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Having been in the Flight Sim Community since the early 80's, I've done a great many things and enjoyed countless hours in flight simulation. I've run several groups, and I've introduced and taught a great many flight simmers how to fly various airliners and fly online. In hopes of enriching someone else's flight sim experience, I'd like to share three bits of advice. If you're reading this specifically for the Cross the Pond advice, please skip down to the bottom of this post. Flying Online First and foremost, if you're not flying on VATSIM or IVAO, then for the love of Pete you simply must invest the time to do so. Recently, someone posted a video about why they would never fly except online, and I have to tell you that he barely scratched the surface for why many of us feel the same way. Flying online (VATSIM is my preferred network) will get you closer to actual aviation than anything else, in fact nothing comes close. Beyond opening all sorts of doors, each flight offers nuances that can lead to memorable experiences. Add flying with a small group of friends (each in their own aircraft) while talking together online while also chatting on a private voice server (we stop taking with ATC is talking) is also terrific, but flying with a friend in Shared Cockpit... man, that's where I've experienced some incredible and seriously memorable events in my flight sim experience. This leads me to my second piece of advice. Shared Cockpit For quite some time I was pretty much the only person promoting Shared Cockpit in the flight sim community, and several aircraft developers would very likely not have implemented this amazing experience for us if it had not been for my promoting it with them (damned near harassing them... lol). Today we have more people than ever interested in Shared Cockpit, but there are so many people who have yet to think about it or give it a try. The number one reason I've seen why some tries Shared Cockpit and doesn't get addicted to it is simply because they flew with the wrong age or type of person, and I get that. I have about 5000 hours of shared cockpit time, and I was lucky enough to seek out people and eventually create a small cadre of like minded, fun loving people to fly with. So yeah, with some exceptions age is a deal breaker. Now, I fly airliners, so that's where I'm going to focus on. Having said that, there is nothing stopping people from enjoying shared cockpit flying general aviation. Just like when I fly with the Navy, the active "working" times of performing a airliner flight are per-departure, taxi to the active, departure and climb, the descent, arrival, landing and taxi back to the gate. That leaves a lot of time from 18,000 ft and cruise to the latter stages of descent, and that time is spent chatting about everything under the sun, sharing humor, laughing at things we hear from other online pilots and controllers, and basically having a terrific time. It's never, not EVER boring, where flying by yourself certainly can be. Moreover, the team work during the more active times of the flight is equally if not more enjoyable. One other amazing benefit to Shared Cockpit is collapsing time frames when it comes to learning how to fly online or how to fly airliners. What would take you consider time to learn on your own, jumping into the flight deck with someone who's experienced and willing to share what they know (I think that's most flight simmers) will help you learn so much faster and the experience will be fun and without frustration. It's important to remember that the guy you'll be flying with is fully capable of flying and handling everything by themselves, no there will never be any expectations for you doing anything you're no comfortable with. Each flight you'll enjoy learning bucket loads of things in a relaxed and fun atmosphere... I know, because I've personally done this with at least 60 people over the years. A Different Way to Fly the VATSIM Cross the Pond (CTP) This event takes place twice each year, a Europe to United States (Westbound) event and then an Eastbound event about six months later. Thousands of pilots fly this event, filling the skies with airliners during which is typically at least an 8, 10, or 12 hour flying experience. Weeks prior to the event pilots vote on which 5 airports will be selected as departure points, and the same for arrival airports. Of course flying this event in Shared Cockpit is loaded with benefits, including allowing you and your copilot to make runs errands, do some chores, whatever, while still doing the flight. Flying for these long flights really isn't my cup of tea, as I'm more interested in the busy times of flying rather than hanging out at cruise for 8 to 12 hours or longer. So many years ago I got my group together, and we began flying in between event departure airports while most pilots are departing for their long trip. After all, the goal is to experience what it's like to fly in and out of busy airports, right? Well, you'll rarely find busier airports than the CTP event, and we're flying in between departure points so it's flying out of a loaded airport and flying into one as well. After the flight, we all leave the computer to go and take care of whatever, and about 8 hours later we repeat the experience at the arrival airports. Guys, this is an amazing way to fly this event, it truly is. Do this in Shared Cockpit and you'll just be amazed, you really, truly will. Thanks for listening, I hope that I've given you some ideas about expanding your flight sim experiences. One can always come up with reasons why not to try something new, but you only need one good one to act on, and I hope you can find that reason in what I wrote above. As always, I wish you the very, very best. Dave