Passengers complain about long flights, even though they get to eat, sleep and drink wineš· on the way. I can only imagine being a pilot is not an easy job. I end up here during my 1-2 hour flights to see if I can learn something new about this game.
My max for flying and actually paying attention is 2 hours and it starts to get shaky after about 1.5 lol. Generally the only time Iād even attempt a flight longer than that would be if I was really, really itching to fly a widebody airliner or something. In that case, Iād accelerate the sim to 4x or so.
I usually fly 90mins to 2 hour type routes in GA aircraft. Spend time during the cruise managing engines (mixtures!), running checklists, periodic fuel checks / tank switch-overs, monitoring for icing / checking to see if deicing is working, looking for traffic, looking at the scenery / clouds, admiring the aircraft cabin or fiddling with some fine point of the avionics. I also spend a while looking at approach plates are briefing myself for arrival.
I always fly āreal timeā and I never skip ahead. I also donāt ever leave the plane unattended on AP for more than 5 minutes (and even then I make sure I can hear the ATC.)
Recently I have been doing some longer routes (4 hours plus) and have found myself pretty busy en route, especially with storms and icing risk.
Iām glad that Real-Life pilots donāt do the things that many of your are suggesting.
I could just see the Captain taking a nap and listening to Spotify.
Really? That dude needs to be in control of this aircraft.
I am a bit shocked so many modern GA aircraft have hookups for your tunes etc! Itās not a freaking car!
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Iāve got some crazy long ones in there. I googled the longest flights and am trying to get as much of the list done as possible. Crazy challenge.
- Fly VFR. Youāll need to pay more attention.
- Leave the autopilot off, the autopilot doesnāt know how to keep separation from clouds anyway. Works best with aircraft with only a pitch trim.
- Have a planned country border crossing (with need to cross the border at set time) as part of the trip, gives you timetable to work against.
- Frantically go through (real life) charts in desperate attempt to find the right frequency for controlled airspace you are about to enter, only to discover the frequency Asobo actually used is nowhere on the charts.
- Find out that low lying clouds and VFR height separation rules have you cruising at uncomfortable 1500 feet instead of planned 5500 feet. Fly at unusually low RPM in hopes of abating noise.
- End up discovering a massive wall of IMC with no practical way around halfway through a 4 hour flight, abort your trip and fly to alternate airport to prepare for rematch.
Should keep you busy. No need for alt tabbing.
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What do you do during a long flight
Well this is actually a very interesting question I have wondered about myself.
Personally I dont get it. but that is my problem. But I prefer to fly
props and do short flights. Peferably as low tech as possible. So I like to fly from VOR/DME beacon to beacon.
I am therefore busy all the time as I have to keep an eye on the NAV indicator and distance to the beacon. Then retune to the next beacon, see the direction and change my heading accordingly.
But obviously I cant do long haul flights that way, it would take too long.
I use LittleNavMap to find a route between beacons, and print that flightplan out. This gives me all the info I need.
I then follow this plan.
Yup, old fashioned low tech.
But I am busy all the time. Flying, navigating, working ATC.
I have only flown a jet three times and ESC. out of each one as I suddenly thought
āwhat am I doing sitting here watching the screen like a video?ā. So it is not for me.
So I am really interested in why people do long haul in the simulator and what they get out of it.
What am I missing ?
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Nothing because the last time I left the plane all to itās self the autopilot went rouge when I went to shower
I wish Xbox version let us to long flight whenever they will fix it Iām going Tokyo to Chicago
I used to have one of those! 
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Only Ryanair and Spirit
Iām waiting for the a350 to come out so i can specifically do Sydney>London and Newark>Kuala Lumpur
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Iāve done most of the super long flights in the 78X and 747. I want the 380!
Yeah, that is a bit of a cheat. Iāve setup my own rules. Everything in real time, always. If I do want a shorter IFR flight, I do fly to closer destinations. Somethimes within 1 hour or so. But when I do have more time to kill, like I want to go out, shopping, etc. I deliberately pick longer flights, fly it, and go away to do other things which hopefully if I timed it properly would be in time for me to arrive back home for descent, approach, and landing. I got all the flight logged everything in real time.
I fly everything in real time. Most of my flights are usually under 90 minutes in the 737 and around 30 minutes in the DA40 VFR. If I have a lot of photos to work on, then that is a nice time to pick a longer flight say 4 hours or so. I use ForeFlight to log my flights just for fun. It is amazing how fast the flying time adds up.
I typically fly 45-90 minute flights, maybe 2 hours tops. During cruise Iām mostly watching youtube, browsing these forums or reddit, looking things up about the plane or route Iām flying. Sometimes Iāll go to third person view and play around with the weather.
Ha ha. Now thereās a thought
I see some replies showing that some gamers use time accel for long flightsā¦
I think you can sense where this is headed 
ā¦
ā¦if youāre going to time accel why not do a short flight in real time?
Apart from the long cruise what is different about long hauls? Iām just curious 
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still using your F18 textures in DCS
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