One year of intense training has already passed since I joined Joint-Ops Virtual Combat Schools. I learned a lot, using IL-2 Sturmovik 1946, both about fighters and bombers (with propellers and jet-engines), but now I fully understand that this is just the beginning and there are lots of things to be learned and discovered. Therefore, I estimate that the minimum period in a simmulator pilot's training should be at least 3 years.
Since first flying in IL-2, I found that some friends of mine started to think that I, somehow, lost my mind and that I could have done other 'practical' things than flying a sim. Even my wife thinks that I spent too much money on rudders, joysticks, sim games etc. I can only tell them it's a hobby of mine, because it's hard to explain the beauty of flying to someone that has never tried it before and doesn't intend to, at least in the near future. How can one explain, for instance, the feeling of admiring the clouds? You can't do that by mere words, something like that needs to be lived. Some things in this world cannot be understood except through direct experience...
And, again, I have serious doubts about the un-practical character of sim-flying. Just as an example, the world's major powers, starting with the USA, have already innitiated training sim pilots for their UAV programs (see General Atomics MQ-1 Predator, MQ-9 Reaper, IAI Heron, IAI Heitan, RQ Global Hawk etc.).
And the UAV history has just begun...
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