[lobstaboy]

It’s just another flying machine.
”

No. It isn't. It's a computer program.

[TheFarmer]

[lobstaboy]

I dont care what you call it, but using a flight sim is NOT flying.
A model aeroplane is flying, and a drone is flying. But a sim is a computer.

Do a thought experiment. Imagine you are wired up to a fantastic computer that can input sensations into your brain that mimic reality (like in the film The Matrix). You have a choice - you can be wired up to MSFS or to sensors and actuators in a Piper Cub which will fly under your control. In neither case are you actually going to leave your bed - but which option would you choose?

Or lets say you lose your medical and cant be P1 (not even a PMD). You are offered a choice; and you must choose one and only one option. You can go flying as a passenger as much as you like with willing pilot friends and enjoy folks company at the airfields you visit, or you can use a really good commercial grade simulator at home on your own. Which would you choose?

[TopCat]

Or lets say you lose your medical and cant be P1 (not even a PMD). You are offered a choice; and you must choose one and only one option. You can go flying as a passenger as much as you like with willing pilot friends and enjoy folks company at the airfields you visit, or you can use a really good commercial grade simulator at home on your own. Which would you choose?

Do you mean do the flying myself but have my pilot friend log the hours because I can't be P1? That would be fine. I don't care about counting hours any more.

But if you mean ride as pax while someone else does the flying, no - if I couldn't fly any more I expect I'd drift away from IRL flying quite quickly.

I fly because I love to fly. Not because I love to be in the air, although I do. If the choice was fly only as pax, or in a truly realistic VR sim, I'd choose the sim in a heartbeat. I could try my hand at combat flying, aerobatics, fly anything and anywhere, and it would feel as real as the technology allowed. If that wasn't real enough, I'd give it up.

I'm much less worried about the loss of the social aspect of flying - nearly all my social life is outside flying as it is.

[Rob P]

As it will never be an either/or choice the question is flawed.

One does not prevent participation in the other

Rob P

[lobstaboy]

As it will never be an either/or choice the question is flawed.

One does not prevent participation in the other

Rob P

It's a thought experiment! I don't mean in real life (of course you're right).
I'm suggesting you think which you'd pick if you really did have to choose between them and couldn't say, "Nah I won't bother with either".

I'm trying to get folk to think about what flying means to them.

[Paul_Sengupta]

I'm trying to get folk to think about what flying means to them.

For me it's not an easy one to answer. The biggest draw of flying for me is being in control of an aeroplane, moving the stick, having the aeroplane respond.

However, I also enjoy being in the air, looking at the views, going into airfields, going to nice places, meeting people, etc. I'm happy to fly as a passenger in a Tiger Moth, PA28, TB20 or A320.

I also like going down the pub or for a curry with my flying mates. Unlike TopCat, much of my social life revolves around flying and pilots, whether that means meeting up by ground transport or air transport.

Would I still want to go down the pub or for a curry with pilots? Yes.
Would I still want to fly as a passenger, for the views, the places and the people? Yes.
Would I still want to wiggle a stick or yoke to see something respond to my inputs? Yes.

[Miscellaneous]

I'm trying to get folk to think about what flying means to them.

There really is only one choice.

I don't think there's a right and wrong, we are just wired differently. Even if I was told I couldn't fly and was offered a sim I'd say no thanks. My mind literally gets boggled moving in the third dimension. As I have opined previously, it is the privilege of getting airborne that reveals our understanding, the mental picture we have of our world, is far from the reality of our world. RC's/drones, with cameras, cannot replicate that, as for a sim...

I agree with @Paul_Sengupta, it's not an easy question to answer. In answering your question it seems to me it is about a) being airborne and all that entails, and b) going places. Take away being airborne and it has no meaning to me personally.

[lobstaboy]

To come up with a different take on this question I decided to think of an activity that really would be pointless as a sim game.

I hit on angling. There can't possibly be a way to simulate that in a way that would make enough sense that folk would pay for it!

How wrong I was


For me @Miscellaneous has said it. Take away being airborne and it's meaningless.
I'd have thought taking away sitting on a river bank would make angling meaningless, but apparently that's not so for some people.
Indeed we are all wired differently.

[Miscellaneous]

How wrong I was:)

Really?

I see a correlation between sims and those who honestly consider themselves sports nuts because they have a season ticket for Anfield, spend every Saturday night watching highlights, only to spend Sunday discussing Saturday's results over 10 pints down the pub.

There's some sort of disconnection from reality.

[lobstaboy]

True. Very true...

[TopCat]

I see a correlation between sims and those who honestly consider themselves sports nuts because they have a season ticket for Anfield, spend every Saturday night watching highlights, only to spend Sunday discussing Saturday's results over 10 pints down the pub.

There's some sort of disconnection from reality.

Erm...

Unlike the flying nut that's content to sit in an aeroplane as passenger, be flown by someone else to an airfield, and then sit in the cafe talking about flying?

Rather than engage with a sim physically and mentally, and, for all I know, socially as part of a engaged online community?

[Miscellaneous]

The danger was always that the analogy would be taken as a literal comparison.

Unlike the flying nut that's content to sit in an aeroplane as passenger, be flown by someone else to an airfield, and then sit in the cafe talking about flying?

a) are there significant numbers of people who fly as passengers and consider themselves flying nuts in the way sports nuts do? You seem to talk as if it is a given. I don't accept there are.
b) even if you are right, at least they get airborne.

Rather than engage with a sim physically and mentally, and, for all I know, socially as part of a engaged online community?

As I've said, it's about being airborne. Is a true flying nut going to choose engaging with a PC over getting airborne as a passenger? I really doubt it.

Bit over zealous there in your defence, TC. Where's your season ticket for, Stamford Bridge?

[GrahamB]

Bit over zealous there in your defence, TC. Where's your season ticket for, Stamford Bridge?

Aah, The Blues.

Just like my landings, however well things are going they never lose the capacity to disappoint.

[lobstaboy]

What's blue and slides down tables?