New Sim in Town/Needs pilots

[paulyg123 135]

The aviation museum in NY has a full motion simulator using X-plane as platform and is tailored for a twin engine Barron. The museum doesn't know how to market to the visiting public or how much to charge. I flew it today and it has some advantages over my FS2004 home set-up (like good full motion) and some disadvantages (my graphics on FS2004 are MUCH better). They had to keep the graphics to a minimum due to frame rate issues (they have 4 computers (old PC's) running this). The cockpit layout was pretty good with a triple display for scenery and 1 display for instruments and a radio stack, yoke, throttles and rudder pedals from VMAX. Here's my question -Would a simmer be willing to pay $50 for a hour of flight time? They want to open it to the public but can't do it for free since they need a computer tech to set it up.

[LAdamson 240]

>Would a simmer be willing to pay $50 for a hour of flight>time? For X-Plane.............No

[John_Cillis 2,406]

I'd have to agree--I'd find it hard to pay that amount of money given what's available in my own home and the engine and equipment that's driving their full motion sim. Only way I'd pay $50 for flight time in a sim is if it were up to ATP standards, such as a Boeing or Airbus sim--but I imagine that can cost a heck of a lot more. What aviation museum are you referring to, btw?-John

[paulyg123 135]

The sim is part of the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Long Island, NY. It is a great facility and would make a gook site for the 2007 Flight Sim Conference. The sim is really a suped up homemade cockpit except with full motion. $50/hr seems like a lot for an avid simmer, but I paid $450/hour on a 767 Level C sim many times.They have a good sim, but don't know how to run while generating a positive or break-even cash flow. So it has to be a fee to use, and $10-25/hour probably doesn't pay for it.