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Gregg_Seipp

What do you do during a marathon VATSIM flight?

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I know some of you guys are flying across the oceans on some of these VATSIM events...5-10 hours.  What do you do during all that time?  Do you just let the flight run?  Do you check in from time to time?  I just don't know how I'd sit there watching the airplane just flying along for hours on end. 


Gregg Seipp

"A good landing is when you can walk away from the airplane.  A great landing is when you can reuse it."
i7-8700 32GB Ram, GTX-1070 8 Gig RAM

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During my long-hauls from Europe to Southeast Asia, I tend to disconnect and sleep  :P I don't sit behind the monitor the entire flight unless it's a short one (less than about 2 hours)

 

It would be interesting to see what other people do.

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During my long-hauls from Europe to Southeast Asia, I tend to disconnect and sleep :P I don't sit behind the monitor the entire flight unless it's a short one (less than about 2 hours)

It would be interesting to see what other people do.

 

So you don't have to communicate with anyone?


Gregg Seipp

"A good landing is when you can walk away from the airplane.  A great landing is when you can reuse it."
i7-8700 32GB Ram, GTX-1070 8 Gig RAM

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So you don't have to communicate with anyone?

I tend to depart when there is ATC online in Europe. I've never seen ATC online in central Asia, so enroute there is little for me to do anyway. I tend to arrive around late afternoon SEA time, so there is sometimes ATC in Malaysia or Singapore upon arrival. 

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So you don't have to communicate with anyone?

Not if there is no ATC available. However, if you are logged on the VATSIM CoC requires that you do not leave your connection unattended for more than 30 mins, hence why Wybe quite responsibly pointed out that he disconnects before hitting the bunk.

 

Call me nuts (and this is not an attack on Wybe or anyone else), but I find the general concept (whether flying on VATSIM or otherwise) of taking off, going to sleep (or to work/school etc) and coming back for the landing slightly bizarre. Each to their own but... if the takeoff and landing are the main attraction, why bother waiting while the sim runs burning electricity unattended for 12hrs (or whatever) in between them? Why not just do a shorter flight?

 

Personally, I don't do that many long-hauls these days but when I have done in the past (and when I do now) I can normally find a fair amount of stuff to do in the cruise. Long-haul airline flying isn't all just sitting back drinking coffee -- there's plenty to do if you do it right. Navigation checks, fuel checks, systems checks, position plotting, diversion planning, position reports, IFBP broadcasts (over Africa), terrain/driftdown/decompression considerations, fuel management (type dependent), weather avoidance... plenty to keep one occupied on an Atlantic crossing for sure! Of course, there are quieter moments as well and I do take screen breaks, put the kettle on, do the odd household chore in between and so on. Catch up with forums, read the aircraft manuals (as undoubtedly something will arise that I realise I don't quite know how to do, or do properly), check the weather and charts for the arrival and so on.

 

Having said all that, my limit is around 8-9hrs -- by which time I'm usually properly whacked! These days I'm rather flat-earth in the Aerosoft & FSL Airbus, though.

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Hello Gregg... yet another post with a good question.

 

My group does several different things.

 

1. We hold an online, informal training session for the group,

 

2. We use an RTMP server to share a movie with the pilots on the flight.  We refer to it as "Movie Night".  The movie is fully sync'd between members, and should ATC get busy any pilot can pause the movie - which pauses it for the entire group. 

 

3.  Typical "guy-talk" about most anything on our voice server.

 

4. Speaking with those who watch our live-streams.


Dave Hodges

 

System Specs:  I9-13900KF, NVIDIA 4070TI, Quest 3, Multiple Displays, Lots of TERRIFIC friends, 3 cats, and a wonderfully stubborn wife.

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Call me nuts (and this is not an attack on Wybe or anyone else), but I find the general concept (whether flying on VATSIM or otherwise) of taking off, going to sleep (or to work/school etc) and coming back for the landing slightly bizarre. Each to their own but... if the takeoff and landing are the main attraction, why bother waiting while the sim runs burning electricity unattended for 12hrs (or whatever) in between them? Why not just do a shorter flight?

 

I have to say, though, the realism of the visuals keeps getting better...so much so that it doesn't seem so unappealing.  Lighting, both day and night, sky effects, clouds, not to mention all the improvements in terrain and mesh...it's getting pretty nice to look out there.  Still more to do, but it's good. 

 

 

 


"Movie Night"

 

LOL.  That's cool.


Gregg Seipp

"A good landing is when you can walk away from the airplane.  A great landing is when you can reuse it."
i7-8700 32GB Ram, GTX-1070 8 Gig RAM

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I have to say, though, the realism of the visuals keeps getting better...so much so that it doesn't seem so unappealing.  Lighting, both day and night, sky effects, clouds, not to mention all the improvements in terrain and mesh...it's getting pretty nice to look out there.  Still more to do, but it's good.

 

Oh I definitely agree... and actually, one of the things I should have added to my list above is "look out of the window"! There are plenty of spectacular sights to be seen in the FS world on long-haul flights -- I particularly remember one flight down to Dar-es-Salaam on a gin-clear night over the Sahara where after hours of nothing but inky blackness, suddenly the lights of Khartoum came sliding in to view -- in effect a giant beacon surrounded by absolutely nothing. Within a few minutes I'd flown over the top and it was back to emptiness again, but I have to say that there was something oddly special about it -- evocative, somewhat, I suppose, of the early explorers who must have seen those city lights as a welcome sight indeed after days of travel. Another of my favourites is flying down the coast of Namibia on the way to Cape Town as the sun comes up -- the lighting effects in FS really can be quite spectacular, and although I'm yet to do the trip in P3D I suspect it might well be worth the 10-hour slog from LHR! Arctic Canada, the Ural mountains and the Himalaya can also be pretty spectacular.

 

However, one can't see any of the above if one is in bed/out of the house, which is why I question what people who do that get out of long-hail flights! Each, as I say though, to their own.

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Hmmm... I tend to do more shorthauls, up to 2 hrs, because of the "waiting time" between.

 

I think it would be cool to have a website just for people doing longhaul. Like a forum with different topics (maybe links and articels regarding flying) but more interactive with chat and so on...

 

Is there already something?


Klaus Schmitzer

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skelsey, on 23 Nov 2016 - 11:43 PM, said:

Call me nuts (and this is not an attack on Wybe or anyone else), but I find the general concept (whether flying on VATSIM or otherwise) of taking off, going to sleep (or to work/school etc) and coming back for the landing slightly bizarre.

You may find it bizzarre, but that exactly what happens in the real world too. My nephew flies B777's for a major Asian airline based in HK. Depending on the time of departure, soon after T/O and reaching cruise he and the Captain will get some sleep for a few hours while another relief crew monitors.

 

So disconnecting and sleeping for a few hours is not far from reality and a fair compromise for a PC experience.

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I'm glad someone brought up the long haul flight verse short flight. While I will sometimes make a 3 or 4 hour flight, I normally only do this when I'm flying with friends and we have things we can do together during the cruise phase. Otherwise, I would never just sit around killing hours.

 

The vast majority of my flights are under 2 hours, as I agree with another poster here thst it's the takeoff, departure, arrival and approach phases which are the fun, interesting and challenging phases of the flight.This is especially true for guys in my group as 90% of our flights are in Shared Cockpit, we select our VATSIM flights based on severe weather, events, traffic levels, ATC coverage, and custom airport scenery. We also use the highest levels of turbulence settings on all our flights which makes approaches more challenging.

 

We'll soon have the Aerosoft A330, which will provide the community with its first wide bidy, long haul aircraft with Shared Cockpit capability. OVPA will use this to change out shared cockpit flight crews every 2 to 4 hours on long haul flights... a first for our community.


Dave Hodges

 

System Specs:  I9-13900KF, NVIDIA 4070TI, Quest 3, Multiple Displays, Lots of TERRIFIC friends, 3 cats, and a wonderfully stubborn wife.

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