PC Flight Simulators - any good for IR practice?

AlexTB20 wrote:

I wonder if I buy some realistic flight simulator accessories (metal yokes/joystick, rudder and throttle) and practice on a software like X-Plane 11 on a PC with an eventual VR headset will help me in any way in learning to better control the real airplane when inadvertently going into IMC weather, or as a helper for my IR course scheduled for this summer?

I don’t know if it helps learning to control the airplane in the sense of keeping the right side up, but it is a tremendous help in practicing IFR procedures.

Mooney_Driver already said the most accurate things about what you are asking for.

Remember that your graphic card doesn’t have to be the most powerful one. Simulations are primarily based on processor performance. If your processor is not able to treat all the processing work your most powerful graphic card will twiddle its thumbs while having nothing (new) to display. So go for a (very) good card but do not choose the latest model. BUT get yourself a powerful processor AND overclock it.

Mooney_Driver wrote:

They claim it has a GNS430 included, which would be great if it works the way it should.

As he said RealityXP above is the major choice. Any other one will definitely not meet the requirements of realism.
Then, for VFR practice choose photorealistic software addons which is not absolutely needed when practicing only IFR.

There is a whole world to discover. Don’t hope to get that too quickly done.

loco wrote:

I’d advise proper testing before buying VR goggles. They are low-res. You can’t read instruments or labels when wearing them unless you zoom in.

They are actually higher resolution than Full-HD resolution (Rift is about 1200px tall as opposed to 1080 which is Full HD), but the trouble is if you sat 3 inches in front of your 55 inch full HD tv, yes, you’d be able to see each individual pixel perfectly well – and the display fills most of your field of vision with a VR headset.

There are 4K VR headsets being developed, these will probably work better for flight simulators (which will have 4 times the pixel count of the current headsets).

However, it’s not just the headset you have to think about – you need a VERY good graphics card to drive it. VR headsets are very demanding – to prevent motion sickness, the frame rate must be very high and the latency extremely low (the current Rift uses a fixed 90 frames per second), and the video card is having to render two slightly different viewpoints to make the final image rather than just the one for a flat monitor. There are various tricks that the VR headset software does to reduce the load (basically having the game/simulator run at 45 fps and interpolate every other frame) but you’re still going to need a graphics card that’s likely more expensive than the actual headset (especially since the utterly pointless cryptocurrency mining exercise has forced the price up on video cards recently).

I’ve not used a VR headset for flight simulation, only for Elite Dangerous (science fiction game set in space) where it is very impressive. But individual tolerances vary – I can use VR all day without a problem, but some people find it makes them feel queasy very quickly – although you can acclimate.

Yeah, better wear it first. I have Oculus and like it for aerobatics (just to memorize the sequence before actual flight)

but find it useless for flying anything with buttons.

I train people “seriously” (ie towards their IRs) on X-Plane, XP reality, Carendo and Brunner force feedback yoke and pedals. It’s all very cheap except the FF yoke and pedals, which are expensive (nearly €4k for the set) but they make a massive difference, I would say the difference between pointless and extremely valuable. You only need the FF pedals for ME training, where it is excellent for learning the immediate drills after engine failure.

I think that Brunner are the best value (though neither cheapest nor best) for FF.

I have experimented with an HTC Vive (not the Vive Pro) and X-Plane 11. I had mixed feelings about it.

Good

• The sense of depth was incredible – for instance, the flight deck of the 747 looks just like the real thing and one can readily see the depth of the glare-shield.
• The immediacy of the freedom to just look around gave a whole new depth (sorry) to the simulator.
• It’s a lot of fun just flying around and taking in the view.
• Fabulous for VFR flying, especially with photo scenery.

Bad

• After about an hour, I started to feel unwell, not badly, but enough to make me want to stop.
• Manipulating the controls with the VR wands is totally inadequate – this is definitely an application that would benefit from a VR glove.
• You can’t “see” your hands. If you take your hands off the controls for any reason (like to use the VR wands) it is very difficult to find the controls again.
• As AlexTB20 suspects, the resolution of many VR headsets is not high enough.
• The best way I can describe it: it looks like half of the horizontal lines of the image are missing and replaced with black lines. It looks really low-res. Like going back to Flight Simulator II. I wondered if the missing lines were being used for the other eye.
• It is practically impossible to read any instruments so VR is only useful (in the config I tested) for VFR (but it was great).

Would I spend my own money on it? At the moment, definitely not. Right now, I’d rather have a large wraparound screen and a physical flight deck.
I think a 4K headset would be a major improvement and undoubtedly there is a huge future in VR flight simulation.

Finners,

have a look at Track IR and a LARGE screen. They cost next to nothing these days.

I use a 32’ TV screen running full HD and Track IR with it. I personally find that it does almost as good as VR stuff but without the lesser effects.

Mooney_Driver wrote:

have a look at Track IR and a LARGE screen

Absolutely. I’ve got a 34" curved screen (G-sync, 100 Mhz !) which is VERY immersive.

Does Track-IR not involve looking away from the screen?