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Comment by cubicle67 | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, nah, no way this can be taken at face value. If you've never flown before, this would be apparent to your instructor before you'd even got in the plane.

I haven't flown for a while, but three things jump immediately to mind - The absence of your log book - Not knowing how to do a walk around inspection (yeah, I'm calling bs on that too) - Banter with the instructor

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Sims can be good for some things, especially learning avionics systems. But you can't replicate bouncing around in a single piston engine plane with the noise and sensations. If you haven't ever done it before you're not going to competently instantly fly the aircraft.

Meh, I landed the plane my first intro flight out, just from dicking around as a kid, on sims. There are people with thousands of hours of vr sim experience.

I hate to break it to you, but the CFI was on the controls as well.

Thanks, but beings that both of us understood the concept of self preservation, we were both aware that him having his hands on the controls was required. As you’re probably aware, I could easily feel his inputs, including the times that he helped. I turned, he helped align, and I did the tail end of the decent and touchdown. He helped keep it down once down. But, I think you’ve missed the point of what I’m saying.

I assumed you're saying someone with exclusively sim experience could do a decent landing on the first try (that is: on center line, no bounces, not too hard, no floating for thousands of feet) & without much help. Please correct if my assumption is wrong.

I just don't think that's possible. Most CFIs will be making inputs to make sure the landing doesn't endanger anyone. The student won't even realize it's the instructor making these corrections as they'll think it's the wind acting upon the control surfaces that are pushing the controls a bit. What I'm essentially saying is that the instructor was helping you way more than you think he was.

Sims don't really teach how to make good landings because you don't feel how hard the landing was.

> Sims don't really teach how to make good landings because you don't feel how hard the landing was.

There are clear indicators for how hard the landing was. It would be a terrible sim otherwise. It's clear your experience with sims is extremely limited.

The preflight part is glaringly BS. I don't believe sim teaches how to do fuel stick and sumping.

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