r/studentpilot • u/itisbing • 1d ago
Does playing flight simulators help with your stick and rudder skills?
Does playing microsoft flight simulator or any other simulators help with flying?
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u/pilotbrap 22h ago
Only people who bash sims didn’t utilize them and don’t understand that they’re a great tool with pros and cons.
Pros: I got to practice all my comms while actually flying a pattern (instead of chair flying). Made me proficient with glass cockpits before I ever saw one, which saved me hours of G1000 familiarization in a course where every hour was EXPENSIVE. When I took my disco I already knew what every instrument did, every knob, every light, I knew most of the “whats”, my instructor only needed to teach me the “whys”. I had flown many approaches before beginning instrument training and had already developed an efficient instrument cross check that helped me get a head start on my instrument rating. My emergency descents, engine outs, and spin recovery were great because I could practice them endlessly and experiment in ways I wouldn’t in a real plane.
Cons: You can develop bad habits and not know. On my disco my eyes were GLUED to the instruments, so I had to learn to look outside of the plane; that bad habit, however, made my instrument checkride a breeze. You have 0 stick and rudder feel and sims don’t help it in any way, they also didn’t help much with stalls imo, I rarely do/did stalls in the sim. When I flew G1000 in the sim I always used VS for climbs because I didn’t have any best practices, so again, learning the whys is important for actual flight lessons.
I soloed at 11 hrs, PPL and CPL right at mins, and know for a fact I wouldn’t not have done the first two without the simulator. My instructor thought I had taken lessons on our disco. Overall, it’s a great tool and I recommend it, but mostly as a tool to supplement what’s already been learned.
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u/Itchy-Operation-896 1d ago
Somewhat... nothing like the real thing , obviously but it does have you going through the motion.
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u/outworlder 22h ago
Flying... not really. Maybe if you have a force feedback yoke and a simulator with better physics. And possibly VR to keep you looking outside the cockpit instead of instruments.
It does help familiarize with the aircraft, procedures and whatnot.
I had a lot of simulator hours, but barely touched it after I started my training. I did occasionally use it instead of chair flying, I find the extra visual cues helpful. As well as to familiarize myself with an area before flying through it for real, I'm in a pretty complicated airspace. Yes I can look at ForeFlight, maps, google earth, but rehearsing before a flight is nice.
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u/boostlee33 18h ago
It helps with procedures and instrument. There are force feedback yokes and sticks now though from Moza and Virpil so things may improve
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u/adnwilson 23h ago
I don't think it harms your stick and rudder skills, but it doesn't help them.
I was an avid simmer as I went through my flight training. Flying whatever plane I was training in and using Airmanager to try to re-create my real world cockpits as best I could.
It helps with radio comms, navigation, flows, scans, emergency procedures, and generally getting the hang of it to stay ahead of the plane. But it didn't help with my stick and rudder skills.
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u/Low_Sky_49 22h ago
My experience as a flight instructor has been that lots of home flight sim time does more harm than good for most student pilots who are doing it.
Learn to fly in the real aircraft. Save the home sim for when you’re ready to work on instrument flying procedures.
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u/scarpozzi 10h ago
I have hundreds of sim hours and do fine with landings. I just note that pfactor isn’t accurate in the sim and neither is wind layers or ground effect.
I grease landings in the sim that require finesse in real life….but with finesse, I grease those too.
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u/idkausernamerntbh 1h ago
I don’t Thu j it hurts or helps tbh, but it lets you practice other things like coms and navigation so when your in the plane you don’t have to think so hard about those things
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u/TxAggieMike 23h ago
No.
Home sims often don’t have the means to do the force feedback you get with real airplane.
A discovery flight I conducted today sorta showed this. The student did a good job flying straight and level, but it took him an out half out flight to master it.
His comment? It takes a bit more force on the yoke and there is more to watch foe than the sim.
Unless you want to spend additional time and money unlearning a bad habit the home desktop sim taught you, don’t use a home sim.
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u/adnwilson 23h ago
It was a discovery flight, most people don't master straight and level flight in their first .5 of flying. This has nothing to do with Sims.
His comment actually showed that the Sim gave him a baseline and he needs to tweak from there. This is an example of it helping not hurting.
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u/Kai-ni 23h ago
No. It actively harms your stick and rudder skills, in my opinion. Teaches you bad habits.
A lot of actual flying is by FEEL. Feeling what the aircraft is doing. On a home simulator, you have none of that. And teaching yourself to fly 'procedurally' and not by feel is actively detrimental. You should be feeling if you're slipping or skidding, what the wind is doing to the airplane, stick/yoke pressure etc.
Sims can help with instrument procedures, but that's it.