc.. Invariably when someone tries to go edgelord and get on their high horse about their pet English annoyance, they’re actually wrong.
(Valid dictionary words I used that give me red squiggles and/or spelling suggestions: anecdata, edgelord, merriam-webster, OED, prosocial, mid, nit-pick.)
Like your mistake with anecdata, it can be hard to say when something in English is incorrect, which is why it’s not just boring and unimaginative to police language, it’s ironically so often wrong to make such claims. Dictionaries can only provides examples of usage, they cannot prescribe incorrect usage.
Like what you’re doing right now?
Not related to aviation, bit to everything: to learn something to use and to learn something to pass exams - are two different paths.
(with apologies to George Box)
This is what a full motion flight simulator for the aforementioned A330 looks like: https://www.afgsim.com/wp-content/uploads/A330_CEO_Madrid_-5...
It costs at least $1.5 million. It's ~150x cheaper than the plane and since zero lives at risk, US airline pilots are required to train emergencies in simulators while being accessed by an examiner every six months (IIRC).
Why are you so certain?
While the hardware isn't exactly cheap, neither is the software. Gathering feedback from a bunch of pilots and incorporating it into the simulator isn't cheap. Renting out an A330 and a couple of pilots to run experimental validation isn't cheap - it costs >$50k an hour and you'll need hundreds if not thousands of hours. Validating each software release isn't cheap.
*> The software should be more or less comparable (there’s no reason for it not to be anyway).
I'm working on second hand info but AFAIK it takes over a dozen modern networked server systems to provide the fidelity the simulators need (with multiple GPUs no less). The software isn't comparable simply because a consumer machine isn't powerful enough to run the real stuff and the quality of the simulators has absolutely sky rocketed in the last 20 years. The've been constantly upgraded to the point that a 747 simulator now costs more than the plane itself.
This is the data sheet I’ve found for one full motion flight simulator, which seemingly indicates a single (albeit 24-core) machine used to run it.
That statement isn’t exactly wrong, but I’m pretty sure the airline simulators are closer to $10M than $1.5M.
Look I'm no expert but even Ace Combat taught me not to do that. To say nothing of simulators where you actually learn concepts like energy management. Planes are not rockets.
Kind wonder if you could pull that off with a passenger airliner though.
Not to say the Airbus UX isn’t a problem, but one of the most basic things in dual pilot flying is being explicit about who has the controls. Once that basic level of situational awareness is lost, it’s going to be hard to maintain control.
Number of landings is probably more relevant for survival.
The US Army make use of simulators when training their helicopter pilots, as it enables their trainees to meet test standards with fewer hours spent in real aircraft. [0]
From what I can gather, sim experience can be a mixed bag -- some positive, some negative.