I usually fly the heavies, but yesterday took out a freeware cessna 172 from KSEA to CYVR. You fly straight out on 34R for about 12 miles then bank left about 30 degrees to a VOR/DME that's about another 35 miles, then right 35 degrees or so. In the cessna, but for the scenery, I was bored by the time I got 12 miles out to where I was making the left turn. By the time I got to the VOR/DME and did the right turn, the scenery wasn't as nice so just stopped the flight. It seemed like I wasn't doing anything. It seems to fly itself, with minor control inputs here and there. In a heavy, by that point, my heart would have been beating fast because of all the things I would have been doing in a very short time span with no room for error. billg

Well in the short time I

Whats really really booring is to take thouse 6 hour flights though. Be it in a 737 or a Cessna lol.

For me, flying the PMDG 737 is the closest I will get to knowing what is going on up front when I travel as a passenger. I knew nothing about flying when I took my first holiday abroad on a BAC 1-11 and I've wanted to know more ever since. These days I travel by 737 to the south of France 2 or 3 times a year to visit my daugher and her family and I like to recreate the same flights in FS as close as possible.

Maybe you also have to distinguish between "heavies." Before 9/11 I travelled over 100,000 miles a year on business with Air Canada, so spent all my time in business class and, if I asked, which I did quite often, they'd let me sit in the jump seat in the cockpit. On the airbus family, I know for a fact they don't do much. Yes, constant monitoring of the systems and the FMC and chatter with atc, but until the descent there's only one of them working. I've been up there for a lot of landings too, and there's not any tension in the cockpit. I've been in the jump seat years ago when they were landing a heavy without all the systems that the airbus has and you cut the tension in the cockpit with a knife. Times change. Don't know about other airlines, but Air Canada now has a rule that nobody is allowed in the cockpit jump seat out of uniform. You can be a captain with 20,000 hours, know the pilots up front for the last 15 years, and you're not allowed up there during flight if you're out of uniform. Times change....billg

>Maybe you also have to distinguish between "heavies." Before>9/11 I travelled over 100,000 miles a year on business with>Air Canada, so spent all my time in business class and, if I>asked, which I did quite often, they'd let me sit in the jump>seat in the cockpit. Oh yes !I have been a frequent flyer with Air Canada for many years in the past and I still recall this beautiful night approach to KSFO on 767(coming from Toronto) where they allowed me into the jump seat for landing. Very, very nice cockpit crew. Captain even said - please bring your hand luggage here so you don't have to go back and retrieve it later. They even handed me headphones so I could listen to the ATC. I know these times are gone...Michael J.WinXP-Home SP2,AMD64 3500+,Abit AV8,Radeon X800Pro,36GB Raptor,1GB PC3200,Audigy 2

lol, I was thinking sfo when I posted. It's an airbus route now for AC, but I've done a few 767's into vancouver coming from hawaii and from vancouver to and from calgary and toronto. 767's aren't anywhere near as automated as an airbus, it's an airplane An airbus is a computer that you fly and hope you don't have to hit ctrl alt delete. Can you imagine flying with a little boondoggle that fits in the palm of your left hand? That's what they do on an airbus. Don't ask me what they do with the other one.....billg

OK, speaking about heavies, a good family friend of ours was a DC-10 pilot for CP Air for 10 years, then, when they got bought by Air Canada, he got transferred to 737's. He loved it. The DC-10 was a job, he said, but the 737 flew like a fighter jet (that's how I know him), plus, I guess, he was a captain on the 737 but a copilot on the DC-10. So many personal considerations as well as technical and scientific calculations to take into account before anyone makes a calculated decision. It's tough, but, hey, someone has to do it. And he's called the Captain. billg

For me, I like to fly the turbojets and the turboprops for one reason: most of my flying time is for my virtual air cargo outfit. Sure, once in a while, I'll take a hop in a Cessna, but that's few and far between.

dam, I'm on these boards more than most pilots are on their fmc's. So there, that say's something. billg

but, hey, I have a 18 mth old black lab, and a 12 week old black lab, and they're trying to figure it out, and I'm trying to make sure the big one dosn't eat the small one. And, it's not going to happen. At all. What's going to happen, sorry to say this, is that I'll be back here soon wailing my song because my big black lab got eaten by my small black lab. I'll give you 7 to 5 on that now. hehe.billg

omg, what Traffic said...billg

ok, 6 to 5, but in american dollars. They'res not too many like that around. But, hey, it's over, blah blah. #### happens. billg

sometimes I think I'm talking to myself. Why is that? If you want to get in my face, and tell me, well, sorry, if you can get in my face and tell me, c'est la vie, mon amie. and if not, c'est la other vie. billg

Donny AKA ShalomarFly 2 ROCKS!!!I remember a 747 captain who bought a 172 when he retired. He regarded it not a step down but a step sideways. I also remember a story about an instructor giving demo rides in a single engine Mooney to relatively low time pilots all day. The plane was retrofitted so the ailerons deflected like spoilers at idle throttle. After hours of vigilance the hapless demonstrator breathed a sigh of relief when he found out his last ride was with a senior 747 captain. He relaxed in the cockpit... Then said senior 747 captain commenced a flare at idle fifty feet AGL... Whatever the type of plane flying is 90% boredom and 10% sheer terror. Autopilots cause the additional challenge of continued vigilance. Those who think they can relax or that an autopilot does all the work may be in for a rude awakening. Automation plus complacency has been the cause of many real world accidents. A DC-9 captain was commencing a takeoff from LaGuardia at climb power but then changed his mind because of poor acceleration. Thanks to automation he didn't have to touch the throttles, just hit "max" on the autothrotle. The only problem was he accidentally pushed the "max deceleration" button when already past V1. The airplane skidded off the end of the runway and at La Guardia that means off the pier. The baggage compartment crumpled up like it was designed to and only the nose of the plane was dangling over the river. The captain ordered an evacuation and to make a long story short 9 people drowned. There was never a fire on board the aircraft. The 767 that hit a mountain in South America? Improper FMS programming. The copilot programmed both FMS's in violation of company safety rules and only put in the first two letters of a VOR in Texas. If in an old fasioned cockpit U punched in a wrong freq you would hear the Morse Code to ID it and know something was wrong when you didn't (like if the station was thousands of miles away?). But some South American VOR's have two letter ID's and GPS don't know the dif. There was no terrain along their expected flight path but they flew almost the opposite direction. The analysis focused on the fact that existing radio altimeters send their beam straight down and aren't much use when flying into a mountain. Even on a local IFR approach what if you select an MSL resulting in 2000 AGL on the altitude selector and forget to arm "altitude capture?" I like realistic sims as a requirement rather than aircraft type. Most of the planes I fly are GA because most of the freeware "heavies" made for FLY 2 don't have overhead panels and throttle quadrants true to type and I am used to seeing EVERY switch and guage replicated faithfully. But in FS9 you open the high pressure fuel cok (censor won't let me spell it right)for a jet then engage the starter. That's a terrrrific way to fry an engine!!! But I admit I use FS9 for the good ATC and flight models when I'm hankering for a heavy. For those of you that defected totally from the FLY series due to its inherent bugs MANY of them have been corrected and MANY more freeware fixes are in the pipeline.:-wave