Longest I've flown in real time is around 6 hours: Boston Logan to Dublin, Ireland. Yes, I do sit in front of the computer, although, admittedly, I have two computers, so I set the plane on AP and then surf the net or do some reading on my other computer. I will monitor the flight just to make sure I haven't drifted off course and I still have enough fuel.

Peter,After all the amazing advice and interesting information you've posted over the years, you've finally (in my opinion) missed something here. Flight simming is about fiction, and fiction is the suspension of disbelief. Terror is a reaction to a perceived threat...and the key word there is "perceived" and not "threat." When you actively seek realism, when you actually FLY the sim aircraft, and you have a specific and goal in mind (a goal that comes with consequences if it's not achieved), you can fairly effectively achieve the level of concern that might accompany a serious problem in real life flight.A loss of visibility is one such situation...and I remember seeing some photos you posted of icing on your cockpit windows (though I don't remember you admitting terror in that situation...I doubt you WERE terrified, since you thought to take pictures) and I am sure that you were concerned about safely solving the problem. THAT, we can simulate.Last summer, while flying for Bush Flying Unlimited, I accepted a medevac job that involved going into a small, uncontrolled airport with no published IFR procedures. I fly with real weather turned on, and sure enough, when I got there, visibility was down to nil. I was down to almost no fuel (I'd "set myself up" as taking the call while on a longish flight to somewhere else), was in a complex and expensive aircraft (a King Air), and had no visibility, no hope of going anywhere else, and an (albeit imaginary) person on the ground who was relying on me to get in and get him to a hospital elsewhere. I imagine that real world medevac pilots face this type of situation often...and all of these factors combined in my imagination to make it real enough for me...I was able to suspend my disbelief enough that when I got down (safely...actually a nice landing), I had the shakes and discovered that there was a rivulet of sweat running down my back.No, there was no REAL threat...I could have said "enough" and set the weather to clear or even turned off the computer...but I chose to immerse myself in it. The threat to my life did not exist, but the threat to my simming experience was, and therefore, so was the adrenaline.Respectfully, and with Admiration,Kurt

Wow, I didn't realize you could get 2700 miles out of it. Seems like it would be pretty light on landing! Thanks

Believe me, crews in 747 crossing oceans have it lots better, including food and pretty flight attendants -- and we didn't have any flying females back then.Not to mention relief crews, real beds (in the -400), actual toilets instead of a glorified bucket with chemicals, and union wages.

Consider that during longhaul flights real crews also get up and walk around. Consider that they may have a relief crew on board (in fact have to if the flight lasts more than 12 or so hours).Then consider that there's always 2 pilots on duty, enabling one of them to go stretch his legs.That's why is't not unreasonable to walk away, it simulates another crewmember taking over the controls...In my case when I fly the B314 it gets more extreme. When they flew the ocean routes for real there were always 2 or even 3 complete crews on a 4 hour on 8 hour off or 8 on 8 off schedule just like a ship's bridge crew.No pilot will remain awake and alert for a 24 hour nonstop flight, especially without the use of chemical boosters like the wideawake pills the USAF is experimenting with during extremely long combat and deployment missions.

I flew the PMDG 737-800 on that particular flight, which is supposedly pretty accurate on performance specs compared to the real thing. According to the performance data, I needed roughly 32000lbs of fuel to cover the nearly 2800nm from PHNL to NFFN at FL350. Max fuel capacity is 46000lbs, zero fuel weight is 91300lbs with no pax/cargo and max takeoff weight is 173000lbs, leaving me up to 35700lbs of ferry crew and duty free goodies that I could take in the trunk ;) and still have over 12000lbs of reserve fuel.If you are interested in more accurate fuel calculations, FSBuild does an even better job as it factors in headwinds straight from AS2004.5 data. Below is an example based on 5500lbs reserve fuel on landing: FSBUILD FLIGHT PLANFLT REL IFR PHNL-04L/NFFN-02 MACH 78 A/C B737-800 W/ CFM56-7B26 FUEL TIME CORR TOGWT LDGWT AVG W/CTAXI 001100 0010 . . . . 164661 132500 P023DEST NFFN 032161 0600 . . . .RESV 005500 0103 . . . .ALTN 000000 0000 . . . . ALTN DIST 0HOLD 000000 0000 . . . .EXTRA 000000 0000 . . . . ZFW 127000 PAYLOAD 035700TTL AT TO 037661 0703 . . . . DIST 2756REQD 038761 0713 . . . .CLB BIAS 0.0% CRZ BIAS 0.0% DSC BIAS 0.0%DEP BIAS 0 MIN 0 DIST 0 FUEL, ARR BIAS 0 MIN 0 FUELPHNL OPIHI2.CARPP A579 NN NFFN/0600 M/H FL WIND ATCTO NM AWY M/C TAS G/S ZT ACTME ETA ATA ACBO ABO REM AREM N2105.7/W15800.2 185 CLB 082032 HNLOPIHI 013 OPIHI2 189 343 357 00/02 00/02 .../... 0004/... 0372/... N1934.2/W15848.8 202 CLB 082032 HNLTOC 102 OPIHI2 206 343 365 00/16 00/18 .../... 0038/... 0337/... N1904.3/W15934.9 203 350 082032 HNLCARRP 047 OPIHI2 206 450 474 00/05 00/24 .../... 0044/... 0331/... S1921.3/W17531.7 203 350 032025 NFFF1TOD 2490 DCT 203 450 474 05/15 05/40 .../... 0316/... 0060/... S1739.2/E17723.7 201 DSC 032025 NFFFNN 112.50 098 DCT 201 294 306 00/19 05/59 .../... 0321/... 0055/... S1745.1/E17726.8 139 DSC 075016 NFFFNFFN 006 DCT 142 306 304 00/01 06/00 .../... 0321/... 0055/...Gary

See my reply below on how I did it. Simple version is that the light weight of delivery/ferry flights allows the aircraft to fly much further than it normally would carrying manual and self-loading cargo.Gary

Paris (CDG/LFPG) to Los Angeles (LAX/KLAX) in a Air France 777-200 (plane made by Meljet)Anchorage (ANC/PANC) to Tokyo Narita (NRT/RJAA) in a Polar Air Cargo 747-400 (plane made by Posky)I don't fly long haul anymore it's just to long for me. Now I fly short and medium haul flights.

KurtThis was a lighthearted reply hence all the smileys :-)Terror is a slightly strong word in real world or sim although real world there could be occasions when such a feeling occures.Most of the time apprehension is more normal and apprehension comes about becuase something happens which breaks your comfort level.More often than not its weather related and creates a threat to you and the aircraft.Real world there are only three things weather wise which really bother me. Icing, storm cells and fuel.Icing because if you cant get out of it you can quickly be flying a non flying aircraft.Storm cells because they hold such bad icing and turbulence, wind shear which can break a plane.Fuel because if that is running low you are limited by other weather Phenomina.Ie your destination and alternative go down in fog. No problem if you have loads of fuel and can go somewhere else.Same with very strong winds with loads of fuel you can clear off somewhere else.Below minima cloud or vis, again loads of fuel and there is no problem.Where I feel FS could improve and add apprehension to the sim is by building a really dynamic weather engine built around truly dynamic weather systems.These would give the same descisions in the sim as you get real world and the same unpredictability.FU3 had a far better modelled weather system which was challenging although I admit the day time clouds were nothing to look at.But the dynamics and wind modelling was far better than MSFS and hence the immersion in the sim was better.Peter

I spent about 5 hrs. flying from KDET to London, had fun, saw the northern lights everyone talked about, drank a twelve pack, altho i did use 2X at times, but still, 5 hrs for Gods sake. Just before I got around to landing the sim crashed. Boy Howdy was I ######. The box came up "send error report to microsoft?" Its a good thing you cant make notes on that report. So from then on I make short flights. Besides, A 172 is more fun than a 747 anyday, just ask a 747 pilot.Remember, when your hobby becomes your job, it's work.

Say you walk away during a long flight; but how do you handle ATC canceling your IFR clearence?

The trick is to walk away when you are handed off.When one center hands you off, acknowledge the hand off, but simply fail to tune to the next center. As a result, you don't get cancelled.When you come back, your ATC dialog will have you tune to the nearest facility where your plane is NOW, and you continue as if nothing happened at all.If I do heavy flights, I do usually climb and cruise, then I wait until the first handoff after reaching cruise altitude. Then simply "forget" to tune to the station I'm handed off to.Works for me.

>Say you walk away during a long flight; but how do you handle>ATC canceling your IFR clearence? Not tuning an ATC centre after confirming it is definitely the most elegant solution.Otherwise, in FS 2004 you can re-submit flightplans along the way. So for a 10 hour flight if your plan gets cancelled 1 hour after liftoff, you can fly for 8 hours without IFR plan active, and then 1 hour before landing re-submit your plan to ATC and continue. It's sometimes a bit messy as ATC may ask you to turn back to the original airport, but usually it works.

>Just a little curiosity here, as I am in the middle of a>super-long flight, from Rio de Janeiro SBGL to Papeete NTAA,>on a Varig MD-11 (IFDG/ALain Capt cockpit). The total flight>time (takeoff-touchdown) is something like 14 hours and 45>minutes. I think this and a Chicago-Hong Kong that I did on a>United 747-400 once are the longest flights I did "real time">in FS.>>PS: Whay I mean by "real time" is not that you sit in front of>the computer screen for the entire duration of the flight, but>simply that you do not increase the speed of simulation in>FS.>>What are you ultra long flights?Did a five hour flight a couple of weeks ago in the Howard 500,wasn't that bad but definetly got up and walked around the cabin,went to the bathroom just like you can do in the real Howard. Speed up to 2X or more? Nah..whats the point if you don't do it in real time?That was a warm up for a Hilo to SanFran hop,it'll take between 8-9 hours--(2400+ NM) depending on tailwinds. On that flight fuel consumption will be critical,that aircraft sucks down about 200 gallons per hour. It will have to be monitored quite a bit for the majority of the flight or I'll end up ditching way before San Fran shows up.David

I'am one of those guys who can sit if front of a 5 hour flight at real time. I even have a tough time going to the washroom. I just love it.If I was smarter I would have kept on flying when I was younger. Must be in your blood to go long times and not want to stop. Must bePIC though.JimCYWG