Genuine question, is my experience playing Microsoft flight simulator any use in being able to answer those questions, because it certainly feels like I can say something sensible about them.
Pilot here: It could help with some familiarity but generally in MSFS you can get away with ignoring the gauges and just mess around. The tutorial might gloss over some of it.
Having an unbelievable number of hours in MSFS when I was a kid ... landing a real plane is considerably harder and a ton of instruction time is just focused on getting you to land reliably. I finished my PPL in just over 40hrs which is close to the minimum. Most people will fall into the 60-100hr pool.
I'm dubious that this passenger really had zero experience it takes a good 6-10hrs to get decent at landing (as in not bending metal).
MSFS does however offer a reasonable feeling for the cruise portion of a flight.
Also pilot here (C172 G1000): I personally find landing a plane IRL easier than in MSFS. Much easier when I am able to feel resistance on the yoke, feel shifts in wind and gravity etc. All the MSFS controls are so extremely touchy. Though I agree you need 6-10 hours to get decent at landings :)
I agree. I’ve been flying MSFT since the Sublogic days, using only the keyboard. It was very rare to get a good landing. I have about eight hours in a Cessna, and that was a piece of cake, by comparison.
I play MSFS in VR and have rudders, throttle and yoke... but without any forces on the rudder it's just incredibly hard. I certainly can't fly it very well with the Saitek / Logitech Yoke.
I tried MSFS in VR and it was also much easier because you are somehow much more aware of the surroundings (maybe because you move "camera" around the cockpit so much more). In VR I don't get lost so easily and always have an idea where the landing strip is.
As a teenage air cadet in the 1970's in northern Scotland, I learned to fly in open cockpit gliders and effectively went from scratch to first solo flights in a long weekend (January!) - within a few hours...
This seems familiar - I remember flying with mitten gloves (due to cold!), controls were joystick, rudder, flaps, and an altimeter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slingsby_T.21
I figure it might be an outlier, it takes 6-10hrs to get decent at landing (that is to say reliably) but doing it one time without killing everyone on board can also be attributed to dumb luck - this is with the other assumptions of having maybe been a passenger close to pilot, MSFS etc.
FWIW, I grew up playing 80s/90s flight sims and later went into the military and worked on planes and got the opportunity to use military flight simulators and was able to make my way around the cockpit and takeoff/land pretty much immediately.
I think my key for landing was learning flaps and throttle and getting a feel for stall speeds in sims.
Now, would I want to test that in an actual plane in a life and death emergency? Not really. But I'd wager my odds are good.
Years ago I read that a student pilot at Pensacola (basic flight training for the Navy and Marine Corps) qualified much faster because he played a lot of Microsoft Flight Simulator, to the point that the Navy was going to get multiple copies.
With a better sim (prepar3d, x-plane, etc) and good aircraft models, you can build up a lot of systems knowledge that translates accurately to the real world (instruments, avionics, navigation, fuel system, hydraulics, air, handling failures, etc). But not so much the aircraft handling.
I've got plenty of hours in MSFS in VR, most of it in GA aircraft in the Bay Area where I live. When I went on my discovery flight I felt immediately comfortable in the DA40 and with it's g1000. I knew where everything was in the cockpit. I mostly knew how to start it and the checklist was familiar. I could easily find my house and in general was familiar with landmarks.
My aviation skills were also interesting. I had no problem with coordinated turns and holding a heading. However I almost busted the bravo because my altitude kept creeping and I was so used to using the electric trim tab on my joystick. However in the real plane there are two and you need to hold both. Plus, I should have just used the wheel which I don't have on my HOTAS. My second flight in a 172 was much better in that regard.
The sim doesn't prepare you for the physical sensations. Not just the movement, but the massively improved FOV, contrast, resolution, and frame rate. It was pure sensory overload. I did all the approaches and it just felt comfortable.
My HOTAS is both a blessing and a curse. It's great for VR, but my muscle memory was all messed up. And the input sensitivity and weight is very different IRL. And despite knowing I'd likely be fixated by the instruments, and should be looking outside, I did it anyway.
Hope this was helpful. Can't recommend simming enough. It's what made me want to do a discovery flight in the first place. It was magical.
Having an unbelievable number of hours in MSFS when I was a kid ... landing a real plane is considerably harder and a ton of instruction time is just focused on getting you to land reliably. I finished my PPL in just over 40hrs which is close to the minimum. Most people will fall into the 60-100hr pool.
I'm dubious that this passenger really had zero experience it takes a good 6-10hrs to get decent at landing (as in not bending metal).
MSFS does however offer a reasonable feeling for the cruise portion of a flight.