Flight Simulation as a Family Hobby?

[Tom Allensworth 1,532]

Simple question; why not?

 

 

I am not a parent, so I don't have an opportunity to use my flight simulation hobby as that of a family activity. But this question and the responses are interesting. So, why is flight simulation predominantly NOT a family hobby? Your opinions?

[Matthew Kane 1,343]

I always found this hobby to be very niche. I do have 5 brothers and I am the only one of us that was interested in aviation, Flight Sim or anything do to with this hobby. I started Flight Sim when I was 12 with an old Apple 2e and Flight Sim v1.

 

Back then two of my brothers thought it was kind of cool but never got into it, the other three didn't care for it or look at what I was up to. My Dad thought it was interesting but never took part (most likely he was just taking an interest in what I was up to rather then the actual hobby), My mom thought I was wasting my time and still does. :lol:

 

Today I am still the only one in the household that has this hobby, My partner thinks it is neat but won't take part. We are planning kids so time will tell if any of them would be interested as well, if they are not I wouldn't be too surprised.

[Rations 102]

Perhaps flight simulation and the extensive automation involved are too boring and unsocial for most. I think one must possess extreme interest to reach the payware level, a level of interest difficult to obtain if he or she has experienced years of mundane real-world flights and poor travelling experiences. The costs involved and presence of other more-exciting forms of entertainment and games do not help either. . . .

[Airbus Commander 563]

I have 3 kids, 2 of whom are obsessed with FS and 1 is also pretty into it, where did I go wrong... :mellow:

 

The wife isn't fond of it in the slightest though at this stage... :blush:

 

Regards,

Ró.

[Chris Crawford 49]

I'm the only one in my family that uses FS. My old man is a pilot and doesn't really enjoy simulators (Trying to get him to like it), my brother thinks its boring and lame, and mom... well, she likes aviation but isn't very "computer savvy".

[simmerhead 885]

I guess it depends on what one understands by the term family hobby. Computer stuff are typical solo endeavours and not something one does together as a family.

 

As for me, I'm the only male in the house and my girls have no interest whatsoever in aviation, apart from tax free stores at airports

[LHookins 3,118]

My wife bought FSX for me many years ago. Thus ended her involvement in flight simming.

 

My son isn't interested. I tried to get him involved a bit by getting him to an air show at the local airport, but while he enjoyed the air show and airplanes, he's still not interested in flight simming.

 

That's not to say we've never shared some computer time together. We used to play Quake against each other. The first time i was explaining to him how a coop game worked when he turned, shot me twice and ran away laughing. It went downhill from there. I had to explain to my wife that "Hey *** you!" was a term of endearment. We both played a lot of Diablo 1, but not together. We had a game of X-Com going once where we were both playing the same game. We gave each other progress reports whenever we switched. That was great fun.

 

But flight simming? No. Or pretty much anything else, like wargaming or The Sims, although he's got my Sims 2 disks so he may be playing that.

 

Hm. Wargaming. My wife used to provide a worthy opponent in the very early days. At the time we were stationed in Germany and didn't have a TV. Maybe that's the answer: cancel cable.

 

Hook

[Ron Attwood 3,562]

Family scattered to the four winds, so no joy there. Wife? :LMAO:

Me: "Hey look at this, I'm just coming in to land at wherever airport"

Her: "I don't care!"

[Zap 2]

I don't remember but was this one of the questions marked with an asterisk meaning an answer was required in order to complete the survey?

 

I ask because the people taking the survey that either don't have children, or have kids but not any living at home would likely have answered "1. not accurate at all" by default. So I suppose that could begin to skew the answer somewhat in the direction it's heading.

 

I ran in to a similar issue when I went to cast my votes in the Avsim best of awards but decided not to because it seemed it was required to make a choice from each catagory. For instance I don't own any payware airports...yet, so I couldn't very well cast a vote and as a result, unless I'm mistaken, couldn't advance through and submit my "ballot". No big deal, this topic just reminded me so thought I'd mention it.

[Captain Kevin 586]

My dad was a computer science major and was hoping I would follow through as a computer science major. My mom is in fashion design, as is my sister. My dad's mistake (well, not to me, anyway, but to somebody who was hoping I'd follow through in computer science) was bringing back a couple games from his office and me looking through the pile of games and finding Flight Simulator 98, as that was what got me into aviation in the first place. Suffice it to say that nobody in my family has any interest in Flight Simulator, although Flight Simulator is also a good way for me to....get my parents out of my room, especially when I'm flying on VATSIM.

 

Mom: "I need you to...."

ATC: "Air Kevin 124 heavy, descend and maintain 12,000."

Me: "Down to 12,000 now for Air Kevin 124 heavy."

Mom: *Walks away*

 

Or....

 

Dad: *Goes on about something I really don't care about*

ATC: "Air Kevin 124 heavy, descend to 3,000 and reduce speed to 200 knots."

Me: "All right, down to 3,000 and we'll slow to 200 for Air Kevin 124 heavy."

Dad: "Are you listening?"

Me: "No, I'm busy."

Dad: *Walks away*

[henri5 16]

My wie and I both contribute: I play with the game and she does the cooking and the cleaning....

 

Henri

[Designer Paule AHS NYC 0]

My wife supports me doing my flightsim hobby. She knows I rebuild my systems every so often, buy addons, etc. In 2007 she supported my going to Seattle to the AVSIM developers conference if I promised not to go up the Space Needle. I didn't. I wentback out two years later with her and did. On a 2011 trip she supported my going on a Kenmore San Juan Island explorer flight to compare the ORBX Ocras Island scenery she got me for my birthday. She has gotten me rudder pedals, twin throttles, trim wheel, numerous scenery for birthdays or Christmas. She supports my hobbies I support hers. She supported me going to the last AVSIM conference which was cancelled, and would have supported the Kansas one had we not decided to do a special vacation this year.

[Mickel 42]

The wife shows passing interest (ie, doesn't ignore me), and tolerates the spending - knowing full well what actual flight hours cost having joined me on my last two flights as PIC. Dad has my original FS2004 disks (although I then bought me another copy...) and bought a stick, but I doubt he uses it. It's not that social, apart from in communities like this. Had a friend and his nine year old son blasting around Sydney in the FA-18, trying to out-do each other here one night. That's the closest I've seen to a family thing. Maybe the 11 day old daughter will surprise me sometime. I suspect not.

 

Mike

[n4gix 4,969]

Well, truthfully unless one has [a] at least one spouse and/or child, and has a multi-computer home (i.e., network), there's really not much in the way of "sharing" one could do!

[HiFlyer 9,417]

Well..... for one thing, I think the type of flight simulation favored on sites like this isn't very accessible to the general public. The number of people wanting to fly super-detailed tube-liners with lifelike procedures seems very much a niche of a niche, and several recent threads have reinforced the impression of the solitary nature of this hobby.

 

Kids want fun, and procedures are not fun. Fuel mixtures may be interesting but they are not fun to most people, at least at first, and neither are 15 minute (or more) engine start-ups. The fact that some of us here are fascinated by these things does little to counteract the reality that the average person is bored cross-eyed and looking to bite their leg off to escape the trap of the dry, technocratic and complicated way we tend to portray this hobby.

 

Yet the number of flying "games" out there and their enduring popularity shows that its not flying itself that repels, merely the way we tend to approach and proselytize it. Until the Sim community decides to lower a rope from its perch and maybe even climb down that rope it a bit, it will probably never be a family hobby.

 

Sadly, the very type of Sim that drew us to the hobby originally are the ones we now tend to reject as "games" and want nothing to do with, even as the interest shown by children in Microsoft Flight (to the surprise of many here) shows that common ground remains a possibility.........

 

Common ground we may no longer understand how to traverse. :unsure: