I disagree that people join Virtual Airlines simply to build hours, as building hours is irrelevant to anything else. What's the point of building hours for nothing? People join Virtual Airlines because they are already avid aviation enthusiasts and want to resemble their favorite destinations and aircraft that the airline provides, whilst being amongst other people that share those same attributes. You don't learn more about an airplane by sitting and staring at it in cruise flight. You learn by interacting with it. Forcing someone to come and type a code every 55 minutes for a "position report", just to walk back away from the PC, isn't interaction nor experience anymore than going to sleep during the cruise portion is. Which, as evidenced by some members in this thread (including yourself), are still going to sleep during cruise; just in 45 minute segments. Additionally, real world pilots don't sit in the cockpit for the entirety of long haul flights, either.

 

Just like you we all have busy lives. It doesn't sound fun to sleep in 45 minute segments at night, feeling like crap and dog tired the next day because you got only a few hours of sleep, just so you can say you flew a 10 hour long haul flight for a virtual airline. To each their own, I suppose.

Because it seems to me that a lot of people who partake in this hobby see hours built as a 'score', and whoever has the highest score is automatically the best or more knowledgeable when we all know that is total bullcrap.

 

I agree that you learn by interacting with the aircraft, but that should be done by using the maximum number of tools at your disposal; PMDG's excellent failure engine is a perfect example here. I can bet that anybody who does the whole takeoff-sleep-land cycle doesn't activate that as it could mean losing the flight halfway through. At least if you are monitoring and a system fails you put the QRH and your experience into play and suddenly it becomes a much better representation of the real thing! To be honest, I wouldn't start a long haul flight if I was going out of the house or be anymore than a minute or two from the PC, and check it every few minutes, and I'm glad that BAV operates the system as they do.

 

But like you say, each to their own I suppose.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Wow...start the flight...fly for an hour tops....cheat...either switch to 16X simulation rate on autopilot or advance you flight to 30min-hour before landing...take over the controls and land the bird.  You and I both know that the takeoffs and landings are the fun part.

 

Life is too short to do without sleep, spend hours with dead screens, somehow think that even though it's a simulation that it's somehow reality.

 

Pretend guys.  Which is why I am a shorthops type of guy.

4x simulation rate is the way to do.

4x simulation rate is the way to do.

To me that destroys the whole part of doing long haul! 

 

Setting up the aircraft for the next RW 8+ hours is the way I do it  ^_^

Ok so you are 'simulating' real world ops?  A long flight such as this, how realistic is operating without a relief crew?   Going to sleep during a long flight seems more realistic to realworld ops.  I believe it is against FAA/CAA regulations to be on duty for longer than what? 10hrs?  Since we have no 'relief crew' per se, the Autopilot makes an excellent relief crew for now.

 

I do spend most of my FS time in GAs and warbirds, so I don't do that many long hauls but I am not going to stay awake for 12hrs and watch the autopilot follow the course.

To me that destroys the whole part of doing long haul! 

 

Setting up the aircraft for the next RW 8+ hours is the way I do it  ^_^

I don't think that because there is no first officer sitting in the right so sleeping in autopilot on is not reality. Also when you fly over ocean there is nothing to see but when FTX Global is out, I might return to normal simulation speed.

No way would I get up in the middle of the night to check on a simulated flight. My wife would divorce me in fairly short order! I do 60-90 min hops, maybe two hours tops. Thankfully that allows for countless city pairs all over the world. I'm loving the Q400 right now for really short and busy real world style flights.

Wow...start the flight...fly for an hour tops....cheat...either switch to 16X simulation rate on autopilot or advance you flight to 30min-hour before landing...take over the controls and land the bird.  You and I both know that the takeoffs and landings are the fun part.

 

Life is too short to do without sleep, spend hours with dead screens, somehow think that even though it's a simulation that it's somehow reality.

 

Pretend guys.  Which is why I am a shorthops type of guy.

 

BAV doesn't let you use more than 1x simulation rate, either.

So it seems long haul does have its problems.

I thought FSX couldn't support such long flights before going OOM ?

 

Ive had my FSX running nonstop with NGX in a hold over ORBX YMML for 16hrs with no crashes

My FSX can work for minimum 24h (that's longest I tested).

The "position reports every hour" is why I did not join BAV, as I really wanted to. There is simply no purpose for it and it isn't realistic, either. It kills peoples ability to do long-hauls.

Well, BAV has done a great job replicating BA's routes, including Comair, Sunscan and their classic routes, not forgetting Concorde. I like the realism and purpose in that.

 

You can fly for BAV and choose literally hundreds of routes with max 1-3 hour duration. If 6-12 hours is not your cup of tea, that's no problem.

 

I have done quite a few long hauls too, and as with all my flights, I like to do them properly. I generally don't sleep at all, on my last overnight flight London - Dubai I slept for 55 minutes once during the night.

 

As Tom mentioned in another post here; I also run with full failures on and I like the uncertainty of possibly having to solve problems mid-air, maybe divert etc.

 

During cruise I do what any real pilot would do I guess, I check weather, read my PMDG T7 manuals, check fuelflow and progress, looking at enroute alternates, study approach charts, drink coffee and having the occational chat with my still quite good looking cabin crew...

 

You see, one of my many hobbies is simulating flying an airplane, and I've been told that this is how it is done

 

And "pretend guys", wow, never thought I would see that here, of all places You crack me up

 

Cheers,

Good thing this isn't MS Oceanliner sim... :lol:

So it seems long haul does have its problems.

But not for everyone

Good thing this isn't MS Oceanliner sim... :lol:

LOL 

 

I could only imagine how boring long hauls on that would be