Is There Something Wrong with Flight Sim Fans?

? Man, I gotta get out more :slight_smile:

1 Like

How would that look? Iā€™m just curious. Not being a pilot Iā€™ve wondered, while Iā€™m adding to my little Frankenstein monster project (Iā€™ve created my own world within a world to avoid some of what we speak of here), how I might add something that resembles ā€˜airmanshipā€™ into it. I ask cuz Iā€™m ignorant of what metrics go into it. Not sure what data I can even capture at the moment.

The way the sim handles ground effect is off and the motion of the sim isnā€™t fast enough to simulate the rapid changes associated with, for instance, a crosswind landing where you need to land on the upwind wheel first. Basically, the landing is all about manual labor, and feels very different in the sim. To put it differently, you canā€™t teach someone to land in the sim. You need to do that in the aircraft.

3 Likes

Hmm. Yeah, not sure Iā€™d get close to that. Off the top of my head all I could do (and this would not be of much interest to many Iā€™m sure) is things like:

  • How hard you ā€˜hitā€™ the runway.
  • How close to the ā€˜numbersā€™, and centerline, you got
  • Time over target (or any point) of course (this oneā€™s easy)
  • How well you held [an assigned] altitude.

ā€œAirmanshipā€ is a term I know of but I know nothing about. Just something that periodically comes up when I wonder if I can ā€˜track itā€™. But I have to understand it first.

Thanks.

I think itā€™s hard to say ā€˜flight sim fansā€™ in general. DCS has several cliques and microcosms. Certain communities maintain a culture that is positive with Mudspike exemplifying that. Others would rather not and therein is the issue. I find those that either try way too hard to emulate the military or those who would rather post epic LMAO FAIL videos to youtube are those which are most disagreeable. I think itā€™s just a case of the interest in aviation being tertiary and more the case of these individuals lacking some much needed self-awareness as well as someone else in their circles to tell them ā€œHey, chill.ā€

2 Likes

Iā€™ll take a stab at it, but english is not my native language, so others feel free to correct or add to it.

You could say its the pilotā€™s intuition that heā€™s gained and nurtured over time.
Things like stick and rudder skill, intricate aircraft knowledge, environmental knowledge, legal knowledge combined with human factors like past experiences, personality, crew resource management skill (the commander might make a slightly different decision based on who he or she is flying with) get all thrown into a big backpack of the individual and then throw some common sense in to top it off that enables him or her to apply all this in an appropriate manner. If it succeeds the pilot will be mentioned for great airmanship.

I donā€™t think its something that can be graded by a piece of software, save for systems used by psychologists. And even then, those grading are just a technica analysis of ā€˜the momentā€™, which imho, does the whole definition of airmanship short.

If anything its a gradual forming of the ā€˜pilot personalityā€™ in how he or she tackles his profession with regards to all input that needs to be processed, technically, legally, socially, etc.

I agree, but the folks you bring up as a counter argument could very well be disregarded as ā€˜fansā€™, right? Folks out to just annoy others on YT comments do not qualify as fans to me.

If we look at those who have made (combat)simming their hobby, I still think its a commonly known fact that we are a difficult bunch to please and will always be there to point out that this or that isnā€™t modelled correctly.

Now, the way people express their feedback is what we are talking about, I think.
And as other have said above, it is the internet. People take liberties with proper self conduct on the internet for some reason.
Perhaps it says little about their fan status after all.

1 Like

Is flightsimming unique in that it is one of the few pursuits whereby the ā€œthingā€ is created by people who have never done the ā€œthingā€ in RL, for a majority of consumers who have never done the ā€œthingā€ in RL?

1 Like

If you look at ED and Bohemia then I donā€™t think there is a lack of real life experience available to guide their development.
Sure, most of the coders and artists might not actually have done in real life which they simulate in their product, but in that sense its no different than creating a fantasy game from a book series.
The people who did it in real life just have to guide those that didnā€™t, but have the skills to digitally recreate it.

In the end it comes down to understanding the limitations in time and technical restrictions to get something real translated into zeroā€™s and oneā€™s.
Respecting that nature doesnā€™t easily let itself be put into a mathematical model and appreciating that some stuff in military simulation is just never going to be properly modelled due to sensitivity / legal issues. Or in case of historical subjects; lack of reference material.

At the same time if we look at what progress has been booked by commercially available simulations, its perhaps easy to think that anything can be created! :grinning:
In that, simming might be different as people perhaps have come to expect more and more, whereas an RPG is always perceived as a game from the outset.

2 Likes

I thought we were all weirdos. Varying degrees of intensity but still a bit odd.

Trying to explain to real people who know me that my absolute favourite thing to do (even over my real life GA flying) is getting a few mates from all over the world together, in VR and giggling like hell while be try to virtually kill each other in aircraft that are so realistic that Mr normal Iā€™m talking to about it might have a 10 percent chance of finding the throttle. Is borderline impossible.
We run missions that require planning, knowledge and actual real world learning to be able to just take off, let alone complete the 50 switch combination and MFD work to be able to drop an actual bomb.
We are bloody weird. I donā€™t give a toss about being weird, but its a bit unusual for sure

I joined Mudspike because that anger I saw on other forums wasnā€™t here and was gently moderated. I was here a lot longer lurking in the background watching you lot. Conversations and explanation never Boiled over. I like that. Iā€™m happy to be here with you weirdos.

I do miss the guys who have left though, and the ones who have gone a lot quieter. I hope they come back one day. I never had an online presence and dont have many IRl friends so when this place loses someone I really feel it.

Bloody flightsimmers making me like people again. How dare you

13 Likes

you can to some extent I would say, because when you look at the yt sim content sometimes, I bet that you will teach them better :slight_smile:
but sure its not fully useful IRL is what you mean

Thatā€™s what too many armchair pilots donā€™t get.
And it makes my brain curdle to hear the gamers, flight simmers, go tell the likes of Mover that heā€™s doing it wrong?!

the naked gun facepalm GIF

Dunning and Kruger are doing overtime in Flight Sim forumsā€¦

4 Likes

Iā€™m talking specifically about the full motion simulator we use for training.
But yes, to some extent. All the way down to the last 10ft or so :slight_smile:

2 Likes

Agree here. Even with the little motor floaters I fly the last 10 ft is much different IRL. Although for circuits and final up to that point I found sims to be a fairly useful tool for Instrument scans and things.

I felt more confident under the hood as well due to sims. Perfectly happy flying on instruments when Iā€™ve found myself inadvertently IMC as well. Sims without a doubt helped me to ignore my ears and scan the information inside the plane

2 Likes

Oh yes! This is something simulators excel at teaching pilots.

3 Likes

I can see what he means. He sums it up quite nicely @40:08. I usually get some critique on few of my DCS vids, and pretty much all praise on those less realistic, older ones which are remembered fondly by the older crowd. I guess DCS attracts serious people who take their quality time seriously.

I personally fly simulations for fun and donā€™t care if I did everything right during cold-start, hit every point of CASE I approach or employed the weapon properly. And even if I did, I doubt I could do all the things I do in flight sim in real life, which I suspect most of the serious crowd actualy believes in (and then they critique the real pilotsā€¦).

8 Likes

Bang on @damson. Couldnā€™t of said it better

3 Likes

Same here. I use DCS for recreation, not CE credits! I have a job, Iā€™m not going to pretend I have another one as a pilot.

I also am not a member of the RP crowd. I donā€™t get LARPers or cosplayers or people who play any game ā€œseriouslyā€ like theyā€™re not some shmo sitting in their bedroom on a PC or console but are ACTUALLY a knight or a sergeant or an admiral or what have you.

Maybe they get off on faking that level of immersion but I do not. I am never unaware that I am playing a game always. Now it can be more or less realistic when it comes to ballistics, physics, gravity, sticking to the parameters of whatever real-life thing is being emulated, but whatever it is is inherently UNREALISTIC. That will never change until we get Star Trek-style holodecks.

Heh, can you imagine people playing BF or CoD or CS in a holodeck and trying crap like double-jumping or bunnyhopping or whatever? Exhausted in 5 seconds, dead in 10!

5 Likes

Thatā€™s what I like about the more complex ones - the fun for me is ā€œhitting my numbersā€ (my term for it). Nobody in the world knows, or cares, but Iā€™m good with that.

A matter of degree: somewhere, several yeas ago, there was a ā€˜Tube video (or a forum post, I donā€™tā€™ recall) of a dude who purchased the business end of a B737, hauled it home and crammed it into his garage (he couldnā€™t have been married!) - now thatā€™s overdoing the ā€œSerious Simmerā€ thing in my book. But Iā€™ll bet he had fun. As long as he didnā€™t buy a used Captains hat (Eastern airlines) and pose at the mall as a real PIC, good on him.

I see it abstractly I guess: the fact the pixels are an image of an aircraft matters not. Itā€™s about figuring out a ā€œsystemā€ and applying ā€œtechniquesā€. Doesnā€™t matter what it is. It just happens to ā€˜resembleā€™ heavier than air, craft, in this genre.

Iā€™m glad we have something that covers such a broad spectrum of ā€œfunā€.

5 Likes

Agreed. Most people think they want full realism, until it punches them in the mouth (with apologies to Mr. Tyson).

2 Likes