What type of flight simming do you use MSFS for?

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Add a comment below to expand on your preferences if you like 😎👍

 

Edited January 2Jan 2 by JYW

80% Airliner flying and 20% GA flying

95% GA for me.  I will mix in the occasional business jet or occasional military jet, but that's pretty rare.  A twin prop is about as big and complex as I get.  I haven't touched an airliner since the early days of FSX.  

Most of it comes down to time and energy.  A nice 100-200 mile GA flight is perfect for me.  I don't have the time to learn (and remember everything, which is where the time comes in) complex systems.  Anything GA from A2A or Black Square is plenty for me.  I could learn an airliner just fine, but the problem is staying current.  I'll not fly it for a week or two and not remember all the details.  

 

Edited January 2Jan 2 by kerosene31

I clicked mostly in GA aircraft.  Even with my recent airliner purchase I'd still prefer GA.  It just can't be beat.  You can literally fly into any remote airstrip or any large airport, and everything in between.  Some of the aircraft aren't nearly as equipped (or as fast lol) as an airliner but with a decent twin or turbine you'll be able to fly in most weather.  I tend to fly aircraft equipped with a GTNxi (from TDS) as I prefer the option to end a flight with an RNAV approach.  The touchscreen interactivity is also nice if I fly VR - which I occasionally do.  I also group bizjets into the GA category - bizjets might be my most favorite because some are as fast as an airliner (some faster!).  They are a little more limited where I can land but some of the smaller ones can get into pretty small runways.

Sometimes I'll just fly real local, to places I've been before irl, or just shoot approaches "in my airspace" to keep my brain fresh at work.  We have an EFB of sorts at work with all the charts but it's nice to recall IAFs and altitudes from memory (and missed approaches cause those happen all the time irl).  In fact I had a serious emergency aircraft last year (last month), a cirrus jet and I had to quickly suggest to them an RNAV approach into an airport (backed up with our digital charts and NOTAM system)... but I was able to help them get into a smaller airport as they were losing their engine - it was just nice to be aware of the instrument approach needed in a pinch....  I think flightsim helps me with that stuff.  I also fly into tiny little airports in the sim that don't have IAPs but sometimes I can have better situational awareness at work in case a plane has to land off airport - just being aware of roads or geographical features in a state or area I'm not familiar with could be a big help to a real world pilot!

I also use the sim to beta test, paint (and make a lot of screenshots haha), so sometimes (ok more often then not lol), I'm doing one of those instead of enjoying an actual flight.  I've been beta testing flight sim addons for over two decades and been painting for about 10 years, but maybe the last 5 years were a lot more serious using advanced tools such as Adobe Substance Painter.  I still use Photoshop in conjunction with SP.

I also fly helicopters, warbirds, vintage stuff just not as much.  

Edited January 2Jan 2 by ryanbatc

I voted "other", but that doesn't really cut it. My favourite aircraft are be larger GA and smaller turboprops. However, last summer, I was ready to give up in MSFS and switch to X-Plane (no need to go into the reasons here). What brought me back was the chance to beta-test the outstanding SR-71 by Blackbird Simulation, so that was what I was mostly flying until December. I then looked into missions for this plane, which brought me to Miltech's mission hub, which  awakened my old love for helicopters. That's what I am mostly flying now, including work on helicopter missions.  

The choices in this poll are too limited, none of them correspond to my usage.

Only for A2A 

95% Airliners because, I'm obsessed!

15 minutes ago, Daube said:

The choices in this poll are too limited, none of them correspond to my usage.

GA is a pretty broad category... you don't fly any of these:  Cessna, Piper, Beechcraft (Textron/Cessna), Diamond, Daher, Embraer (even the Lineage could be flown as private GA), Gulfstream, Learjet?  One could even fly a BBJ or ACJ as GA 🙂

 

5 minutes ago, ryanbatc said:

GA is a pretty broad category... you don't fly any of these:  Cessna, Piper, Beechcraft (Textron/Cessna), Diamond, Daher, Embraer (even the Lineage could be flown as private GA), Gulfstream, Learjet?  One could even fly a BBJ or ACJ as GA 🙂

 

And HJET. 

dd

Voted 2 but wanted to vote 2 and 4.

I used to fly only GA but the last 2 years I fly a lot or airliners. Just too many good ones.

 

 

Mostly GA and Helicopters for me.

I mostly build and operate my own airlines. Figure out concept, create liveries, etc

Naturally there’s a level of progression - starting from humble GA beginnings, ending up with airliners if more successful.

My current airline is meant to be a new challenger to AirNZ and Jetstar for domestic routes. Started originally as a heli charter, then a biz jet operation with a Starship and later a Citation X. Now I’m building up a fleet of ATRs, with a YS-11 for runs to Chatham Island.

My previous airline went bankrupt. It was a charter operation based out of Tatry in Slovakia. Had three E175s, an A320, and a 727 for cargo. The latter sank the airline in the end. Money was already tight with maintenance eating up most of the profits. I set up a crew in Hong Kong to chase what I thought were lucrative cargo runs but ended up being a dud. Eventually couldn’t pay to keep the profitable part of the operation flying and that was the end. 

Great fun.

100% Airliner (737 NG) 51 total flights in 2025.