Fellow simmers, Like many of you I have been involved with FlightSim for years. Since version 4 actually. However, as of late I can't keep myself interested... I've bought quite a few new aircarft in the past few weeks trying to find something interesting, all of them excellent, yet I find myself uninspired as to where to take them. Nothing is holding interest anymore. and its bugging me.Here a few of the recent purchases:RealAir SpitFeelThere ERJ :(-Jason Peters E-3 AWACS Flight Engineer USAF (Former B-52H Crew Chief) [email protected]http://www.feelthere.com/banner/erjpilot.jpg

Jason,Sounds like you've covered quite a few flying 'angles', and there are many more I'm sure, but there's nothing in life like absence to make the heart grow fonder. My advice - quit for awhile and occupy yourself otherwise - no crime in that, and if you're like me, you'll find the virtual skies calling to you again. Also, when you are in simming mood, cut back on the number of flights to help combat the boredom. Simple and obvious, but for me at least - effective.A second idea is to take up some other aspect of the sim - I never yet downloaded and/or bought a product I did'nt tweak to suit my own tastes, panels, aircraft.cfgs, etc - can be very engaging and you have to be careful or you may find the majority of you simtime is spent at the 'back end' :)Hope this is not all nonsense but I do know how you feel as a fellow fs4 man myself :)regards,Mark

My interest in the hobby goes in phases. For example, during FS2000 my interest was at a low. Even then though, simming was in the back of my mind. I would say my period of greatest interest was many years ago, during FS5.1 ;-) Do you mind if I ask you a question about the ERJ? Does the new service pack improve frame rates? With the new service pack, how does the frame rate performance of ERJ's VC compare to the frame rate performance of the PMDG's VC?

Jason, we have those dips all, some are serious and take a year or more, like I had, bet rest assure, it comes back.Well, if you are bored from the airport to airport flights, do something like I took up. See my website.My plan is to simulate with the fantastic freeware Connie from www.calclassic.com a delivery flight from the US to the Netherlands.I will do it as serious as possible, without use of GPS or moving map.When you dive into the Connie you will see that it is very wel simulated, be gentle with the engines, and it is something different then jets. Its a real challenge, in another way.Suddenly planning becomes more important, and crossing the atlantic with it even more. (still figure the best way out to do it without GPS).Take care, and perhaps a break of a few months..it will come back, its a virus without any cure.Johan[A HREF=http://jdserver.no-ip.com]Personal Server[/A]or..http://62.238.33.10

I noticed how you have purchased quite a bit of payware aircraft (I have done the same thing), and I too have found myself in a similar position to yours quite a few times!What changed it for me was when I wanted to buy something for FS, instead of purchasing another aircraft (though I still do :-lol) I started looking more at ways I could enhance my flying. I.e., instead of another payware aircraft I started buying mesh, scenery, etc.. I found that I had a ton of gorgeous aircraft but nowhere interesting to fly them. After purchasing an FSGenesis membership, I immediately started downloading the various mesh sceneries and whatnot. I quickly noticed that FS started to be a lot more interesting to fly in. The boring default stuff was gone and mountains, hills, etc..started to look more like they do in real life.There are a ton of freeware airports, meshes, landclasses, etc.. available here to download. My suggestion would be to try enhancing the places in FS that you like to visit, not as much as trying to enhance what gets you there. ;)Sorry if I cannot be any more help, but this is what assisted me in regaining my interest while I was going through a similar situation as yourself.Hope this helps you out!:)

Lets face it- unless you become totally immersed and actually spend 8 real time hours flying from N.Y to San Fran- Flight Simming does leave a lot to be desired on the realism front. Things inside the aircraft may be modelled very well- the instruments and reactions of the plane to your input and so on, but things outside the plane leave a lot to be desired.For instance, you can set up engine failures and the like, but you know they are going to happen so the surprise element is gone. One way to create a new interest in flight simming would be to have a program that created situations that you knew nothing about beforehand- - your destination airport has had a fuel tanker leak and has had to shut down and you are diverted somewhere else -a passenger has a heart attack and you have to divert to the nearest airfield -the ILS fails as you get locked onto the glide slope -wind shear effects at 20000 ft suddenly dropping the plane 10000ft -a lightning bolt wrecks the rudder or other trim. Can you land the plane safely? It seems to me that this kind of problem solving could generate a lot of interest for all simmers because you are now really involved in a situation, not just flying through somewhere on autopilot. There must be millions of ways you could be surprised by the simulation if it put it's circuits into finding problems-for-the-pilot mode.

The others have mentioned the key point.... saturation dulls your interest.For me, it happened a couple of years ago when I was beta testing. The flying part just wasn't fun after having to run the same legs over and over to try to recreate a bug.The solution for me was to back away totally from FS for 6 months or so. I did other stuff and when I came back to FS, I was totally in love with it again. The lesson learned was that I had to maintain creativity and flexiblity when using FS.Here are some things to try:Take excursions. Use one of your payware aircraft to explore a part of the world. I grabbed a freeware GA aircraft and visited every airport in my home state. Before the excursion, I added landclass, mesh, and all the freeware airports available. I was amazed at all the small interesting places I saw that I would never experience in heavy iron. Branch out and try other facets of the hobby. Maybe doing some aircraft painting or scenery design would offset the tedium of using the sim only for flying.Since I got Ultimate Traffic, I enjoy aircraft spotting. It's fun to watch the airport operations when I'm not flying. I learn many new things about certain airlines and where they fly in the real world.Another thing that I do is collect and populate my Ultimate Traffic collection of AI aircraft liveries. I fly from airport to airport, then I spend time on the internet looking for aircraft liveries that are missing at the destination airport. It gives me something to do besides flying all the time, plus it enhances my future flights.I'm currently combining the excursion idea with the UT collecting. I spent all of Aug to Nov exploring South America and collecting AI liveries and AI aircraft from that region of the world. The excursion also taught me where to find charts for the area. Sometimes a location looked so interesting that I went online and read about the culture and points of interest. It's sort of like a virtual vacation. Since November I've flown over to Europe and I'm grabbing new freeware scenery, mesh, and landclass for Europe along with missing UT liveries and aircraft. By the time I get to Russia and Asia, my sim is going to be busting with some great stuff.One thing is for sure... I look forward to the new things I'm going to discover on my next trip. I'm nowhere near as bored as when I only flew from city to city in the USA.Final point... I'm not out buying lots of payware to cure my FS ills. Throwing money at the problem is not the cure... changing your habits is the solution to FS boredom.Bruce

Jason:I agree with everyone else above, we all go through these phases, especially when our free time is limited by the demands of school, family, wives, young children etc, its sometimes difficult to feel satisfied as we once did from our non-stop hours of past FS experience. What works for me is simplification. This is a complex hobby, both in terms of learning the techniques, systems, and discipline of commanding our virtual aircraft, setting up for on-line flying, and harnessing, understanding, and trouble-shooting the complexities required of the computers we have to run it all. Sometimes, I spend an entire night tweaking in MSFS, only to feel frustrated that I never made it into the air that night. Tweaking is fun, but limit it somewhat and if you want to fly that night, do what it takes to make it happen. I have several saved flights I do over and over again, from simple VFR sightseeing to challenging IFR approaches, most usually under 2 hours, just to grab a quick FS "fix" when the mood strikes. The feeling is quite satisfying. We all have favorites to recommend. A friend of mine recently flies his FS Baron on a 25-mile round-robin route from Burke Lakefront in Ohio to Geauga airport in snowy IMC. Look at his lovely sunset screenshot: doesn't that look fun?I love airliners. Last night I took Mel Raffi's gorgeous (and absolutely free, free, free) 777-200 in an American repaint with Gabriel Gutierrez' amazing, simple and FREE 777 panel (just released here in the AVSIM library)from Honolulu to Kona on the Big Island. Total flight time: under 1 hr, in broad daylight, light winds and good visibility to enjoy Justin Tyme's wonderful Hawaiian landclass scenery, the buttery-smooth flight characteristics of Melvin's aircraft, and the lovely new panel. It was so much fun, all I could do was look around, and grin.Everyone has a different, and relevant perspective regarding how to maintain interest in the hobby. I absolutely devour aviation. From reading Flying magazine, Computer Pilot magazine and accident reports, as well as Commercial airliner magazines, my heart is always into it and I am always flying in my mind, even when I'm not, do you know what I mean? So time away from the sim does make my simmer's heart grow fonder and I want to jump back into the cockpit and fly a circuit, a published route, or wander down a coastline or through Alpine valleys. I hope this helpsEnjoy,http://www.2decker.com/media/solent1-2.JPAlex ChristoffN562ZBaltimore, MDhttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/101623.jpgApproach to Burke by Joe Kinghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/101624.jpgClimbout from Honoluluhttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/101625.jpgGabriel Gutierrez' amazing freeware 777 panel

I agree with Bruce:"Final point... I'm not out buying lots of payware to cure my FS ills. Throwing money at the problem is not the cure... changing your habits is the solution to FS boredom."I also hit a boredom wall and then started to do a lot of bush flying into interesting airfields in areas with beautiful mountain scenery. Great areas to try are British Columbia, Alaska, Switzerland, Washington state (US) and so on. Needless to say you need good mesh. Holger Sandmann (and many other talented developers) have blessed us with some amazing scenery. Try us_wa_nc.zip (Washington Cassades) as well as bc_bella.zip (British Columbia) which must be seen to be believed! No joke clearly these rank at the top of my list of fantastic scenery addons. Also, you can now add Lennart's amazing new textures and you won't believe your eyes. His textures also are rank with my best scenery group at the top. I now feel as though I have a new a flight sim!Ok, tired of flying to default airports? - no place to go? - want somewhere interesting to go? - something interesting to do?Well, lets do something about that. Another excellent addon comes to the rescue - RWY12 (www.rwy12.com), thanks to Israel Roth and Seev Kahn. This amazingly easy scenery enhancer is great for enhancing airports, harbors or whatever. Here's what I do: I start with an interesting airport such as Concrete in Washington State (USA), which is part of Holden's us_wa_nc.zip. I enhance it with hangars, aircraft, people etc. with RWY12. Then I find a bunch of the closest airports to Concrete and enhance them as well. Now, I know I have a interesting group of airports to fly to and know that I'll have some very good airport environments when I arrive. Also, combine that with amazing scenery (thanks to Holden and Lennart) while I'm flying to the airports and you have a real winner.RWY12 really helps make airports come alive. Holden's scenery as well as Lennart's textures also make FS9 come alive.There are many other excellent addons from many other talented designers who have greatly enhanced my enjoyment of FS9. Many thanks to all of our talented developers who have given us addons which not only make sim flying more interesting, but also provide ways and means of beating the FS boredom. While I'm at it, many thanks to Tom Allensworth and all the folks at Avsim who provide us with this wonderful forum, news and download capability.Happy hollidays to all.............

JasonI dropped out from flightsimming for six months for a number of reasons.Firstly my real world flying commitments were taking up most of my time and I was struggling to keep up.Getting back late only to be preparing to go off again early morning meant the last thing I wanted was to then take to the virtual skies.Secondly my involvement in the forums and with various projects was becoming a chore and something I wasnt enjoying anymore.Thirdly I was having personal family problems.Fourth I didnt like the hold flightsim had taken over my life making me into a computer nerd.Fifth I was so spread out in my flight sim interests I was doing none of them well.I took a while to post back here at avsim although I usually took a look at the arguements going on as a non posting onlooker. I can remember thinking back then from that detached position how unimportant those arguements seemed to be while before they were "ALL" important.Now I dip in and out at will and slowly the enthusiasm is returning but will never be the all enveloping thing it used to be.My new interest is a much healthier :-)Peter

Hi Jason,Just have a rest - I did for about a year and am now keen to start again. I am therefore very frustrated to have hardware problems (see my earlier post). Perhaps that in itself makes me more keen to sort the problem out and have another go!!best wihesRob

First, Thanks for all the replies. As with all hobbies, you can get burned out. It just took more than 12 years with this one. Though not as much as I used to, I do still enjoy it. I've just ran out of interesting things to do with it lately.All have brought up great ideas, many of which I have done in the past. Johan brings up a valid point about structure. This is why the airline flights interest me. It's all there, Departure airport, Arrival airport, Aircraft. Just download real time weather and boom your off. I've noticed myself looking at the Bush scenery's and aircraft more often, along with the unique challenges they provide. However I think I'm put off by the lack of structure. Where do you go? What do you do? When I jump into FlightSim without a purpose I end up flying circuts at the airport. Which is what I found myself doing long ago when I purchased Emma Field (great Scenery by the way) This is great practice, but I wouldn't want to purchase something like Misty Fjord's just for pattern work. This goes the same for downloading and installing freeware scenery just to go through the pain of archieving it or removing it later.Also, Peter brings up a valid point about real world flying. Having spent the last year and a half in training, to make the move from Aircraft Mechanic (B-52's) to Flight Engineer. I just recently finished up and am finally flying on my own without an insructor over my shoulder 18 hours a day. Wondering if flying so often for real has dampened my enthusiasm for the virtual world?Anyhow, this isn't my only hobby. It was one of my favorite ways to pass time indoors, just hasn't been that way lately. Looking forward to hearing what more of you have to say on this subject of 'FlightSim Burnout'. I imagine there are two kinds of virtual pilots in this respect.. Those that have, and those that will. Perhaps this thread will throw some ideas out there for others as well. -Jason Peters E-3 AWACS Flight Engineer USAF (Former B-52H Crew Chief) [email protected]http://www.feelthere.com/banner/erjpilot.jpg

Hi Johan,I started to make the same delivery flight to the Netherlands a while ago. It really is a lot of fun. Certainly when you use real weather. Considering the fact that the Dutch Connie did not have a pressure cabin anymore, I flew at altitudes of 10000 feet, sometimes going up a bit higher. Have fun.Henri

As others have mentioned already, simply quit flightsimming for awhile. Find something completely unrelated to flightsimming to spend your time on. Give it maybe a month or two, and I'm sure the interest will come back.. I've done it several times over the course of my flightsim "career", going back to FS4... Over the last month or two before FS9's release, I fired up FS2002 maybe only once or twice at most, and I think I enjoyed FS9 (at first) more for it.If abandoning flightsim isn't an option, I would say the next best thing is to at least get away from the gate-to-gate commercial flights and find some new challenges. Get a good aerobatics plane, learn a bunch of aerobatics moves if you don't already know them, and come up with an "airshow act", maybe.. Try taking on the virtual life of a bush pilot, get a good bush plane and hop around bush territory.. But, taking a break from flightsim completely is probably the best bet... :)

I agree with you, RWY12 is an awesome tool that let's non-scenery types do things like tweak the scenery at their favorite airfields with a minimum of fuss. Reminds me of the old Mallard (?) scenery designer back in the days of FS4.If you fly for real, then this is a great tool to bring your local airfield in-line with what you see in real life. This post by JimC1702 at the runway 12 forum pretty much says it all: http://www.rwy12.com/portal/modules.php?na...=viewtopic&t=43