What is your longest non-stop flight in real life and in the sim?

Discussion Hub World Discovery
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In Real Life: 18 hrs. Used to be the world’s longest non-stop from Singapore to New York. It was an Airbus A350-900ULR. I was a passenger, and the flight has no economy class but business & premium economy only.

In the Sim: 38 hrs, 54 mins. From Singapore to Bora Bora Islands. Yeah, it is impossible. It was VORs to VORs, a total of 17 VORs, coupled with GPS, and with 12 airport overflights simulating re-fueling.

Why? Well, I used to be a sailor. My longest sailing time at sea was 30 days, from Panama to Japan. There was no internet, but we have the comfort of X-Band & S-Band Radars. This was a surprise to me that even the most sophisticated commercial aircraft does not have one. Flirting with a storm in the middle of the Pacific Ocean was normal, and somehow enjoyable. It was bonding with nature, and it breeds patience and resilience in every skillful sailor. For the same reason, I chose a GA plane. The Mooney is fast & a combo of old-school and modern avionics.

My rig is air-cooled Ryzen 3700xt with RTX 3070. Happy so stable!

Did I sleep? Same when I was sailing. I slept, and set my alarm on crucial waypoints. We used to be on 4-hour watch shifts at sea. I am mostly at 3,000 ft but changing to 7,000 too when avoiding heavy rains. The lightnings were awesome too.

My flight plan. Never exceeded the endurance time of the Mooney on each leg, a bit of realism.

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The International Date Line Bug! The sim flight path showed I circumnavigated the whole world. :grinning:

International Date Line
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The amazing GTN 750 by PMS50 @ScorpionFilm422 helped me a lot to evade bad weather conditions. I am on live weather conditions. The unpredictable weather changes was fun.

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And my beautiful destination. Bora Bora Island. :heart_eyes:

Bora Bora Island
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Since I circumnavigated the world a couple of times when I was sailing, it would be normal for me to do 24 hours, or even weeks of non-stop flights. It is a beautiful sim, reliving my beautiful sailing journey.

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In real-life, It was 14hrs going from Los Angeles-Seoul on a Thai Airways 747-400

In the sim, I have done quite a few ULH flights…notably re-creating the Qantas project sunrise test flights, and a few Edmonton-Dubai flights using the 787-10 and the 747-8

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In real life as a passenger: Europe to Los Angeles → 12 hours
Real life as an Airline Pilot: That was when I was flying the Airbus IRL → 7 hours to Africa
In the sim: I used the B748 with Salty mod from Frankfurt to Mexico City → 11h30

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Wow, 14 hrs, as the pilot? The Qantas project is cool too. In real life, Singapore - Dubai was our usual route… as a passenger :grinning:

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Please accept my smartest salute! I would always like to sit and drink with real life pilots and learn from you guys. I have a couple of commercial pilot friends and two on air force,… always a long and interesting conversations sharing our experiences on two different fields. I inquired last year for PPL, but due to my present workload & covid restrictions, real life flying is booked on my next life :grinning:

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The 1924 Around the World Flight.
First Division Leg.

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My Flight Plan, 17 VORTAC/VORs to guide me. 5,295 nm, around 30 hrs flight time.

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The great circle is much shorter, but let the 1924 Air Service Pilots be my inspiration albeit I am on much faster aircraft, but still a GA plane, with old-school VORs navigation. A lot of coffee to stay awake, and the stability of the sim & of my rig. :grinning:

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Just checked my logbook. My longest flight was 17:01 JFK-HKG :astonished:

Turns out 16 out of my 20 longest flights (all 16 hours+) are to/from JFK. The others were to or from EWR, BOS & ORD.

I’ve also had a LAX-HKG sector take 15:54. That flight felt like it took forever, especially given the flight over 2 days earlier was more than 3 hours quicker! Winter jet streams over the Pacific often cause this.

I tend to stick to much shorter sectors in the sim, 3-4 hours being the sweet spot.

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@Norman999933 Wow! 20 x 16+ hours flight. You are a flying zombie hahaha!

I just ordered my Reverb G2, so yes, my flights will be of 2 hrs max maybe. I read so much immersive feedback from VR users. I will still continue around the world in shorter legs.

Enjoy flying :grinning:

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Exploring the world with my new plane and custom livery.
Piper Turbo Arrow III on Nat Geo Wild Jurassic Theme. Fits my around the world mission. :grinning:

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Spent several days delivering from the Witchita factory a brand new Cessna 172 to a customer on the Isle of Man VFR via Newfoundland, Greenland, Iceland and Ireland … It was very exhausting I can tell you.

But IRL I haven’t been inside a cockpit since I was about 7yrs old at Farnborough Airshow. :crazy_face:

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4.5 hrs from the Caribbean to the US which isn’t that long.
As for the sim I completed my longest flight only two days ago.Heathrow to JFK.6hrs 44mins.Flights in the sim would be 2hrs max as I was worried it would CTD if I go over but turns out the sim was stable ok the entire 6+hrs flight.
I’m planning to fly the 787 from Amsterdam to DC.

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Three long distance flights with the DC-6 into Antarctica as in IRL until recently, try “life weather” for adrenaline:

  1. Invercargil NZNV - McMurdo NZPG: 3500km

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  2. Ushuaia SAWH - Belgrano Station SYAB: 2900km
    (you land on ice, so no worries about runway length…)

  3. Reunion FMEE - Kergueles Islands KGPF: 3500km
    (need to download Kerguelen Islands fictional Airport - Port-aux-Français French Antarctican Islands » Microsoft Flight Simulator, you can overshoot the runway on gravel without problems.

hope Aerosoft ports their old FSX-Antarctica scenery soon!

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Thank you, that is cool. Sure exhausting but must be amazing too.

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Thank you very much. Happy flying!

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That’s almost 7 hours, and definitely not a short flight.
How was your Amsterdam to DC flight?

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Antarctica must be beautiful. One of the continents (plus Arctic region) that I have never been yet in real life. Enjoy exploring the world.

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Have not gotten the time to do that yet and the 787 just does not fly well for me.With SU5 improving performance hopefully its stutter free may able to jump on it next weekend or sometime this week.

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Yes sure, expecting better performance with SU5. Enjoy your weekend.

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My Reverb G2 arrived.
I sold my Ultrawide screen, and settled for smaller screen just for flying.
For long flights, I have my bike on trainer.
Keeping my fitness while enjoying flying.

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I have considered circumnavigating the world in my C140 but range is an issue.

I suppose I could take the float version and land on water and top up from an imaginary support team who fuel me up from a rubber dinghy :smiley: