PC Flight Simulators - any good for IR practice?

Quote
Being stuck inside for the foreseeable future – any good ideas on a plug and play Simulator solution – one that comes with the whole shebang. By plug and play, I mean plug and play

There is a company in the states that will do you a package, but if i remember correctly they are intending that you will be buying the PC from them at the same time.

If you buy a Yoke, pedals, and a basic throttle.
Add that to a copy of Xplane then you can get up and running fairly quickly.
With that you’ll be able to fly a 172 with six pack or glass, or a Baron. (Quite relevant)Plus a range of other stuff (less relevant)
You can have some fun or practice IFR quite successfully.
I would recommend checking that your PC has a bit of power though.

If you deviate from that, be prepared for a new hobby, whether you want one or not.
It becomes involved and time consuming very quickly IMHO.

Even buying a perfectly common, add-on aircraft may require hours of internet searches to discover the bug fixes.
Commonly expected customer support will point you back to the internet via a brief email reply.

Just bought the TBM900 hotstart on xplane, it has a great execution of the G1000nxi (with ADF – which is a first on a G1000 xplane), and can really help to play IFR.
Look at that radar ;).

And that poor landing:

Being stuck inside for the foreseeable future – any good ideas on a plug and play Simulator solution – one that comes with the whole shebang. By plug and play, I mean plug and play :-). My aim is to fly instrument procedures etc… (ideally in a Comanche with Avydine kit…)

Finners wrote:

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

No. The picture moves with your head movement. Obviously these are much smaller than in real life but still direction and movement are consistent.

A curved screen or even more a wrap around visual would do even more but I find that even the old TV screen i use does a good job.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.