House rules: “laws” that only apply among a certain group or a certain place.
What rules do you follow in flight sim that are illogical, only apply to you, but make simming fun? For the most part I try to follow real world regs, procedures and practices but not always. Here are some of my ‘leniencies’:
Extra Special Visual Flight Rules: avoid clouds unless I can’t be bothered deviating
I don’t like flying at night in the sim (can’t see anything), so -12 hours for the flight time if at night. I.e. 9pm becomes 9am.
No bathroom breaks until I’ve landed if in a small GA plane. Airliner is fine to take breaks - the Captain can duck back to the john.
For immersive commercial jet flights, I am restricted to not viewing the airplane from the outside during flight for more than a couple minutes.
I never fly the airplane from outside view, but will occasionally see if the lighting and scenery are good for a screen shot.
I have a similar bathroom break rule in that the airplane must be equipped with autopilot and it must be engaged during said break, and only if top-of-descent is 30 minutes away or further.
The time, weather and traffic must be the same as real world wherever I’m flying.
Always real time, real weather, real traffic.
Always take-off from where I last landed.
Always cockpit view (or drone when parked up).
Only change plane at home airport (EIWT) and rarely do, 99% of time I’m in 172 Classic or 152.
Next flight always starts where the previous flight ended. Not necessarily same airport but at least same city (back in the days when I had more spare time each landing was followed by loading up a helicopter or car, fly or drive to the nearest city, find a nice looking autogen building that got designated as a hotel, and land on its rooftop to spend the night. Next flight started by loading up the saved flight at the hotel, fly or drive back to the airport, and load up my plane for the flight.)
First flight in an aircraft I have not flown before must be made from the factory where it was produced. Biggest challenge thus far was locating the little farm strip where the Solo 103 is built…
As I’m typically flying the Tomcats, my rules (for national security reasons of course) have Military Privilege/Clearance.
No less than 3,000ft cruise altitude above residential dwellings
Must call into or pass over a Military Airbase every once and awhile on way to selected destination to get briefings or radar calibrations during flyovers.
Always start from Airports I’ve landed at and land at one I’ve been before or a new one if the runway is long enough to accommodate
If I want to go to places I’ve never been before, I first must fly there in order to essentially “unlock” that region as like adding my own type of progression system
Since flying a Supersonic aircraft, I abide by a twisted version on the FAA rules regarding sonic booms, I must be over a large body of water when hitting Mach 1 at least FL150 a few miles offshore or climb to at least FL260 over land outside highly populated areas
I like that others plan their next flight from previous destination.
Mine are:
-Always plan flight gate to gate
-Always fly with live weather and live traffic on
-Never have multiplayer on
-Flight number is always 574
-Always have PACX running if flying the airbus
-Usually hand-fly departure to 7000ft
-Always disable autopilot from 7-10 miles out assuming visibility allows
-Always enable FlightControlReplay on approach to replay landing from cabin/ wing view
-Seldom fly at night.
-Seldom do flights which have a block time of over 3 hours.
PACX is a passenger addon that keeps me company with sounds and animations. It tracks flight phases and then performs certain actions and allows you to interact to an extent. It is very stable and I thoroughly recommend it.
74 is the year of my birth. The 5 was just an extra number I added in front.
But I do like it when the Cabin crew says “Welcome aboard flight Five Seventy Four with destination of XXXXX” when the Airbus rolls back from the gate.
What happens in an emergency? Ditch in a field ? I suppose for realism I could keep a “piddle pack” in my pocket like a fighter pilot but I don’t think my wife would be too impressed
I think you may be pleasantly surprised. PACX is already stable on the PC and a relatively vanilla addon so maybe it won’t be so difficult to migrate across to XBox … perhaps?
-If flying VFR I may use multiplayer and if so I try to follow real world procedures to the best of my limited ability (especially so if using “Live players only” mode as I assume these players are looking for the most realism)
-If flying IFR I have multiplayer off to avoid other players interfering with my attempted plans
