A quick catalog of all the products categorized as "Prepar3dv4 Aircraft" for sale at one of the larger online distributors reveals these interesting numbers (subject to minor classification distinctions):

366 total products

37 products that could be called "commerical airline" including regional airline aircraft and AI products  10%

94 products that could be called "military and vintage military" including helos  26%

7 products that could be called "designed primarily for aerobatics"  2%

The remainder could be called "general aviation" 62%

Gosh, sure seems like there are a whole bunch of folks in the community buying a whole lot of non-commercial aviation aircraft add-ons.

What do you think?

Edited September 19, 20196 yr by yurei

"correlation does not imply causation"

That 62% of 'total products' available are of the GA variety does not necessarily mean that GA flying is the most popular.

I feel that you are confusing two points, namely:

1. You are counting a total number of products and splitting them by type, rather than going from the sales figures of each type of aircraft. Just because there's only one Boeing 777, does not mean that it doesn't have a very high number of sales which takes a very large percentage share of the total add-on aircraft market.
    
2. I don't believe that this "larger online distributor" has any PMDG, any FSLabs or QualityWings' 787 aircraft for sale on their website.
   That gives an even further skewed picture of the breakdown between types of flying.

My own anecdotal evidence across many sites suggests that there's a large majority of simmers who fly commercial aviation aircraft. A much smaller, but not insignificant, number who fly GA, and a much smaller number again who fly military, vintage or helos.

Don't forget, it's much easier to recreate a 'simple' GA aeroplane than it is to reproduce a complex airliner.
 

That doesn't show what they're buying.  It just shows what is for sale at that vendor.

I mean, I'm not trying to be smarty-pants, I'm simply saying that the conclusion you drew (that this is what people are buying) isn't really a valid conclusion to make based on the data.

While you could say, "they wouldn't be selling those things if people weren't buying them", but, there have been add-ons that don't sell well, and as F737NG also points out, there are undoubtedly add-ons that aren't on that web site.   That's what I think :)

Nevertheless, it is an interesting observation.

Flawed observation how many GA flyers buy 5 or more addon aircraft and unless the seller has all P3Dv4 addons which we know they will not again flawed observation.