1-2 hours, but I'm getting typed for the MD-11 at my VA so this will change. I never start cold and dark as this happens rarely in rw. Usually the aircraft is sitting at the gate having just arrived from somewhere.

In the week I may do a couple of 60-90 minute GA flights around Orbx territory, but at the weekend I'll do a 2-3 hours in the NGX. This includes the flightplanning, up from cold and dark through to gate arrival and passenger deboarding.

A big part of my current devotion to helicopters is that I can have an interesting, challenging flight that lasts just 15 or 20 minutes, and doesn't necessarily involve any route planning - a local surveillance flight is fine. I don't have a huge amount of time for simming... and my cats aren't tolerant of long sessions (think cockpit incursion, and they have an amazing gift for showing up just when you're trying to land)... but the helos give me a way to keep a hand in.

I do about an hour of flight planning and LDS767 configuration plus getting weather. I use FlightAware to get real world routing for flight planning. Flying around the US my flights are in realtime 1X about 2-3 hours. I always start from an cold and dark session. To keep from getting board once at flight level I do some chores around the house.

 

Like someone else, when I do long international flights KDTW to EHAM I fly the same time the real flight goes which is in the evening once at cruise and everything is OK, I go to bed and when I awake I do the last hour . Using Radar Contact when I am 205-200 miles from destination RC will pause the sim. This process can take up to 8-10 hours. When I do the reverse EHAM to KDTW which is in the daytime once airborne again I do things around the house checking on the sim every hour or so and then takeover for the approach and landing. Its as close to real world as I can get.

 

Bob

Typically between 45 minutes and 3 hours max. Myself and a good friend of mine who's very familiar with my full scale LJ45 simulator fly nearly every Friday night as a crew and those are usually 2 hours or less since we dont meet up out at my building till about 22:00 (when the kids are going to bed!). The two hours usually include preflight/full checklists, etc. and almost always on VATSIM.

15 min! Yeah.. I know, I open the Sim, start doing some circuit, landing, then it gets boring. I guess I love using FS as a tool to learn and get more proficient, but I don't have as much fun in using it alone with no purpose! That's what I try to always remember before buying an addon, it's gonna be fun for the first 30min, then I will end up leaving it there for never to touch it again, as good as it is. Most of the time I spend learning the correct systems, procedures, reading the manuals, not flying.

 

I guess that's also what makes real flying so interesting for me, if I Liked FS too much, I Wouldn't want to leave it for doing the real thing =p

To keep from getting board once at flight level I do some chores around the house.

 

Like someone else, when I do long international flights KDTW to EHAM I fly the same time the real flight goes which is in the evening once at cruise and everything is OK, I go to bed and when I awake I do the last hour . Using Radar Contact when I am 205-200 miles from destination RC will pause the sim. This process can take up to 8-10 hours. When I do the reverse EHAM to KDTW which is in the daytime once airborne again I do things around the house checking on the sim every hour or so and then takeover for the approach and landing. Its as close to real world as I can get.

 

Bob

 

 

Same here. It's great to have a virtual relief crew on the long hauls.

Besides alot of long haul test flights my normal time averages about 3 to 5 hours +. Although a little shorter lately. I've been on a GA kick the past couple of weeks.

I'm with the majority of you guys as I fly flights of one to two hours max. I like to fly feeder liners such as the HP/Avro146 and ERJs and am looking forward to a DHC 400. I have used 2x speed up on occassions when time is pressing but I would prefer not too.

 

Its all good.

The majority of my flights are prop GA, so they tend to be 30 minutes to an hour long, at the most. When I do fly the airliners or jets on longer flights, I tend to hit the 4x time speedup throughout the flight.

My flying time varies depending on whats happening in RL. Could be 30 minutes, could be 4 hours. Sometimes I'll start a long flight and leave it for a few hours and have the FMS handle things. It also depends on whether I feel like flying a tubeliner or something more fun.

1-2 Hrs max. GA or short haul with Jet. I bought the PMDG MD-11 but probably will not fly long haul. That beast is designed for long flight, but I am not up to spending 6-7 hours watching virtual sky, totally boring in my view. Which bring me to ask the question, what is the real appeal of flying long range plane like MD-11 or 777 or 747? These birds are designed for long haul, so the prep time is justified. For time deprived like me, it's debatable that I would want to invest the prep times.

My norm would be between 40mins- 2hrs.

Sometimes I will simulate a long haul flight of up to 8hrs,but this is rare!

I usually do flights that take about 1 to 2 hours. If I am going to do a medium haul flight like DFW to JFK or DFW to LAX I will use 2x or 4x time compression while in cruise to trim some time of the session, occasionally taking it out of time compression to check things out or prepare for the descent. I used to do them all in real time and would read or browse the net on the other computer while in cruise, but after a while it dawned on me that I was really wasting more time than I cared to since the cruise was just too boring for me. I also used to do a lot of 6+ hour flights in the LDS 767 and would completely leave the computer, go to bed, or occupy myself elsewhere , then come back when it was time for descent, but after a while I decided that since I was basically cheating by not even being at the computer, I might as well just use time compression for cruise and spend my time enjoying the aspects of the flight I really enjoyed which were prep, preflight, take off, descent and landing.

 

I think the day I got the PMDG 747 I flew from Dallas to New York, New York to London, London to Hong Kong, Hong Kong to Anchorage, and Anchorage back to Dallas, all in the course of 4 hours or so, thanks to time compression:-) Had I done it all real time it would have taken me way more time than I would have care to spend or adjusting my schedule to fit the times I had to be seated at the computer for the portions of time that required my attention.

 

If FSX didn't have time compression I would probably just limit myself to flights lasting no more than 2-3 hours if time was permitting. I would probably still do trans-con flights but would break it up into shorter legs so I didn't have to spend so much time in cruise with not much to do.

I fly about 1 to 1-1/2 hours or until CTD, whichever comes first.

I usually try to go for 2 1/2-3 1/2 hrs. Sometimes I do long hauls during the day or overnight.