Bad sim pilot habits

[zoynyne]

I've read about this subject a few times over the years and was wondering if anyone could elaborate on it?

The only ones I specifically remember are paying too much attention to the instruments, and "flying" the plane too much with the trim control.

I've never had the instrument fixation problem; I'm always paying too much attention to the outside view unless I'm specifically practicing something instrument related.

Trim is another matter - a joystick just doesn't give you the fine control and feedback that the real thing does. At least not like what I felt during the few hours I've flown GA with other pilots IRL.

I've been simming pretty heavily for years, and I'm thinking of taking the plunge into real flying - actually the goal has been in my head for years, but justifying the financial side of it has so far never worked out.

I'm a little older, more educated, more experienced, and I'm seeing flying lessons becoming a financial reality within a few years here, and I'm hoping to get a head start on at least trying to "unlearn" any bad habits I've probably picked up.

Any good tips out there?

[lnuss]

The most obvious one is, as you mention, flying too much by the gauges in visual conditions. Besides flying too much with the trim control, is failing to trim the aircraft after pitch and/or power changes, a problem exacerbated by most people not having a really usable trim control.

Other possible bad habits might be such things as not flying the correct approach speeds, climb speeds, etc.; not paying attention to engine gauges such as oil pressure, temperature, etc.; not looking for traffic; taxiing too fast; not holding the controls into the wind properly when taxiing; not paying attention to restrictive airspace or required minimum altitudes; not leaning the engine when needed; not flying proper traffic patterns (see the AIM); being sloppy in airspeed control, power control, altitude control, and attitude control in all three axes; being sloppy in taxiing; just to name some that I can think of off the top of my head.

Go for absolute precision at all times (to the extent possible in the sim), and don't tolerate slop in your flying. Even doing all the above correctly in the sim all the time, still will leave you with lots to learn when you get in a real aircraft, though you'll have a head start. Of course ALL these things are easier to learn with an instructor looking over your shoulder.

And the aircraft in the sim don't react the same as real world aircraft in all flight regimes (stall, slow flight slips, etc.), so expect some differences there, as well.

Hope this helps.

[FreightDawg]

The worst habbit? Thinking you can land a real 747 because you landed one on the sim.......

[zoynyne]

Lol. And thanks Larry, yes your post is/will be very helpful.

At least for me it seems to be more of a case of good habits not yet picked up rather than bad habits that need unlearning.

UNlearning is much more difficult for me than learning...

And Freightdog, nope, this simmer isn't that stupid.

I'd be nervous to be stuck alone in the cockpit of a C172 - and ready for a kicker?

I've handled the yoke of a C152 during takeoff, turns, flares, and landings 4 times in real life already!

This was 23 years ago when I was 10 - I was too short to reach the rudder pedals at that time, so no experience there.

I guess given that experience, plus tons of sim time, I'd probably have pretty decent odds of taking a C172 down ok, but even in that plane I'd still be quite nervous about it. I'd be particularly worried about how I'd handle it once it was on the pavement. I'd be worried about landing with excessive groundspeed in the attempt to make sure the landing wasn't way too hard. I'd be worried about bouncing it and losing control from there...

A 747?

Give me a 100,000 foot runway that's 2000 feet wide and I might feel almost the same.

A real airport runway? Ugh, just imagining being in that situation is about as bad as imagining being in a nosedive straight to the ground...

[Khirsah13]

I've had a couple of interesting experiences in pretty solid IMC that has rectified my habit of not paying attention to the oil pressure gauge.

From my experience I've found it's not so much not holding controls into the wind properly so much as it is a habit of not keeping your crosswind aileron deflection in after landing that tends to crop up in the sim to real world transition. When you touch down keep that correction in or you'll end up with some interesting looking tires.

As to traffic patterns. I want honest answers Larry (and any of the rest who feel like owning up). When not demonstrating for a student, truthfully, do you still fly a base leg? Or has it denigrated into a 180 degree turn from downwind to final? I'll fess up. It happened for me when I started doing 180 degree turns to a precision landing in the Arrow. Just about everyone I fly with on a regular basis (100 hour private pilots, 2000 hour instructors, a 15,000 hour DE) all lost their base leg somewhere along the line.

The best thing any person transitioning from sim to reality can do for themselves is to realize that you don't know what you think you know. Flying an aircraft is not hard, by any stretch of the imagination. Even performance and emergency maneuvers aren't that difficult. Really just about anyone can learn how to do it. But it IS different in the real world than it is in the sim. It's a different skill set, and while some skills may transfer pretty well, others will not.

[azflyboy]

I dont think that Fs will cause ALL of the problems Larry mentioned. I agree with the thing about taxying, patterns, and Engine gauges, but i dont think it affects overall flying (Precision, trim etc...) all that much. I got was into fs for about 6 yrs before i got my PPL and i think that FS only affects you as much as you let it. I used it for instrumnet stuff and taxiway layouts(which it works very well for IMHO), but i did not use it for flight manuvers. Its true taht initially i wandered all over the sky and had trim issues, but after about 10-15 hrs i got very smooth and now have no issues with flying in FS and then going out and doing a lesson.

[lnuss]

I want honest answers Larry
The answer is "It depends." There are times when it's been more of a curved transition from downwind to final (your 180º approach), but I often do, in fact, fly a square pattern. Part of it, of course, is how far out you are on downwind, what the winds are doing, how tight an approach you are trying to make, etc.

Keep in mind, though, that with all the years of teaching students to make square patterns, that I had to keep current in that regard. And, for reasons mentioned below, it's often a good practice to keep things squared up.

On the other hand, there have been times (such as glider towing) when I was required to make some rather weird "patterns," such as a three mile modified base at high speed and low altitude (around 200 AGL, to stay under other aircraft in the pattern for a different runway -- it was over the desert), slowing just before turning final and completing the slowdown during the turn to final, immediately dumping full flaps and getting 60 mph, then maintaining 200 AGL until (literally) over the fence with the tow rope, then chopping power and simultaneously dumping the nose to almost 45º down, then a radical flare (of sorts) to a wheel landing (this was in a Cessna 180).

There have been other occasions when other approach styles have been needed and, of course, at a controlled field you often don't get all the legs in, and they are sometimes modified at the request of the controller.

Of course a circling downwind to final is not all bad -- it's my understanding that the Navy used to teach their students exactly that (maybe they still do). And it is rarely an absolute requirement to square it off, but traffic plays a part. When there is a chance that someone else is in or near the pattern, you want to be where others expect you and will be more likely to spot you, otherwise the risk of a mid-air goes up, so a square pattern is helpful.

And for a student (and many others), a square pattern gives a better chance to evaluate the wind and its effects on your glide path. On the other hand, once you develop experience, it's good to be able to do it both ways, with and without power.

I eventually reached a point where I can make a decent landing from what many would call an unstabilized approach, but actually just postponed the stabilization until very short final. I expect that many of the people you are mentioning above have also reached that point.

It's a different skill set, and while some skills may transfer pretty well, others will not.
Amen!

[lnuss]

Whether any specific item I mentioned (and some I didn't) causes a problem is dependent on the individual, what they are watching for, what they know, what their habits are in the sim, and other factors. They won't all affect everyone, but most of them will bite someone now and again.

Its true taht initially i wandered all over the sky and had trim issues, but after about 10-15 hrs i got very smooth
So you unlearned any bad habits you picked up, but it's possible that your smoothness might have come a little quicker if you didn't have a bad habit to unlearn and replace with a good habit. Obviously I can't know that for certain about you, and it may not have been the case with you, but it is with some people.

[jwenting]

During the one real flight I did as a pilot (trial lesson, when I was seriously planning to go for my PPL) the main thing that I did wrong (apart from using way too much control input because the yoke in the real thing is a LOT more sensitive than the one in FS) was using the brakes on touchdown.
In FS that's often needed because aircraft don't bleed speed quickly on landing, as least not as fast as a real one does. In real aircraft, it's often not needed (or much later after touchdown than I did it)...

[lnuss]

Of course in FS you don't get flat spots on tires or risk burning out your brakes or even blowing a tire.

A pilot in a real aircraft needs to think about control pressure, rather than control movement, since the amount of force it takes to move the controls varies with airspeed, and control response also varies with speed, g-loading, etc. It's not a bad idea in the sim, either. Add (or reduce) back pressure or forward pressure as needed.