From what I read on this forums most real world FO's can't fly the airplane either
That's the joke I was making. It's semi-serious though. The virtual PMDG FO (FS2Crew) can't read any of the gauges or switch positions due to technical limitations, so he is essentially blind. He can't fly the airplane.
There's another FS2Crew virtual FO for the Level-D 767. A friend of mine has both of them. I'm giving serious thought to buying the 767 one. (It's like $20, that's less than a tank of gas, which is probably bad...) That one can actually read the gauges and such and fly the airplane, so you can pretend to do all that fun CRM stuff, even down to stupid things happening that require you to call operations people on the radio and complain about it. From what I saw it seems the primary function of the FO is to complain that you taxi too fast. As far as I know it won't interrupt you if you actually do something stupid like run out of runway or feed him stupid numbers, but it will set flaps and gear and radios, and it can fly the airplane. In both cases though, since you're the Captain, you don't actually DO anything, just order the FO around. I'd probably get bored of it after a few trips, but it'd be something new to learn about, and I'm usually up for that. Oh, and it simulates paperwork. There's a lot of that. You have to click on things to sign them.
I would think a virtual captain would be more educational, as it would make you do all the work but in a realistic manner, but since the computer sucks at making complex decisions like do-I-want-coffee-now (Yes, the thing actually has a virtual FA who will periodically call and complain about the passengers, the cabin temperature, odd noises, and occasionally offer coffee), he would probably just get you killed all the time. I read FI more than I should, so I have some idea what to expect from the virtual crew, and to tell the truth I expected a lot more complaining and things to complain about. There's never any broken equipment, the FO and FA are generally nice, sociable people that don't make you desire to punch them, and the company people on the radio are generally nice and react quickly to whatever problem you're having. It does have passengers doing stupid things, like an air-rage divert, and I saw it do a bird strike once, but all that did was play a very loud bang on the speakers that caused me to just about ******************** my pants because I wasn't paying attention, and then it drew a broken window. The author of the program has expressed a desire to add more stupidity later, though.
Anyway, back to the 744; I do have some idea of what I am up to. I don't have a canned checklist or anything like that, I just know how to get a route from point A to point B into the computer and get the airplane to do what I want. It's just that it's my understanding that I should not be able to do that, so I interpreted it as the computer making things too easy. I suppose until I see a real 744 (Or a level D sim) I am not in any position to judge how easy or difficult it is, but I can guess. If anything it does a really good job of illustrating how to press buttons and what to expect when you press them.
