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Comment by jrockway | Hacker News Reader

> I’m downvoting the comment because I think it’s misleading and potentially encouraging dangerous behavior.

How dangerous is it to hire a CFI to give you flight lessons? They'll take you up with 0 hours of experience. They'll take you up to do your ATP cert.

If the guy was like "I just found an airplane laying around in my garage and I started flying towards Japan and dropped the bomb the won WWII", that's probably dangerous and fabricated. If you know how to do a preflight inspection before, then you probably watched someone on YouTube do it before, which is basically flight training minus the FAA certification. The big idea is that if you do something wrong, your instructor is there to correct it. If you have that, you aren't being unsafe.

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It's not dangerous to hire a CFI to give lessons. Arrogance (even if it's unintentional) about one's own competence is dangerous in the pilot seat, even with a CFI in the other seat to monitor and try to take over if/when this person does something dangerous. Imagine a trainee filled with the OP's nonsense in his head thinking he can recover from a spin forcing the CFI having to fight him for control of the airplane, for example. Or maybe he lies and says he has more experience than he does, and the CFI fails to do his diligence (e.g. checking the trainee's logbook): even merely starting the engine can be a disaster waiting to unfold, much the more so taxiing or, god forbid luck get the trainee that far, takeoff.

The whole comment history is suspicious, they portray themselves as an expert in literally any topic

So we can conclude that the user (OP) is probably a programmer!

Ha, exactly. As I was finishing writing that I was thinking "just like the average HN commenter" but figured it was still worth mentioning.

you've got to stop, your beliefs are way overstated. did you read the comments on TFA? pilots saying that they (and anyone) can get useful experiences out of flight simulators and they give examples, preflying a flightplan, IFR, etc.

your examples, "fighting for control with your instructor" and "lying" expose nothing about flight simulators. Instrument flying entails learning not to rely on physical sensations and to rely on the instruments. Practicing things and preflight preparation reduces cognitive load freeing you to better handle unexpected situations that might come up.

people who have never flown before have landed planes in emergencies. but people also get in accidents with their instructors. instructors who are doing it for their own purpose of racking up hours toward their own advancement are especially not incented to cut the number of hours you'll need them instructing you. thinking that any flying is safe, like flying with an instructor, is the type of arrogant attitude that gets you into trouble.

source: i've never even flown a simulator, but I've got many hours in blancolirio, pilot debrief, etc.

I’m not saying simulators are useless. Neither is “chair flying.” Believing that they prepare someone to pre-flight, start, taxi and takeoff and recover from a spin entered while under a hood from training day one is entirely a different matter.

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