A VR tale for those who wonder about VR.

[Karl]

Finding buttons, switches can often be done through muscle memory. I still use all my same switches on my X-55. Visual things like your GPS unit or a radio stack aren't very useable when doing VR.

[Oz-Flyer]

What about when you have lots of hardware add on's. How would you see them?

[Karl]

Sitting on the edge about getting virtual reality (VR) goggles for your flight simming? Well read my experience and perhaps it will help give you a push off of the fence.

Using helicopters in FSX, I was okay at it. But it was a chore and I didn’t really care for it. In X-Plane & DCS, I sucked. When I got my VR glasses 2 years ago, I started with the original Oculus Rift. All of the sudden, helicopters were easy. I could fly and land pretty well right off of the bat. WOW!

Staying at the right speed and flying the pattern in my trusty Cessna was much less of a chore as well. Very much like the real thing, I focused on the things that I do when flying in real life.

Most recently I have been tinkering around with the complex Zibo 737-800 and FMC’s. Keeping that thing headed where I wanted and how I wanted was next to impossible when I had to divert my eyes to deal with the FMC during takeoff because the autopilot wasn’t turning on. Then I did it all in VR.
I had the same issues with the something with the FMC not being right so the friggin’ autopilot wouldn’t turn on. The big difference was I flew the SID out of Vegas like a pro… by hand. It was Super easy. Barely an inconvenience! Something came up so I wasn’t going to complete the flight that I planned. So 30+ miles away from the airport I turned around and headed back.

I flew the whole way back manually. I intercepted the ILS and flew by hand from 20 miles out. What a breeze it was!!

I think there is no question that VR is the way to go if you have the money and spend time in the sim.