just a question regarding long flights, what do you guys do when say doing a transatlantic flight of say 8 hrs or so? i only do short hops in pmdg 737, do you set it on accelerated speed while crossing the atlantic or just leave it running all day?

think of lindbergh...was he playing with himself therefor 33 hours straight?:-lol

If I'm doing a long flight I'll create some large flight legs with FS Nav, somewhere in the middle. I'll raise the speed to 16 for these legs then reduce it again. I generally "fly" the first 150 to 200 miles and the last 150-200 miles.

Crank it up to 16x for 90% of the flight.Can't imagine the reason of doing it in normal time, sure it may be "real", but you also have to have a life!I guess the other side of the coin is, why do a transatlantic flight if you speed it up?Each to their own I guess....Tim

I guess I don't have a life. I simulated 100% of my flights in real time.

>>think of lindbergh...>was he playing with himself there>for 33 hours straight?>Of course not. He was getting hammered! Take a look inside that plane, it's got a still built right into the dash board. Why do you think it was called the Spirits of St Louis?David

i'm with Fred. my flights are done in real time.if its 8+ hours, i'm usually doing it overnight.chris

I also do all my flights at 1X. If it's a particularly long flight, I'll start normal with VATSIM, once at cruise level and out of ATC range I'll disconnect from VATSIM then reconnect within 2-300 miles of my destination.Overnight flights I use a program called "I will be back" which will pause the flight at a certain point, just in case I oversleep. It's a bit frustrating when your target is EGLL and because of oversleeping you're somewhere over Russia almost out of fuel. :(

Chris, why?If you're asleep, there's no enjoyment from it.The PC may as well be off, and you can save electricity and wear and tear on the not-inexpensive computer.Not criticising at all, just trying to rationalise it!CheersTim

Hi Guys,Like Fred, I do all my FS flights in realtime 1X, that is the way the "real" airplane does it. Tim, my PC is always running, but goes into standby and BTW, studies have shown that more ware and tear happens on the drives when they startup and shutdown.Now what do I do on long flights with my PMDG 737? I flew to Europe from KBOS to EDDL about 7 hours. The takeoff time was about 7pm EST which is 5pm MST. I am at the PC all the way to coast out. When I past the point where I am assigned to Gander Oceanic, I go and spend time with the family, eat, have a brew and all the good stuff. I will make a pass at the PC about once an hour for a couple of minutes to make sure that nothing is going wrong.When I reach the UK ADIZ fix, I sit back down and monitor the flight until I take control and manually fly the approach and landing. Which is about 1130pm MST BTW on this flight I am landing at Heathrow at 8:30am. Next week I am flying the PMDG 737 to Japan via Anchorage for a fuel stop. Flying real time over the Pacific is a challenge on time, but I like doing it. I have never used the "zoom time", just is not real to me IMHO.My family thinks I am nuts when I get up in the middle of the night, but hey for me "thats as real as it gets"CheersBob JohnsonKDEN

:-lol

Say Bob, that works for me.

I do a mixture of things.Sometimes I leave the sim running at *4, checking up on where I am say every 30 mins, and saving so far.I regularly do RTW by picking a place from a newspaper or news report and decide that I am going there from whatever apron I am on. This, for me, sets a level of unkowns like , refuelling waypoints weather, scenery, and arrival airport. I do mostly GPS taking over in real time about 3-400 miles out from arrival. Then its the approach patterns and landing at an unkown destination at whatever time it is.I will quite happily save, switch off, and return at some later time to carry on from where I left off.This for me is what the hobby (way of life?) is about. Challenges, and 'seeing' new places. It might be a dirt track airport impossible to land a heavy in, so I will look for nearest major airport and then change to smaller aircraft or a Heli to reach my destination. If no ILS so be it, I have to make manual approach and sometimes the weather it throws at me (default, real world is great)it becomes butt clenching stuff.Its amazing what this sim teaches you. I visit from UK to Las Vegas a number of times, and once drove to LA heading for Newport. Passing Fullerton airpark I knew from my FS that I was going the wrong way and had to U-turn! My wife wondered where this 'knowledge' came from when I decided to do U-turn, allowing me to state with certainty that the useless time wasting screen staring simulator as she sees it, did in effect put me the right way.Yeah. 1-0 for me!!(lol)Anyone else have real world connections like this?

All mine are done in real time - seems pointless otherwise. Usually I stick to 1- 2 hour flights - so no problem.But .............Right now I am 110 hours into what will probably finish up as about 140 hr round the world flight using the Rutan Voyager . I have undertaken this flight really as a PC systems test more than anything else and timed it for a couple of weeks when I have had a more than usual amount of free time at home - thus being able to let the flight run 10 or 12 hours at a time with me in fairly close attendance.I have been saving the flight when I have had to leave the house and restarting later.The whole flight has been conducted online but - so far - I've not actually managed to pass thru an active ATC area - which is a bit disappointing.Been using online Weather for best realism(unpredictability!)BTW the flight is not as the original - rather I am doing an equatorial route Singapore east to Singapore.Latest calculation ( at Thurs 0930Z)shows 4837 nm to go ( out of app 21190) Est time e/r remaining 32hrs, Fuel remaining 22%(going to be just as tight as the real flight was). Presently at 27000ft 150kn GS,IAS 95.Expect to finish around Sunday 1200ZDave

I do the "mostly" real time thing! Usually on a long flight I end up letting the "relief captain" take over for an hour or so while I get some food and watch TV but I usually monitor or fly most of the flight. I happen to be one of those lucky(?) people that requires little sleep so I can manage to do this without much trouble even during the week. As far as saving wear and tear on computers, I have always gotten longer life out of the computers that I leave on 24/7 than the ones that I turn off when I am done using them so now all of my PC's run all of the time. The other benefit of them running 24/7 is that I am doing something to try and find a cure for cancer along with many other fine people here on AVSIM. To me the extra electricity is worth it as I may be helping to save the lives of some wonderful people. On a professional note, since I now run my own computer company, I do recomend to most people to leave their PC's on most of the time rather than shutting down as the wear and tear is far less this way. Take care,Philip Olsonhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/supporter.jpg