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Comment by ipsum2 | Hacker News Reader

Someone successfully hijacked, flew, and did a barrel roll on a plane just from learning from video games, though it's not clear if it was Microsoft Flight Simulator:

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/video-games-pilots...

Though there's some skepticism here:

> Some of Mr. Russell’s actions, such as knowing to be at a certain elevation to perform certain aerial moves, suggested he may have learned them from a flight simulator, Mr. Todd said.

> “It’s highly improbable, but not impossible, that he never had a lick of flying except other than in a virtual world,” he said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/12/us/richard-russell-q400-f...

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X-Plane has a professional version that's used in FAA-certified flight simulators. The home version on a laptop runs the same simulation code.

Most flight sim games, including Microsoft's, start with performance data on the airplane. X-Plane starts with the shape of the airplane and physically models the airflow. It's even used by aircraft designers.

I was going to say, I've heard that x-plane is supposed to be the better sim between the two. But I don't have the background to make a comparison.

The modeling in X-Plane works great on fake experimental aircraft but lookup tables have their place too, especially for real aircraft where every single small performance characteristic is known to several decimal places.

Within the normal flight envelope this holds. But getting into a spin in a glider in ms fs shoes you the limits of lookup tables / their implementation as the behaviours is completely wrong. ( At least ask the way up to fsx)

In another universe these software were banned after 9/11

In this universe these games are closed source and there's no guarantee that, if someone for example uses them for training to crash airliners, a red flag isn't raised somewhere.

Given that this is Microsoft i would be very surprised by this. They are too incompetent to be able go think about such a huge details. And even if they were forced to implement this feature it would be poorly done and would probably have a lot of false positives which would make the data almost useless. (I dont know about games from other companies)

I think just about every kid who has played a flight sim has intentionally crashed into a building at least once.

I reserve the right to crash virtual planes into virtual buildings, I dont know what else youd use a flight simulator for.

the number of red flags thrown would be excessive. Who hasn't purposely crashed their plane in a flight simulator just to see what happens.

Or to see how difficult it is, which is not difficult at all. Hitting the ground of course is trivial, but you can probably hit a skyscraper the first time you boot up a flight sim. It's hard to imagine anyone doing much "training" specifically for that.

One example: the release of Propeller Arena for Sega Dreamcast was scheduled for September 19, 2001. The release was canceled just days after the attack.

Similarly, the Barefoot Bandit, who stole several airplanes (his first at the age of 18):

> It is believed that he learned how to fly small planes by reading aircraft manuals, handbooks, watching a "How to fly a small airplane" DVD, and playing flight simulator computer games

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colton_Harris_Moore

People like this are like those extremely hyper-active dogs that should never bee cooped-up in an apartment -- we need to throw people like that onto a creativity farm and call it an incubator.

That's basically what all the crypto incubators consist of.

Apparently Microsoft Flight Simulator was used preparing for 9/11 as well. Not a testimonial they are slapping on the box art though.

That's absolutely wild and tragic. If not from video games, then from where? I can't see the 2nd article but the first mentions that he had no formal training! Did he mean to crash at the end? Was it some elaborate "going out with a bang"? I have so many questions after reading that, the story is like every idle and intrusive thought come to life at once.

Skyking!

He eventually intentionally crashed the plane in an uninhabited area. Apparently at other times he considered crashing into inhabited areas.

I looked it up after and damn...

>Just a broken guy; got a few screws loose, I guess

>I wasn’t really planning on landing it

I've been on a ride in a jet trainer. It took minimal instruction to do an aileron roll, and it was easy enough to fly. My skepticism comes from motion sickness. You can do all the aerobatics you want in a flight sim, but it doesn't prepare you for the world shifting in ways you don't expect, even when you're the one behind the stick.

He crashed, more than once, because all he had was gaming experience. He basically learned on the job. It’s impressive, but not so surprising to me.

Richard Russell only crashed once. He did not walk away from it. You are probably thinking of Colton Harris Moore, the "Barefoot Bandit" referenced in sibling comments, who crashed stolen Cessnas maybe 3 times?

He was suicidal. Took a shot at it without expecting to succeed and almost crashed upon completing the barrel roll. Of course you can get a plane up in the air just by learning from sims, it’s not highly improbable at all.

But that doesn’t say much about wether they are a good aid for learning to fly properly or not.

Some guy wrote a song about Mr Russell:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qNi5IFdXaM

Just listen to the live audio between controller and Mr. Russell. Yeah, he confesses he has played videogames and such... his dream came true for a little while.

The most impressive thing is he pulled off successful loop in the sky.

Edit: better link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYpaf8WdppM

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