> > > No, education surely is not a must; I have experimented and after an
> > > hour in the sim. I have had teenage computer nerds (average IQ) flying
> > > the aircraft (sim.) on average far better than some professional pilots!
Terrible example.
The "average" computer nerd with an "average" IQ is lightyears ahead of
any faction of society in a couple of respects. Since I ahppen to be one
of those nerds, and have raised two more just like me, permit me to drop
this anecdote...
My kids and I had a fascination with Microsoft Flight Simulator; said by
some to posess greater realism than many flight school GA sims. (We all
got a kick out of the cracked windshield resulting from premature touch-
down.)
Anyway, the kids were showing remarkable skill with the unit and came the
day they were with me in a Commanche. I handed control off to my eldest
after he begged for almost half an hour. He did a remarkable job until I
shut off the wing leveller. At which time, he had the aircraft in a steep
dive at an attitude conservatively described as "unusual."
Each of the boys tried to control the airplane without aid of autopilot,
and each had the aircraft in less than optimal attitudes in very short
order. Before you say "well, there would be electronic assistance in the
larger aircraft," let me also say that with the autopilot on, and using
it's directional controls to 'ster' the airplane, they could get it aimed
at the airport, but not much else. When I asked them to make the ATC call
for a simple VFR approach, they screamed foul, stating that they were
already busy enough.
Computers offer people, especially youngsters who play games, a great
amount of intuition of how an automation system works, and what they don't
know in that regard, pick up fairly easily comparing their control inputs
to the displayed results. So in the same way that they are skilled at
"beating" any particular game, they are equally skilled at beating sims,
which are, after all, merely an educational game of sorts. Just as a golf
simulator may give you some understanding of how the game is played, it
doesn't show you _how_ to physically play golf.
These kids would make pretty decent pilots if they had the training and
experience that many captains do, in addition to their computer skills and
the hand to eye coordination experience that only zillions of hours of
game playing affords them.
Thus I disagree with any assertion that incidental and passable performace
in a simulator by non-pilots reveals anything relevant.
-- Bob Kirkpatrick bobk_at_dogear.com (509) 456-3353