You know, one of those 'what do you want to do before you die' lists .... I was thinking about some of the join dates on AVSIM and wondered if these old timers had seen it all and done it all. Having started with FSX only in November 2014, I am a relative newbie! I'm enjoying what I'm doing and wanted to see it through before I move onto other areas of flight sim, so I prepared a bucket list of things I want to do with FSX before I die/quit/PC blows up.

 

Helicopters - it will be like starting all over again, I'll ditch the yoke and buy a dedicated joystick.

RAF missions - I have some lovely aircraft, the Hercules, Nimrod, Shackleton etc. i'll invent missions and fly!

Gliding - Somewhere cool. Master it.

Antartctic flying - I have Aerosoft's product, but want to do it justice.

Aerobatics. Again, move up through a range of aircraft, and replay my efforts comparing them with You Tube video!

Transatlantic flight - My airliner flights last 3 hours max, one day I'd like to do the Heathrow to JFK run and not move from the cockpit except for the toilet.

Orbx PNW, Rocky Mountains - My current base is the UK, but I would like to spend many many hours getting to know this scenery, preferably with a new aircraft as well.

Run Air Hauler - How much fun will that be?

Oh yes, and complete all the FSX missions...

 

What's on your list?? I might be able to borrow some ideas for my own!

 

So far I've:

 

'Mastered' GA flight with an A2A plane flying GPS, VOR, NDB etc.

Got the hang of short haul default airliners, including start up and ILS landings

Replicated flights in the news.

Bush flying in the Caribbean and Africa with the DC-3 and Islander

Perfected my landings at some of the Worlds Most Dangerous Airports including Courcheval, Lukla, Saba and St Barts.

World Spanning flight - my current obsession, replicating Amy Johnson's 1930 flight to Australia.

For gliding, and since I see you're in the UK, try this: http://www.ukvga.org/

I just play or fly or learn what I feel like at the moment.

 

'Enjoy FSX' is simply one of my bucket list items in real life and plan to do it for a long time.

I just play or fly or learn what I feel like at the moment.

 

'Enjoy FSX' is simply one of my bucket list items in real life and plan to do it for a long time.

 

Thumbs up+

 

I have partially completed my "bucket list" for FSX--using FSEarthtiles I've covered most of the western U.S. with photo scenery plus all of the Hawaiian Islands and much of central Europe.  I used to use Tileproxy but Tileproxy could not keep up with high speed flights if I wanted to fly a fast turboprop or light jet.  Now with my own library of photo scenery I get to see the world from the flight levels almost exactly as I would see it when I fly in real life.  When I first flew FSII on the C64, my dream was to see a sim someday where I'd see the world as it really looks to a pilot or passenger.  FSX allowed me to realize that dream and the end result is just wonderful to see and enjoy.

 

John

Don't spend too much time thinking about these things before you complete your Amy Johnson flight or you'll probably never finish it.  It's probably the sameness of the current flights that's got you thinking about this anyway. 

 

Helicopters:  The Dodosim 206 after you've done the basic training missions in FSX.  Also, get a separate throttle control to go with your joystick to work as the collective in the helicopter.  TrackIR will make flying these a lot easier.

 

Gliding:  After doing the training missions from FSX, the Aerosoft DiscusX and CumulusX (FSX only, not P3D far as I know, and it won't work right with ASN, so use AS2012 or another weather engine) and register CumulusX for some added benefit.  Fly late summer around your home for some great thermal action.  There are probably a lot of great places for ridge soaring;  I have a couple near where I live.

 

Transatlantic flight:  After I bought the A2A 377 Stratocruiser, I did a flight from San Francisco to Hawaii using only the primitive instruments and autopilot, no GPS, no auto map, a form of dead reckoning.  Start at the correct heading and turn south 2 degrees every hour.  Hope you hit Hawaii close enough to pick up one of the VOR stations at either end.  In my case I hit almost dead center where I wanted. Then I flew back.  Very satisfying.

 

Air Hauler:  I flew FSEconomy instead.  Just remember, after a while it's a job, not a hobby, but try it anyway for the experience.  Prior to that I ran a simulated air charter service for almost a year with the Grumman Goose and some spreadsheets, keeping track of everything I would have if I'd been running a business, including making payments on the aircraft, maintenance allowance, fuel, copilot pay, overnight fees, etc.  I didn't know what to use for landing fees, and didn't carry insurance, so it wasn't *everything*. 

 

Antarctic flying:  I've flown in the area enough for Aerosoft Antarctica to look tempting, but I don't fly there often enough to justify buying it.  I've flown McMurdo to South Pole Station in the default Maule a few times (it had skis), but it gets pretty weird when you arrive.  Other locations are probably better.

 

Other suggestions:

 

Fly to all the high definition cities and airports. 

Collect all the FSX awards for such things as shortest runway, highest airport, etc.

http://www.simtours.net

 

Enjoy!

 

Hook

Thanks Larry, that sounds like good advice. I do take occasional flights to break up the Amy Johnson flight. After flying the Persian Gulf stretch this morning, I flew the Twin Otter from Mombassa to Kilimanjiro Airport at dawn, gorgeous skies and a stunning landing underneath the mountain. And it brought back memories from my summer holiday, earlier this year.

 

Back to the Amy flight to tomorrow...

 

Gliding doesn't appeal to me ... Yet, but the breadth of FSX is a wide as its depth, so I'm sure I will end up exploring that aspect of flight.