Hey all,

 

Usually I will just do one flight for a few hours and that;s it for me - but with an aim to realistically simulating everything, I am tempted to try and recreate a full working day for either a Ryanair or Easyjet pilot. Probably Ryanair given it'll be in the NGX. Has anybody else ever just spent a day doing realistic hops over an 8 hour period (or however long it is a full working day lasts for a pilot)?

Yes. A number of times. Mostly in GA aircraft types. One example. Back in May I flew the King Air C90 from Orange County, CA (KSNA) to Denver Centennial (KAPA), 3.2 hours; refueled; flew on to Chicago Midway (KMDW), 2.6 hours; refueled; then flew on to my home FBO Easton, MD (KESN), 2.4 hours. I'd have to look back through my flight planning sheets to see the off time from Orange County and the on time at Easton. The flight time came to what? 8.2 hours. But the weather checks, flight planning, shut down and start up for two refuels, i.e. dark cockpit to dark cockpit, was significantly longer. I believe I even added the realism of going to the kitchen to get a bite to eat during the stop in Chicago <grin>.

No, and that is why I stick to GA flying in real life. The glamour of airliner flying is all gone in slavelike lowfare airlines like Ryanair, and most of the other airlines are following suit.

No, and that is why I stick to GA flying in real life. The glamour of airliner flying is all gone in slavelike lowfare airlines like Ryanair, and most of the other airlines are following suit.

 

So fly charters and pick and choose your customers.

So fly charters and pick and choose your customers.

 

The fun thing about the sim is that I don't have to think about customers at all - I do that all day. I mostly use the sim for things I can't do in real life and avoid simulating all the boring bits related to real world flying. That being said, there is nothing wrong in simulating things as real as it gets. That's the beauty of FSX. It's such a versatile platform!

I didn't quite do a full day but on this past Sunday I flew the NGX from ATL-CHS (Charleston, SC), CHS-ATL, ATL-BNA (Nashville), BNA-ATL. I didn't do full cold/dark shutdowns but either had the APU on or ground power but did all WX/Flight planning in between with taxi to gates. I also used GSX for boarding/deboarding while prepping for the next flight.

 

I think it was around 6.5 hours or so. It was a lot of fun for sure! I was also using the the ForeFlight app on my ipad for the first time that now can connect to FSX to have a moving map and all the charts/plates I need. Great stuff there.

The max I did daily was 6 flights, and that was really tiresome. Flights were in lines EGLL -> EGCC -> EGLL -> EHAM -> EGLL etc... all 1-1,5hrs flights. The most tiresome things are preparations, flight plan loading etc. The aircraft part is actually least tiresome.

 

That is so true! Works just the same in real life. Being a pilot is more of a "desk" job than most people think. Getting airborne can often be a welcome break

The fun thing about the sim is that I don't have to think about customers at all

 

Ahh but !! Flight sim customers are 100% manageable !!! Always happy, always satisfied. They never know when they are on time or not! And they are very excited because I fly them places like the Super Bowl, the BCS bowl, World Series, Final Four, Grand Cayman, Cancun, Montego Bay........

 

....and they never have to pay..... not even for extra bags!

Is there any website where we can track individual physical aircraft (by registration ?). I know about flightaware and flight24 and stuff, but IIRC none of them actually let you track an individual aircraft to see its schedule on a typical day.

 

The reason I'm asking is that it would be cool to simulate let's say 2 or 3 hops in the same aircraft, and trying to adhere to the real life flight schedule.

 

 

Ahh but !! Flight sim customers are 100% manageable !!! Always happy, always satisfied. They never know when they are on time or not! And they are very excited because I fly them places like the Super Bowl, the BCS bowl, World Series, Final Four, Grand Cayman, Cancun, Montego Bay........

 

....and they never have to pay..... not even for extra bags!

 

That is vey true! Just pulling your leg mate!

The reason I'm asking is that it would be cool to simulate let's say 2 or 3 hops in the same aircraft, and trying to adhere to the real life flight schedule.

 

It was that same question that led to the founding of the first virtual airlines back in 1992. A group of enthusiasts, all flying subLogic's Flight Assignment: ATP had gotten together on the old Prodigy network, years before the internet. One brought up that question in regard to real world airlines. A lurking Prodigy member who was not flying introduced himself. He was an airlines ops specialist I believe for American Airlines out of Newark. He started feeding us the specifics of actual flight plans from I recall Newark to Charlotte and Dallas. Those plans included forecast winds aloft. He also provided completion reports that showed gate to gate and takeoff to landing times, and actual fuel burns. Of course back then there were no weather downloads for the sL ATP simulator, so we had to configure them manually, as well as temperatures, before flying. We were amazed at how close the performance was. Among our group was an Austrian named Simon Hradecky, who was a programmer. subLogic had ceased business, so he started dissecting the simulator and patching the performance. It was utterly amazing at the time. SunAir still operates and can be found at sunairexpress.com. There is a great FAQ about it under the About Us page.

It was that same question that led to the founding of the first virtual airlines back in 1992. A group of enthusiasts, all flying subLogic's Flight Assignment: ATP had gotten together on the old Prodigy network, years before the internet. One brought up that question in regard to real world airlines. A lurking Prodigy member who was not flying introduced himself. He was an airlines ops specialist I believe for American Airlines out of Newark. He started feeding us the specifics of actual flight plans from I recall Newark to Charlotte and Dallas. Those plans included forecast winds aloft. He also provided completion reports that showed gate to gate and takeoff to landing times, and actual fuel burns. Of course back then there were no weather downloads for the sL ATP simulator, so we had to configure them manually, as well as temperatures, before flying. We were amazed at how close the performance was. Among our group was an Austrian named Simon Hradecky, who was a programmer. subLogic had ceased business, so he started dissecting the simulator and patching the performance. It was utterly amazing at the time. SunAir still operates and can be found at sunairexpress.com. There is a great FAQ about it under the About Us page.

 

Cool story. I used to fly ATP - the PMDG NGX of that era! First flight sim that made me feel like a real pretend pilot

Is there any website where we can track individual physical aircraft (by registration ?). I know about flightaware and flight24 and stuff, but IIRC none of them actually let you track an individual aircraft to see its schedule on a typical day.

 

The reason I'm asking is that it would be cool to simulate let's say 2 or 3 hops in the same aircraft, and trying to adhere to the real life flight schedule.

 

You can search Flightaware by aircraft registration

 

I didn't quite do a full day but on this past Sunday I flew the NGX from ATL-CHS (Charleston, SC), CHS-ATL, ATL-BNA (Nashville), BNA-ATL. I didn't do full cold/dark shutdowns but either had the APU on or ground power but did all WX/Flight planning in between with taxi to gates. I also used GSX for boarding/deboarding while prepping for the next flight.

 

I think it was around 6.5 hours or so. It was a lot of fun for sure! I was also using the the ForeFlight app on my ipad for the first time that now can connect to FSX to have a moving map and all the charts/plates I need. Great stuff there.

 

An aircraft is not shut down between turns, only at the end of the day.

A few years ago I had a marathon day of flying. The object for me was to simulate a day in the life of a Westjet 737, to see what they go through (not the pilot, but the PLANE). I live in Western Canada and Westjet flies some nice routes out this way, plus many are short at 1-1.5 hours or less so I could get lots of legs in. Now the trick was to figure all the routes that a particular planes flies in one day. As my luck would have it I found out watching one of my Westjet Just Planes DVD's. There was one shot in which the pilot held up a slip of paper that had all the flights that this particular aircraft was scheduled to fly that day. I paused the DVD and wrote them down, then went to the Westjet website to verify all those flights were still legit, but also to get the flight times as well.

 

I started the next day in the dark at about 6am and flew about 10-11 legs through Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, Kelowna, Fort Mac, Vancouver, Prince George, and shut the airplane down in the dark at at about 11pm, for a total of about 17 hours. I used real times and took real breaks between legs just as the aircraft did. What was also interesting is I did this in the winter using real world weather, and so flying that long over those distances I saw the weather change many times going from good to bad to foggy etc (even had 1 or 2 go-arounds), and of course the sunrise and sunset. Also I covered territory from Vancouver Island to the Rocky Mountains to the plains of Saskatchewan.

 

It might have been my greatest day of FSX ever, but I was sure worn out by the end, and thus have never attempted to do that again. Plus it's hard for me to set aside and entire day to do this. If I learned one thing, it's that these airplanes are incredible workhorses, and I don't think many people (outside of the ones in that industry) realize what these planes do and go though, every single day!

 

Among our group was an Austrian named Simon Hradecky, who was a programmer. subLogic had ceased business, so he started dissecting the simulator and patching the performance. It was utterly amazing at the time. SunAir still operates and can be found at sunairexpress.com. There is a great FAQ about it under the About Us page.

 

 

I was a member of the ATP group on CompuServe back at that same time. Great memories!

 

Simon is still very active. He runs the Aviation Herald aviation news web site, www.avherald.com which is often quoted in the "news" section here on the Avsim forums.