I’m extremely curious. A majority of posts on this forum and others are about flying airliners. What is the general consensus on the number of airliner pilots and why are they so popular?
… Because an airline’s pilot is more attractif for young generation (but not only) than a bush (who’s aware even that it’s a way of flying), a bizjet pilot or worst… a C172’s pilot (replace C172 by any SEP aircraft) ! No offense, I fly only general aviation SEP in MSFS, I’m a real PPL and build scenery only for GA 
11 Likes
There’s a persistent rumor that many people got in the habit of doing IFR flights with complex airliners in the days of flight simming when the scenery wasn’t very detailed, so the procedures and systems were the most interesting part of a long flight. 
Personally I prefer ad-hoc VFR flying, even when I “go realistic” and try to work out a proper flight plan around airspaces, obstacles, fuel & emergency planning etc – and certainly the much improved scenery in MSFS 2020 was what dragged me back into simming after many years away, since it made looking out the window a lot more attractive.
(I fiddled with a number of pre-MSFS and MSFS flight sims in the 80s and 90s but I think left off with the '95 version that barely had ground textures )
14 Likes
As someone who only recently started liking airliners, I can say they can be very comfortable to fly with a large, well laid out cockpit, etc… Some of the most involved aircraft are the airliners. so they are fun to master. When I want to get some miles behind me, I want the comfort of an A380, for example.
I am busy learning to hand fly them with as little AP assistance as possible. I’m not much into pushing a lot of buttons.
5 Likes
But that in itself isn’t very realistic
8 Likes
Not really, but I imagine the test pilots have to fly them like that. Airbus’s are easier to fly than the Boeing’s, so they seem more popular to me.
1 Like
They’re the most technically intensive avionics, so it has that appeal. Plus airliners are the most ubiquitous flying experience in any given population, so it’s not surprising that simmers want to know what it’s like to control one having been a likely passenger.
6 Likes
Several reasons:
One: it’s a career goal for many people.
Two: faster, higher, bigger
Three: airline flying has been more “realistic” than its counterpart in the last couple decades of simming prior to 2020, due to the lack of ground fidelity that you need for VFR and bush flying. Not that it was wholly unavailable, but the resources for proper VFR were few and far between, costly, and stretched computers beyond the capability of most.
Four: VFR/GA and/or bush flying is not always accessible worldwide (in real life). Military and airlines is the only accessible track in many countries, so VFR (outside of initial training) isn’t part of the schema.
And five: believe it or not, on the surface flying a modern airliner is more accessible to the novice because unless there’s some sort of failure or emergency (which aren’t really modeled or expected in the sim), it barely involves stick and rudder skills, or the depth of knowledge that it takes to successfully navigate down low, under VFR. Don’t get me wrong, RW airline pilots have been there, done that, and their level of training and redundancy allows them to revert to the more unusual, rare situations if needed.
But airliners generally don’t have to worry to the same degree about left-turning tendencies, density altitude, most adverse weather conditions (especially in the sim), rough fields, very short runways behind very tall trees, a panoply of different airspace and airports, being slooooow, or running into mountains or other obstructions. They have other concerns, for sure, but those don’t become as apparent in the sim.
I don’t say this to demean airline flying or those who do it in the sim, but the hardest part about sim airline flying is the single-pilot nature of it and perfecting the resulting flows thereof, as well as management of the automation. These are difficult in their own right and many people enjoy it (including me at times), which is great, but it’s a different world than VFR flying down near the rocks. Outside of some military sims with limited scope, this sim has really been the first time that kind of flying has been a front and center feature.
5 Likes
Why not tubeliners? I enjoy the challenge of mastering particular aircraft and the big jets provide that challenge for me. I can fly the C172 and enjoy that just as much but for different reasons. The variety and types of all the aircraft are what make the sim so accessible to all skill levels. We probably see more posts about jetliners(if that’s actually the case) because more users have a time trying to figure some of them out.
1 Like
Oh i duno, if you ask a youth “would you rather fly an airliner or be a fighter pilot?” I recon 75% would say fighter pilot without hesitation
3 Likes
i like to recreate flights i see in the movies
yeah, i’m weird like that
2 Likes
Fighters and military aircraft in general live in a kind of unique zone in MSFS. Lots of people like to fly them (again, great!), but few know how to do it the “right” way, and weapons/sensor employment is not simulated anyway. That, along with the myriad restrictions on useful data mean most of the sim military platforms live in the uncanny valley of looking mostly like the real thing, but not actually flying or behaving like the real thing, at least not discernibly to the majority of us who haven’t flown them (or can talk about those kinds of details for those who have). And I’ve found they often get panned for that in social media. Again, there are some exceptions.
Historical or one-off aircraft often suffer from similar issues. Few people have the experience to sign off on saying “yeah, this is totally realistic.” So things are often approximated using best guesses. It remains a fun avenue for lots of folks, in a rip-around down low way, but is a turn-off for others looking for a more immersive or realistic experience. YMMV
Airliners are very complex and fun to learn, I find regional and low budget airline flying is the most fun because the flight time on those routes aren’t super crazy and your not going to the huge mega cities all the time
6 Likes
My answer would be…
I like airliners. Also I like to fly real flight lines from some airlines.
It is intresting to enter route manually, fuel, pax and baggage.
I like to take GA sometimes, but I don’t know where to fly, where to see something interesting, like nicr scenery. I do fly sometimes.
And also I take sometimes some random GA or military jet just to fly around. Problem is in that kind of flights I do VFR and at unfamiliar areas I get lost. Mostly when I fly those flights I fly them over my country and cities I know.
3 Likes
I live in the Pacific North West, so I have a nice loop around Seattle and Vancouver that includes great scenery and wonderful sunrises and sunsets. I say “loop” because it helps to have a favourite track to fly like the famous Mach Loop. This area works quite well for both GA and airliners.
3 Likes
That would be a fun survey. My children, while I always try to get them to fly something that’s easy to maneuver, always immediately grab the biggest possible jet they can get their hands on.
But this touches on something I was going to mention too. That it’s also cultural. A disproportionate number of simmers compared to the total gaming population are based in the UK and Northern Europe, and the large majority of them seem to gravitate toward commercial jetliners I’ve noticed.
2 Likes
I’m going to add another thing about the airliner aspect:
The thing most people judge an airline flight on is did it get to the destination on-time and was the flight (including the landing) smooth. That’s a really achievable target in the sim, especially given that the stock version doesn’t have a lot of realistic obstacles to that (in the way of realistic ATC, traffic, equipment failures, and no-go weather). There are plenty of YouTube videos from the airline cockpit (outside mid the US) that skip/time-lapse through cruise and just focus on the task-heavy parts. It’s that and our exposure as passengers where we get the notion for success and desire to replicate, despite there being much more to it in the real world.
Conversely, not a lot of people know what the targets are for GA-type flying because of the relative lack of exposure. If it’s a training environment, there are a ton of targets, but most people don’t know them or know how to judge them, before they even develop the skills to achieve them. Even in a cross-country, realistically there is a lot going on, but most folks don’t know how to judge that. And the lack of vestibular sensation and control force is a bigger detriment to realism in the GA world.
Performance feedback in the sim is nil for either, which I believe has a more pronounced effect on the mundane outcome of a GA flight. If there was a real pilot or instructor sitting next to you on a GA hop, giving you feedback, the level of intensity would match or maybe exceed that you get from managing a sim airliner during its critical phases (bets are off when it comes to an airliner in abnormal conditions or what they do in their own real-world sims). This is a big reason why there’s such a ridiculous over-emphasis on “butter” landings and landing rate in the sim, as it’s one of the few tangible aspects with which people can judge, regardless of experience level (and again, the stock sim does little to dispel that or properly emphasize those other targets).
Thus, in the sim both types of flying become a bowdlerized version of their real-world counterpart. But most people’s real-world experience gives more goal, meaning, and satisfaction to arriving safely 800 miles away in an airliner, versus successfully flying a Cessna from Bakersfield to Stockton in the same amount of time.
I like to put some gravitas into GA flying by either doing real-world maneuvers and scenarios, flight planning, IFR flying, etc. Or injecting history, geography, and other perspectives into sightseeing trips, answering the “what” or “why” of what we’re seeing rather than just admiring the beautiful scenery (which is totally awesome to do on its own).
3 Likes
I fly a wide range of stuff but primarily airline and military. I like airlines, specifically the plane and livery I took in real life. Pair that with custom airport scenery for places I’ve been, it’s fun to recreate that. Albeit I don’t do procedures etc, just external vfr rudimentary arcade flying. Fun to look at scenery
2 Likes
Full points for “bowdlerized”! 
Again, coming back to the marketplace data from Jorg, only 3M core simmers out of 15M with 6M of those being digital tourists. This is why there’s a place for both “easy to fly” airliners and full study airliners. We need to grow all the market segments, not just the study level ones.
3 Likes
Thank you for sharing! You’re highlighting exactly my point (and that’s totally okay - this is not a judgment). I think there is so much opportunity to enhance people’s enjoyment of VFR GA flying. Ya just gotta lead ‘em to it. That is an area in which the sim lacks the most because in the end, if you’re trying to do it realistically, it’s a lot of work that requires human feedback to get right.
But “proper” aside, the sightseeing aspect is great. Truth be told, if I’m purely sightseeing (no “proper” flying) in a large region, I prefer something high-performance and maneuverable so I can get the wider perspective from up high, then dip down into the muck - canyons, etc. There have been a lot of “ooh, that looks fun!” moments.
If the area is more jam-packed, like a city, a national park, or dense mountains, sometimes a slower aircraft (helicopters included) is more fun. Especially if we’re adding the thrill of landing at various difficult, smaller airports, or entirely off-airport.