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Comment by jcalvinowens | Hacker News Reader

Flying a real airplane is easier than flying a simulator, because you have so much more sensory input available. Because of this, you are likely to teach yourself bad habits in the simulator that will be expensive to unlearn in a real airplane. If you insist on doing it, read "Stick And Rudder" first: https://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN9780070362406

As other comments have observed, the most motivated students tend to be the ones who go to the extra trouble to use simulators: it is possible the simulators are useless, and students who would otherwise be successful just tend to seek them out.

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From my experience flying and instructing students, the extra sensory input from a real airplane makes it more difficult, not less, than flying a simulator.

It’s easier to get task-saturated, random things such as sun glare on your instruments, a bug-spattered windshield, crummy radios, etc all contribute to a more challenging environment.

Simulators can be a useful training aid and are a good tool for mission rehearsal but no replacement for the real thing.

I think the difference is like you say in the real aircraft you can get a lot more task saturated. A sim feels like being a fly on the wall almost as if in 3rd person. But as far as manual handling goes, the real jet is much easier, runway textures and peripheral cues for landing are far more obvious in reality.

I definitely agree the real environment is more challenging in a holistic sense.

What I meant is that in a real airplane, you have the advantage of things like G-force, force feedback from the reversible controls, stall buffet, the sound of the airstream on the windscreen, complete peripheral vision, etc, which combine to make the actual "manipulating the controls to make the airplane do what you want" part of flying easier.

What sort of bad habits?

Generally an over-reliance on the instruments. Not looking out the front window as the primary means of judging the aircraft's attitude, not navigating visually. Also, not using trim in a realistic way (looking at you, magical set-trim-to-level button...).

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