How many long haulers use the acceleration?

[CUJO]

Was wondering if people actually fly real-time from Paris to JFK and flights of the such, or does everyone use the rate increase and speed up past the boring endless ocean scene?

I'm debating a flight from Frankfurt to KMSP but didn't want to sit forever unless I took off when I went to bed and woke up to land. LOL.

[airkevin]

Depends. Sometimes, if I want to get that flight finished in the same day, I'll speed it up. Sometimes, I'll take off, go to sleep, wake up, and land. Or I'll take off, go to class, come back, and land. I actually did a 23-hour flight real time from Hong Kong to Amsterdam.

[MongooseMike]

If it's within a two hour real time distance, I usually keep it real. Beyond that, I will speed it up.
Can you say "watching paint dry"?

[CUJO]

That's my deal I want to do some trans-Atlantic flights, but yawn if I did it realtime. Even on some of my 2 hour jaunts I'll just let ATC drop my flight and then pick it up within 100miles while I do something else.

[lungho]

The only transatlantic trips I do is if I'm assigned a cargo run from my VA. And since I'm flying on Vatsim, it's not advised to increase the rate because my flight may not be tracked.....which means the cargo didn't get delivered and I'm on the hook owing $1000's for lost/undelivered product.

[kingnorris]

Since I have unlimited fuel, no crash, and no failures enabled, I speed it up all the time. After all, what's to monitor with these settings off? Lol.....

Besides, after reaching cruise altitude, real pilots do their own things as well, be it eating, watching a dvd, reading a book, etc.....correct?

[Kurtvw]

This thread is exactly the reason I don't do long haul flights... Its also why I fly mostly piston single engine...

Lets be real for a moment and drop all the pretense about who is a 'hard core' simmer...

People come in here all the time and swear they hand fly all their Airliner routes in the sake of realism... And that's swell except for the nagging fact that even real pilots DON'T.

The simple truth is there are two fun phases of flight (3 if you get out of your airliners... but only 2 in an airliner) those are

1) Takeoff/Departure
2) Arrival/Landing

If you don't fly airliners you get #3...
3) Screwing around, aerobatics, and flying under bridges...


But, 'Hard Core' guys would never do that...

While I do believe there are three people on Earth who hand fly 14 hour routes without autopilot, I don't believe that most people do...

As mentioned above it is like watching paint dry.

The posts in this thread so far prove that most people here aren't interested in doing that.

And that raises the question....

Why not just fly shorter routes that are more fun?

Of course most will say 'Realism'... But is it really 'realism' if you're in the other room watching the Simpsons, drinking a beer while your flight sim is set for 16x time compression?

If you really can't face tomorrow without landing at Amsterdam, why not just launch from London and reduce the fuel to the level you would see if you launched from New York?

Before the flame attack starts, let me say this... If you honestly enjoy a 15 hour New York to Tahiti flight in real time... MORE POWER TO YOU! I wish I did. But I bet 90% are gonna goose the time compression.

Give me my RealAir Spitfire and a little rowdy running within 100 miles of home with all the take-offs and landings I can stand! Because thats flying.

Letting my cigar tube burn a hole in 7500 miles of air while I ignore my computer... thats just not simming at all.

[Thralni]

When I di a long haul, I always fly in realtime. I always use VOR to VOR, IFR flights, meaning the ATC will talk to me now and then, and if I don't respond in time, my flight gets cancelled. Actually, even if it won't be an IFR flight, I like to look at the scenery. Of course when you're above sea all the time it's boring, but the flight I'm doing now is mostly over land.

I made a flight from Barajas madrid to Santiago de Chile once, and that was very boring. It was a 12 hour flight, with 7 or 8 hours solely over sea. I did it all in realtime though, since I liked looking at the islands, the boats here and there, and of course, ATC was talking to me from time to time.

[CUJO]

I'm not "hard core" because I fly large jets. I'm "Hard core" cause I spent a crap load of money on an upgrade and fly atleast everyday weather its just jumbo takeoff/landings, or getting my Jepsen calculator wheel out with my vfr charts and plotting fuel etc "flying my family" to our deer lease.

[Pete1_leeds]

personally i always fly my routes in real time, i am yet to use the time acceleration feature, however i am yet to do a route more than 4 hours. I tend to just fly in Europe and usually you can fly anywhere to anywhere in europe with 4 (or so) hours, however i dont just sit staring at the screen during my flights, i have radar contact v4.3 so i just hand the communications to the 1st officer and let the fmc do the navigating (unless weather is poor) and just monitor periodically until decent