One of the many attractions of FS is the variety it offers. The minute it get's boring, you can change planes, fly to another part of the world, bring on the thunderstorms, and for me, fly a heavy or fly a GA.I fly both, from the PMDG 737's, the PSS Airbus 340 and Concorde, all the way down to the FSD Porter, the fabulous freeware Maule, the Howard, Dreamfleet Cardinal, and freeware ultralights. I will fly with autopilot, by hand, by the numbers with charts, VFR, whatever, depending on situation and the time I have to put into the hobby on a given day. I have no one standard except "keep it lively". Good ole diversity!The bottom line is I like to learn, I like great scenery (life's too short to be flying the default scenery)...I LIKE AVIATION AND I LIKE SIMMING -- PERIOD. Truly, a hobby with endless opportunities to have fun and learn at the same time.Ed Lin, D.O.S.

>I've already spoken and apologized to Par. If you'd mind your>own business, if you have anything to mind, it would prolly be>cool. >>billg>By commenting on here is hardly private, is it?Does your word 'Prolly' mean that you are so busy with your comments that you don't have time to type properly?All the best,Dave.'Three greens and soft landings'

sheesh, can't we leave this alone? I use prolly as a shorthand for probably. I wouldn't think that you'd need to be a rocket scientist to figure that out. There's no hidden agenda, no unspoken meaning, it's what you get. And yes, commenting here is not private, but I wanted to because I thought that he deserved a public apology, which I did. But now it's done. Can we just leave this alone? If you're looking to light fires look somewhere else, will you? billg

"I am happy in the knowledge of knowing that if you can fly the PMDG and PSS aircraft (Their software is as real as it gets) you could probably do it for real, with the loss of dealing with any emergency's that may arise"ummmm, emergencies are only emergencies when they're an emergency. Somehow, and I don't think I need to get my dictionary out for this one, an emergency is something that should be dealt with sooner, rather than later. It's pretty easy to visualize you hitting the ground face first at 500 knots and not having the time to say you're sorry. I'll pass, I'll take the next plane, thank you. billg

>>Ok, the challenge is this, try flying the PROPER approach into>Funchal, Maderia, which incidentaly HAS to be hand flown as>there is no ILS, and its a circle to land approach, in a>737-800 with a 20kt crosswind, do this and tell me that there>is not challenge.In my opinion, the approaches to Many more GA fields are much more difficult, than Commercial airfields. Some like Paradise CA, is like making a Carrier landing or take off, as the field ends abruptly dropping off a cliff. As it is in the Mountains, the approach is straight at that cliff. Try landing a Kingair in places like Aspen, CO, etc. Jackson WY, where the approach is "around" several mountains, in the clouds, before you approach. Several times the clouds are as low or lower than the airstrip, so a go around means threading through the mountains again, and again. >To me, I find flying heavy stuff more of a challenge than GA>because I like to make my flying structured, flying the most>efficient way to save fuel, but trying to make the trip in the>shortest time, trying to fly as smooth as possible as not to>make the "passengers" spill there cocktails.Flying in a GA, you also have to fly efficiently to save fuel, to make sure you have enough to do the several go arounds at Jackson. Seldom is there enough traffic there to cause one, but frequent cloud cover in real weather does. Flyin in GA aircraft, if much rougher all the time than any heavies, it can be tougher to keep 10-11 passengers to keep from tossing their lunch or spilling cocktails in a Kingair 350 ... when landing at Big Bear City, CA at 6000 feet. ;-) Surrounded by mountains, with a 35-50 kt wind whipping through the passes, means winds bouncing off the mountains from all directions on approach...>>Flying airliners is challenging, its just that those>challanges are different.Ive flown realtime over 27,000 hours in Heavies for two different VA's, and find the first challange in Freedom Air, flying to all State Capitols using real weather in a Kingair 350 more challanging.After using a flight sim since the "Wire Mountains" was surprised to find much new to do. But, when I joined FreedomAir, and did the tour to all state Capitols, was surprised to find how many I'd never been too. Then, at each state Capitol, I'd take flights to tour the nearest National Parks. Was amazed to find many things that I'd never seen, like Old Faithful sprouting in Yellowstone, seeing the water going over the Falls at Niagra, etc. Things which Id never seen flying Heavies. Trying to Fly a Waco, to the top of Denali in AK, and seeing the Arora Borealis. Then realizing when I ran out of gas attempting to reach the summit. While thinking of landing the Glacier, realized I was in trouble because of a lack of oxygen at 12,000 feet. My tank already low, would be empty before help got there. So dropped my nose hoping to be able to glide to the nearest field. Couldnt make it by a few miles, but fortunately a Waco can land in most empty fields. Try setting a Heavy down in a 75 foot field, without damage. Bought some regular gas from the farmer, took off and flew to the nearest GA field for a fillup. ;-) Bob

90% of the time I spend in flight sim is in bush planes, but here's the thing, I hardly ever fly at night in those. That's because I'm flying in Alaska and a: the runways don't always have lights, and b: in unfamiliar terrain you can end up hitting a mountain that way. So occasionally, maybe once a month or so, I go on a big iron kick, and I fly round trips from atlanta to chicago on a delta 734.It's a different experience to fly with a lot of other traffic around, and come in (fast I might add) to a big, well-lit runway at night. It's just different, and that makes it fun.Also, once airborne I can turn off the engine sounds and get some homework done, because the only other thing I have to do is change frequencies when a controller hands me off.Nonetheless, I if I had to pick one or the other, I'd have to say that I get more fun driving my little twin otter around the back country, landing on dirt strips the size of postage stamps.

>Well actually you'll find the opposite is true. Commercial>ops are there to make money. The autopilot coupled to an FMS>will fly the aircraft much more efficiently than any human.>The autopilot will be generally be engaged at about 700' aal>and disengaged anywhere between 2500' and 50' aal (or not at>all on CAT III autoland approach).>>The irony is that many simulators (not FS!) now resemble the>actual operation of a/c so closely that the JAA does not>actually require any manouvres to be done in a real aircraft>either for the initial type rating not for recurrent training>on those simulators. So the need to hand fly to stay current>is reduced even more.You're only partially correct. In the simulator we have to generally hand fly a single-engine ILS, we have to do steep turns, generally two 180s, one to the right, roll left all the way into the left steep turn. Also, we have to fly 3 types of stalls. One clean configuration, straight ahead. One in approach configuration, Gear down, 20 degrees of bank, with approach power set, and one in Landing configuration, full flaps, gear down, power just slightly under what would hold Vref on a 3 degree slope.AndrewWestwind PIC

Andrew, you sound like you know what you're talking about. Are you current in anything? And how does "the simulator" compare to what we're doing? I used to live in Ottawa, and many moons ago there was a dc8 went in short of the runway on a training flight. That seems so archaic now in the world of flight sims, flying a dc8 around just to train one pilot.Thx again for the informative post!billg

The PMDG 737 works my brain! and that's what I find most challenging and addictive about flying heavies in the sim. There are so many details to take care of, so many systems to monitor before and during flight. Loading the FMC and learning new tricks is incredibly rewarding. After a year and a half I'm still learning. Satisfaction guaranteed. Best RegardsBoone,[email protected]"Flying a plane is no different from riding a bicycle. It's just a lot harder to put baseball cards in the spokes."

My question is aimed to those who prefer to fly big jets like PMDG 737NG for example rather than smaller GA plane.What does simming Jets offer you that you won't get in bushflying and Cessnas or smaller prop twins where you actually must fly the plane handon at least for while. Why do you prefer a jet airliner?If the autopilot does everything where is the challange?