As the title suggests, what exactly is a “serious simmer”?
There are all types of pilots in this community, but I keep hearing about the “serious simmer”. Does this individual belong to a virtual airline? Fly on Vatsim?
I’m the type of simmer that makes up a flight plan, start my engines without using control easy, go through all the motions and not use slew/acceleration, and I do things as close to real life as possible. I also expect a very high degree of realism in the models I fly. (which I’m not seeing for Xbox at the present time, but enough about that…)
I always thought I was a serious simmer. What is your definition of serious vs. casual?
I don’t think Vatsim contributes much to serious simming. All it does lets you talk to real people. Really, that’s it. First ask the question, what is serious simming? It’s meant to replicate real life flying. But real ATC procedures represent what? About 20% of the total time a pilot spends behind their controls? People take the real ATC thing too seriously. All it does it is add immersion to your total experience. Cherry on top of the cake. Anyone can talk on the radio.
Serious simming is more about adhering to dep/arr charts, reading airport ground taxiing charts, following checklists/procedures,
evaluating METAR/TAF reports, reading airport/route NOTAMS, inspecting SigWX and wind charts. Reading real FCOM/FCTM documents and applying them to your flying. Using the TOPCAT tool and considering how different conditions may affect your take-off/landing. The list goes on, and on, and on. That’s what’s being a serious simmer, because when behind the controls of the plane, 80% of flying somehow will take into account of all those things.
I hate no idea what exactly the yardstick for being a serious simmer is, but when I joined the Facebook PC MSFS group, because I originally came from XBox and wasn’t a “serious simmer” I was met with so much hate and attacked so much, I left the group. Which seems a little crazy. If you are a first time PC buyer, never had anything else in your life, and join the group, you are welcome. If you uninstall the XBox version, buy a PC and all the equipment, you have to meet this definition of “serious simmer”. I would have assumed being into MSFS enough to outlay $8000 for a PC, monitor, peripherals, and VR would have shown enough commitment, but it seems you have to reach “serious simmer” classification before you can be accepted and treated with respect, and I have no idea what the benchmark is for “serious simmer”
A delusional elitist who’s under the impression he could cold start, taxi, take-off, navigate and land a jetliner perfectly with zero actual training or certification.
Well I do most of that… But usually in a way that doesn’t bother me all too much. Because if I do all that and have to collect, read and analyse that, the weather is probably changed already by the time I’m half way through the originating checklist.
So I suppose I’m a serious simmer yet a lazy one. Which, might I add, does indeed sound a lot like me: serious yet lazy.
A serious simmer for me is when the person enjoy using simulators And a serious sim is when it tries replicate the real thing as close as possible and the devs of it improve the realism all the time.
Nah on a more serious note. I’ve been doing this since the age of 13 so about 22 year now. At first I just liked to fiddle with everything, jump into a cockpit and click things, see what they do. Eventually you sort of get them off the runway in one piece and for a long time you thank god for ILS-approaches as they ‘autoland’ it for you.
I suppose I became a serious simmer ever since catching up with PMDG (which was relatively late for me, about 10 years later). The first time I sat in that 747-400 cockpit I realised I knew nothing about aviation. Haha. So I had this side job at a call centre and I was replying to customers on my own autopilot, I read their 747-400 manual from cover to cover, experimenting with it in the evenings and slowly I got a small understanding. …I then fell absolutely in love with the MD-11 and from that moment on I started to actively watch youtube videos and -that- turned me into a serious simmer. Once you start watching those endless videos hours on end and practice in the sim all the procedures you witness there …yeah, that’s art starting to imitate life and life imitating art. From that point on sir, I was under the strong impression, that I
an aircraft nerd who was amazed with fs 96 some much he dumped his playstation one and paid £700 for a pc then that now doesnt compare to a toaster. then caught on to fs 2004, spent his 40th birthday in the Arizona desert in an aircraft grave yard and is now loving VFR- ing round the world in fs 2020
I think I am serious, serious about learning and enjoying myself at the same time. I spend a lot of time “flying” and reading and learning. I am in no doubt that this is just for fun and try to not let anyone spoil it by telling me I am not serious, and it is working for me.
Well, some centuries ago when I was part of the Falcon 4 Superpak Team we had some kind of the same discussion in the Team.
Some guy had the idea to let the “real simmers” sit in the briefing for 1 or 2 hrs, let them do the paperwork for 1 hr, or maybe 1/12 hrs. Then let them walk to the AC and talk to the CC and again do some paperwork. Let 'em walk around the plane and check everything the real Viper-Driver checks.
Then of to a sortie for about 1 or 2 hrs with nothing happening. No threat, just flying Air Patrol.
Land and off to the debrief, another 2 hrs.
We all laughed and decided to not do this.
Not because we would not be able to implement it.
Because all the “serious simmers” would go haywire and scream to us "We just wanna go flying … "
