I try to strive for realism as much as i can and therefore when i do my flights in FSX i like to follow actual flights. I look up the flight info on flightaware and have my departure time match the real world counterpart, taking into account time zones. Yesterday i was doing AAL2348, from KDFW-KORD. I also like to use my liveatc app on my phone to give a little ambience to the flight. So i took off and checked on flightaware to see how the real flight was doing, and it took off only a minute behind me and was tracking nicely along mine. Well the cook part from the story is that as i was approaching KORD i tuned ohare approach on LiveATC, and sure enough i heard the real aal2348 checking in, and heard them getting vectored the whole way in, and i ended up landing just a few minutes behind them. Just thought it was kind of cool to hear the real flight you are replicating, and figured i would share and see if anyone else had this experience? Gotta say kudos then to PMDG and active sky for replicating the aircraft and weather to realisticaly portray the real world and allow flight times to be just a few minutes off the real world ( mostly due to real life ATC vectors, speed limits, holds, ect, it seems like )

 

Adam Kaleniak

had that happen the other day. i knew which route i wanted to fly, so i looked up which southwest flights were going on that day. i had NEVER listened to liveatc while doing a flight until that day. just as i got takeoff clearance, i heard the KMCO tower clear the actual flight as well. followed them all the way to Chicago. we ended up landing about 40 seconds apart haha. it was a pretty cool feeling.

Funny thing sure is

 

Long time ago i got the flightplan from Amsterdam to Hong Kong from a friend who flies for KLM he was going to do that flight(KLM887) on the 747-400

 

Now i do quite alot of long haul flights so i decided to fly along with his real flight using same gate departure time(you can imagine that stuff haha)

 

So i was totally set up fmc programmed APU running everything was ready to go so i was listening via a piece of software from ATCBOX.com wich could listen to audio from all dutch airports and also look at there radar at the same time it was really cool.

 

But anyway we got at the time when the flight was going to depart but it didn't so i was kinda like ok? what's going on? but i decided to wait after an hour or so the flight finally asked clearance and we were ready to go and so we left at the same time.

 

but most funny was we also arrived exact at the same time but thx to that hour delay it was like 3 am haha really tired.

 

The next day he got onto msn and i asked him what the delay was he was like ok? how do you know that so i explained him the whole story he found it very cool that i did.

 

The delay was caused because all the food and drinks were loaded on board before it was pulled to the gate and with no airco on and the plane in hot weather you can imagine what happend hehe that was the reason

 

Anyway that's pretty much it Hope you all enjoyed this story :)

Interesting stories, guys. I've never done that before.

 

The only interesting thing that happened on my flight the other night (Friday), was that the controller on Washington Center kept telling pilots to "contact ttthhheee Potomac Approach on 120.45." Other that, it was just a normal, early summer haze flight around DC.

 

If any of you are up for taking a smaller plane out and have UTX USA (the default mesh won't show the mountains well enough), try out KFRR to W99 (or if you're a sucker for bigger airports, you can go from KIAD). Both FRR and W99 are right up against mountains (no, not like CO/UT/MT, but still a cool sight).

 

I flew it from JYO, but unless you have an affinity for the field, it's rather boring in the sim. In real life we have the SFRA, which makes it more interesting (and annoying) procedurally.

Yeah Dave, adding liveatc in the backround i think is a nice touch. I would love to do something like you did Johan with the KLM flight, it would be nice to get the fuel burn info afer as well to compare the two. Another funny note, in the sim i had to park at K7 instead of K8 because it was occupied, in real life it turned out the flight parked at K7 as well instead of K8 like it was scheduled. And Kyle, i tried getting into GA in FSX, but i just couldnt do it. It was plenty interesting flying around in the 152's back when i was studying aviation flight at SIU, but in the sim its just a bit too dull

 

Adam Kaleniak

I fly mostly on vatsim so having all that ATC chatter would sound strange if the airport isn't that busy online. But sounds like a neat idea.

 

As for GA flying in FSX get yourself an accusim warbird and you won't have a dull moment, I'm planning a trip from PWK-HOT in the P-51D all VFR. A trip that would be slow and boring in a 172 will be much more interesting in something that is more intuitive and far more powerful.

The guys flying our governmental 154 to Kabul used to take mechanics along in the back. Well the mechanics took to take a laptop wiht the Project Tupolev to fly alongside... how cool is THAT?

Yeah Dave, adding liveatc in the backround i think is a nice touch. I would love to do something like you did Johan with the KLM flight, it would be nice to get the fuel burn info afer as well to compare the two. Another funny note, in the sim i had to park at K7 instead of K8 because it was occupied, in real life it turned out the flight parked at K7 as well instead of K8 like it was scheduled. And Kyle, i tried getting into GA in FSX, but i just couldnt do it. It was plenty interesting flying around in the 152's back when i was studying aviation flight at SIU, but in the sim its just a bit too dull

 

I agree, somewhat. I sub a C210 for flights I'd otherwise do in a 172, just to compress the time a bit in a more realistic manner. Flying a few hours in a 172 outside of the sim is engaging to me. Sitting for that time in FSX just doesn't do it for me.

 

I've done 5 hour flights in a C207 (BCB-DTS-CKM-BCB) and I enjoyed it. You wouldn't catch me dead doing that in FSX. I have 28 hours in a 152, too, and I can definitely say you won't see a quarter of that reflected in the sim. Too slow for not being immersed in it. I'll put up with a 152 outside of the sim only because it's a cheaper option to a 172, but it's almost not even worth it for the speed difference.

 

Even so, you'll see me "cheat" a little and fly a shorter version of a GA route when I want to be lower and slower (as mentioned above, subbing FRR for JYO cuts about 15-20 min on a flight W-SW, as an example).

Kyle.

 

We are pretty much neighbors. We should get togherther for a two crew flight on the PMDG 737.

I have done flights of that kind in the past. Now with a wife and a kid, most of the time i don't have much time to get that close to the real world flights.

In my single days, i followed TWA and AA all over the country.

Adib,

 

That's pretty cool. I know there are a couple others around here from HEF, and I know there's someone here who lives (/lived) out by ESN/SBY.