Hello.

 

So, I find myself in a different position then I've ever been in before with regards to flight simming.  For the most part, I've stuck to one aircraft type and have flown it exclusively for long periods of time for one airline.  As part of that, I would stick to one geographic region as well.  For example, I used to fly only SWA routes with the NGX obviously in the U.S. only.  Then, I stayed with the NGX but moved to Europe and flew exclusively Norwegian routes.  I liked the feeling of being "employed" by these companies and pretending to "fly the line" with their routes.

 

So, my FSX startup was always simple.  I always started up without the opening screen and went straight to wherever I last left my A/C and in its last state that it was in.  Simple.  Easy.  No thought process involved.  I use RC4 for ATC so loading the flight plan only needs to happen there and in whatever weather program I use.  It's always the same process.

 

Well, I finally have branched out and broadened my horizons.  I got the Aerosoft Airbus Extended X, the Majestic Q400 and the PMDG 777.  Now, for the first time in my flight simming "career" I can no longer stay "employed" by one airline on one type and even in one region.  I find myself switching airlines, aircraft and geographic regions almost on a per flight basis now.

 

So, now my starting of FSX gets a little more complicated and/or longer as I have to change aircraft, move to whatever departure airport I want to fly from, configure what scenery I will need for the flight, etc, etc.  I have a script that I use that will at least handle copying my various flight plan files that I need based on what airplane I'm flying(this copies files across my network as I do my flight planning on a separate PC).  At the moment, I still manually change around FSUIPC.ini(I need to make use of profiles but just haven't yet) and Controls.xml(I believe that's what it's called where your button assignments are kept) as I haven't included them in the script yet and each aircraft uses different settings.  I still also manually go through and change FSX.cfg for whatever A/C and type of flying I'm doing.  For example, lowering the settings in it for the T7 and upping them for the AXE.

 

Anyway, to make a long story short, what do those of you that "jump" from A/C to A/C and geographical region to geographical region do to start your flights?  Do you use the default FSX opening screen?  Do you use something like SimLauncher(I've just recently discovered this on the web but haven't tried it yet)?  Or, something else?  IdealFlight perhaps?

 

My biggest concern with whatever it is that I possibly would change to is it has to be compatible with the above mentioned complex aircraft.  Also, do I need to set my default flight as something other than the previous flight for best results with these complex aircraft?  Maybe the default trike flight?  For anyone that has tried SimLauncher, how well does it work with the above mentioned aircraft?  What procedure/process do you go through?

 

Sorry for such a long post to describe a simple thing.  I do know what I'm doing in FSX and am more than comfortable editing files etc.  What I don't like though is having flights crash on me for whatever reason so I am always pretty hesitant to change anything that's working to avoid any extra problems with an already finicky application.  So, I'm seeking the experience and advice from fellow simmers that are already doing something better with this process than I am currently.

 

Thank you for your time and help.  Much appreciated.  

I have my FSX set to open on the "Select Aircraft" Page.  After a couple of

 

eneey-meenie-miney-moe's, I'll choose the aircraft I want to Fly. 

 

Next I go into the flight planner and decide where I want to fly.  Maybe a

 

previously "Saved flight plan" or somewhere totally new. 

 

I then set my aircraft fuel load, weather, and time of day and then

 

hit "Fly Now".  I try to keep it as simple as possible.

I start with the default cessna and after FSX loads I move to my desired airport and starting location, then load my plane of the day...

Some say this is the only way to run some vendors complex aircraft properly...