I’ve only had the sim since January, only having 110 hours so far(actually its more than that cause for a while I had dev mode on). So far, I’ve only flown GA. I have a question for Pilots who exclusively fly IFR airliners and such. What do you actually do? I don’t mean to be insulting, it’s a genuine question. In my experience with IFR flights with the G1000, I program the autopilot, take off, climb to cruise altitude, then set it and forget it. I find myself bored within five minutes. Is there much, much more for flying airliners? So much more that a six hour flight would be something to look into? I want to learn how to fly regional jets and airliners too, but I just can’t see how they’re more exciting than GA.
Please share your thoughts and experiences! Bring me around to the world of airliners!
I can only speak for myself, and I don’t fly the tubes (yet), but I have been doing an around the world with the TBM. Legs range from 500-1100 km so flights have been in the 2-4 hour range. Once I get to cruise I either browse the net on my phone of read a book while keeping an eye on the gauges and scenery.
On a side note, my sister was a pilot and they owned a G36. While flying between their houses in Kansas City and Tuscon she played Freecell on her laptop.
An airliner keeps you semi-occupied for about 25 minutes after take-off to reach cruise altitude (although for the final 15 minutes of that time you’re mostly waiting for ATC to tell you to climb every once in a while), and pretty occupied for the final 20 minutes during final descent and approach. So I try to keep most of my flights around 250 - 350 NM, having just ten minutes or so of actual cruise time. That’s something I actually find relaxing.
For longer flights (up to 750 NM or so), podcasts are great to keep my mind occupied while looking at the ground or reacting to the odd frequency change. Anything longer than that, I’ve only managed by speeding up the sim rate and/or doing things around the flat, only checking the cockpit occasionally, but this is mainly to continue my short-hops trip around the world. It’s not something I particularly enjoy, but there’s just no other way to get from Auckland to San Francisco…
I have actually wondered about this as well. I fly GA, myself, mostly hand flying because I find AP kind of boring. I have read posts where people get their airliner up to flight altitude. Then walk away from their computer or go to bed or watch TV, etc.
I just always thought that, kind of defeats the purpose of playing a game for entertainment, doesn’t it? I mean each too their own and all it’s your money and time.
It’s defiantly a very interesting topic, where folks spend considerable amounts of money on a computer and flight hardware. Then let the computer play the game for them, so to speak.
I look forward to more insight on the topic.
I asked this some time back!
I now occasionally use the CRJ550 and it’s very busy on departure. I also always use Pilot2Atc so often get instructions to follow. I couldn’t fly like this exclusively but do enjoy it when it’s a busy flight with lots of departure and arrival restrictions.
I don’t fly airliners and typically even my IFR flights are 1 hour or less. But during that down time, I tend to watch YouTube and browse the forums.
Browse forums , I look out the plane windows , take the dog out, vacuum the rooms, sometimes I sleep or go to work, if I have the possibility check (remotely) the sim during the most boring legs if everything is fine (parsec), check the autopilot if everything is alright, I talk to the atc (p2atc) for the various zone changes (if i’m in front of the screen, otherwise I automatically delegate it to the co-pilot), I see a movie on netflix and put the film overlay on a passenger seat (if I can do it, now I’m talking in general and not necessarily fs2020) , let’s say that I never run out of things to do.
I hardly stare at the screen apathetically in the dead moments, as hardly anyone would do.
More often than not, instead of “getting bored with a flight” there is someone who interrupts me for one reason or another, for work or family or for commitments etc.etc. 
I would add that even in a real flight as a passenger how many remain excited all the time “doing something” other than reading something or talking or looking out the window etc?
Even the pilots are not perpetually staring at the mfd or mcdu waiting for something until it happens.
From this point of view as simmers or passengers or “real pilots” of airliners, we all share something I think 
My seat time for a long haul is 2 hours max.
Anything after that I’m hitting the teleport options to the next destination.
Meanwhile in those 2 hours im admiring the outside scenery through the windows. Or using the eyepoint function to move around the seats/interior of aircraft(even sit as passenger if im on autopilot) or on discord or watching youtube inside of the cockpit.(VR virtual windows)
All I fly are airliners…
For 90% of my flights, they are under 3 - 4 hours and there is plenty to do. Reading charts, talking to ATC (via VATSIM), programming pages of all type of things, checking on ATIS and METAR, and then while descending, ensuring the plane is actually following all the STAR constraints.
For long haul flights, the majority of people probably read a book, watch a TV show, or search the internet until it’s time for descent.
I fly the G36 on IFR flights of 400 to 500 NM, 3 to 4 hours seat time in real time. Plenty of sights to see, requesting cruise altitude changes, crappy weather takeoffs and cruise legs, watching for icing, timing waypoints, watching SkyVector to guess when ATC will hand me off. Night landings in unfamiliar airports, studying taxiways and GA parking spots. Oh, and an occasional dependency on Otto the pilot to make a refreshment/restroom run. Not all bad, I don’t know if I could do a real long haul at 41000 feet, probably pretty boring at that altitude. The G36 hasn’t seen altitudes over 14,000.
I think my longest flights have been around 4 hours or so. I mostly hand fly, and don’t use the AP much, so have no choice but be attentive. 
I tend to watch Twitch or YT on my iPad as I fly.
I also spend time trying to find the local barometer setting before ATC tells me I’m 300 feet above my assigned altitude. SkyVector weather stations reporting local barometer readings have little to do with what MSFS (using Live Weather) thinks the barometer is. I hate to keep using the ‘B’ key to set it, prefer to actually adjust using the aircraft’s internal adjustment. I can Comm a local ATIS, but then have to re-acquire the ATC overseeing the flight. Comm 2 doesn’t seem to let me contact an ATIS frequency…
I fly the Longitude, and my flights range from thirty minutes to just over four hours. I get into the whole nine yards – deciding where to depart and where to arrive, the en route path, setting up the plane for departure, taking off, ascending, leveling off, descending, landing, and taxing to parking. It all takes a certain amount of skill and knowledge (of which I lack for the most part) so I try to learn something new almost every time I fly.
Between the sim updates, new liveries, and new mods that can be downloaded, I find that the experience constantly changes. While the plane is leveled and I’m in between waypoints, I look out the window a bit, but I also just sit back and relax. When I get near the destination, I start to think about what I need to do to get the plane safely on the ground, because the last thing I want to do is to fly through the air for three freaking hours and screw up the last three minutes.
For these precious hours, I don’t worry about health, money, the future, the news, or whatever. Your question is valid, and there is no doubt that some people would find this activity an incredibly boring waste of time. But for whatever reason, we’re different and we love it.
Absolutely agree! I learn something new every flight. Latest adventure was take off from Denver on IFR in a hellacious rainstorm (true dat, Live Weather). You wouldn’t have been allowed via VFR. I’m rarely bored.
I’ve done long haul (8+ hour ) flights where I follow a family member who’s coming to visit. I take off exactly around when they do in real life, and program the same route into my flight. Most of the flight is on AP, of course, but I keep looking at the world knowing that they are seeing the same thing - and with MSFS, they REALLY are seeing almost the same exact thing that I am.
Then, when they are closer, I can anticipate their arrival, get excited etc.
There’s lots of ways to have fun in flight sim, the best part is that it’s a sandbox for your imagination. You can pretty much do whatever you want, and that’s great.
For me it’s a question of imagination. Being able to fly myself to my favourite locations in Europe has been great in the last year (when the sim didn’t break). I love being an airline passenger, so I love flying airliners. Simple as that really. I let my imagination do a lot of the work, with the help of a few selected Addons to add to the experience.
Monday I “picked up” the Arrow III (Just Flight’s new addition to the virtual hanger) and ferried it back to Central California from Austin Texas. While not IFR, that’s quite a little trip in an aircraft that makes - at best - 135 kts TAS. When you have a 40 kt headwind (east to west in the U.S.A. seems to be like that a lot) you’re talking about watching paint dry (when compared to the TBM for example.)
I kept an eye on the aircraft, changed fuel tanks back and forth, and had “a moment” at 8500 feet coming over a 6500 foot range where the winds got a little tricky. I leaned that the hidden click spot for Altitude Hold (kinda “cheating”) works great except for when you encounter a healthy down draft. Good thing I wasn’t away making coffee or something!
I left Austin just before 17:00 Zulu and tied down at my home port just past 05:00 Zulu, with three stops for fuel. It was super fun, and gave me a nice long flight to get familiar with the little Piper. I read the manuals, and looked at this forum. (I also did my usual day job in “work from home” mode.)
I don’t fly the airliners, simply because I really really enjoy flying GA aircraft, and flying at altitudes that don’t require oxygen where you can see all the beauty. 
(Just Flight’s Arrow III is a really outstanding model by the way… if you enjoy flying below 10,000 feet and you aren’t in a big hurry.)
That seems like it needs to be brought to someone’s attention… Comm2 should be “listenable”
Personally, I fly using FSEconomy.net, it makes it seem like I’m running a business I would like to have in real life. I search the forums, try to find new features (and think of things needing to be improved, from my perspective); long hauls I don’t speed up time; oh, and I study my school work whilst on long hauls in the TBM; that’s my new dream plane to own. For now, the closest I get is the simulator here 
. I also would like to make a swap to airliner flying, as I haven’t really done much of that… hard to buy a big airliner in FSEconomy!
Your wife told me to tell you that when you fly the long haul…CLEAN THE KITCHEN!!!