When you do not sim?

[John_Cillis 2,406]

Do you get withdrawal symptoms?  I do, especially since I have three air sims (Xplane11, P3DV4, Wings of Prey).  I get myself stuck deciding which to fly, which can be tough, because I love all three for what each does well.  Sleep is the worst time because I crave waking up.  Only problem I have is computing in general tires my eyes, which is what caused me to get reading glasses, when I was working for my old company Cyntergy and taking training classed for my Unix and Holiday Inn property management system certifications back in '93.  I went into the class seeing well then had to buy emergency reading classes to take the final cert exams, which were both written and verbal, everything became a blur to me close up. 

So I only sim for an hour or two every other day or every few days, sadly because I want to more.  The signs of growing old.  That's why I found flying in real life easier, not only do you have a wider and more realistic field of view, you are far enough back from the instruments to see them clearly, even in chop.  I did not like LCD gauges though because they would get washed out in the sun in the bubble canopy light sport aircraft.  Always preferred steam gauges since my CFI remarked I had simmed so much I knew them at a split second glance and had all the info I need.  The hardest part was flying the high revving Rotax 912 which cruised above 5000 rpm.  It was unnerving to me to see an engine rev that high, thinking of the wear and tear it must go thru, same with the high revving two strokes on some fixed wing I flew and trikes.

John

[G-RFRY 1,708]

Due to my advancing years I have to wear glasses all the time, but one of the things I did was to get a pair of VDU glasses from my optician best thing I ever did, have been using them now for over 15 years when on my PC and my Eyesite has note detreated.   

[cmpbellsjc 2,960]

Back between the years of ‘05 to ‘13 almost a day didn’t go by where I wasn’t flying the sim. In the last few years I’ve take on more hobbies or gotten more serious about them which has taken more of my free time away.

For example, I’ve always been a golfer and played every weekend but that didn’t take much sim time away, but a few years ago I took up running and then got into competition with it. Now, most nights I’m running usually between 8-10pm getting ready for upcoming races. Prior to the run is relax time after work and dinner with the wife. After the run is another meal, foam rolling and ice which occupies another hour or so. By then there’s not much time or energy left to fly since I need to go to bed.

The other thing is, I moved a few years ago into a two story loft with the sim rig being in the upstairs loft. Sometimes I just don’t feel like going up there since I feel more isolated and can’t see the tv while flying. I know I could add a tv in that space also but haven’t yet.

In a way I feel ok about not simming as much since I felt it was like I was wasting too much time that wasn’t really accomplishing anything or bettering my life like my other hobbies do. My wife is pretty supportive of anything I do, but even she thought I was wasting too much time simming years ago. She’s happier now that I’m out running or training rather than sitting at a computer. You know the saying “happy wife, happy life”.

There are times when the urge grabs me for a few days and I’ll fly all over the place before I hang it up for a few weeks. Or, if I’m going out of the country or just got back, I like to replicate the flights, as a lot of us do.

[ErichB 3,638]

I've been simming for 20 years this year.  I have found myself generally taking breaks about every six months for up to a month (although the longest was one year about 6 years ago).  During those break periods I often find myself trying other sims/games etc, but nothing ever sticks.  I always find myself coming back to flightsim.

I manage to balance the sedentary nature geeking out on flightsimming with running and mountain biking (until i broke my shoulder).  Then, when I had every excuse to flightsim all the time, I couldn't lift my right arm to move the throttles.  Every take-off was a painful event.😯

[Guest]

I always have ups and downs when it comes to flight simming. If I have a new plane to master I might fly everyday (and sometimes a few times a day) but if I am just flying around using addons I know by heart already I might fly once a week. You might say that I fly whenever I feel like it. As it is now I fly once or twice a week: if I fly more often I'll get bored because there is nothing new to learn right now. But after a week at most I just HAVE to do another flight or I'll start missing it too much. In the far away past, let's say before 2006 or so, I could stop flying for months, up to a year, but I can't imagine that happening ever again. Flight simming has become a part of me by now.

[Captain Kevin 586]

Because of my job, I can easily go five weeks without running the simulator. Then I wind up having to figure out where I want to fly when I do get home since I also stream my flights.

[vp49p3 216]

I am retired.  I live, therefore I sim. Once each day 7 days a week in 2-4 hour chunks, except if I'm not in the house. Then I scour the internet on my laptop for simming stuff to buy.

[John_Cillis 2,406]

20 minutes ago, vp49p3 said:

I am retired.  I live, therefore I sim. Once each day 7 days a week in 2-4 hour chunks, except if I'm not in the house. Then I scour the internet on my laptop for simming stuff to buy.

I am always on the lookout for some new aircraft to add to either Xplane or P3D, I usually buy one every pay day, but not all the time, depends on whether new aircraft are released.  For instance I am eagerly awaiting the Carenado Falcon or Embraer and will buy whichever comes first.  I especially look for Microlights and Ultralights but they are hard to find, thank goodness Xplane has had several good ones, including its default Aerolight 103, freeware powered parachute, and payware trikes.  They are fun to fly over autogen and do "treetop trimming", lol.  Especially fun is flying the paraglider and dragging my virtual feeCt thru the tree tops at 20 knots.

Since I have a sleep disability I sim every other day, I have CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome), came out of being a road warrior and traveling in foreign countries.   Annoying at such an early age, there are some days I just cannot get out of bed and thus I can no longer work.  On days when I can stay awake I am at the computer all day long, simming, web and forum browsing, twittering the President on domestic and foreign issues, and staying connected with former IT colleagues.  I just reconnected with a former colleague today, a man I mentored who went on to develop China's international hotel industry from the mid 90's onward, then he returned to the US.  He was astonished I found him on LinkedIn, we have been looking for each other, he knew my parents and my ex wife and I knew his wife, and escorted him and a friend on a Napa Valley Tour in 1993 when he flew in from the East Coast to see me.  Since we were road warriors on our few days off we would station ourselves either with family or in various parts of the country, since our company would fly us to our clients from wherever we might be at a moment's notice.

John

[Holdit 551]

I don't sim when I'm...

• Learning  new I.T. skills
• Wargaming (Napoleonic/WW2/Ancient/ACW/Pike & Shot/Sengoku)
• Playing chess
• Learning to play the drums
• Fighting the good fight in the Fallout universe
• Wondering why I have far too many hobbies...

[Howellerman 104]

When I don't sim, I:

• Rebuild classic mid-60's Ford/Mercury cars
• Work on my 1991 F-150
• Ride motorcycles, currently a 2018 Triumph Bonneville 
• Ride mountain bikes (hoping to never break anything like Erich did)
• Frustrate myself at the driving range. Not all balls go straight and true for 250 yards...
• Plan meals, shop, and cook. More of a gourmand versus a gourmet. 
• Make sure the sinks and toilets, floors and furniture are shipshape

Unfortunately, flight simming is on hiatus: my 7 year-old system cooling system failed two months ago. But, I am putting together a new systems with rudder pedals and yoke and should be ready to go this winter.

[John_Cillis 2,406]

55 minutes ago, Holdit said:

I don't sim when I'm...

• Learning  new I.T. skills
• Wargaming (Napoleonic/WW2/Ancient/ACW/Pike & Shot/Sengoku)
• Playing chess
• Learning to play the drums
• Fighting the good fight in the Fallout universe
• Wondering why I have far too many hobbies...

Lol, I stop simming when I play the synth, or simply want to take a hike in the desert.  But especially when I play music, I get entranced in my music and do nothing else.  I write smooth jazz ballads or better said, ambient music.  Makes me wonder how many pilots are also musicians.  I used to sing in a semi pro choir, we cut three record albums in the 70's which funded our church and our choir tours, even funded a tour from California to Chicago one year, then a flight home on United, although I stayed on for two weeks to visit with my Grandma and did not fly home with my choirmates. 

Music ran in my family, my ex wife was a singer, and my daughter is a singer and stage performer at age nineteen in college.  My brother David sang in my choir and played the guitar, and my brother Mickey sang in my choir, all three of us were on the first record album the choir released, and I have it on mp3 thanks to our choir's guitarist, Jeff Smith, who I reconnected with on Facebook last year.  My choir is what made me so addicted to flying, since we toured every summer for six years, and I wanted to fly back to the places we had seen and beyond.  Two years after I left them I took my first trip to Europe.  I do not know what I liked more, the tour or the flights to and from Europe. 

There was just something about crossing a major part of the globe at age fifteen, first I proved to myself that the world was round, and second it made me feel like an astronaut to be in the air so long.  So music is what led me to travel and flying in the first place, and it still does, on last year's visit to Europe I had my fav tunes with me on my cell so I could enjoy my non stop British Airways long haul from Phoenix to London without watching too many movies.  However I did enjoy Star Wars Rogue One on that flight, since you could pick from a number of movies to watch.  But I digress as usual, having gone from simming to real flight, lol

[Christopher Low 5,338]

I sim, therefore I am.

[Holdit 551]

1 hour ago, Christopher Low said:

I sim, therefore I am.

Simito, ergo sum.

 

[Guest]

I find myself testing platforms/products more than actually doing any simulated flight, and Real World flying is rare with my perpetual "instruction" mode I seem to be in ... maybe when I retire I'll have time, right now I can barely make time to sleep (and we don't even have any kids).

When I do actually have time for simulated flight, I find myself in research mode ... if it's a new aircraft I'll read as much as I can about it, then plan a location where these aircraft are known to fly in/out, then search for bad weather days, then get everything setup (GSX, parking spots, flight plan, fuel calcs etc.) ... run thru all my software updates ... 2 days later I either do the flight or find myself testing again and forget all about the flight I spent 2 days planning.

EDIT: I buy just about every software add-on/scenery/aircraft that comes out for these platforms, they sit on my NAS, many never used and/or some not even installed.

Cheers, Rob.

[Patco Lch 1,464]

Since I retired I work out at the gymn in the AM and usually sim about 2-3 hours in the afternoon. I have noticed a degree of irritability maybe even a mild what I call non specific depression if for some reason I go a couple or three days without simming.   Don't know if that's healthy or not but I guess it is what it is.