5 hours ago, FPVSteve said:

the only drawback of course is buying an airport for a flight and then not going back there very often.

I’ve made a vow that I’ll not buy any more payware airports until I’ve visited all the ones I already have.

In every simulator! 🤣

I’ve gone about 9 months since 🤞

On 7/24/2026 at 11:50 PM, cowpatz said:

The first time I have 'heard' the Aerostar being referred to as ugly 🙂

I think it's ugly too. Though it's A2A Accu-Sim, and is no doubt a fabulous thing to fly, I just can't warm to it. On top of that, I have the Flysimware Cessna C414 Chancellor, and the Black Square Baron Pro, so my twin GA jollies are more than catered for.

Having spent more time re-installing and updating than playing...

Great thread, can totally relate to the OP, as well as most of the other respondees (is that even a word?!?!)

When I feel like I'm in that cycle and have less interest in actual flying and don't wanna lay down any $$$ on sales, I redirect to doing some "project work" for awhile, tweak/correct some AFCADs, create photoreal for an underserved area, install retro liveries and such like. My latest effort has been a 2008 era North America and Europe AI project, has taken two weekends now but I'm ready to rip into flying some 747s, MD80s, 737 classics and the like.... whether I actually DO any flying is another thing ... will keep you posted 😄

Honestly, I was really surprised by how many replies this got, but reading through everyone's thoughts has been really enlightening.

Looking closer at my own habits, I actually quit smoking a while back and never fully realized how much money I was saving. That extra spending cash definitely made me a bit more compulsive when it comes new released addons. At this point, the only tools I consistently use every single flight are Rex Atmos, Chaseplane, and AutoFPS. That is really it.

Another pattern I noticed is that whenever I tried to master a complex airliner or deep-system aircraft, it would take me at least three weeks of study and setup. By the time I finally mastered it, I was completely burned out. I would immediately jump to the next addon to keep that high going, which just led to total mental exhaustion.

Right now, I have shifted gears entirely. I stick to pure plug n play default GA planes just to enjoy low-altitude scenery, shoreline views, and rural traffic moving at night. It is much more relaxing and has brought back the actual fun of flying, especially while tuning in to jazzradio.com or listening to some late 80s synth.

Edited Sunday at 12:38 PM5 days by History

9 minutes ago, History said:

Honestly, I was really surprised by how many replies this got, but reading through everyone's thoughts has been really enlightening.

Looking closer at my own habits, I actually quit smoking a while back and never fully realized how much money I was saving. That extra spending cash definitely made me a bit more compulsive when it comes new released addons. At this point, the only tools I consistently use every single flight are Rex Atmos, Chaseplane, and AutoFPS. That is really it.

Another pattern I noticed is that whenever I tried to master a complex airliner or deep-system aircraft, it would take me at least three weeks of study and setup. By the time I finally mastered it, I was completely burned out. I would immediately jump to the next addon to keep that high going, which just led to total mental exhaustion.

Right now, I have shifted gears entirely. I stick to pure plug n play default GA planes just to enjoy low-altitude scenery, shoreline views, and rural traffic moving at night. It is much more relaxing and has brought back the actual fun of flying, especially while tuning in to jazzradio.com or listening to some late 80s synth.

I hear ya, I dialed way back on complex stuff like airliners as well, fun as it can be.

The biggest value driver for these modern sims is that since I can't do real world GA anymore due to location and other factors, I can get my kicks in all types of GA aircraft I could never afford / have access to with a reasonable facsimile available of most of the airports I want to visit. And if they are not available, I try to make them when able.

I am certainly starting to be more 'wait-and-see' on aircraft purchases. How many are in my hangar that I just never use much if at all? I am finding myself happy flying biz jets at the moment and go between the FA50 and Sovereign. I am also not buying every big name airport any longer, I am preferring nicely done smaller airports suited for GA and business jets. Might be an unpopular opinion, but these newer airport release are just too detailed and it is making many of them unflyable for me. ORBX KATL is a good example. Nicely done but not flyable in my case. If I am dealing with stutters on final approach, I am just not going to use it. I also skipped Ini KORD which I did not think I would do but I know exactly what will happen. It will be a stutter-fest for me and I will stop flying in there. I guess my hardware will need to catch up as the Devs seem more interested in modelling every little interior detail (great for marketing pics!) and making the airport fairly miserable to actually fly in and out of. In any case, I love the A220 so I will likely get that and...oh no...the 757 will be out fairly soon also.....

Another couple of thoughts that occurred to me while I was down wind in the AP Jaguar earlier.

Sometimes dithering over buying an aircraft can be disastrous, I put off buying the P3D milviz T38 C and next thing I know it’s been withdrawn from sale, that’s niggled me for years, right up until the Infinity T38C was released. An extreme example but you just never know, better to buy and stash in the hanger for later use.

Secondly, moving on the the Jaguar I was flying, I bought that a couple of months ago , flew it once and didn’t gel with it so parked it up.

Today I had the itch to buy or fly something new. A recent vintage tv documentary series I’ve been watching inspired me to have a go in the Jaguar, and this time I’ve really enjoyed it.

So these aircraft we buy and stash can sometimes feel completely different when you go back to them, the Jaguar satisfied my itch to fly something new and different on this rainy Sunday afternoon, so it saved me from buying something today. ( the short list out of interest was 1- upgrading the MD80 to the 2024 version, 2-contrail FA50 ,3- FSS 727 or 4- DSD aerobic aircraft)

Well, I've bought around 1200 add-ons of one sort or another for MSFS (both versions), but I haven't actually even switched my simpc on for maybe three months now (apart from a couple of times to process updates). I just found I'd gotten too dispirited with the state of 2024. I know it's still pretty much the best sim we've ever had, but for me, what I see, literally, as the constant irritations and regressions with the visuals just got to the point where I don't enjoy it any more.

I dare say I'll get back in to it all in a while, but for now, I'm doing other things - reading, DIY'ing, messing around with the hi-fi and playing music and so on. And I'm certainly not buying any add-ons at the moment.

I don't fly much these days just enjoying summer I guess. If I do it is with something easy and fun like the HJET.

🥸

dd

Edited Sunday at 08:59 PM5 days by Sky_Pilot071

I am really enjoying this thread and all of the responses - it’s helping me think through my own buying philosophy and how I spend my sim time.

I’ve learned to put things (flight sim or otherwise) on a waiting list for a few days, even if on sale - sometimes the urge to buy passes. And I’m also (since this thread) trying to find and use what I already have. For instance, over the weekend I installed some Carenado XP11 planes with REP packs, both purchased long ago, and used those AND (for fun) installed my P3Dv5 on a spare drive and got that to run as smooth as glass for some “reliving history” fun. Inevitably, one of my sims decides to “have a bad day” so I flip between them. And an overarching philosophy/decision tree for all needs to be “will this addition, free or purchased, in any way cause stutters or lost smoothness? If yes, don’t do it” (I installed some small Orbx airports I owned the weekend and JERK JERK JERK - repeatable stutters - so out of the community drive they went!)

I really like the “project work” and “GA fun” activities mentioned above, as well as the “do other things” - I’m busy learning acoustic guitar and reading a lot more (including airliner history books) which gets me excited to go virtually fly!

I wish you could get those REP packs for 2024 Carenado aircraft, there’d be a big market for them.

I've recently taken up trying to fly shortish routes by dead-reckoning alone; plotting the route from A to B to C etc and calculating the wind offsets. Take off, turn on timer, look out of the window.

I am an engineer and love the technical aspects of things and also have my PPL so what keeps the spark glowing for me are two things: 1) learning new airliners with all their complex systems and flows and checklists and doing my best to fly them just like they are flown in real life based on YouTube cockpit videos and 2) flying for virtual airline alliances where I can experience what it's like to be a pilot for so many airlines and what it's like the fly out of their hubs and to also discover and explore all the destinations they fly to. This ensures that there is always something new that keeps me engaged

I'm lucky enough to have been able to fly in the jumpseat of A320s and A330s for entire flights and as far as systems and SOPs are concerned, we are so lucky and blessed with the current capabilities of our home simulators (software and hardware).

If it weren't for FSX, I wouldn't have gotten my PPL.

Cheers!

Edited Monday at 08:57 PM4 days by xsever

On 7/27/2026 at 9:56 PM, xsever said:

1) learning new airliners with all their complex systems and flows and checklists and doing my best to fly them just like they are flown in real life based on YouTube cockpit videos

Probably the most complex civilian aircraft was Concorde. Would that appeal?

I assume you know it flew at Mach 2 between 50,000 - 60,000ft. It had 13 fuel tanks and no elevators or ailerons. It combined them into elevons. Full power plus reheat (afterburners) for every takeoff irrespective of weight and runway length. Rotate at 195kts and pitch up 15° to maintain 250kts initially.

It’s a very challenging but satisfying aircraft to master. The most accurate version is by FS Labs but it’s only available for P3Dv5. There’s no indication they’re working on a MSFS version.

Would that be enticing enough to convince you there is still life in P3D?