Hello,

I really like the flight reports of A Pilots Life, but at hoping to find something a little less prescriptive where I can dictate the ac type, airline, route and get a report at the end.

Going to try My MS Flights in a bit… Any other recommendations? 

Thanks!

4 hours ago, mikethe6th said:

Hello,

I really like the flight reports of A Pilots Life, but at hoping to find something a little less prescriptive where I can dictate the ac type, airline, route and get a report at the end.

Going to try My MS Flights in a bit… Any other recommendations? 

Thanks!

I use APL and in case you weren't aware once you get ample funds accrued you can pretty much go anywhere in anything anytime.  You always can dictate the aircraft type in case you were not aware.  It may tell you the scheduled flight is for A321 and can use anything you own the class license for, so for me it would be PMDG 738, or AS CRJ700, or WT 787 it's always your choice for any flight.  To get into any airlines just buy a Flight Ticket and you're able to fly any route offered by any airline if that makes sense.  Scoring of flights is the main reason I use APL but as I say you can get around most of its restrictions once you have funds.  I also regularly elect to "skip" a flight in the schedule.  My main grief w/ APL is the inane "Pause" penalty I hope they change that it causes me to have to cancel and restart flights frequently.  I don't think the Dev appreciates this.

The freelance option in Neofly 4 might be a good option, and it's freeware so no harm in trying.

16 hours ago, mikethe6th said:

Hello,

I really like the flight reports of A Pilots Life, but at hoping to find something a little less prescriptive where I can dictate the ac type, airline, route and get a report at the end.

Actually you can do all that with APL, no need to look elsewhere.

Go to the Tools page and you can generate any flight of any airline within the database and thus create your own custom schedule. This has been added lately, there is no need to buy "tickets" any more. The only downside is that these generated flights don't earn you money or XP for your career. But they are logged and you get the full report.

Actually recently I tend to always enhance my schedule by some custom generated flights I'd like to do. So I fly a mix of scheduled and custom generated flights. 

 

Edited August 12, 20232 yr by RALF9636

Thank you all. Really appreciated.

13 hours ago, RALF9636 said:

Go to the Tools page and you can generate any flight of any airline within the database and thus create your own custom schedule.

That's fabulous thanks for the heads up.  Now if they could just get rid of the inane Pause penalty it is my only pet peeve w/ APL at this point in time.  Maybe they did in an update just like this that you mention...

Cheers

On 8/11/2023 at 11:43 AM, mikethe6th said:

Hello,

I really like the flight reports of A Pilots Life, but at hoping to find something a little less prescriptive where I can dictate the ac type, airline, route and get a report at the end.

Going to try My MS Flights in a bit… Any other recommendations? 

Thanks!

Isn't it sad.  Not sure what you refer to with "dictate".  Were you asking for a good post-clight report?  Just such was built into one simulator with no need for an addon:

subLogic Flight Assignment:ATP,  circa 1991

I am so worn out from hearing why it cannot be done today.

Edited August 12, 20232 yr by fppilot

14 hours ago, RALF9636 said:

Actually you can do all that with APL, no need to look elsewhere.

Go to the Tools page and you can generate any flight of any airline within the database and thus create your own custom schedule. This has been added lately, there is no need to buy "tickets" any more. The only downside is that these generated flights don't earn you money or XP for your career. But they are logged and you get the full report.

Actually recently I tend to always enhance my schedule by some custom generated flights I'd like to do. So I fly a mix of scheduled and custom generated flights. 

 

I have been using the scheduled flights but I have been changing airlines around every one to two weeks. Plenty of variety. 

41 minutes ago, Noel said:

That's fabulous thanks for the heads up.  Now if they could just get rid of the inane Pause penalty it is my only pet peeve w/ APL at this point in time.  Maybe they did in an update just like this that you mention...

Cheers

I firmly believe that no pause makes it much more realistic which is what AP is trying to do. Every aircraft I have flown in real life, was devoid of a pause button. 😉 Do a 150 mile flight in a 737 or A 320, and you are going to be pretty busy, which adds to opportunity to either fly it correctly or make a mistake. Pausing, ruins all that. 

1 hour ago, Bobsk8 said:

I firmly believe that no pause makes it much more realistic which is what AP is trying to do. Every aircraft I have flown in real life, was devoid of a pause button. 😉 Do a 150 mile flight in a 737 or A 320, and you are going to be pretty busy, which adds to opportunity to either fly it correctly or make a mistake. Pausing, ruins all that. 

That's your POV.  For me, I'm busy doing a lot of things.  When I have time to setup a flight and takeoff, then need to suddenly do something besides sit and operate the sim it becomes an artificial annoyance. Let's face it:  you're not really flying Bob, you're playing at flying.  Frequently this kills a flight where I spent plenty of time pre flight and beyond.  The Pause feature in airliners happens whenever the captains needs to turn over controls to take a leak or eat or whatever.  I've asked make the pause OPTIONAL for those like myself who find it a major annoyance that only detracts from being able to use it.  Let's face it you CAN pause during initial climb and approach, so it's not absolute at all, but it's not broad enough.  Make it optional that way if people like you want it, you can have it.  FSCaptain had all sorts of customization controls to allow the software to work with individual needs. I'd like just this one.

Edited August 12, 20232 yr by Noel

27 minutes ago, Noel said:

That's your POV.  For me, I'm busy doing a lot of things.  When I have time to setup a flight and takeoff, then need to suddenly do something besides sit and operate the sim it becomes an artificial annoyance. Let's face it:  you're not really flying Bob, you're playing at flying.  Frequently this kills a flight where I spent plenty of time pre flight and beyond.  The Pause feature in airliners happens whenever the captains needs to turn over controls to take a leak or eat or whatever.  I've asked make the pause OPTIONAL for those like myself who find it a major annoyance that only detracts from being able to use it.  Let's face it you CAN pause during initial climb and approach, so it's not absolute at all, but it's not broad enough.  Make it optional that way if people like you want it, you can have it.  FSCaptain had all sorts of customization controls to allow the software to work with individual needs. I'd like just this one.

Sounds to me, like A Pilots Life is really not something you will like for very long. Just my opinion. 

47 minutes ago, Noel said:

Make it optional that way if people like you want it, you can have it

I agree on this.  But if something I really have to do I take the hit. 

1 hour ago, Bobsk8 said:

Sounds to me, like A Pilots Life is really not something you will like for very long. Just my opinion. 

I've used it far longer than you have and I enjoy it but I'd like to see the pause penalty disabled to be an option for those who desire it.  I'm not the only person that will see it this way.  And it's a phony justification to say it's not realistic when that criteria is flatly ignored for 10k climb and 10k approach.  It's arbitrary.  Recently they changed it to detect a pause only after 10 seconds to let someone resume quickly if they inadvertently hit the Esc key.  That's equally arbitrary.  We need on more step of optional--this doesn't hurt you at all you can feel free to be glued to your pretend flight as you prefer.

People who don't use pause or time accel features are missing out on the best two features of simming vs reality.  The way I figure it, desktop simming has two purposes: to learn about flying, and to have some of the fun of flying without jumping through all the hoops that come with the real thing.

There's no better learning tool than a sim which can be paused at any time to review what's happening.  And time accel to minimize the boring parts is the best feature of all!  😉

I agree pause and time acceleration are very useful features of a sim. I often use them.

But I am fine with APL giving a penalty for using pause. Pause can be used as a way of cheating in a high workload situation. So it should be penalized. And it is not that APL prohibits using pause, there is only a 2% penalty. It doesn't really make a significant difference for your career in APL even if you get that penalty on every flight.

 

Edited August 13, 20232 yr by RALF9636