Ok, a bit of messing around but finally a semi-reasonable attempt in the not-much-loved CS B777 in Fedex colours out of Memphis. Planned to head down to N'Awlins to pick up a plane load of gumbo, didn't quite work entirely as planned but I'll continue with the experiment.

Thing is, as I've said before, I'm not really interested in all the piloting stuff. I just want to gawp at the scenery and take pretty pictures. So I've never bothered to get into the whole flight plans, programming the FMC and using AP thing. I did get a very nice and easy to follow word not allowed's guide on how to do so from @Chock a while back (and what a very helpful and friendly gesture that was, and much appreciated), and did do a couple of flights successfully using it, but It's a long way from familiar for me. So being in a bit of a rush to do this flight, and not wanting to have to sit in front of the PC and hand fly it all the way, I picked a flight plan via the world map, and once everything was loaded just used the "use AI to fly the plane" (or whatever it's called) option to run the flight, and left it recording as a video while I had supper!

I popped in to see if the thing was still in the air from time to time, and it seemed to be going ok - still airborne at least. When I eventually came back in to deal with it all I found it still flying a couple of hours later, and when I looked at the track on LNM it seems like it had decided to vary the route a bit, in fact it seemed to have gone off on a completely random flight of its own for about an hour (heading north out of KMEM) before turning round and heading back down to do the original plan. At the point I got back to the PC, it was heading in to (actually past) NO so I put it back to manual control and tried to head in to KMSY. And of course I was way too close and too fast so the end result was not pretty and will not appear here!

Anyway, got a few ok'ish shots, and I will dig out Chock's instructions and have another go but doing it properly. See if I can make that work.

Parked up, ready to push back

Heading out to the runway

When I'm doing this myself, I just head for the nearest runway from where I started (in fact, I usually start on the runway all fired up ready to go), but this flight plan seemed to want to taxi all the way up to the other end of the airport. I dare say it is more realistic, but all in all it took about ten minutes, and it's not the most exciting thing to be doing

But now we're off!

I watched it do one complete circuit around the airport, thought that was a bit weird, but then it seemed to be heading off so I went away. Turns out it did another circuit and then headed off northwards for a jaunt of its own for a bit.

This was just a random shot form when I was checking it was still airborne, no idea where this is

Purely coincidently, when I came back in it was heading down over Lake Ponchartrain towards the city. By my rough guestimate of flying time it should have been down on the runway for at least an hour at this point

When I came back in, it was approaching New Orleans

And you can see it was passing KMSY over to starboard,

I let it run for a bit in case it was going to turn in or circle round to land, but it seemed intent to head off in to the Gulf so that's when I switched out of AI control, swung round and converted it in to a plough.

Guess I'm going to have to get to grips with that FMC stuff if I want to try this again. Yes, I realise it's not that complicated, but it's not part of the fun for me.

Edited January 25, 20233 yr by andy1252
incomplete post

Another wonderful set buddy 👍

cheers 😉

Interesting take on handing planes in the sim Andy.  I reckon we all approach it differently depending on our backgrounds and tolerance for complexity.  I find it extremely mentally stimulating to do all you mention that you don't like.  It probably helps that I worked an entire career in these things so it's second nature to me.  But I do appreciate your fine shots and always love to see everyone's different way of using the sim.  Nothing wrong with how you do it.

Your humorous commentary is worth the price of admission all by itself. 🙂 The pictures are just a bonus.

Edited January 25, 20233 yr by John F

2 hours ago, andy1252 said:

a very nice and easy to follow word not allowed's guide

Cheesuss Crisis. I really don't clucking believe the level of nannyhood that goes on here sometimes. What a load of flap. I've even had stuff marked as "initials not allowed". Are people really that offended by certain combinations of consonants and syllables? DId I waste all that money on my Profanisaurus?

Awesome shots Andy! 😉 

2 hours ago, andy1252 said:

Cheesuss Crisis. I really don't clucking believe the level of nannyhood that goes on here sometimes. What a load of flap. I've even had stuff marked as "initials not allowed". Are people really that offended by certain combinations of consonants and syllables? DId I waste all that money on my Profanisaurus?

😅🤣 I've got some stories to tell, not publicly of course, not even via PM 😂