1 minute ago, ErichB said:

That’s not what I meant! I don’t give a monkey’s but Bob is a 747.  

OK 😎

Then I will make him a 748, as I am looking forward to that.

Stephen

1 hour ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

The other thing to consider especially if you’re 65+ is the amount of mental processing required to handle a complex aircraft as well as keeping a PC problem-free. Substantially more than a round of golf! 

For the best of both worlds go for a brisk 30 min walk with a/p engaged. 😀👍

With you on that one. Much more mentally invigorating then the waste land called television. I work out in the morning and sim in the afternoon if I don't get too wrapped up on AVSIM.  

What about power consumption cost? That adds up when actually flying. At idle its barely anything. Maybe not for North Americans, but since moving to Europe, its a whole lot more per kwh. 

You forgot to add in DCS, IL2 and Aerofly😉

Compare it to renting a Cessna at a local airport, mine is going for around $240/hr these days last I checked.

Much cheaper then that 😎

Edited June 13, 20188 yr by Matthew Kane

12 minutes ago, Matthew Kane said:

Compare it to renting a Cessna at a local airport, mine is going for around $240/hr these days last I checked.

Much cheaper then that 😎

For £25/day  I get to fly Boeings.  You're being short changed on that C152 with fouled up plugs. 😋 

I’ve spent the last 20 odd years following an FMC generated pink string but many years ago I spent 10s of thousands of pounds and dollars learning how to fly proper IFR on analog gauges and dials. So this is a cheap way , certainly in comparison, to rejuvenate those skills and exercise the brain. You never know when those skills might come in handy again.

Also knocking around in real world jets gives me a justification to spend on the hobby. I went to JFK last week or the first time in 5 years so bought the New York airports package to reacquaint myself. Off to Atlanta soon, never been before, I’ll need the imaginesim KATL scenery then !

Ive also got a choice to make in a couple of years as my aircraft is being retired, what to fly next. I’ve got some pretty high end ,costly add ons which haven’t even  left the ground or have only been as far as the circuit, jar design A330, FF A350 FSL A320 and QW B787. These have allowed me to familiarise myself and play around with their systems and FMCs etc and essentially try before I buy so to speak.

Each change of aircraft is a good six months of hard work and study and it’d be at least 3 years before I could change fleet again . So these add ons though costly have allowed me to make an important real world decision.

Which is basically...”if it ain’t Boeing I ain’t going” (though I reserve the right to change my mind, you never know who’s reading this)

Jon

 

Ray,

I loved your comment about going for a walk with autopilot engaged.

However, please note that it has taken me 69 years to get as fat as I am and I have no intention of losing that overnight by walking LOL. Another thought here is that the cost of maintaining my slightly enlarged (slim) body is quite a bit more than the cost of even extreme expenditure on hardware and software upgrades.

Seriously though, as an aged pensioner in Australia the amount of funds I can put aside for flight simming is very small even on a yearly basis. I fly mainly in Australia and Indonesia and apart from Townsville (YBTL) I only fly into my ORBX airports and only fly payware aircraft (currently IFly 737 747 and QW Bae-146 (RJ-100) inP3Dv4. Even though a student I can only afford to use the Academic version of P3Dv4. 

I use only payware aircraft (a slightly more enlarged list) in FS2004 and apart from payware scenery in Indonesia (BDO Aviation) all sceneries are freeware. This stems from my oft mentioned lack of developers who invested in Australian sceneries for FS2004. Incidently, this is a theme carried on in FSX, P3Dv1-4 and Xplane with the notable exception of ORBX.

in conclusion, if anybody wants to donate a mere 30 or 40 thousand USD to an extremely goodlooking aged pensioner who is not prepared to be a toy boy, please feel free. LOL I promise to only spend it on flight simming.

Thanks for listening guys n girls

Regards

Tony

I close my eyes and move forward.   Still one of the least expensive hobbies and I love it so.

 

Stan

Im not fussed at the cost compared to the cost of hiring a light twin and doing some real flying, 

 

Wayne

Hi

I own a super sport  motocycle (Aprilia RSV4 2016). Here in Quebec Canada, I can only use it 5 months per year and riding 12000km.

The costs are:

Motocycle cost $20000 ($4000 per year for calculation based on 5 years before replacing it)

Registration & Insurance $2000 / Gas $1500 / Tires $1500 / Maintenance $500 /  total of $9500 for 5 months. If I ride it once a week (20 rides), the cost is $475 per ride  + meals ….

Flight Simming is cheap...

Mike

 

Edited June 14, 20188 yr by Mikelab6

Whether it cost $1/day or $1000/day I have no intention of giving it up no matter what the cost. 🤑

With P3Dv5 here before we know it, and that new NVidia card coming out, its all worth it. Especially when you pop out at 55 feet AGL above LSZH Runway 16 CATIIIA after a flight from KIAD over the Atlantic....priceless, now that we have no OOM worries.💰

So many light plane crashes of late i sometimes prefer to be safe behind the sim,  no matter how good a pilot they keep coming down

7 hours ago, suchw said:

So many light plane crashes of late i sometimes prefer to be safe behind the sim,  no matter how good a pilot they keep coming down

Yup, you can walk away from a computer crash 🙂

21 hours ago, Matthew Kane said:

Compare it to renting a Cessna at a local airport, mine is going for around $240/hr these days last I checked.

Much cheaper then that 😎

We get charged £600 an hour for a full motion sim for opc/lpc etc etc etc

Edited June 14, 20188 yr by tooting