Long Overwater Flights

The only time I do long flights is when I am doing them with my friends. We usually fly the routes together and are on voice chat the entire time. Other than that, I keep my FS minimized and talk to friends on messengers and browse the internet, watch TV. Although it does getting boring at times.

I've only ever done 1 transatlantic flight [New York to Cape Town] and it was probably the most boring flight I've done. An interesting flight over the ocean is from Johanesburg to Singapore or Kuala Lumpur.

I just did a Tampa to St Maarten flight and that was boring enough ! Took me three days to get there as I would wander out of the room at just the wrong time, miss a ATC call and get my flight canx !! Haha! So past three days I just saved the flight enroute, so I could pick it up next time ! Finally made it! Do you think I could ever get thru a trans-Atlantic flight? rob

If i ever wanted to do a long flight like that id put on some music and do slew. that is y by default. if you use the keyboard to move forward you can go around 40,000 however it is kind of cheating but it is the way i do.

JVD wrote:

I've only ever done 1 transatlantic flight [New York to Cape Town] and it was probably the most boring flight I've done. ...

Probably no less boring for a real life veteran pilot.

I do them nearly all the time. I find it fun. Usually I'll ALT+ENTER the screen and chat on messenger/watch Family Guy. Sometimes i just keep it maximized, and use Active Camera to walk around the plane if I have a virtual Cabin. Otherwise I just set up a wing view and watch the clouds go by.

Some of us can do it, others cant. That's why there's the regional jets and whatnot, ya know! 😀

I have flown around the globe three times. PS2 & Gran Turismo4. What can I say...I love speed

Yip FEM is totally right here..... you either dig it or you don't.

I generally stick to short and medium haul, but I have done plenty of long-haul. Generally I don't cheat and follow it in real time. While the plane is in the cruize I do exercise, read, do some work on my Lap Top, Meditate, or sometimes even just snooze !

If I do cheat I never do it by changing the Simulation Rate, as I HATE this nothing ruins the illusion of Flight Sim more.

A far better way is to go into the WORLD menu at the top and choose the MAP.

Now simply click on the small black icon that represents your plane and drag it a bit further along your route. If you're running out of time fast, you can drag it to within 50nm of your destination and hey presto, when you exit the map and return to the sim, you will be ready to do your approach and landing !

Only slight side effect is that it will accelererate your plane somewhat for a few seconds when you return to the sim from the map - this will almost always result in an overspeed, but only for a few seconds, then the plane will settle down and you can continue to finish your flight as normal.

Far better than increasing the Simulation Rate and travelling faster than the Millenium Falcon !

Speeding up the time? Dragging your airplane on the map? 😳

People, those are the most stupid things you could ever do! What at least I like about the Flight Simulator the most is that it sometimes makes you feel like a real pilot.
Instead of increasing the simulation rate, pretend to be talking to the first officer while imagining yourself as a captain (or opposite), or imagine how the passangers are looking through the window hardly waiting for the long flight to end. Just imagine yourself really flying transatlantic when you can just wait like a real pilot. It feels great.

Once I staid up till 2:00am as I was a tired captain waiting to land his 777 on a flight from Europe to Africa.

The-GPS-Kid wrote:

Yip FEM is totally right here..... you either dig it or you don't.

I generally stick to short and medium haul, but I have done plenty of long-haul. Generally I don't cheat and follow it in real time. While the plane is in the cruize I do exercise, read, do some work on my Lap Top, Meditate, or sometimes even just snooze !

I prefer real-time. I have gone across the pond four times. Boston's Logan to Heathrow and back. And JFK to Heathrow and back. My next long haul will be a circumnavigation of the globe similiar to what you recently completed. However it may just take me a bit longer to complete.

I may not like Atlantic flights because of the sight of nothing but the ocean and clouds.The flight that I enjoy the most is from Heathrow [UK] to Seoul [Korea].To make the flight more interesting I'l' walk around the cabin [ I insist on large planes with a cabin], listen to a bit of music [using the CD player utility from Avsim], watch the passing clouds or snooze for 4 hours.

michilin wrote

I prefer real-time

I totally agree and I'm sure the rest of us at flyaway also agree [forgive me if i'm wrong].

Paiute,

I am an over water pilot almost exclusively.
I am based in Honolulu at PHNL and fly the
B767-ER and the B737-200. My flights out of
PHNL take me throughout the inter-islands, to the U.S.
Mainland, Canada and also out to Tahiti,
Rangiroa, Rarotonga and Fiji-Nadi Int'l.

--There's only one way to get there and that is
to fly the route. H2o or no H2o. I concentrate on
what I am doing in the cabin and don't worry to much
about the scenery at alt. --As you say, it is a great feeling
to complete a long haul route over large expanses of ocean.

The sighting of a destination is all the better and the
approach and landing all the more important when
you have a few hrs invested.

P.S.-Bartholomew, you are right! ..The fatigue factor adds to the experience.
Try landing a B767-ER when there is lots of traffic
around the hub, you are dog-snot tired from a long trip and all
you want is to get on the ground!
~Concentration the challenge/ safety the #1 priority. --Just like real-world.

Tip: To avoid chronic boredom syndrome I also listen to real-world,
real-time traffic conversations during the flight. -Flights from all
over the world identify themselves by their call signs and you can
hear amazing exchanges and sounds.
Sometimes when the Capt is speaking an automated instrument
callout or warning horn from his A/C will be heard over the mic.
--Brings authentic traffic patterns to your FS9 flight deck. 🙂

^Above map constitutes information on my FS world.

Guess what? I am a long-haul fan! I really like to fly long hauls. I made 12 long hauls. I do make short and medium hauls, and I enjoy them. But I also love to fly long hauls.

When I am flying a long-haul I usually go to the other computer and chat in the MSN or read/write post in Fly Away, or I read some information abour airplanes, look for pictures of airplanes, read books/magazines, watch TV, and of course, take a look at the systems and controls of the flight. And finally, take a walk through the cabin.
As GPS-Kid said, he hates the Increase Simulation Rate feature. I hate it too. I never use this feature. It is not realistic and it's not fun.

Here's two pictures about all my flight that I made after joining my VA:

And here's some other information about my flights and planes:

Complete Logbook Statistics

Average flight length: 3.5 h (lower than or equals FTG average 4.😎
Longest flight: 12.6 h
Shortest flight: 0.8 h
Short hauls (<2h): 29 / 45%
Medium hauls (2-6h): 24 / 37%
Long hauls (>6h) 12 / 18%
Airlines you have
flown for: AF(12 flights), AY(2 flights), BA(3 flights), CO(4 flights), CX(2 flights), DL(1 flights), EK(1 flights), IB(3 flights), JL(1 flights), KL(1 flights), LH(3 flights), LX(18 flights), NW(3 flights), OZ(1 flights), QF(1 flights), SA(1 flights), SQ(3 flights), TG(1 flights), TP(1 flights), UL(1 flights), VN(1 flights), VS(1 flights)

Aircraft Experience

Airbus
300-600 1.6h / 1% 319-100 15.5h / 7% 320-200 23.3h / 10%
321-200 18.8h / 8% 330-200 22.9h / 10% 340-200 10.2h / 4%
340-300 43.9h / 19% 340-600 12.6h / 5%

Boeing
737-500 7h / 3% 737-800 2.5h / 1% 747-400 17.4h / 8%
757-200 5.1h / 2% 757-300 6.7h / 3% 767-200 2.5h / 1%
767-300 3h / 1% 777-200 21.9h / 10% 777-300 7.4h / 3%

Bombardier
CRJ-200 1.3h / 1%

Embraer
ERJ-145 3.8h / 2%

McDonnell Douglas
MD-82 1.7h / 1%

Bartholomew wrote:

Speeding up the time? Dragging your airplane on the map? 😳

People, those are the most stupid things you could ever do!

Oh, I don't know, it doesn't seem that stupid to me. I've done some extremely stupid things in my life, some of which had consequences far more serious than missing out on a few hours of watching simulated water roll by in a simulated world.

If you think that's the most stupid thing you could ever do, you need to get out of the house more, and try more REALLY stupid things. 😂

Seriously, different people have different levels of interest in different parts of a flight sim. I enjoy planning trips, taking off, navigating, seeing the scenery, figuring out how to get the plane lined up to land at a strange airport without smacking into the side of a mountain, and landing. I even kind of enjoy taxiing around, following the purple line on the taxiway. 😀

NONE of those things I enjoy happen out in the middle of the ocean, so I go fast-forward through those long, boring watery parts.

Just my opinion, though, you're entitled to your own. 😉

Ed

Agus: is there a special program that allows one to log his hours and get a visual of all his flights on a world map [How were you able to show all your flights on a world map?].

You can try out the flight sim manager from Ranasoft, it's on avsim.

It doesn't have a map, but there's some awesome logging tools and stuff in there.

Search for Rana, and you should get the manager.

When I make long flights, I switch on autopilot, have a nap then come back on the flight 🙂

JVD wrote:

Agus: is there a special program that allows one to log his hours and get a visual of all his flights on a world map [How were you able to show all your flights on a world map?].

Here you go, my friend JVD:

http://gc.kls2.com/ You don't have to download anything. Just fill some information and that's it.

In my VA, every time you log a flight it shows me the map of it. So I saved the image and I uploaded it into www.photobucket.com Finally I put the image address here and that's it.

twistedsucker wrote:

When I make long flights, I switch on autopilot, have a nap then come back on the flight 🙂

How can you take a nap if you have to communicate to the ATC?

He probably flies VFR [am I wright ❓ ].

once the land is out of sight, I just wait for the ATC to hand me over, then I say bye bye to this frequency, and switch to the next, but DO NOT contact the ATC, keep it this way. Calculate the time and go to sleep or whatever I do. When the times up and come back, I am 200 nm from the destination, open the ATC window, now you see the ATC you switched but not contacted has been changing along the way, showing the destination airport ATC center or tower. Conact now, then you finish the rest of the IFR long haul.

credit to originalgrunge

Just use an SR71 Blackbird, you can do Mach 2 at FL/60+. It wont take too long then.

Or a concorde, they hit Mach 2 at arould FL510

The longest flight I ever took was from Helena, MT(HLN) to Bermuda(BDA) in a cessna 172. It took forever. I just speed up the simulator, but it still took me like 3 days. 😂

How can you take a nap if you have to communicate to the ATC?

There are lots of other ways of long flight than just using ATC 😕