I fly a 6 million dollar brand new jet for a living now... actually, I fly 4 of them total, some almost 6 years old, one is brand "new car smell" new, Hawker 400XP. Yet, when rocketing along at 41,000 feet, some 440kts fast, I dream of the free time I might get in a hotel room coming up. The other pilots I fly with, want to go out, bar hop, eat out etc... yet, this tired (with 3 little ones and wife at home) 39 year old kid at heart wants to fire up the laptop (Dell, XPS GEN2), plan a flight around the world and go!! I have my Saitek joystick and throttle and thunderously loud portable speakers online ... for a real good time! Either I bush fly around Alaska, or the Rockies with real sectional charts in hand, or fly the FSX Airliners or LR45... aaahhhh.... as real as can be! I really thought my final position in life to fly real jets would cure my addiction for FSssing around the globe, and yet, would you believe it has done the opposite! I am more addicted, more in a fantasy world of FS than ever before, thanks firstly to the folks at Level-D, PMDG, and Ariane, and now, with the default FSX assortment! There is no doubt that flying sims helps a real world professional pilot be even better, but the actual addiction is something I can not explain. Well, for all you wanting to fly real jets out there, thinking that would solve it all once and for all... I must tell you.... it won't! :)So, if you're married to a wife that is a millionare whom wants to purchase you an airplane so you'll kick that "stupid" habit of yours...think again. Peter

I can only dream of flying a $6,000.000.00 jet in real life. I can in FSX.:) I did try out for helos in the service but was color blind so I could not.So to all those that can fly for real glad your dreams came true. To the rest of us well other dreams have come true so were not to bad off.:-wave

Interesting story, cause I assumed the opposite would happen too. I have a question. Does flight simming teach you any bad habits that could possibly compomise your real world flying skills?? And if your flying through clouds but suddenly you see a blue screen, does it scare you? :-lol

I often get asked why I don't take up real flying, based on my intense interest in aviation through my FS hobby I've enjoyed for years. To which I reply, "Why would I want to do that? Hobbies turned into jobs often turn to mundaneness. Why spoil a great pastime?"Gary

I flight simmed hours from 1981 till 1989 when my wife bought me a real flight lesson as a birthday present. I've been hooked on real flying (and still simming) ever since. Both are great for different reasons-but you ought to give the real thing a try-it actually makes simming better!http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpg

:) That's a great post..and one I can identify with. I too make my living flying professionally (I think our jets are only about $4-million each though..hehe..) and I also spend an inordinate amount of time with this hobby. I love my job. I love my hobby. I spent 4 hours this afternoon playing FSX and just marvelling at the stuff they packed into this thing. I loved FS9 and all my add-ons for years...but I doubt I'll go back to it very much now...and while that makes me a bit sad..I'm really excited about what FSX + add-ons is going to look like.I feel your pain Peter.. :DBeachAV8R

Just curious-two RW jet pilots that from your comments seem to feel fsx is an improvement over fs9(I do too).Do you consider yourselves "bush pilots"? I keep reading that fsx is only for bush pilots.I fly a Baron Rw and although I've been into some remote strips never considered myself a "bush pilot". Just curious-how do you find the sim from rw working pilot perspective-I fly in the real world only for fun so maybe my frame of reference is off...http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpg

Well..I could go on for a long time...as a matter of fact..I did.. :D You can read my thoughts on FSX..and how I feel it both replicates and falls short of real life..I wrote 4 parts of a 5 part review series for SimHQ and my parts sum up how I think FSX does (I also do some comparisons and make comments between FSX, FS9, and FS9 + add-ons):Part I: http://www.simhq.com/_air7/air_260a.htmlPart II: http://www.simhq.com/_air7/air_261a.htmlPart III: http://www.simhq.com/_air7/air_262a.htmlPart IV: http://www.simhq.com/_technology2/technology_093a.htmlPart V: http://www.simhq.com/_air7/air_263a.htmlThose should keep ya' busy for a bit..hehe..BeachAV8R

Your reviews are the best I have seen. Should be a read for everyone...Thanks for providing the links.http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpg

Hi Peter,I have between 13 and 14,000 flight sim hours now, I can't get enough, usually I fly three at a time, but recently upgraded to fly four flight sims at the same time. I have two more flight sim stations imminently ready but still scratching my head about their configuration. I have a possible four more FS9 licensed installations on the way maybe, hope to do a few Fly!2, waiting for Fly! Legacy, might try out Flightgear, and have an awesome option of buying as many as 10 X-Plane boxes. I started flying when I was eight, and by the time I was 10 I had 50 hours of cross country flying time as co-pilot to my former fighter pilot Dad. That came to an end unfortunately until I started flight simming a couple of years ago. Taking off in one of my flight sims gives me the same thrill I experienced taking off in our small plane, or one of the airliners when I travelled a lot more than recent years. I have been very interested in becoming a commercial pilot.I haven't gotten FSX yet though, first of all have to build a faster computer for it(/them). Was interested in five copies, however the FSX EULA and activation policy bugs me, the forums assure me that it won't matter how many times or how often I upgrade my hardware MS will still reactivate me. However when I spoke to a MS customer service person, who consulted with her supervisor, she told me that I would get exactly three activations. Two that comes with FSX, and exactly one and only one telephone new product key for a third re-activation, and she said after that I would have to buy FSX again. The forum people tell me she was misinformed, but it still worries me, Microsoft is as Microsoft does, and if I had actually been asking for a fourth activation after hardware upgrades, then I would have been out of luck with that customer service person and her supervisor. So I'm going to call them again tomorow and ask again.You fly around the world also? That is my main hobby, I have completed 286 flights around the world so far. I fly all over the place, I have a blast! And flying 3 or 4 flight sims at the same time is especially fun to me, more variety, much much more pressure because I have to respond faster, it is much more challenging, and less boring during long flights. Some years ago before I started flight simming, I came close to being well to do, and I had a Learjet lined up that I wanted to buy if my business program came through. If I had succeeded, the thought occurred to me, while I want that jet, I have serious doubts that I could ever have the skill to fly it. I had no idea what flying something like that would be like, I imagined you had to have lightening reflexes due to the greater speed. Well, the business program fell through because someone committed a crime against me, but now years later with all these hours of flight simulator time, my confidence in my flight skills have grown to Godzilla proportions! A retired ATP pilot coaches me with some tips and other training on flying jets as I practice on my flight simulators. I hope I'll find a way to pay for all that training, the cost can be daunting.Good luck with your flying and simming. One nice thing about flight simulators is that the price of fuel is so much better than in real life! But while some of my planes have canned recordings of flight attendant announcements, they are a little lacking in comparison to the real flight attendants! Hee haa!

I make my living flying Boeing 757 and 767 and have been flying real planes F27, DC-8, B727,737,757,767 last 23years. I still Love flying the Flight Simulator. Right now I

I already have one expensive hobby. Why would I want another one? :-lol Seriously though, I have been tempted many times over the last decade to give it a go. Maybe it will take a surprise birthday present from my wife to get me up there too! Gary

>I make my living flying Boeing 757 and 767 and have been>flying real planes F27, DC-8, B727,737,757,767 last 23years. > I still Love flying the Flight Simulator. Right now I

Yes you are so right ;-)I also wish there would be a button in real working airplanes for 2,4,8,16,,, speedup. But only if it would not have the opposite effect on my paycheck ;-)

>Interesting story, cause I assumed the opposite would happen>too. I have a question. Does flight simming teach you any bad>habits that could possibly compomise your real world flying>skills?? And if your flying through clouds but suddenly you>see a blue screen, does it scare you? :-lolNo bad habits as far as I know after all these years of both. I would be scared if real clouds were blue inside ! :) Thank goodness, FSX does have 0 vis inside clouds now ...