Struggle to decide where to fly

This is an odd question, but I often decide to get some time in on MSFS but struggle to decide where to fly…

I live fairly central in the UK and it seems that when I start up MSFS and stare at the map screen I rarely know where to fly and keep going back to fly around Las Vegas, Los Angeles or New York in a Cessna or similar.

Are there any resources around that suggest flights, airports etc for flights that I can work my way around? it does seem a waste to keep flying round the same places and I don’t seem to be able to come up with good flights on my own…

Thanks for your help.

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This might be something for you:

https://worldtour.flights/

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Or find some form of flight purpose. If you like flying in the US a trip to all state capitols for example, or Major League games, Nascar Cup races…
I personally use FSE to give me a “reason” to fly and it also creates the incentive to calculate effective routes etc.

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The SkyPark helps me a lot with this! It gives you missions which gives you an excuse to fly somewhere, earn cash, etc. Similar addons are more into fleet/business management whereas the SkyPark really is about just getting out and flying without a lot of complexity. Happy flying!

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This is what I do, decide what region you want to fly in, US, Europe etc, pick a starting airport, now I fly GA, Arrow or Warrior, I use a small program called Destination finder, another is LetsFly, you enter your departure, distance you want to fly, there are other options like direction or only certain types of airfields, number of airfields generated etc, and it will generate a number of destination airfields, up to a hundred I think, then I use a random number generator to pick a number, so if the number is 18, I pick the 18th generated airfield and fly to there, then that airfield becomes my next departure. You never know what you might see or discover as you fly along.

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Moved to #flying:world-discovery

Just use your imagination… I just finished a flight from San Juan PR to TNCM. The excuse was that the owner of the Sunset Bar and Grill was low on a certain beverage and offered to pay me by the case. I asked him how many he was willing to buy, and he said he’d pay for whatever I could haul! My Kodiak and I made a nice run with a cargo deck filled with the nectar of sugar cane!

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Totally empathise with this.

For me flight simulator has been about learning new things, I’m a technical person and enjoy technical challenges so I’ve learnt how to fly the A32NX as in depth as I can (320 sim pilot on YouTube is an AMAZING resource for this, I think he talks things through in my language)

So I then use challenging flights and approaches to practice what I’ve learnt, be it landing the A320 in bad weather, or flying a SID or STAR using just the needles instead of the GPS in the TBM.

I am about to embark on learning the WT CJ4 which somehow I’ve managed to put off… I think because I’ve not yet found a YouTube resource like 320 sim pilot to teach me that plane.

Anyway not sure if any of this is up your street. I think it’s also easy to spend money on pay ware airports etc to make your flights more interesting, which is all well and good if you’ve got the disposable income.

Also for what it’s worth, as someone who enjoys IFR more than VFR, my Navigraph Subscription COMPLETELY changed my flight sim world and the way I fly and plan my flights.

I think the next thing I need to try VATsim again, because I think that will bring another huge challenge and element of community to it all - also amazing because it’s free!

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Start a world tour. Use the flight planner and fly one hour legs from location to location. It’s a nice way to see the world. I recently finished a visit to all the airports on the Canary Islands after flying serveral legs from the middle of Norway through Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, France, Spain, Portugal and Marocco, Lots of things to see and the topology of the scenery is fascinating. I use the TBM 930 for the longer legs, the Turbo Bonanza (mod) for the shorter legs. And the Icon A5 for local sightseeing. From the canaries I am going to visit Madeira before going back to Africa.

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Up the coast of Portugal from Lisbon to Porto is a nice flight.

I am flying constantly around the world… What I mean is I pick a departure point (my home airport), choose a plane that flies out of it (according to FlightAware if flying commercial) and go the next destination. Out of which I shall fly on the next time, again using FlightAware, switching airplane as and when needed (either commercial or private or GA), and so on. There is simply no limitation except your imagination. But at least you eliminate the question “Where do I fly from today?”. the destination is either your choice guided by what airplane you wish to fly, or the airliners used and the available destinations from your departure point.
That way you may fly a Cessna 172 one day, and a 748 the next, the FBW A320 thereafter and so on…

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Cities with photogrammetry are extra detailed.

Take a slow plane like the Savage, 152, or JMB.
Fly low and slow.

There’s plenty of photogrammetry cities all over the world.

Here’s a list that leaves out many but has most-

I fly GA planes and tend to fly, as in real life, locally from a base. One area is Denmark, my home country and the neighbouring countries, the other is Tasmania for some odd reason. I now know that place like my back pocket.

When I get adventurous I like to act a tourist and fly fx. from town to town along the coastline. Could be Italy or the UK, which I done recently. Look up online what’s to see and find a nice hotel for the evening and a local restaurant. Perhaps too much role playing for some, but it adds purpose and immersion to flying.

Take a look at some of the Bush Trips (including third party ones) for inspiration. You can even pull the flight plans out of them and just fly them outside the Bush Trips…

I tend to pick an area and then do hops between two points. Likewise when I was part of the FSX community we used to do regional flight plans we could either do as a group or individually.

As others said, start a world tour. You may start from your airport in a C172. Then upgrade on a faster plane, like the Bonanza, then hop on the TBM, to me the best compromise between performance and GA sightseeing. I also suggest to head towards part of the worls already included in one of the WUs. ANd also to fly with LittleNavMap or similar on a side screen, to look around on a map places you overfly. It will happen to you to discover you are on a location mentioned in a book you read, or a historical place you studied at school, all places that are worth of a 360 circle on them. And besides of this, you will discover how big is the world, and how bigger it was just 100 years ago…

There are some great suggestions here, thank you…

Try NeoFly. Completely free and will give you many reasons to fly.

Do the bush trips, do the achievements, the landing challenges, explore the world map and go where the starred landmarks are…

I second that idea - I’m taking part in ‘Around the World in 80 days’ which was a bit rash. But I’m learning a lot - or rather, finding out how little I know which is much the same! Also, I use Little Navmap alongside which is a great help with flight planning and tracking during the flight. My ‘local’ airport is East Midlands EGNX, btw.

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I found that when I didn’t know anymore what to do in my flightsim it’s best to change the purpose of my flying. For example like you I flew around in a VFR plane and watched some scenery. After some time I struggled and then I found it’s best to for example do some IFR procedure training. Or emergency practice like engine failures, stall recovery training or even change the sim for a while and go to DCS for a completely different purpose. This training comes in handy in DCS too btw lol.

And sometimes it’s just right to turn the PC off completely and go out :smiley: The UK has some amazing landscape to discover from the ground =)

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