How do you choose where to fly?

[spokes2112 179]

2 darts and a wall map.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,945]

There’s a whole world out there to explore. I’ve just completed my world tour in a PMDG737-800. Really enjoyed flying In different parts of the world. Highly recommended!

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/577129-my-world-tour-finally-completed/

[fs4fun 366]

I usually go to Skyvector and enable the layers that show weather and flying conditions, then plan a city pair based on time, terrain and weather that I want for that flight. Put in an a planned altitude and pick a route if available. If I want to download the flight plan I paste the route into SimBrief and download from there. Alternatively I use FlightAware for flights and routes.

[rjord 3]

As I fly general aviation aircraft and use Air Hauler 2 what I have is a list of every airport around the world in an excel spreadsheet. I sort the airports randomly and which ever the airport is at the top of the list I use that as a base of operations. Only true way to see the world without buying thousands of tickets.

Edited June 23, 2020 by rjord

[aspeedbirdpilot 4]

I find that if you fly with airliners it's not just about flying to the destination. But it is also having a hub that is worth coming back to. I think one way to really find routes that you might enjoy is by focusing on one airline which you like and find enjoyable to fly. Afterwards try and read some of the FCOMs from your chosen airline's fleet. Then take a look at their route map and see where they fly. Afterwards take a look at how the passenger experience is like for the airline you have chosen (what kind of first class, bussiness class, premium economy, economy, lounge and main base the airline has). This is all to add to the immersion of flying somewhere new as you will hopefully feel more enjoyment when flying into somewhere with the company you have chosen knowing what it has to offer. I personally recommend British Airways, Air France, Any of the 3 main American Airlines, Turkish Airlines, Emirates as they have a very large route map with flights of all kinds of lengths. This is just my opinion 😉

[scianoir 610]

I make a note of any route maps, flight plans or journeys (not necessarily airborne journeys) that I come across in my reading or browsing different websites and which I think may make for interesting flights. These are usually journeys which would involve multiple hops as I generally prefer to keep most flights under about 2 hours or less. I have used various of these multistop journeys for my more structured flying over the years.

At other times, I enjoy the challenge of shooting bad weather or near minimum approaches into my addon airports in various parts of the world and for this I use an AS16 search to find a selection of airports which have the weather I am looking for and then I use the excellent utility FSIPanel which enables me to set up approaches with the aircraft appropriately configured for the stage at which I start the approach.

This really has been a very useful thread with lots of good ideas from the various simmers who have posted on here. For those of you who can never make up your mind as to where to fly next, I can however recommend another excellent utility called Ideal Flight. This enables you to chose any of your aircraft and set criteria for the flight such as distance, duration etc and it will generate random destinations from your selected starting point. However it does a lot more than that - it will provide an automated but editable comprehensive flight plan, taking into account weather factors, with fuel and payload calculations for the aircraft you have selected and it will send the relevant documentation to your kneeboard Including charts, frequencies, TOD estimates, etc. In addition, the performance of you flight will be assessed and debriefed and it will be stored in a log. When you next load your simulator, if you wish you can start your next flight where you finished your previous one using the same aircraft with the click of a button. You may not need this if you have your own system of deciding where to fly but if you find you are always puzzling as to where to fly next you might find this very helpful.

Bill