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The usage of VR is steadily increasing, Norway has the most flight simulator enthusiasts per capita and Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 is still the most popular flight simulator software. These are some of the findings presented in the FlightSim Community Survey 2022. For the seventh consecutive year, Navigraph partnered with 35 major addon developers and organizations within the flight simulation community to organize the FlightSim Community Survey, the world's largest and most comprehensive survey of its kind. A total of 25,400 respondents contributed to this year's survey to help develop the flight simulation community. Virtual Reality Development The VR usage has been increasing steadily over the past two years according to the respondents. More than one in four now owns a VR headset, and over 62% of the VR owners use it for flight simulation. The most popular headset is the HP Reverb G2, which is primarily used by more than 37% of the respondents. In 2nd place, we find the Oculus Quest 2 at almost 25%, followed by the Oculus rift Sat 12%. Popular Graphic Cards It is not a secret that flight simulators can be demanding when it comes to graphics card performance. With over 82%, Nvidia is clearly the most popular manufacturer of graphics cards among the respondents. This year, the RTX 3080 is the most popular graphics card used by17.2% of the Nvidia owners, followed by the RTX 3070 at 10.9%. When it comes to AMD, the Radeon RX 5700 XT is the most used AMD graphics card at 14.0%. The second most popular one is the RX 6900 XT, closely followed by the RX 6800 XT. Challenges Within Flight Simulation When asked about the hardest parts of flight simulation respondents rated Weight and Balance, Radio Communications and Power vs. Economy in cruise among the most challenging areas. The results also found some weaknesses in slow flight, control wheel steering, descent planning, and VNAV. Most Popular Flight Simulation Software This year, X-Plane 12 was launched, but Microsoft Flight Simulator2020 remains the most popular flight simulator software. The combat simulator DCS World is now in third place, pushing Prepar3D into fourth place. Prepar3D by Lockheed Martin is now in collaboration with Unreal Engine to create next generation simulations, and we will keep monitoring the development. Real Pilots And/or Simmers? During the past five years conducting the survey we have found that on average 27.1% of the respondents hold some sort of pilot license. On average, 9.6% of these hold a Private Pilot License, or a PPL. So, 1 in 4 have some sort of license, and 1 in 10 has a PPL. Out of the rest, 8.5% of the respondents are enrolled in flight school. Among the ones that were not flight students 25% are still considering taking real-world lessons within the next year. The main purpose of using the simulator seems to be more about having fun. Only 6% state that they use the flight simulator for training towards a pilot license. The majority, 49%, say that they use the simulator out of curiosity or just a general interest in aviation. Residence of Simulator Pilots When comparing the latest United Nations world population numbers against the survey data, focusing on countries with more than 5million citizens, the result shows that there are the most flight simulator enthusiasts, per capita, in the following countries: Norway New Zealand Switzerland The Netherlands United Kingdom We would like to thank all of the partners who have contributed to this year's survey with questions and/or distribution of the survey: Aerosoft Airfoillabs BelGeode BRAVO737 Carenado Cruiselevel.de Delta Virtual Airlines Fenix Flight1 FlightGear FlightSim.com FlightSimulator.blog Fly By Wire FSElite FSA/FSExpo FSHub FSMagazin FSNews24 GeoFS Glass Cockpit HeliSimmer.com Honeycomb Infinite Flight IVAO Laminar Research MSFSAddons.com ORBX PilotEdge PMDG RealSimGear SimFlight SimWorks Studios The Flight Lounge TorqueSim Aircraft Development VATSIM What has been presented here is just scratching the surface of our full report, which has many more questions, diagrams, and comments. You'll find it here. If you would like to do analyses on your own, you can download the data from here. (The data was collected anonymously and no personally identifiable information exists in this dataset.) Please share your findings with the rest of the community using the hashtag #flightsimsurveyanalysis. All for now, The Navigraph Survey Team

/images/notams/notams22/navi1118a.jpgFlightSim Community Survey 2022 Now Online!Nov 18 to Nov 28 Navigraph is conducting a FlightSim CommunitySurvey together with several major addon developers and organizationswithin the flight simulation community. The survey, the largest of itskind, aims to gauge the prevailing flight simulation trends and users’requests for future development. Take The Survey Here Like previous years, this survey has an emphasis on the majorflight simulators such as Microsoft Flight Simulator, Lockeed MartinPrepar3D and Laminar Research X-Plane, but the survey also includesquestions about add-ons, tools, and flight simulation consoles. This is the largest and most comprehensive flight simulation surveyin the world! By participating you are influencing the future of thecommunity. The results from the survey will be presented onhttps://blog.navigraph.com Mid-December, but also by the partnersparticipating to this survey (to the extent they wish to do so). Take The Survey Here

/images/notams/notams21/surv1126.jpg Once again this year Navigraph organized a detailed surveyfor the flightsim community which was promoted by FlightSim.Com andmany other flightsim companies and groups. The results from the 24,200participants are now available, available as a video as well asdetailed answer results: Is Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 continuing its successfultrajectory? How many are planning to buy the upcoming X-Plane 12? Whatis the current situation on VR and flight simulators? What does thepreferred flight simulator setup look like? Are we happy with ourgraphics cards? Read on to find the complete report, the surveydataset and some highlights from the results. This is the sixth consecutive year that Navigraph organise theFlightSim Community Survey, the world's largest and most comprehensivesurvey of its kind. In 2016 and 2017, the survey was organized byourselves, but since four years back we are relying on our partners toreach as many flight simulator pilots as possible. All companies,addon developers, interest organisations and media outlets in thecommunity can help circulate the survey among their customers, users,members and readers. If you want to get involved in the future, do nothesitate to reach out to us via email:survey@navigraph.com. Year after year, we get impressed by the collective power of thecommunity. During the 10 days the survey was live, 24,200 respondentstook the 93 question long survey, which is 700 more respondents thanlast year. We are of course very grateful to all of you who chose togive 20 minutes of your time to help guide projects and development inthe flight simulation community. In a way, it is also a gift toyourselves because by giving us your feedback you can help create thecommunity you want to be a part of in the future. The data you have provided has been processed by the Navigraphteam, and we present it to you in the form of a video that you canwatch by and in a free survey report that can bedownloaded from here.We will also present some highlights from the survey further into thisblog post.Just like last year, we are also making the data we collectedavailable for free for anyone that wants to do analyses of theirown. You will find the datasethere.Just make sure you share any findings with the community under thehashtag #flightsimsurveyanalysis. The report, graphs and video are shared openly with the communityfor everyone’s benefit. We only ask that you credit Navigraph and keepthe CC BY-SA 4.0 license of any derivative work. More...

/images/notams/notams21/surv1126.jpgNov 26 to Dec 6 Navigraph is conducting a FlightSim CommunitySurvey together with several major addon developers and organizationswithin the flight simulation community. The survey, the largest of itskind, aims to gauge the prevailing flight simulation trends and users'requests for future development. Like previous years, this survey has an emphasis on the majorflight simulators such as Microsoft Flight Simulator, Lockeed MartinPrepar3D and Laminar Research X-Plane, but the survey also includesquestions about add-ons, tools, and flight simulation on mobiledevices and consoles. This is the largest and most comprehensive flight simulation surveyin the world! By participating you are influencing the future of thecommunity. On the 17th of December (tentatively) results will be presented onhttps://blog.navigraph.com,but also by the partners participating to this survey (to the extentthey wish to do so). Take The Survey Here

/images/notams/notams21/surv0113.jpgIt’s that time of the year again when Navigraph releases the annualflight simulation community survey - and what a year it has been!There are three new flight simulators released: Lockheed MartinPrepar3D version 5 in April, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 inAugust, and Laminar Research X-Plane 11.50 in September. How have theybeen received so far? Which flight simulator platform is the mostpopular? Read on to find the complete report, the survey dataset andsome highlights from the results. We had a fantastic turnout this year. In 2018 we had 15,000respondents. Last year we had 17,800 respondents, but this year anamazing 23,500 respondents provided us with the data that we now giveback to you in the form of this video, and a free survey report of 120pages which you can download here. This year we are also doingsomething really special to further amplify the collaborative natureof this survey. We are making all of the data we collected availablefor free for anyone that wants to do analyses of their own. You willfind the dataset here. Just make sure you share any findings with thecommunity under the hashtag #flightsimsurveyanalysis With 23,500 respondents, 119 questions and 30 partners theFlightSim Community Survey by Navigraph is the biggest and mostcomprehensive survey of its kind. The primary purpose of the survey isto provide the participating partners with information about theflight simulation community so that they are better able to: recruit new pilots to the flight simulation communitydevelop products and services in response to pilots’ needs and requestsThe secondary purpose of the survey is to provide all members ofthe flight simulation community with information so that they arebetter able to: find resources to develop their flight simulation interestmaintain and develop the communityThe report, graphs and video are shared openly with the communityfor everyone’s benefit. We only ask that you credit Navigraph and keepthe CC BY-SA 4.0 license of any derivative work. Source

/images/notams/notams20/surv1113.jpg13-23 November 2020 Navigraph is conducting a FlightSim CommunitySurvey together with several major add-on developers and organizationswithin the flight simulation community. The survey, the largest of itskind, aims to gauge the prevailing flight simulation trends and users'requests for future development. Like previous years, this survey has an emphasis on the majorflight simulators such as Microsoft Flight Simulator, Lockeed MartinPrepar3D and Laminar Research X-Plane, but now also includes questionsabout simulators on mobile devices, combat simulators, and helicoptersimulation. This is the largest and most comprehensive flight simulation surveyin the world! By participating you are influencing the future of thecommunity. On the 10th of December (tentatively) results will be presented on https://blog.navigraph.com, but also by the partners participating to this survey (to the extent they wish to do so). Take The Survey