.... but once I choose my airport, that is on the same timeline as I live, the flight time has changed by about 8 hours.
How do I make the sim indeed start up with my system's time as is in the settings?
When you start the sim, the sim applies your system time to the time zone of the default flight (seattle, wa, usa unless you have saved a new default flight). When you then select an airport in a different time zone the sim makes the time zone adjustment.
Set up a flight at your home airport and then save it, putting a check in the box to 'Make this the default flight'.
(Also set your 'cold start' options, aircraft and weather as mentioned above.) This flight will then be the one loaded into the Free Flight window when you start the sim. These settings will be applied to any flight you create in the Free Flight window. Of course, if you set up a flight in a different time zone the time will be adjusted.
The default flight settings will not effect flights that you load from your saved flights.
At that time [1909] the chief engineer was almost always the chief test pilot as well. That had the fortunate result of eliminating poor engineering early in aviation.