Originally Posted by JohnBurke

I give it no credit. It's a game.

It is not a level D simulator, and bears no relation to a level D simulator. It's not a simulator. It's a computer game.

That some millennial types can't fathom life without a computer and that they've grown up playing whatever the modern version of donkey kong is (x-plane) and Clash of Twits, does not alter the fact. It's an entertainment device.

To be sure, I've actually seen resumes a few times in which some idiot actually put down experience on a "virtual airline" playing with such games...one of those serious types that puts on a uniform, sits in his armchair and "flies" a scheduled "route" on his computer, along with hundreds of other game-players around the globe, each imagining that they're actually flying or in a "simulator." Neither is true, yet I've seen some of these challenged souls actually send a resume claiming airline experience on some mythical company machine (which does not exist but on their screen and in their head).

The little laptop simulation of your favorite airplane allows things that a simulator will not do, but a simulator does a lot of things that x-plane cannot. Move, for example. Simulate. Re-create. x-plane is little more than a 2D laptop game that you can manipulate with a mouse or joystick or saita yoke and pretend...it is not a simulator and as a simulator I do understand it, know what it is, and give zero credit.

I've instructed in big and small, and in simulators, too. I've fielded thousands of questions from hopeful millennials who want to use their laptops to become the next scott crossfield or miracle above the hudson. Some who want to do all their training in one, on one...but it's still a game, still a sim, and still not something I'd use or recommend used for attempting to learn to fly.

There may just be a reason that the FAA doesn't have a proviso allowing a certain number of hours of x-plane toward a pilot certificate. Then again, with the ongoing dumbinig down of the regulation, it may yet be coming in our spiral to the bottom.