
Airbus pilot tries Microsoft Flight Simulator [video] - doener
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jchxsSdBRLo
======
Nition
Imagine putting this much work into every detail of your simulation, and then
getting negative reviews on Steam because there's background music during the
initial download.

~~~
gambiting
tbf, the initial download screen is so bad I can't believe it was actually
coded by a microsoft studio. It's a 120GB download, so I thought ok, I'll just
play some other game in the meantime, right? Nope, they forgot to check if the
application is in the foreground and check for button presses even when the
download window is minimized, meaning that when I play something else pressing
"A" on the controller presses the "help" link on the download screen, opening
a new browser window and microsoft help page. So....nope, I can't play
something else while Flight Simulator is downloading its data, because whoever
coded it doesn't know basic principles of input capture on MS platforms.

~~~
g_p
The downloader itself also just doesn't meet the level of quality I'd expect
Microsoft would want before putting their name to something. Microsoft is
meant to be all about cloud, and this seems to be a single threaded
downloader, pulling one file at a time, then decompressing it. Once it's
decompressed fully, it moves into the next file.

It's not a deal breaker for me - I just left it running for a couple of hours,
but the process seems sufficiently fragile that many people had quite serious
problems getting it to download.

I'm not a game dev, but it feels to me like there's a few areas where FS falls
short of what I'd be expecting as Microsoft. I'd want it to be responsive and
start quickly (at least presenting something on the screen), and I wouldn't
want it to be using full GPU in the menus. Teething issues are to be expected,
but the downloader is critical and it's the first experience people have. A
shame they didn't use some more reliable file transfer tech (or even just
thread it!) The general lack of multi core use on the sim is definitely quite
disappointing though for a 2020 release that's doing lots of general
calculations and other tasks that benefit from threading.

~~~
gambiting
I am a gamedev and that's one of the reasons why this screen is so annoying
:-) It's just basic stuff. Not to offend anybody(we were all there at some
point) but it feels like it was coded by an intern or a team who had nothing
to do with the main project. For whatever technical reason they had to have a
download screen separate from the main game, so someone quickly added a single
threaded downloader with basic input - still, I have no idea why it's using so
much GPU just displaying some text.

~~~
g_p
Yeah, I can understand wanting the downloader to exist outside of the game (so
they can update a broken game out-of-band) - that's all reasonable.

The issue is, as you say, a single-threaded "download-extract-next" flow...
It's 2020 and that's what we'd expect from a 90s game launcher. Steam and
other game launchers/downloaders can all saturate an arbitrarily fast network
connection. Heck, even Windows Update (BITS?) can do this well. A shame Asobo
wasn't able to leverage any of this.

The amount of GPU is indeed strange - I think there's more than meets the eye
here. There seems to be a lot of HTML/JS type stuff in the UI here, and I
wonder if they are doing some kind of GPU-based full-screen rendered surface,
rather than just having a simple oldskool Windows Forms app that does the
downloading without GPU acceleration.

~~~
gambiting
As I said in my other comment just now - the GPU usage is completely broken.
When in foreground, the downloader uses about 15% of my GPU, but in the
background it takes over 60%. It's just written very very poorly.

------
Jerry2
Just yesterday I watched a few "real X pilot flies X in a simulator" videos.
One of my favorites was a real Rafale pilot flying a Mirage 2000C in a
dogfight in DCS [1]. Amazing instincts and skill.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlM53d9g9q4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlM53d9g9q4)

~~~
pmoriarty
Are there any good videos like this where the dogfights are many-on-many
instead of just one-on-one?

I'm not a pilot, and my knowledge of dogfighting is next to non-existent, so
please correct me if I'm wrong, but I'd expect that it would be much harder to
utterly dominate one's opponents when there are a lot of planes in the air,
any one of which could take you out when you think you've got an advantage on
someone else.

A busy dogfight would probably be more exciting to watch, too.

~~~
unoti
> Are there any good videos like this where the dogfights are many-on-many
> instead of just one-on-one?

Tons, yes, here's one to get your started:

Superior Dogfight: 4 x Navy F-18 vs 4 x Air Force F-15
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80rDX3pANeE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80rDX3pANeE)

------
js2
Passenger[0] lands King Air, with his family aboard, when pilot died shortly
after take-off:

[https://youtu.be/aqPvVxxIDr0](https://youtu.be/aqPvVxxIDr0)

The video is a reconstruction from the radio recordings. I learned that air
traffic controllers are rarely themselves pilots and that finding someone with
King Air experience during an emergency isn't easy. This video is recent, but
the incident happened in 2009. News story from that year:

[https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-
news/2009/april/14/u...](https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-
news/2009/april/14/unintentional-king-air-pilot-an-interview-with-doug-white)

[0] He'd earned a private pilot's license 18 years prior, but had quit flying
shortly after with only 80 hours total time logged.

~~~
Waterluvian
80 hours decades earlier is probably enough to have the fundamentals down.
Even just knowing how to use the radio puts you quite far ahead.

It’s kind of the argument for basic first aid training and other things like
that.

~~~
js2
He only knew how to use the radio because he'd had the pilot show him before
take off. He described the King Air as being so different from the plane he'd
learned on that it might as well be the space shuttle.

One of the controllers who helped get him down realized she had to simplify
the plane for him. He had been struggling with the autopilot and she got him
to turn it off and fly it manually. He was fortunate to have some great
controllers to help him and a clear day with no wind.

After the incident, he started flying again and went on to become a rescue
pilot.

------
galkk
There was a similar recording 2 years ago: retired soviet military pilot (no
piloting experience in 20yrs) is trying simulator of MiG 29 (with VR helmet).
He did some maneuvers and even land the plane.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEGH965Dvp8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEGH965Dvp8),
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjDhZ2Qx2bw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjDhZ2Qx2bw)

~~~
Jerry2
Don't speak Russian but this was awesome to watch. I guess like driving a
bicycle, you don't forget how to fly a plane.

------
beobab
I have GamePass, so I thought: "I'll give this a go. How hard can it be? I'm
really good in Elite Dangerous."

Turns out: Quite hard. I have a newfound respect for airline pilots.

On a related note, even my RAF cadet experience 20 years ago counted for
naught. Whilst I could keep the plane in the air, landing proved the most
difficult, and I crashed and bounced and would not have survived without
invulnerability switched on.

~~~
_s
Private pilot here -

It’s not that difficult to land; especially in a sim where you can experiment
without worry.

It’s all in the setup - as you line up on your final approach, make sure you
are at a prescribed speed and rate of descent; generally in a small plane (172
etc), you’re aiming for around 300-500ft/m at 70-80kts, and the plane is
pointing to hit the runway at the threshold (piano keys / white lines).

Counter intuitive: Throttle controls rate of descent, elevators control speed.
Mess around until you feel these two things clicking.

When you’re around 20-30ft above the threshold, reduce power to idle, keep the
aircraft straight and level or the nose just slightly high and just let the
plane drop on to the runway!

Whatever you do - don’t force it, take your time and you’ll have far more fun
actually going to places and stopping there!

~~~
g_p
These are good tips for flying GA and getting started in the sim. Older
versions of FS used to teach more of the ground school theory than the current
version. I did the tutorial just out of curiosity but it didn't really teach
enough to have an understanding of flight in the way the FS2004 lessons did.

For flying jets though (assuming this is what the GP means when mentioning the
respect for airline pilots), you'll have some higher numbers, and you'll use
the thrust for speed rather than the "counter intuitive" approach you'd use in
a smaller aircraft.

The things to remember at first are that you're moving faster than you think
in the air, so you need to take a longer final approach than you may think as
a newcomer, as you're "consuming" that distance rapidly. You'll also need to
get used to lining up with the runway (assuming you're doing VFR approaches,
which isn't how airlines do it in reality) and find a reference in the
cockpit. And chances are you'll be coming in far too high as well - you will
feel lower down when you get the view from up front (compared with a side
window) and often end up too high. If this happens, go around and try again -
if you dive down to compensate, you'll end up gaining too much speed and miss
your touchdown zone on the runway.

A good way to learn and practice landings is to wait until ILS and autopilots
in FS get their bugs fixed, and learn enough to configure them to fly the
landing. If they're accurate replicas, the A320 neo should be able to land
itself from ILS. Learn what the approach looks like, and get used to the
height and view of the descent. Then try some ILS approaches with flight
director on, but autopilot off, so you're flying the approach yourself, but
with guidance. This can be tricky if you're not used to the auto throttles on
an Airbus though.

~~~
_s
> For flying jets though (assuming this is what the GP means when mentioning
> the respect for airline pilots), you'll have some higher numbers, and you'll
> use the thrust for speed rather than the "counter intuitive" approach you'd
> use in a smaller aircraft.

Minor point - fairly certain power applications are used regardless of the
size of aircraft to control the rate of descent.

Pitch + Power = Performance

You're essentially trying to get back on your landing descent profile.

Too low? Add power, pitch up slightly to maintain speed, reduce rate of
descent. Too high? Remove power, pitch down slightly to maintain speed,
increase rate of descent.

It is somewhat counter intuitive, but power does not have a "direct" relation
with speed, but certainly impacts it.

Even if you fly straight and level, and start adding power - the increase
airflow over the wings/elevators will cause a pitch up / lift, your speed will
decrease which will need counteracting by a slight downwards pitch to maintain
straight / level, and only then would you see a speed increase. There will
always be a point where the aircraft just settles into a given configuration
of power and pitch/attitude, giving you a specific horizontal/vertical speed.

You yourself mention pointing the aircraft down (pitch), thus gaining speed
(without touching the power), which is exactly the counter-intuitive approach
to power/speed.

I may not be explaining it well but here's a decent article:

[http://txtopaviation.com/pitch-power-
performance/](http://txtopaviation.com/pitch-power-performance/)

And you'll find quite a few more if you go searching.

I also highly recommend looking up the pilot owner manuals, they give you
performance tables for given configurations (rpm, power, density, altitude,
fuel, temp etc), and of course what power settings to use and numbers to hit
for various stages of flight.

I do concur with all your other points though, it's an absolute blast -
especially in VR. And of course, I can't encourage folks enough to try out the
real thing, I find it easier than driving a car! :)

------
hirundo
I feel like learning to safely land whatever plane I'm flying in is just due
diligence. I wish each seat had a simulator for the current aircraft available
as an entertainment option, for me to brush up on in case everyone else who
could fly it chooses the wrong entree for dinner. You know the toy steering
wheels that children play with in cars? Like that.

~~~
gruez
>in case everyone else who could fly it chooses the wrong entree for dinner.

I thought modern airliners can auto-land? All you need is someone to walk you
through dialing in the numbers.

~~~
aaronmdjones
First you need to know how to use the radio to ask for that help. Just putting
the headset on isn't enough; finding the microphone button is half the battle,
and then you need to know what frequency to tune to, and how. Then you need to
follow along with those instructions.

Even assuming everything goes perfectly up to that point, the plane can only
/land/ itself -- assuming you're approaching an ILS autoland-capable runway,
in a plane with autoland equipment installed. You still have to idle the
engines on touchdown and engage reverse thrust. You may have to keep the
aircraft on the runway centreline after touchdown. Then you need to shut down
the engines so emergency vehicles can approach and passengers can evacuate
safely.

It's not as simple as "dialling in the numbers".

~~~
bleepblorp
In addition to that, you also need to know how to:

Read the instruments. This is non-trivial with modern glass cockpits as the
readings on the screen don't necessarily have labels.

Set the flaps at the right time. Too soon and you'll tear the wings off or run
out of fuel before you make it to the runway. Too late and you will be flying
too fast to land.

Lower the gear, again at the right time to prevent them being torn off by
airflow or not being down when you hit the runway.

Know that, once on the ground, the nose gear is steered with the footpedals
and not the sidestick (Airbus) or yolk (Boeing).

Set the autobrake so you don't need to brake manually at touchdown. If you get
this right, you don't need to mess with reverse thrust.

It would be helpful to know how to turn off the cabin pressurization system so
no one is blown out the doors when they are opened.

Even if you're lucky enough to get all this right, you're only going to make a
smoking hole somewhere near the runway if there's any significant crosswind.

~~~
aaronmdjones
Right, my assumption up to the landing point was that the radio help included
the instructions for all of that.

Note it's called a yoke. :)

------
prennert
His voice is unbelievably recognizable a pilot voice. Is this something
(commercial?) British pilots learn during their training?

~~~
bredren
It is often said that many pilots emulate Chuck Yeager's voice.[1] Yeager was
a US test pilot and jet flying ace.

Tom Wolfe has a great novel about Yeager and other test pilots called "The
Right Stuff."

[1] [https://www.wearethemighty.com/history/silky-smooth-chuck-
ye...](https://www.wearethemighty.com/history/silky-smooth-chuck-yeager-
voice?rebelltitem=3#rebelltitem3)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np272lmVRkU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np272lmVRkU)

~~~
ojbyrne
The Right Stuff is non-fiction, not a novel.

~~~
frosted-flakes
Some non-fiction books can read very much like novels, even if the term
technically doesn't apply to them. These are sometimes called "non-fiction
novels".

A great example is _Endurance_ by Alfred Lansing, which tells the story of
Shackleton's incredible expedition to Antarctica in 1914. It is apparently a
very accurate re-telling, and a book that I highly recommend. Even though I
knew the outcome of the expedition, the book was suspenseful to the very end,
and surprisingly character-driven.

~~~
bredren
This reminds me of reading Maya Angelou’s _I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings_ in
high school.

I asked our teacher (who also made us memorize the opening to beouwouf) how
Angelou could remember some of the quotes. I recall the teacher’s response
being something like, “this is what she remembers”

Looking at that book now in the context of this thread I found this:

>Reviewers often categorize Caged Bird as autobiographical fiction because
Angelou uses thematic development and other techniques common to fiction, but
the prevailing critical view characterizes it as an autobiography, a genre she
attempts to critique, change, and expand.

------
fakwandi_priv
Does anyone have any insights regarding licensing?

Is MS opening a big wallet or is it the other way around where these companies
want their newest planes in these type of games? In the video you see
"unbeatable fuel efficieny" and I remember seeing Iberia on one of the boeings
in the launch trailer, seems like adverts to me.

~~~
dylan604
Waiting for Boeing 737MAX to show up without the optional equipment.

------
WalterBright
I usually fail miserably at driving simulators because I drive by the "seat of
the pants" feeling, and you get none of that with the driving simulators. It's
similar to how badly I do with flight simulators, as I constantly overcontrol
it because there's no feedback to my body.

~~~
dmd
I'm guessing you're not a pilot, then, because the first thing you learn is to
absolutely NOT trust your body (by which I mean your vestibular system) - you
have to rely on your instruments - your body will always lie to you and get
you killed.

~~~
WalterBright
I presume you're right about that, but up to a point. My father was a fighter
pilot, and he said you live and die by how tight you can turn without stalling
out ('cuz then you'll fly right into the crosshairs of the guy behind you
trying to line up on you). This is done by feeling in your seat and the
control column the minute trembling of the wings as they reach the stall
point, and that's exactly where you need to place the airplane.

I took a class in performance driving once. They say to cinch the belt down as
tight as you can so that your seat feels every nuance of the road. And it
does, and it works. With some practice you can feel when the tires are right
at the limit of their grip. It's just like reaching the stall point in an
airplane when the wings lose their grip.

Also, airplanes have a "feel" in the control column, and they definitely fly
by that pushback. It's so essential that Boeing jets have a "feel computer" to
push back on the stick to simulate what the pilot would feel if he were
directly controlling the surfaces. There's none of that in the flight
simulator games.

~~~
meheleventyone
Amazingly force feedback has actually been a thing for a while although no
recent joysticks seem to support it. People horde the old MS Force Feedback 2
sticks. It does add a lot in particular to things like setting trim to feel
the weight on the controls.

~~~
cybwraith
Thanks, patents! I think they just expired, finally. FF steering wheels were
still being made, but the lower volume stuff like flight joysticks hadn't been
willing to pay the licensing cost

------
ourmandave
To compare, here's a real A320 landing in Nice France during the day.

It kind of has the same over the water coastline approach.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjWG3WRM5yk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjWG3WRM5yk)

------
sdfhbdf
I love his reference to feeling the texture of the seat just by looking at it.
Pretty relatable

------
alphagrep12345
What's the use case of Flight Simulator? If it's meant to be a practice
testbed for pilots, how does using (playing) it on laptop/xbox give you the
real flight experience?

~~~
aschobel
I use it to do a practice flight before I do a real world trip to a new
airport. That gives me a much better idea of terrain and what to expect than
just looking at charts.

It’s also a huge amount fun and let’s you do things that would be unsafe in
IRL.

------
x86_64Ubuntu
I can only imagine what the features to implement spec sheet looks like for
creating a flight sim.

~~~
ygra
I certainly didn't think about that they would have to re-implement the entire
(or at least most of the) computer system the pilot is interacting with as
well.

------
bjarneh
That was unexpectedly interesting.

~~~
kergonath
The best kind of interesting!

------
dom96
Wow, after playing Microsoft Flight Simulator and flying the Airbus myself
this was incredibly informative. A lot of crucial things outlined here, like
for example I didn't know you could control the autopilot like that.

------
dylan604
:50 into the video. "I don't think this word means what you think it means."

------
shayankh
made my day really

