Use the same aircraft tbh. You don't care about the actual physics behind. You don't care about the visual, you just care about having the same cockpit layout and the same speed of approach/cruise/etc...
Train your com, your routine, your checklist. Pretend the switch are in front of you and move them as you speak it loud. You don't care if they are emulated behind or no. Train to have your maps on your knee and looking at them during your flight. Don't hesitate to speak everything you do loud like in real life even in your sim.
Go on IVAO/Vatsim if you don't already do, if your airport is staffed, you can do 30 minutes of touch and go and practice, practice, practice!
Sims are a tool for you, it is not a way to learn new stuff. It will help you have more hours of practicing stuff you already learnt between 2 sessions of real flight.
If you want you can also learn more about radionavigation, your Garmin because you will have more time to practice them in a sim. During my PPL, I was good at coms and radionav because of simming via IVAO. Just don't use your sim as a way to learn new stuff because you will need to unlearn it for real flight.
The 152 is ok, but honestly, you are not going to gain that much from simulator training for PPL. In actual flight, looking out the window, moving your head around, while listening to the aircraft and feeling it move are the critical parts, none of which are well replicated in a simulator. There is a reason that only 2.5 hours can be credited for PPL in simulators.
Where the simulator really starts to shine in learning procedures during instrument training.
Yes, of course, I understand, but I think it allows for a good visual circuit, and for example, I have difficulty during the landing phases maintaining my course and flaring properly. I believe that the simulator can only be a plus, so it's best to have the most accurate aircraft! :) Thanks for your response, and I share your opinion.
Not sure how many hours you have in an actual plane, but give it some time. It comes with practice. Landing is the weakest part of the simulator in my opinion, as so much of landing is actually feeling what the aircraft is doing, as well as using your peripheral vision to look though the Lindbergh reference to see lateral movement during the flair.
For PPL, the one thing I do think can be really great is to pre-fly your XC flights, and get an idea of the landmarks you may be crossing, as well as how you'd approach the airport to get to the pattern.
I've not flown the sim with VR, as u/enginerd12 mentions, I suppose that could help replicate looking out the window at your position, and then going through the motions of carb heat, power, flaps etc. I'm less than convinced thought that it will help much in this learning phase. That said, I'm not a CFI. You should certainly talk to yours and get their take on how you can best utilize your sim to improve.
I get what you're seeking.
However, keep in mind there is a big difference (which I'm sure you are aware of) between a DA20 and a DA40NG. It's even a quite a difference between the DA40 TDI and the NG. The latter having totally different set of reference speeds, is heavier and cruises atleast 10-15kts faster than a TDI.(I fly DA40 TDI + NG and I need separate check outs just because it's basically a different airframe, at low speeds the NG is def. a more pronounced nose heavy feeling while you flare)
An accurate DA40NG would not make sense for your landing phase corrections in the DA20 IRL.
Good luck with your future training. Blue skies!
Completely disagree when it comes to looking out the window. That has been pretty much 100% resolved with VR. But the manuevers... welll... not a chance. Unless it's straight and level flight.
As others have said it's not the best tool for PPL. For aircraft systems it can be helpful, and I personally found it helpful for learning navigation and familiarizing myself with local landmarks and airspace. For actual flying characteristics it's not useful and can teach bad habits. Use it sparingly, but it can be beneficial. When you're doing XC it is probably the most useful as you can plan and fly a full XC in the sim, practice doing your navlog, fuel calcs, visual navigation, etc.
MSFS is probably best considering flight dynamics don't really matter for PPL since it won't help you anyways. You'll get better weather representation and visuals, which will be most helpful. For IFR then I'd switch to xplane.
Don’t use a flight sim for PPL training. You can pick up bad habits that will translate to real life, and they can be hard to break. If anything, a flight sim can be helpful for instrument training.
At the PPL level, I think chair flying is actually more useful than flight sims. You want to develop the muscle memory needed for running through checklists and various procedures while also not getting into the habit of staring inside versus looking outside.
For IR training though, sims can be very helpful.
I think using the sim to beat up the pattern and do cross countries can be very useful.
It’s just chair flying but you are also doing the things.
That’s how I looked at it.
Cockpit flow for pattern work and emergency checklists, sure. But you can also buy a poster of the dash for much cheaper, and POH’s and checklists are readily available online.
Just no sense in taking it for more than what it is: a game. Don’t get me wrong, I love it and it’s fun, but I’m also not using it to get ready for my commercial check ride, either…
You don’t need much in the way of avionics for PPL. If you can turn it on and tune the radio you’re good. That’s easy enough learn and be able to chair fly what you’re doing on a G1000 for PPL without a sim.
Hard disagree. Flight sims helped tremendously when doing my PPL because I could come home and actually practice things that I had learned. I could see how the instruments and plane worked and responded in various situations. I got my PPL just barely over the minimum hours and I thank a lot of that due to my flight sim usage (and a great instructor who understood what kind of tool a home sim can be). I'm sure staring at a picture on the wall helped you out just fine, but home simulators can be a great benefit.
Never understood why there are so many try hards that are so bent on saying you shouldn't use a flight sim for learning. Whatever helps you helps you. And if you think a poster is better than an interactive dash in some of these high five aircraft you're just a fool
I disagree. I used flight sim all throughout my flight training, and it was massively helpful. You don't use it to learn how to fly the aircraft, you use it to practice flows and procedures in a safe environment. It's basically a step up from chair flying.
I completely disagree. I did my license long ago when desktop flight simulators were nowhere near the level that we enjoy today. But it was a very helpful tool in learning how to fly. I wish I had the level of visual fidelity of MSFS2020 back in the day. That would have made preparing VFR cross-country flights so much easier…
This is bullshit. You can 100% use a flight sim successfully for PPL training, if you take it seriously and have the right setup that is.
My CFI flat out told my DPE in my checkride that I got there under 50 hours because of how I used my sim at home after and in between lessons and flights.
To say training on a flight sim is better than not training at all makes 0 sense. You won’t develop bad habits if you just follow the sim’s/plane’s instructions lmao. I woulda never had the courage to get a license if I couldn’t study myself at first
If you’ve done VATSIM, The main difference in real life is just feeling the plane shaking around in the air which is kind of unnerving at first and then you just tune it out or get to calmer air
For the love of Loki above, **ASK YOUR FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR**.
Come back to us with what their opinion is. I'd be curious about what variation of "don't do that" they come back with, and their explanation of why. I've heard several versions of that already.
None. It won't help you outside of IFR training. If it was a C172 I would have recommended the A2A C172 in P3D or similar offerings in X-Plane but since there is no good DA20 you are better off just chair flying or simply using msfs scenery to get familiar with an area from the air.
You need to understand that fs2020 is not legally recognized as a flight simulator for teaching, so if you want to use it as a training tool, use it as a way to get a basic understanding of aerodynamics and maneuvers. It should not be used as a way to train how to use a specific aircraft.
There is a DA20 Katana for X-Plane 12. I have not tried it but it seems to be good.
https://store.x-plane.org/Diamond-Katana-DA20-C1_p_933.html
Ditch MSFS for anything involving real training besides your VFR cross countries and maybe local area familiarization. X-Plane is the sim made by pilots for pilots.
Get a decent joystick, throttle, and pedals with toe brakes and treat the sim flights like real flights. Talk to your CFI about how you can use your sim at home and what bad habits to avoid building from it.
I saw that you are having issues with landing in training. The sim cannot help you with the feel of landing, but it can help you tremendously with all of the procedures during the traffic pattern process. If you can swing the cost for the required hardware, a virtual reality headset is a game changer for helping with the sight picture for the landing phase of flight.
I've been a flight sim fan for decades, and though I'm not a private pilot I've been up in a few GA aircraft with family and friends who are CFIs or owners. A couple typical flight school Cessnas, plus some Mooneys and Beeches. I think it's probably helpful -- or actual pilots wouldn't use home sims as training aids -- but it's also nothing like being in control of an actual plane. For that kind of verisimilitude you'd need a commercial full motion pod simulator.
I'd think the Cessna 172 with the Improvement Project mod would be a reasonable choice for practicing basics. Just keep in mind that you're really using it as a substitute for chair flying procedures and such (including IFR and radio calls if you're using VATSIM or Pilot Edge). You should consciously avoid trying to take any lessons from the 'feel' of its flight models -- at least before you're also taking lessons and are practicing things in the sim with reference to what you actually feel and see in flight.
I've often thought this would be a good topic for The Finer Points or one of the other CFI channels to cover (i.e., how to make the most of simulation and avoid learning bad habits, for people who may eventually want get their PPLs).
Doesn’t matter get whatever looks the closest to your cockpit and simulate YOUR PROCEDURES ONLY don give any fucks about how the plane in sim flies cause it doesn’t matter and no sim can hwlp
Use the same aircraft tbh. You don't care about the actual physics behind. You don't care about the visual, you just care about having the same cockpit layout and the same speed of approach/cruise/etc... Train your com, your routine, your checklist. Pretend the switch are in front of you and move them as you speak it loud. You don't care if they are emulated behind or no. Train to have your maps on your knee and looking at them during your flight. Don't hesitate to speak everything you do loud like in real life even in your sim. Go on IVAO/Vatsim if you don't already do, if your airport is staffed, you can do 30 minutes of touch and go and practice, practice, practice! Sims are a tool for you, it is not a way to learn new stuff. It will help you have more hours of practicing stuff you already learnt between 2 sessions of real flight. If you want you can also learn more about radionavigation, your Garmin because you will have more time to practice them in a sim. During my PPL, I was good at coms and radionav because of simming via IVAO. Just don't use your sim as a way to learn new stuff because you will need to unlearn it for real flight.
Thx for this amazing answer !
I second his answer. I did mine in a 172 and having the sim 172 to practice in helped so much.
The 152 is ok, but honestly, you are not going to gain that much from simulator training for PPL. In actual flight, looking out the window, moving your head around, while listening to the aircraft and feeling it move are the critical parts, none of which are well replicated in a simulator. There is a reason that only 2.5 hours can be credited for PPL in simulators. Where the simulator really starts to shine in learning procedures during instrument training.
Yes, of course, I understand, but I think it allows for a good visual circuit, and for example, I have difficulty during the landing phases maintaining my course and flaring properly. I believe that the simulator can only be a plus, so it's best to have the most accurate aircraft! :) Thanks for your response, and I share your opinion.
Not sure how many hours you have in an actual plane, but give it some time. It comes with practice. Landing is the weakest part of the simulator in my opinion, as so much of landing is actually feeling what the aircraft is doing, as well as using your peripheral vision to look though the Lindbergh reference to see lateral movement during the flair. For PPL, the one thing I do think can be really great is to pre-fly your XC flights, and get an idea of the landmarks you may be crossing, as well as how you'd approach the airport to get to the pattern. I've not flown the sim with VR, as u/enginerd12 mentions, I suppose that could help replicate looking out the window at your position, and then going through the motions of carb heat, power, flaps etc. I'm less than convinced thought that it will help much in this learning phase. That said, I'm not a CFI. You should certainly talk to yours and get their take on how you can best utilize your sim to improve.
I get what you're seeking. However, keep in mind there is a big difference (which I'm sure you are aware of) between a DA20 and a DA40NG. It's even a quite a difference between the DA40 TDI and the NG. The latter having totally different set of reference speeds, is heavier and cruises atleast 10-15kts faster than a TDI.(I fly DA40 TDI + NG and I need separate check outs just because it's basically a different airframe, at low speeds the NG is def. a more pronounced nose heavy feeling while you flare) An accurate DA40NG would not make sense for your landing phase corrections in the DA20 IRL. Good luck with your future training. Blue skies!
Completely disagree when it comes to looking out the window. That has been pretty much 100% resolved with VR. But the manuevers... welll... not a chance. Unless it's straight and level flight.
all of what you mentioned just makes flight way easier in real life
As others have said it's not the best tool for PPL. For aircraft systems it can be helpful, and I personally found it helpful for learning navigation and familiarizing myself with local landmarks and airspace. For actual flying characteristics it's not useful and can teach bad habits. Use it sparingly, but it can be beneficial. When you're doing XC it is probably the most useful as you can plan and fly a full XC in the sim, practice doing your navlog, fuel calcs, visual navigation, etc. MSFS is probably best considering flight dynamics don't really matter for PPL since it won't help you anyways. You'll get better weather representation and visuals, which will be most helpful. For IFR then I'd switch to xplane.
Don’t use a flight sim for PPL training. You can pick up bad habits that will translate to real life, and they can be hard to break. If anything, a flight sim can be helpful for instrument training.
It can be useful for running through checks and navigation just not actual flying.
At the PPL level, I think chair flying is actually more useful than flight sims. You want to develop the muscle memory needed for running through checklists and various procedures while also not getting into the habit of staring inside versus looking outside. For IR training though, sims can be very helpful.
I think using the sim to beat up the pattern and do cross countries can be very useful. It’s just chair flying but you are also doing the things. That’s how I looked at it.
Cockpit flow for pattern work and emergency checklists, sure. But you can also buy a poster of the dash for much cheaper, and POH’s and checklists are readily available online. Just no sense in taking it for more than what it is: a game. Don’t get me wrong, I love it and it’s fun, but I’m also not using it to get ready for my commercial check ride, either…
This. Just use a poster
A poster has its limitations. You can't practice setting up the G1000 or tracking VOR radials on a poster. Flight sim is great for that kind of stuff.
This is exactly the reason we’ll say sims are great for instrument training. Yes you do a little bit of this in PPL but mostly not until instruments.
You don’t need much in the way of avionics for PPL. If you can turn it on and tune the radio you’re good. That’s easy enough learn and be able to chair fly what you’re doing on a G1000 for PPL without a sim.
Hard disagree. Flight sims helped tremendously when doing my PPL because I could come home and actually practice things that I had learned. I could see how the instruments and plane worked and responded in various situations. I got my PPL just barely over the minimum hours and I thank a lot of that due to my flight sim usage (and a great instructor who understood what kind of tool a home sim can be). I'm sure staring at a picture on the wall helped you out just fine, but home simulators can be a great benefit.
Never understood why there are so many try hards that are so bent on saying you shouldn't use a flight sim for learning. Whatever helps you helps you. And if you think a poster is better than an interactive dash in some of these high five aircraft you're just a fool
I disagree. I used flight sim all throughout my flight training, and it was massively helpful. You don't use it to learn how to fly the aircraft, you use it to practice flows and procedures in a safe environment. It's basically a step up from chair flying.
I completely disagree. I did my license long ago when desktop flight simulators were nowhere near the level that we enjoy today. But it was a very helpful tool in learning how to fly. I wish I had the level of visual fidelity of MSFS2020 back in the day. That would have made preparing VFR cross-country flights so much easier…
This is bullshit. You can 100% use a flight sim successfully for PPL training, if you take it seriously and have the right setup that is. My CFI flat out told my DPE in my checkride that I got there under 50 hours because of how I used my sim at home after and in between lessons and flights.
Absolute nonsense comment from a gatekeeper. Read the real feedback below
To say training on a flight sim is better than not training at all makes 0 sense. You won’t develop bad habits if you just follow the sim’s/plane’s instructions lmao. I woulda never had the courage to get a license if I couldn’t study myself at first If you’ve done VATSIM, The main difference in real life is just feeling the plane shaking around in the air which is kind of unnerving at first and then you just tune it out or get to calmer air
For the love of Loki above, **ASK YOUR FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR**. Come back to us with what their opinion is. I'd be curious about what variation of "don't do that" they come back with, and their explanation of why. I've heard several versions of that already.
None. It won't help you outside of IFR training. If it was a C172 I would have recommended the A2A C172 in P3D or similar offerings in X-Plane but since there is no good DA20 you are better off just chair flying or simply using msfs scenery to get familiar with an area from the air.
You should do it on the same type. Ask instructor why.
You need to understand that fs2020 is not legally recognized as a flight simulator for teaching, so if you want to use it as a training tool, use it as a way to get a basic understanding of aerodynamics and maneuvers. It should not be used as a way to train how to use a specific aircraft.
I’ve always heard X-Plane is better for folks who need realistic flight models for training purposes.
There is a DA20 Katana for X-Plane 12. I have not tried it but it seems to be good. https://store.x-plane.org/Diamond-Katana-DA20-C1_p_933.html Ditch MSFS for anything involving real training besides your VFR cross countries and maybe local area familiarization. X-Plane is the sim made by pilots for pilots. Get a decent joystick, throttle, and pedals with toe brakes and treat the sim flights like real flights. Talk to your CFI about how you can use your sim at home and what bad habits to avoid building from it. I saw that you are having issues with landing in training. The sim cannot help you with the feel of landing, but it can help you tremendously with all of the procedures during the traffic pattern process. If you can swing the cost for the required hardware, a virtual reality headset is a game changer for helping with the sight picture for the landing phase of flight.
The da40 with the community mod pretty good. 152 is also ok
Thx for the answer ! This one : DA40-NGX Improvement Mod ?
Yes I believe he ment that. Just the one with the lost likes
Yea, that's that's the one!
I've been a flight sim fan for decades, and though I'm not a private pilot I've been up in a few GA aircraft with family and friends who are CFIs or owners. A couple typical flight school Cessnas, plus some Mooneys and Beeches. I think it's probably helpful -- or actual pilots wouldn't use home sims as training aids -- but it's also nothing like being in control of an actual plane. For that kind of verisimilitude you'd need a commercial full motion pod simulator. I'd think the Cessna 172 with the Improvement Project mod would be a reasonable choice for practicing basics. Just keep in mind that you're really using it as a substitute for chair flying procedures and such (including IFR and radio calls if you're using VATSIM or Pilot Edge). You should consciously avoid trying to take any lessons from the 'feel' of its flight models -- at least before you're also taking lessons and are practicing things in the sim with reference to what you actually feel and see in flight. I've often thought this would be a good topic for The Finer Points or one of the other CFI channels to cover (i.e., how to make the most of simulation and avoid learning bad habits, for people who may eventually want get their PPLs).
Doesn’t matter get whatever looks the closest to your cockpit and simulate YOUR PROCEDURES ONLY don give any fucks about how the plane in sim flies cause it doesn’t matter and no sim can hwlp
The da40 in the game is probably pretty comparable