How to Choose the Right Flight Simulator for Your Needs in 2024.
The world of aviation and flight simulators offers a big wide quandary on what to choose. The right Flight Simulator for Your Needs in 2024 is not cut and dried but limited depending on requirements. It’s worth asking first, what type of pilot do you wish to be? There are certainly many answers to this question, and each will apply to a section of you reading this blog. Let’s list the most general pilot options then there can be many subsections as well, but we will keep it very general in this blog.
- Sport/Ultralight Pilot
- Glider Pilot
- General Aviation Pilot
- Commercial Pilot
- Military Pilot
- Helicopter Pilot
- Astronaut
The categories above require very different approaches, certainly in my opinion as I would classify myself in a few of the above but not others. You should ask yourself which one or multiple options you envisage yourself diving into. If you’re really focussed on a specific aircraft such as a 737 Max or a Bell R22 Helicopter and plan to build a flight simulator cockpit to make the immersion even more realistic than it becomes more important to take some time considering the options. But is it just simulator flying your considering thus reading this blog post or are you considering a real-world flying career or licence for entertainment?
Military or Civilian Flying.
This is quite an important question to be answered first! You should consider this question carefully! If the whole question is really an entertainment flying experience, then everything is on the table! Absolutely a plethora of simulators to fill up your SSD or M.2 drive to while away the hours discovering the simulated world in detail!
If you’re considering a real-world flying career or the Military flying career, then it’s a very different answer! Please listen now!
Having worked in the military and on military fighters for 23 years as an aircraft technician, plus watched the men and women strap on these incredibly sophisticated fighter jets gives you some insight I believe! I have been fortunate enough to travel in Jet fighters, Jet trainers as well as helicopters plus transports in the military! Leaping into a combat flight simulator like DCS World as amazing as its going to be a huge mistake I believe!
If it’s real-world military flying, then Absolutely don’t get a military flight simulator! Simply the worst thing you could do in my opinion! There’s nothing in DCS World or Falcon BMS etc that will benefit you in the short- or long-term training you need to get to be a pilot in the military! Nothing there for you at all. So why not you ask?
Knowledge first and Skill Latter
The answer is you need to learn the general aviation skills first! The paperwork, laws, meteorological studies and so much more before you even check a fuel tank for water and or jump into an aircraft for real and fly it! You need the basic real world flying skills must be second nature. Take offs and landings are a great start. As always remember a take-off is optional! A landing is NOT!
What you don’t want to do is think you’re learning how to fly the aircraft of your dreams in a combat simulator and getting a head start on your peers! No, all you will be doing is learning things that are nearly correct at best and likely very very wrong! If you do this then you will require extra time to relearn the correct procedures costing more time that the military may not wish to give you! Your dream could end prematurely because of this!
Mental Gymnastics
Mentally flying is exceptionally demanding so having taught yourself all these so-called military facets, when the real instructors start pushing alternative information into you it may just be too much! You will have learnt the wrong techniques, the incorrect procedures and now your mental capacity is full! Believe me the training syllabus in military flying will push you to the very brink of mental collapse so you don’t need crap taking up valuable thinking space!
If you have never been at the point of just being so mentally drained, you can barely stand then that’s what’s going to happen even in a training aircraft before you get into a fighter. I’ve been there even in the backseat of a Macchi Jet Trainer in the RAAF just on a joy flight with a pilot I knew. Pulling Gs and navigating while operating radios and just chatting was easy for him but I was overwhelmed and disoriented a few times! I’ve had it when flying my light sport aircraft with and without an instructor! It’s important skill to learn to be able to eliminate the crap in your head and focus on the critical tasks at hand!
Don’t Learn Bad Habits and Destroy Your Career!
The content in military-based flight simulators is going to teach you bad habits! It’s just going to and watching other YouTube warriors won’t make you a better military pilot. What you learn that’s incorrect the instructors are going to have to break! This may take more time than you have to complete every test and flight in the program! Military programs don’t have time for re-teaching you when you have all this wrong information in your head already! Watching YouTubers battle away in dogfights and BVR battles is not helpful unless you’re only going to be a PC Military Pilot! Thats great but they are very very different animals in reality!
Military Quality and Standards are not what Your use too!
Even in my military training many years ago, the most basic test had a 75% pass mark! Fail 2 and your probably back in civilian street or in another task stream that you didn’t want. There were other parts of the course where the pass mark was set at up to 90% as just a pass mark!
Time is money and extra flights in an expensive jet because you’re dogfighting or navigation skills you learnt flying the same jet in DCS are different! You will not be forgiven! You will find yourself back on the street wondering what went wrong! Please listen now and prepare correctly!
Your Choice is HERE!
The choice of FLIGHT SIMULATORS is pretty concentrated to be honest. If your serious we have Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 and soon to be 2024! The next cab on the rank is Prepar3d by Lockheed Martin which isn’t as popular or as good as the others. It’s the old Microsoft flight simulator engine on steroids but as far as I know its still that. If I’m wrong, please enlighten me in the comments. I have tried it years back and wasn’t impressed really. It was ok at the time compared to other sims but more recently it may have had massive changes making my opinion invalid. Very happy to hear from you if I’m wrong. The final option and always my recommendation is X Plane 12 by the team at Laminar Research!
I’ve Flown them ALL since the 1990’s
In flying flight simulators all the way back from in the 1990s to current, the best choice in training flight simulators has to be X Plane 12 from Laminar research as previously mentioned! The scenery I am aware is not the pretty graphically representation of Microsoft Flight Simulator by Microsoft! There is a place in training in the realm of cross-country navigation using MSFS for sure, but you may not wish to spend the money on multiple flight simulator. I get it! I’m honestly a budget flight simmer myself but I’ve still owned them all!
X Plane 12 – It’s the ONE!
X Plane 12 offers a free demo option so you can try it for yourself without handing over any cash initially. You can fly on a limited area with controls ceasing to work after 15 minutes or so.
It has a free 3rd party program available called Autho4XP which helps you create highly detailed photo realistic tiles. You will love when flying over them for sure. A second popular option is AutoOrtho, which downloads tiles as you need them instead of the previous option being stored on your PC. They do take up a lot of space. I prefer the former because you can change the detail so when at altitude save space with a lower resolution then as you descend you can change specific areas to be much higher photo realistic tile areas. It works amazingly!
Flight Models Make Pilots
X Plane 12 has a far superior flight model with its blade element theory engine evaluating every surfaces interaction with the atmosphere and also taking into account things like the P factor. P factor is the torque crated as the air pushed by propellers rotates around the fuselage of an aircraft and hits the vertical tail to put it very simply.
It’s not uncommon the head down the runway in your favourite General Aviation aircraft and as you take off in X Plane 12, you’re holding a lot of rudder to stay straight due to P factor! Often with a crosswind in X Plane 12 the aircraft rotates to point into the winds that are now affecting your aircraft in the air. This is a huge factor in why I feel it’s the best sim to train on.
Flying normal circuits you’re going to need to learn to coordinate your stick/Yoke controls with rudder to keep the aircraft in coordinated flight. Adding and reducing power changes the P factor and effects directly how much Yaw the aircraft is experiencing.
Important Skills Co-Ordinated Flight
Learning coordinated flight will save your life! Learning to react correctly to bad situations is best learnt in a sim initially with the guidance of an instructor. An instructor does not mean some friend giving you flying tips for your sim! Sure, if you’re flying for fun and only in a simulator at home then yeah by all means watch my LetsFLyVFR YouTube channel. There’s a great amount of content available but only for sim ONLY pilots!
Having a QFI (Qualified Flight Instructor) tutor you on what to do and then you practice it in a flight simulator is great was to learn the steps. Being prepared before you get into a real aircraft is invaluable. This is providing the information and training is relevant. It also helps your flying to be more efficient and save money without the cost of an aircraft. Navigation especially can be done extremely well in a flight simulator. It will save you time and money in the real-world flights if your already comfortable setting radios, GPS and other navigation equipment.
Stalls Spins and Adverse YAW
X Plane 12 is incredibly efficient at simulating spins and stalls. If your instructor gives you some instruction in the aircraft, then you can come home to X Plane 12 and re-fly the manoeuvres. You can make the whole process natural and get it automatic as well as many basic flying drills.
Adverse Yaw is responsible for so many deaths in the GA community but not in the professional community. Adverse yaw is a situation most commonly encountered at low speed and high angle of attack. In a situation where a pilot is climbing out on take-off and does not maintain the coordination (The Ball Centred) and slows while deciding to turn! Its already being at low speed and getting close to a stall in straight flight. The consequence of not maintain the ball in the centre means one with is now producing less lift as the AOA increases due to the turn. This wing is always the outside wing in the turn. The act of turning means in physics it has to move through the air faster than the inside wing to keep pace. In doing so it creates more AOA till it stalls while the inner wing remains flying! The act of not keeping the aircraft coordinated in yaw means the out er wing stalls first causing the aircraft to spin to the outside of the turn mostly in n unrecoverable flat spin! Sadly, this is normally close to the ground and mostly fatal to the occupants of the aircraft.
Author.
Brendon McAliece (Aka Gunnie) is a a military veteran with 23 years working on Jet Fighters, their weapons systems and ejection seat/module systems as well as munitions and R&D. Involved with flight simulation since the 1980s he has flown all the major flight simulators over the years.
He is an Australian expat who has lived in Malaysia, UK, Saudi Arabia and more recently Thailand. He is a multi-lingual blogger who loves to share his life experiences here on LetsFlyVFR.com and DreamingGuitar.com, his lifestyle and Travel experiences Blog.
