rendakuenthusiast:

kontextmaschine:

something that I think about is in the 90s the Air Force realized it could dial back primary training

(which is like, stick you in a forgiving trainer plane and teach you how to fly An Airplane At All)

because off of vidya cadets instinctively knew how to move an airplane

Genuinely surprised video games, particularly early 90s video games, gave you instincts that were actually materially useful for flying a plane. Assuming this actually works, it should work for civilian pilots too, right?

I mean, “push the controls forward and the nose will point down, you’ll descend and gain speed; pull back and the nose will go up, you’ll ascend and lose speed, but there are limits to how sharply and how long you can do this; to one side and that wing will drop and you’ll start to bank that way; to make a turn hold a steady bank while maintaining altitude and ease off as you come to the new heading”, once upon a time when planes were novel you had to actively teach pilots things like that but now they’re things people just know from experience.