[Yo-Yo]

Anybody who has played DCS (Digital Combat Simulator) has known this for a long time. Cockpits are rendered with extreme realism, there are joysticks, throttles, and rudder pedals available to create realistic cockpits, and DCS fully supports Virtual Reality headsets that allow the player to look 360 degrees around his environment.

However, no amount of simulation will compensate for a lack of real aircraft training, simply due to the G-load dynamics involved.

[fireman15]

Back in 2006 when this article was written... my neighbor and I had Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator and setup a network with cat 5 cable strung between our houses. We used play this game frequently. It started a mini arms race between us where we each kept upgrading our computers and peripherals such as joysticks, control yokes, rudder pedals, etc... to get whatever advantage that we could.

We both still live on an the same “airpark” and own General Aviation aircraft. I don’t know that this activity helped improve either of our actual flying skills. But it was fun shooting down my wily opponent.

[FreedomPoster]

Just to back up your post, here’s a link to a high-end PC gamer HOTAS (Hands-On Throttle and Stick) controller for combat flight sim games.

https://www.amazon.com/Thrustmaster-Throttle-Simulation-Official-Aircraft-PC/dp/B00371R8P4

$550!