Ok, I'm sure if you're into the flight simming community, we've all seen the streamers on twitch and youtube who sit down and do a hyper realistic flight where checklists are followed to a T and the flight is being constantly monitored in terms of A/P and fuel and whatnot. My question is, how do they do it? At home, when I play FS2020 (which during the school year, I barely get to play except on some weekends and school breaks), a lot of the times I end up in a critical phase of flight (i.e takeoff/landing) when my parents are calling me for dinner or something. While I do just pause the sim, it doesn't feel authentic enough to me. I also end up distracted quite easily. Like, I'd do the takeoff and climb without distraction but 20-30 mins after reaching cruise altitude, I get distracted and do other things around the house or surf the internet. I've heard that in flights longer than 12 hours, the time is divided between 2 sets of crew, so each would get 6 hours. Well, I did ATL-NRT and let's just say, I did NOT stay at my PC for 6 hours. Also I sometimes start flights in the night time, and since I need to sleep, I don't check systems nearly as often as I should.

I'm not looking to be a hyper realistic streamer or anything, just want to be somewhat realistic. My setup doesn't really allow me to keep food/drink right beside me in a convenient way, and even if I could, parents probably wouldn't be happy, as we sit together at the table, which is fine, but are there any ways to mitigate distraction?

And are there any streamers (or people who just sit through a 16 hour hyper realistic flight) here who can shed some advice?

Thanks!

A flight simulator game is not more realistic if you don't eat or sleep pretending to be needed "up front" all night crossing your virtual pacific.

If something else needs doing, I hit ESC and go do whatever needs to be done.

That said, most things that need doing need someone else to do them for me at the moment because I'm still unable to walk properly without crutches.

I don't do 16 hour flights anyway, except for maybe once when I replicated QF7 with the PMDG 747-400 (it got there). After that longest flights were about 3.5 hours which was Barbados or Nassau to Heathrow (or the reverse).

Realism is now having VR for FS2020 then just do short flights of 1 hour or 1.5 hour with the 737-700 or the A320 NEO. Although I did do Perth-Sydney this afternoon in real time.

I cannot imagine 2+ hour flights in a sim. I'm all about short hops, difficult airfields and terrible weather.

It's really amazing to see how the aviation community is embracing social media, from video trip reports to plane spotting videos to now flight sim podcasts (thanks to platforms like YouTube and Twitch).

The podcasts I will watch on YouTube will typically see the host stepping away on longer flights, so I don't find them always connected to the flights (people do have to eat and do other things).

I'm the opposite, I always used FS as the distraction. Pick a flight I want to do, get the plane in the air, turn the autopilot on, sit back, legs up and read a book and casually monitor the progress until it was time to descend.

The irony about some of these "hardcore simmers" is that they strap themselves to a chair for hours on end with zero distractions (even though chatting with online commenters is a distraction) to make it as "realistic" as possible, which anyone who spends time in an actual cockpit knows is completely unrealistic. For them, as is in all things social media, its not really about the experience, its about the views they're getting.

Hi,

Firstly many thanks and interesting question I thought. And also please bear in mind that I'm now like 45 years old and was probably hardcore (or as hardcore as I could get!) simming when maybe 25-30 years old maybe when Fs2004 came out and broadband was almost still a dream for most! But anyway if curious for me during that time maybe a few thoughts?

1. During those years I had finished school/university/college and was not working and living back at home with my parents.
2. I never really did more in terms of single-block time than an occasional transatlantic or transpacific flight.
3. I did nearly all of my simming during the night hours when the house was asleep.
4. I rarely used pause but most flights were around 1-1.5 hours or sometimes less. Of course though there was an occasional interruption but more than enough free time almost all the time and when arriving at my destination I would get a nice sense of achievement/immersion.
5. I found that a lot of immersion for me came from other stuff like real-world time flying? So if it was like 2am here in the UK I would fly in the US if I wanted daylight and listen to online radio or something live from there for immersion! And I never spent tons on hardware but did spend lots of time when not flying making charts, reading handbooks and website reviews etc.

But overall I'm not sure how healthy it all was but I did certainly have a good time in that place. And as for the days I would try and do mainly outdoor stuff like hiking/cycling only my eyes were always upwards and seeing a real plane when spotting and stuff would sometimes inspire my next Fs flight that evening.

But anyway that was kinda my time as it were but certainly not super hardcore in the traditional sense. A lot of fun but maybe not the healthiest hobby I ever had but I definitely don't regret it I don't think and am still here and still enjoy aviation and virtual aviation even if a bit older now!

Anyway hope that wasn't too much info but with many thanks from someone who spent a lot of time with Fs but didn't quite get to PMDG electrical bus systems level!

With many thanks again,

Ps762

A nice gin and tonic or three helps pass the time.

Let's just say that not everything is worth simulating to the highest possible magnitude of realism. Sitting at your computer for six hours at a time is not in any way going to enhance your experience and will likely have negative effects on your personal life.

I love doing a mix of long and short-haul flights. While the critical periods get all of my attention, during cruise I'll run errands, hang out with friends, etc then come back and land.

Totally agree with all of the comments on this thread. I'm almost 60 years old and have been simming since 1999 starting with FS98. I still love it - am using MSFS 2020 at the moment. But in all that time, I've never completed a long-haul flight because it's simply too long for everything else going on my life, and it's not going to add to the realism, as others have stated. For example, you could sit there for hours on end during a transatlantic flight and monitor systems. But nothing's going to change, since the sim maintains the systems at a constant level/rate (other than, say, fuel, of course).

If you're really passionate about completing long-haul flights, I think it's more valuable to complete your roll/rotation and get to altitude, then fast forward to the approach (or at least 50 miles or so from your destination) and complete the landing. Then, even though these are compromises, you still get to complete your long-haul flight PLUS deal with your life's distractions. Just my two cents.

As a Twitch streamer, I wouldn't say that what I do is necessarily hyper-realistic, but you also can't really disappear from your own stream for too long, either, or the viewers just leave. That said, I fly on VATSIM, so flying with other people helps.

rotation18L wrote:

Totally agree with all of the comments on this thread. I'm almost 60 years old and have been simming since 1999 starting with FS98. I still love it - am using MSFS 2020 at the moment. But in all that time, I've never completed a long-haul flight because it's simply too long for everything else going on my life, and it's not going to add to the realism, as others have stated. For example, you could sit there for hours on end during a transatlantic flight and monitor systems. But nothing's going to change, since the sim maintains the systems at a constant level/rate (other than, say, fuel, of course).

If you're really passionate about completing long-haul flights, I think it's more valuable to complete your roll/rotation and get to altitude, then fast forward to the approach (or at least 50 miles or so from your destination) and complete the landing. Then, even though these are compromises, you still get to complete your long-haul flight PLUS deal with your life's distractions. Just my two cents.

I absolutely agree! While I have not played a FS game in years, I found it a terrible waste of time to sit in cruise. Takeoff/Landing are the "fun" aspects. Honestly, if you sit there for hours on end while the plane is in cruise, either you need a life, or need a new hobby. lol.

I love flight games and play MSFS & XPlane11 a lot.

However no way I can sit in front of a PC for 16hrs to make it "realistic" . Sitting for that long in front of a computer is horrible for health, it will bite you later in life. You can get away with it when you're young. Keep safe. move around, eat good, sleep good, exercise.

Thanks to excellent sites like FlightAware I can filter flights by 60mins or less. Theres a737-800 flight in Bangladesh for example that lasts 50mins. These are challenging flights in a fast jet. You're barely off the ground and have to start prepping for the approach and landing. Great fun!

https://uk.flightaware.com/live/flight/ ... /VGHS/VGSY

As soon as I hit cruise altitude, I am speeding up simulation speeds, leaving to go cut the grass, make dinner, etc... I never just sit around and watch my screen for hours on end. I'll have it (if equipped) pause at T/D in case I'm not present.

I do a lot of long haul flights as well, so speeding up to 3-4x speed helps a lot. All the fun (for me) is in the planning, takeoff, approach and landing sequences.

I’m really only there for the critical phases of flight. I hate getting distracted during those times and yes, pausing the sim before landing just takes the fun away from it. I may read something or just frequently check back on shorter routes (cruise less than an hour).

Here’s a trick that works on FS9, especially for longer flights.

In cruise, or when you’ve received clearance for your files cruising altitude, ONCE ATC advises you to contact the next controller, reply, BUT, do NOT actually contact the next controller.

Doing so will result in the next controller prompting you to respond, else they will cancel IFR and you will have to refile at some awkward leg.

Note they will probably give you a lot of headings (ignore them) before you get a “proceed on course” instruction.

You may switch controllers but don’t contact them. You can let the airplane cruise for X hours, do stuff in the background, on longer flights you could even get groceries, take a hike, see some friends… as long as you know when you have to descend the airplane so you don’t come back to see the airplane eithe circling your destination from overhead, or in the grass.

Also make sure you check your burn rate is low enough you won’t be out of fuel sooner than later. Climb higher or slow down..

CarlosSi wrote:

Here’s a trick that works on FS9, especially for longer flights.

In cruise, or when you’ve received clearance for your files cruising altitude, ONCE ATC advises you to contact the next controller, reply, BUT, do NOT actually contact the next controller.

This also works is FS2020, except they dont bother you to fly some weird heading before you rejoin the flightplan you filed in world map

Also if they cancel your IFR, theres no more option to pickup an IFR, youre VFR the rest of the way

And with the godawful garbage asobo gave us instead of a normal pause button, if you turn on “pause at TOD in your FMC” and expect to be paused at top of drop, that doesnt work. The plane’s motion is paused but not time or fuel burn. Youll come back to way later time and empty tanks

r6russian wrote:

CarlosSi wrote:

Here’s a trick that works on FS9, especially for longer flights.

In cruise, or when you’ve received clearance for your files cruising altitude, ONCE ATC advises you to contact the next controller, reply, BUT, do NOT actually contact the next controller.

This also works is FS2020, except they dont bother you to fly some weird heading before you rejoin the flightplan you filed in world map

Also if they cancel your IFR, theres no more option to pickup an IFR, youre VFR the rest of the way

And with the godawful garbage asobo gave us instead of a normal pause button, if you turn on “pause at TOD in your FMC” and expect to be paused at top of drop, that doesnt work. The plane’s motion is paused but not time or fuel burn. Youll come back to way later time and empty tanks

Wow. For being a very visual sim it doesn’t have the ability to pick up IFR.

I’ve heard it ain’t nearly as realistic as it is visually aesthetic. I wish to know more.

CarlosSi wrote:

Wow. For being a very visual sim it doesn’t have the ability to pick up IFR.

I’ve heard it ain’t nearly as realistic as it is visually aesthetic. I wish to know more.

Its a very pretty flying videogame, but a terrible simulator. Granted its only 2 years old so it has alot of maturing to do compared how FSX was, and alot of addons that make it better are years away.

ATC is atroceous. Too stupid. Talks way too slow, wrong phraseology, the infamous wrong altitude in cruise to AI planes. You cant squeeze a word in sideways at any decent amount of AI and theres no Editvoicepack yet. Before you say Vatsim, theres never anybody on as controllers. People who used to sim when they were younger are now too old to play video games and gen Z doesnt care for videogames as long as they got their phone in their hands

Weather is good, but its only realtime. No historical mode or anything like that, and no ActiveSky. If you pick out a flight on flightaware for the weather it took off or landed in, theres no way to recreate that weather

Controls are idiotic. Granted, all of is MSfs people are used to the same exact control layout since jurassic times (CFS1 and fs2002 for me) and not only did microsoft not insist on keeping the same controls, they let asobo make them way worse. Multiple pause modes, none of them work. Multiple view modes, and all suck. Flight controls dont work in drone mode, the other mode just plain blows. S and pan around with the hat switch worked perfect and they ruined it. Bringing up viewports in the cockpit is a pain in the ass compared to just clicking A to cycle thru them

Stock planes fly worse than FSX stock planes. All that BS about the insane new flight model with millions of control points all over the airframe and its all useless when the stock planes fly like absolute dump.

You only get one registration and one callsign for the entire sim. Nothing like FSX where every single livery on every plane could have its own callsign and registration.

Worst thing of all, despite thousands of complaint threads on various forums about various bugs and errors, Asobo doesnt care. Theyre making money hand over fist as is, and theyre focused on the xbox version of fs2020 while barely keeping the PC version afloat with updates nobody asked for.

On the other hand, it does do a couple things better than FSX. One is framerate, msfs by being 64 bit and modern, runs faster at higher graphic settings compared to FSX.
Flightplanning is much better than in FSX but its still clumsy. At least you can search for waypoints instead of using the junk map from FSX era, and there are SIDs and STARs, but their implementation into thr ATC engine is garbage

So really, its a great VFR videogame but a junk sim in its current state. As far as flight simulation, FSX with activesky and certain payware addons is far superior. So in turn, P3Dv4 since its nothing more than 64bit FSX, automatically doubles the framerate of FSX to acceptable levels, and logically makes p3dv4 is the best flight simulation platform

r6russian wrote:

CarlosSi wrote:

Wow. For being a very visual sim it doesn’t have the ability to pick up IFR.

I’ve heard it ain’t nearly as realistic as it is visually aesthetic. I wish to know more.

Its a very pretty flying videogame, but a terrible simulator. Granted its only 2 years old so it has alot of maturing to do compared how FSX was, and alot of addons that make it better are years away.

ATC is atroceous. Too stupid. Talks way too slow, wrong phraseology, the infamous wrong altitude in cruise to AI planes. You cant squeeze a word in sideways at any decent amount of AI and theres no Editvoicepack yet. Before you say Vatsim, theres never anybody on as controllers. People who used to sim when they were younger are now too old to play video games and gen Z doesnt care for videogames as long as they got their phone in their hands

Weather is good, but its only realtime. No historical mode or anything like that, and no ActiveSky. If you pick out a flight on flightaware for the weather it took off or landed in, theres no way to recreate that weather

Controls are idiotic. Granted, all of is MSfs people are used to the same exact control layout since jurassic times (CFS1 and fs2002 for me) and not only did microsoft not insist on keeping the same controls, they let asobo make them way worse. Multiple pause modes, none of them work. Multiple view modes, and all suck. Flight controls dont work in drone mode, the other mode just plain blows. S and pan around with the hat switch worked perfect and they ruined it. Bringing up viewports in the cockpit is a pain in the ass compared to just clicking A to cycle thru them

Stock planes fly worse than FSX stock planes. All that BS about the insane new flight model with millions of control points all over the airframe and its all useless when the stock planes fly like absolute dump.

You only get one registration and one callsign for the entire sim. Nothing like FSX where every single livery on every plane could have its own callsign and registration.

Worst thing of all, despite thousands of complaint threads on various forums about various bugs and errors, Asobo doesnt care. Theyre making money hand over fist as is, and theyre focused on the xbox version of fs2020 while barely keeping the PC version afloat with updates nobody asked for.

On the other hand, it does do a couple things better than FSX. One is framerate, msfs by being 64 bit and modern, runs faster at higher graphic settings compared to FSX.
Flightplanning is much better than in FSX but its still clumsy. At least you can search for waypoints instead of using the junk map from FSX era, and there are SIDs and STARs, but their implementation into thr ATC engine is garbage

So really, its a great VFR videogame but a junk sim in its current state. As far as flight simulation, FSX with activesky and certain payware addons is far superior. So in turn, P3Dv4 since its nothing more than 64bit FSX, automatically doubles the framerate of FSX to acceptable levels, and logically makes p3dv4 is the best flight simulation platform

Thanks for the very thorough review. That’s what I thought… it’s a great VFR video game but it’s no sim. It’s appeal is in the visuals but FSX and X11 are better for simming.

CarlosSi wrote:

r6russian wrote:

CarlosSi wrote:

Here’s a trick that works on FS9, especially for longer flights.

In cruise, or when you’ve received clearance for your files cruising altitude, ONCE ATC advises you to contact the next controller, reply, BUT, do NOT actually contact the next controller.

This also works is FS2020, except they dont bother you to fly some weird heading before you rejoin the flightplan you filed in world map

Also if they cancel your IFR, theres no more option to pickup an IFR, youre VFR the rest of the way

And with the godawful garbage asobo gave us instead of a normal pause button, if you turn on “pause at TOD in your FMC” and expect to be paused at top of drop, that doesnt work. The plane’s motion is paused but not time or fuel burn. Youll come back to way later time and empty tanks

Wow. For being a very visual sim it doesn’t have the ability to pick up IFR.

I’ve heard it ain’t nearly as realistic as it is visually aesthetic. I wish to know more.

Depends on what addons you use. I've got PMDG 737 and the FBW A320, and I'll get the A380 when they release it (both are free). I dislike the ATC in it and the traffic integration, so I turn off traffic. The pause method is poor, but then pause in FSX sometimes gave undesirable effects in addon planes when you unpaused the sim (ie, serious upsets to the flight). Particularly the complex addons were affected by this.

For controls, I have the Thrustmaster Airbus throttles and side-stick.

The Salty Simulations freeware 747-8 has a feature where it pauses upon reaching the T/D. It doesn't alter the fuel consumption, speed, and altitude like MSFS's active pause does, but it merely freezes the airframe till you toggle it off in the FMS.

There was a short period in my life when I did this once. It was after college, I was married, in a small condo (so no lawn to mow or garage to tinker in), but before kids. Back before high speed internet, I decided to try a flight from Miami to London non-stop on a Saturday when my wife had all day plans with her girlfriend. I did pretty good, mainly reading my old flight text books, but again, before high speed internet and cell phones. About 2 hours before landing, I hear my wife come in and I yell out to her - "Bring me my dinner stewardess", and lets just say she was evidently not into the simulation. Now we are empty nesters and I think I'd like to try it again, but as IFlyVeryLittle commented, alcohol will have to be involved. So I'll pretend to be a pilot in the 1970s and the 747 has a bar upstairs that I will frequent often.