Hi!

With the PMDG 777 & 747 v2 to come, I ask myself the question, how to perform the long haul and super long haul flights. I really like the idea of starting a flight in, lets say London, flying the plane half around the world, followed by the approach and landing in Shanghai, Melbourne, Kuala Lumpur etc.

But what are you people doing while cruising enroute? The few long hauls I did, were flown at 4x - 8x sim rate.

But I could also imagine to bring the aircraft to its cruising altitude in the morning, let it fly on its own for the 7,8,9 or more hours during work, use the "pause sim at T/D"-function most add ons offer, to finally fly the approach and landing into the destination in the evening. Sitting in front of my computer for these long hours wouldn't be an option for me.

Downside is, step climbs are not possible, online ATC is impossible, etc.

So, how are you doing these flights?

Long Haul is more entertaining if you got multi monitor, i browse youtube on second screen during cruise

 

Like you i also use x2 to x16 accell rate for long haul, but the higher the sim rate the more the PC gets taxed, and often crashes, so i need to lower my OC for long haul for more stability.

 

Basically i have a plug in power monitor on my PC, and the wattage drawn by the PC basically doubles between no time acceleration and about x8 acceleratio. Imagine what power x16 will draw. Dont use x16 much, increases likelyhood of PC crash.

When i've got time to do long haul:PS3, Browsing the net, listening to music, tidying the house, getting dinner ready, wating for T777, 747v2, and a certain bus are some things i do to pass the time!

 

Cant do acell with my VA's but there's always something i can do during a long haul.

I cruise at mach 2.02 and somewhere about FL500-600. I watch a movie, listen to music, browse the web, wash the dishes of large bodies of water etc A big positive with the Concorde is that I get there in half the time normal jets do. Makes longhaul more bareable. Otherwise I just do short hops which gives me what I crave for: the approach and landings!

One approach is to take off, get to the cruising altitude, acknowledge the next handoff, but don't tune it in. Go to bed, go to work or whatever, and when you get back do the approach and landing. If your aircraft or other program lets you stop 150 miles out, so much the better. BTW, there is a program called FSX Follow which allows you to monitor you flight on an IPad over an internet connection when you are away from your computer.

 

Another approach, which I do just as often is simply to move the plane on the map close to its destination, and adjust its heading and altitude accordingly. I am more inclined to do this if FSX has crashed on me. (And by the way, there are few things more frustrating than doing a long eight hour flight only to have FSX crash on final!)

 

And yet another is to speed up the simulation. Over an ocean, it really does not matter that much. In fact, over most of the world's surface, it does not matter all that much.

Some aircraft have real problems when you accelerate the time. In fact, the default aircraft seem to jump around like Mexican jumping beans if you try to go much faster than 8x.

 

A fourth solution is to do the departure and arrival as two separate flights. The departure part is easy, but there are programs and missions which allow you to do the approach, as a separate flight.

 

I suspect it does not matter which solution you use. It's largely a matter of six one way or a half a dozen another. I suspect it comes down to whatever allows you to maintain the illusion that you are actually piloting a plane while keeping the real world happy.

 

I figure in real life, pilots are paid to stay in a cockpit where they are free from distractions and interruptions. They don't have to worry about a job interfering because that is their job. In real life I am caring for a 91 year old with severe Alzheimers. If he wants to be fed, needs to use the toilet or is doing something where he may harm himself, I am not going to ignore his needs to play a damn computer game. That's what the pause button is for.

 

Interruptions can happen with any flight. I was just trying to do a simple flight from Phoenix to San Diego and probably was interrupted a half dozen times. It's just with a longer flight, you are going to have more interruptions. An interruptions is guaranteed to occur when I am on short final.

 

I realize there are fanatics in this hobby who do not have any real life responsibilities. Perhaps they don't have a spousal unit or kids who need attention. (And if they play Flight Simulation at the expense of their family, they will not keep a spouse or kids for very long.) Or perhaps they don't have pets who want to be fed and taken outside. Most of us, however, have to live in the real world.

 

Personally, think the flight simmers who only do flights between Cleveland and Detroit are missing out on a big part of the hobby.

I take off before going to bed and land when I wake up, whenever I reproduce long hauls. Right now the MD-11X is my choice until PMDG releases the 777X and the 747v2

Seems as if the "let it fly while doing something different" approach is the most chosen by you guys. I often asked myself if there is a small program that offers monitoring possibilities over the web on an iDevice, now I know that it really exists! Thanks for that hint! And thanks for the answers that you gave and the ones that will hopefully still be given. I am really interested in how other people do their flights. As a father of 2 children and with working times that can be pretty demanding, there's not all too much time left for my beloved hobby! But you know, the 777, MD-11, etc. want to be flown... :-)

I do not fly long-haul flights because I know I can not endure them in real-time without doing "unrealistic" activities, such as browsing the web and sleeping without giving attention to ATC (if a realistic depiction existed in FSX), fuel pump switches, and step climbs.

 

Short-haul flights are more engaging and fun. Why not do them if one can fly them more "realistically" (i.e., without "unrealistic" distractions) and not use up as many long blocks of time? Shorter flights means more flights per day, which means more takeoffs and landings (the best parts of being a pilot) per day. Plus, real-world short-haul flights for the B777 actually exist.

When I do them I use 4x, and will possibly save part way through then come back to it......

 

G

Longhauls on weekends. I do UK to Manchester, Pease or Montreal with the NGX. Pease has a nice long runway for a heavy takeoff on the way back Takeoff on Fr or Sat evening, land in the morning, no ATC, no matter, no step climbs, not a big deal.

 

I have a second PC and screen though, I browse the net, youtube, check flightaware, watch flightradar24, sort out my charts, do fuel burn calculations...etc etc, then evetually go to bed.

 

When the 747 and 777 come out, it will be the same setup, pause at TOD is a dream option if you don´t have time to stay at the pc

 

During the week it´s regular short routes, tonight was Southamton > Southend > Strasbourg in the NGX.

I browse the internet, watch movies and sleep (If flying at night).

To speed up the sim rate is a no no for me. Right now I mostly fly the PMDG B737NGX and this time of the year is high season for flights between Scandinavia and Canary Islands, normally flights between 5 and 6 hrs. This makes it perfect for a nice weekend stopover down there. Outbound saturday morning. During the flight, fix the house, take care of laundry etc while still keeping an eye of the flight. Landing in early afternoon and then have the rest of saturday free. Then back sunday afternoon. Im using Radar Contact and use the option of having the co-pilot to do the ATC-talking. I have also done some real long-hauls with the PMDG MD11, and then i do as many other do, t/o, go to sleep for some hours if its a night flight and then go up to make the landing. I even set the alarm to do some step-climbs sometimes. One thing that can be little tricky with the longhouls is when you get a big time difference. To make a night landing in Tokyo when its full daylight in your home is taking away some of the realistic feeling. But outbound flights from Europe to N America in the afternoon and return flights back during the night with a morning landing in Europe is working pretty well I think.

 

Johnny

I fly the entire route with MD11 in various step. With fs2crew I spend first 45-60 minutes in cockpit preparation and takeoff or to reach cruise FL, then save the flight, the next day reload the fligth and cruise for an hours, reading something or play chess, but every time monitoring displays. The last estep is obviously the descent and approach and parking using GSX.

It really boils down to: 'to each one, his own'. There is probably no precise/acceptable way of flying a long haul flight except to sit it out using a normal sim rate - and this is impossible, except for the hardened simmer without any other responsibilities. The criteria I use for setting a flight plan for a flight in the B744 is: it has to be long haul (which is what a B744 was designed to do), preferably with a stop mid way to take on fuel/pax; it has to be completed in the time I have allocated to it (ie. I couldn't let the sim run through the night, or I go away to work or catch up with the chores - I need to be there as in the rw), and I need to get as many take offs and landings in that session so that I feel that it was time well spent.

 

Having said that, and being different to many other's preferences, I do increase my sim rate to 16x for most of the flight (in cruise). Of course, this is still not ideal, but for my time and energy limitations, I find this the most acceptable. In the days, when tweaking to find the 'sweet spot' was my constant companion (or foe), I used to save my flight at various points (ie. prior to leaving the tarmac, on reaching cruise altitude, at least at five or six points during cruise, at TOD, and at approach) so in case I had a freeze or BSOD, I could revert back to the earlier point of the flight, without getting overly frustrated. However, now there are no such problems even at a 16x sim rate. Hope this adds further fuel for thought, Michael.

 

Chris

it has to be long haul (which is what a B744 was designed to do)

Not really. These days, the A380 and B777 are much more efficient at long-haul flights than the B747 is. That's why there are increasingly few intercontinental B747 flights, most of which have been replaced by B777 flights. Many airlines use their B747s for dense short-haul flights, in which the high capacity of the B747 pays off its inefficiencies. Look at Asia!