I agree, VATSIM bring the realism to a new level ! UP
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That’s my next step. I’ve been avoiding taking the dip in the VATSIM ‘ocean.’ I think it’s time.
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I was nervous having no prior sim/flight experience. What really took a bit was the radio comms. I’m a firefighter so it has its similarities radio wise, but to have ATC directing you, following flight plans, etc was daunting. But I’ve been on Vatsim for almost 2 years now and it’s tough to go back to just flying around. Both are fun, but Vatsim just puts being in a sim on another level!
The good thing is that you can spawn at an airport that has Vatsim coverage, tune in, and just listen to how it goes. That helped me a bunch.
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I have been interested in VATSIM also, but I’ve looked into it and it seems to be geared towards airliners.
VFR GA and helicopter pilots don’t file flight plans. It is very rare to use flight following…
How does VATSIM handle uncontrolled fields and VFR GA traffic?
I may have to try it out for a trial period and just listen in.
This was from October 27th. Currently i’m on 1127 hours. Still loving this Simulator, and those hours are 99% airliners.
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lost quite a few hours (nearly 1000?) from the logbook problems with one of the updates.
More than I am willing to admit – or allow my wife to see - but I have the feeling she already knows !!
(Developer)
Not many in the Log Book, in Dev Console most of the times, but Plane Hobbs show the picture…
How do you get away with it? Not married? 
With what?
But no, I’m not married lol
I got almost 1,500 hours of actual flying (NOT hours the sim has been open, monkeying around, etc…) These are hours directly in-flight per logbook. At the current pace, I am gonna hit 2,000 rather soon.
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lol That comment was for Mnron. Who has 1900+ hours lol
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Hah yeah. Well maybe if you’re married it means you spend even MORE time away from “her indoors” 
I’m about 3 or 4 years behind that figure at this rate I think! Trying my best to fly more but life gets in the way a lot…
It is strange that everyone that has Steam “time” tracked, it shows usually about double of actual flight time though. That was my point — 50% ratio of what Steam says.
My numbers have been reset twice since getting the sim when it dropped in 2020… Currently tracking over 1700hrs, but I’m sure its a heck of a lot more than that… LOL
I have 31days 17hr according to xbox stats but more like over 400hrs logbook time, just shows how much time is dealing with updates and other stuff haha
correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that the logbook only tracks time in the air… So all that time taxiing and flight planning is not tracked…
Yeah the logbook is flight time. But the system does store the true Hours also (Hobbs time and Hours time) and you can access that data easily with our wonderful app!
← END PLUG! →
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It’s too addictive. I got about 1700hrs logged on Vatsim for FS and another 700 for Xplane.
Jeez, what I could have done with this time. Better not think about it 
Question:
If you set up a long 10 hour IFR flight and relinquish control to the auto pilot and come back to your sim after an 8 hour workday, find the sim still flying and nearing the destination, will the flight time be recorded as “Your” flight time ?
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I have just over 200 hours flight time in this version of Flight Simulator. I used to play MSFS 2004 back in the day too. I avoided flight simulators for a long time because they tend to occupy many hours of my life.
You can use it for flight following. You won’t have much interaction with ATC beyond flying in and out of controlled airports and airspace though.