How do you go about longer flights?

[Mr._Ryan]

What I mean by this is, do you use the function to speed up the simulation on long, straight-and-level sections of the flight, or just sit through it? I just did a flight of nearly 6 hours in my newly-minted Piper Dakota from Dreamfleet; I flew it VOR to VOR, with some sections as short as 25 minutes and some as long as 90 minutes. For the longer sections of the flight I bumped the sim rate up to 8 times, going back to normal to deal with radio frequency changes, and flew the last 30 minutes or so at normal simulation speed.

My overarching goal is to fly the Dakota from my home base in New York over to Europe, via Canada, Greenland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands and then on to the UK. It's exciting to take on a trip like this, but I think it's just unrealistic to dedicate the actual amount of flight time it would take.

Anyway, that's how I generally approach longer flights. Anything under, say, 90 minutes I will generally fly at the normal rate the entire way, but once they start stretching out, I think it's perfectly reasonable to use the increased sim speed feature.

How do you go about it?

[Brett_Henderson]

Oviously, there's no "rule"..

[Mr._Ryan]

Interesting! I know there's no rule, I'm just curious how other people do it. For the record, the flight that in regular time would have taken 6 hours took me probably 2.5, so I don't speed through everything.

Curious to see what other people have to say...

[beaky]

I  prefer to sit through it in real time, but if a compromise is needed, I'll save the flight and re-open it later, where I left off.
Sometimes this leads to finding myself in a totally different weather situation, but not often... I usually don't sit down at the sim unless I have the time to at least fly one leg without stopping.

[Steve M]

Well if your asking.. I have done several Laguardia to Heathrow runs in the 747. 7 or 8 hours each. I stuck it out in the cockpit except over the ocean I used auto pilot so I could get my laundry done! I never sped up the sim to get through the flight because in the past it caused pc crash for me. Now I stick with the beech baron and shorter planned  flights. And that's how I do it. 

[Mr._Ryan]

[quote]Well if your asking.. I have done several Laguardia to Heathrow runs in the 747. 7 or 8 hours each. I stuck it out in the cockpit except over the ocean I used auto pilot so I could get my laundry done! I never sped up the sim to get through the flight because in the past it caused pc crash for me. Now I stick with the beech baron and shorter planned

[BSW727]

If I don't have the time to fly it, I don't file it.

Most of my flights are two hours. Sometimes I stretch it to three if traveling to Scandinavia from southern Europe.

[Mr._Ryan]

The opinions here have changed my approach to longer flights. You guys made some great points. I've changed my plan of flying from NY to Europe to a tour of Europe. I started off in the very north of Scotland and will be making ca. 2 hour hops around the continent, always starting at the airport I last landed at. This makes it more realistic, as I will be flying the actual amount of time and not zipping through it at 8x speed, and it's something that will be fun to do.

Thanks for the feedback.

[snippyfsxer]

Really Guys!@##(*&*(&4

Just program your route into the old GNS 430 and go to bed!

[Brett_Henderson]

None taken

[New Light]

   Hey Ryan!

   Why not do just what you are doing - break the epic trip into smaller sections, just land at the end of the sections. "Fly" from NY to Greenland, Greenland to Iceland, etc. Enjoy the "flight". Many of us do these epic "flights".

   And, it is "different" to operate the rudder pedals (landing & taxiing) with a full bladder, while a turd is playing peak-a-boo with you, while you're trying to pay attention to what you're suppose to be doing - which should be operating the aircraft properly and safely. Some furthur advise from Jack Nicolson (in the Bucket List, I thnk), "never trust a fart".

   I've commented about people who turn on the auto pilot, unlimited fuel, auto everything and let the flight simulator act like a wall clock... Kinda useless...

Blue Sky Wishes,

Dave

[Northwest 102]

For my long haul flights sometimes reaching 10+ hours I set the autopilot, takeoff and fly to altitude, and then go about my day checking on it periodically.

I have a fleet of aircraft based all over the US and Virgin Islands. My long haul fleet is mainly based in Minnesota with other smaller aircraft located at International Airports along the way.  If I want to say tour Hawaii I fly out of Minnesota and then land at Honolulu where I take one of my smaller planes based there to do some sightseeing.  Then after I'm done I land back at Honolulu with that smaller plane, refuel my long haul and then start making my way to another stop or back to Minnesota.  If I want to fly the plane I have based in Hawaii again I have to fly back there again to fly it.  I try and keep it as realistic as possible while also not neglecting reality.  Current long haul fleet I have is a 747-400 in Boeing Colors and an A330-200 in Airbus Colors that I pretend are private aircraft.  The longer the range aircraft the more time I have between landings.  Tough part is finding interesting places to fly too.

Anyway that's my story on how I fly my longer flights.

[Mr._Ryan]

[quote]

[Ghostrider114]

I've done a couple marathon trans pacific flights in small fighter jets, usually I'll be at the controls the whole time, and if I set the speed right I can stretch fuel consumption till I reach the next island, kinda a trade off between a high enough mach number to shorten the flight as much as possible and a good throttle setting and altitude to conserve fuel, usually mach 1.2 at 70-90% thrust and an altitude between Angels 10 and Angels 30 will get the aphasim phantom a couple hours of flight time, just perfect for the Guam-Wake leg, which is about the longest.

[Staiduk]

I'm gonna add my voice to Brett's up there - that's how I do it as well. If I want to navigate, I have all sectionals, E-6B, the whole smash. I've got the GPS disabled on most of my planes; it makes things too easy. If I gotta run to the bathroom, it's real easy to drop the Citabria into some farmer's field. Average bush flight is around 2-3 hours but I did have one incredible soaring flight using CumulusX a while back - Took off from Villeneuve (just West of Edmonton) and flew south into the mountains; riding the ridges all over Mt Robson Provincial Park. Probably the most fun I've ever had in a simulated sailplane. Twitchy as hell and ridges are a bugger to hold - I never left the chair the whole flight which, when I landed in Calgary, I found took an incredible 8 hours! (Didn't even seem an hour had passed, hardly.) That's about the longest I've ever soared in R/L as well and pretty much the same effect - you've no idea you've been up that long (well..keeping in mind you've got a close eye on the clock; especially in a glider) until you try to crawl out and your butt lets you know... Those are good days.