Curious how everyone else chooses to enjoy flight simming!

Here's what I do:

1. I mostly want to fly in interesting weather, and usually in the US.  I load up GOES17, GOES16, and wundermap and look for something cool to fly near, through, or around.

2. Then I decide if it's near a company I have set up in Air Hauler 2, whether I can use a route nearby, or if I just want to fly.

3. If there's a big weather feature, I will decide if I'm flying jets over it, or GA around it, or if I want to fly a real world commercial route that happens to be in the same region.

4. If nothing jumps out, I do my routine flights around New England or South Eastern US.

 

Tonight I'm probably going to fly KMIA to KBOS in FSW FA50, over the mess in the Carolinas.  The wind will shorten the flight time, but ASP3D will show the weather ahead (I have EA off for that reason) and I'll leave it behind over NJ.

 

What's your process?  Looking forward to hearing what everyone else does!

EDIT: I started another thread to hear what you do once you decide where to fly.  Looking forward to the discussion!

Edited June 16, 20205 yr by Gridley

I go to KMRY in a Cessna 172 (that's what I flew for my PPL) and just fly around for a couple of hours.

I pick destinations where I have relatives or long-time friends I have not been able to see during this pandemic.  I also fly season long circuits to sports schedules, limited right now to NASCAR auto racing.  I have flown from my base of operations in Maryland to and from races in Atlanta, Bristol, Ft Worth, and this past weekend Homestead, Florida.  During the weekend I also made a round trip from Homestead, to Charlotte, NC, and back as if I were ferrying team owners and managers.  Most of the teams are based in the Charlotte, NC, area. 

I was able prior to the weekend to source freeware add-on airports for Homestead-Miami Executive (KTMB) and for Concord-Padgett Regional airport (KJQF) in Concord, NC,  which is literally across the road from the Charlotte Motor Speedway.  That scenery includes detail of the area surrounding the airport, including a nice representation of the speedway.

Most of my flights have been in either the Realair Duke v2 or Realair TDv2 Turbine Duke, with a couple of legs in the Milviz Cessna 310R Redux.

Edited June 16, 20205 yr by fppilot

I scrutinize (with an intense scrute) the region with the most prolific scenery and airports. I then fly in Australia, which has among the least scenery and airport development in the world, because that is where I lived for most of my life.  I also fly in Indonesia which probably has even less scenery or airport development.  That appeals to my sense of deprivation beautifully.  

When is someone going to listen LOL

cheers to all

Tony

Wherever I landed on my last flight becomes the departure for the next flight.  Flights are less than 200 miles in any direction and always in A2A aircraft.  Been doing this for the last 3 or 4 years and end up going all over the world--North Pole to South Pole, North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and all points in-between.

First I decide which plane I want to fly then look in Flightaware and choose a route that strikes my fancy. Has to be between airports I own most times.

My FS logbook goes back to 2001 and I have carried it over from FS2000 to FS2002, then to FS2004, then FSX and now recently to P3DV5. One flight lead to the next flight. Currently I'm touring Arctic Canada, will return to home base CER3 in Alberta. From there, I will tour North America for awhile, return to CER3 and grab a twin and fly to and tour Europe and then on to Africa.  If I use a twin to get to a certain area and if I want to tour that area, I will "rent" a smaller plane to tour low and slow.

John C.

5 hours ago, himmelhorse said:

I  I then fly in Australia, which has among the least scenery and airport development in the world,

Tony

Hasn’t ORBX pretty much done a ton of Australia with the regions and all the airports? I would have thought it was pretty well represented with all their AU stuff?

Cmpbellsjc,

Thanks for your comment.

Apart from AU2 and YBCG with Gold Coast City, the sceneries I have purchased are pretty ordinary in my opinion.

Taxiways markings etc are barely visible in YBBN in particular. ORBX told me it is a "resolution" problem but it did not go away with my latest upgrade.

Forgive me for being unimpressed, particularly when I see reviews of various airports around the world which are impressive in my view.

Regards

Tony

 

I have collected a lot of best airports sceneries, all over the world (+400), depending on the mood I choose a country and a random date/season/hour for the weather I want.

I mainly fly commuters and jets over medium distances so I organize in each region a hub and I discover in star the region visited (as a lot of real airlines).

Now my hub is Tokyo RJTT, the star covers 5 destinations on the Japanese islands + Seoul + HongKong VHHH... and longer distance: Singapore WSSS. this  will be my next hub.

 

Even though I live in the U.S. (Florida), I like to fly in the southerly parts of Asia, and the lands Down Under: Australia (which I call the Big Empty, at least in FSX), and New Zealand.  I sometimes like to shuttle back and forth between the two countries...  Right now I'm on a flight midway from SeaTac to Japan in a PMDG Cathay Pacific 777...

 

 

I like to fly mainly GA or 737 between European airports often between the British Isles and Mediterranean or Scandinavian locations, or cross Atlantic with 747 to north American and Canadian locations.

23 hours ago, fppilot said:

I was able prior to the weekend to source freeware add-on airports for Homestead-Miami Executive (KTMB) and for Concord-Padgett Regional airport (KJQF) in Concord, NC,  which is literally across the road from the Charlotte Motor Speedway.  That scenery includes detail of the area surrounding the airport, including a nice representation of the speedway.

I have also found a scenery for KASN - Talladega Municipal as a destination for this weekends NASCAR races.  I will fly to KASN from KJFQ - Concord, NC, which is also adjacent to the Charlotte Motor Speedway.

This is how Talladega's KASN is situated.  Very convenient location, not only to the speedway, but also to the Honda factory nearby.  That is the corporation I retired from....

 

 

Edited June 17, 20205 yr by fppilot

Obviously a new release of an airport or a region scenery will naturally draw my attention in the sim.

When the initial excitement dies down, I use a .kmz file in Google Earth of all the airports (payware and freeware) that I have for P3D, combined with Orbx's regions .kmz files of POIs.
I'll take a look at the pins on the map, say to myself "I haven't been there in a while", and off I go.

If I'm really stuck for an airline route, I'll go to the schedule tab in SimToolKitPro and find a real world flight based on origin, destination, airline or aircraft.

I mainly fly airliners so when I’m going to fly I normally have an aircraft and or airport(s) that I want to make use of.  Sometimes I have a flight duration in mind too.  I go to Flightaware and look for something that fits.  Usually i open up a few windows for active flights and then choose one.