Long Distance flights

[Howard Brennan 980082]

As a newbie I notice via servinfo some members making very long distance flights. My question is, are members allowed normal flights speeded up eg x2 , or does one sit there for hours as in real life?

Many thanks in anticipation of a reply.

Howard

[Craig Moulton]

Most (not all) do these flight real time. Some will use time accelaration. All my flights are 1X, though I don't often do the 6+ hour flights.

[Howard Brennan 980082]

Thanks Craig

The reason I asked is I recently flew from Heathrow to Vancouver in real life and 10 hours is a long time to sit at a computer to replicate that. In such cases I really wonder about no acceleration.

Regards

Howard

[Alan Withers 923603]

The only acceleration here is age and hairloss

[Nicholas Shepherd 909117]

If i'm doing a long flight (trans atlantic) i just set it up, and maybe go out for a few hours or got to school. It saves sitting there all that time.

[Brian Fuller 973577]

Then what is the point of even flying that distance?

[Matthew Horan 901577]

If i'm doing a long flight (trans atlantic) i just set it up, and maybe go out for a few hours or got to school. It saves sitting there all that time.

 

Disconnecting before you go, naturally

 

I haven't found enough free time to commit to a super long haul in quite some time now.. did manage to squeeze in a pond crossing this past weekend though, wish Oceanic had been on

[Jay Eklund]

Might I suggest "IWillBeBack" by Jose' Oliviera. Sorry Jose if I muffed the spelling. You can set your flight to pause and/or make selcal sounds in x number of miles. Great for those pacific crossings.

[Trent Hopkinson]

Vatsim has a requirement that you are able to check in every 30 minutes. At a practical level this means you can do things like ([Mod - Happy Thoughts]uming you are still hours from your destination and have either told ATC or there is no ATC and no traffic conflicts) eat dinner/do dishes/do washing/do homework etc while your plane is airborne as long as you can commit to checking your squawkbox for "Contact me" messages from ATC or "Hi im a supervisor checking in on your connection time is XXXX zulu" and dealing with them in kind. Of course if you get a contact me message, you may suddenly be inside controlled airspace now and unable to leave for a bit. It is best to do this over an ocean, as this is the areas least likley to have traffic conflicts. Over the continental USA is probably a worse idea due to traffic volume, and ATC might be irate by the time you come on his frequency 25 minutes after he contacted you however it is still technically legal to be unattended for 25 minutes. come 31 minutes however, a supervisor can remove your connection from the network and give you a suspention of a few hours or so.

 

It is probably best not to leave the house in a motor vehicle when connected to vatsim, as you don't want a traffic jam to cost you the next 2 days of vatsim.

[Jaap Veerman 977945]

Again, the KISS principle applies : stick to short-haul flights. What's the point of a long haul, especially without any ATC, sitting down, staring at your computer for hours on end? Or worse, as suggested in this thread, leaving your computer altogether?

 

I have been flying in the Holland/Germany/UK area, a very good spot to make flights of up to 1.5 - 2 hrs. with a good chance of having full ATC along the way. Makes crossing the ocean on your own look like a lonely walk in the desert...

[Thomas Hall 933426]

I fly X-plane 7.63 and it only has 1X. As Austin Meyer, X-Plane's creator, puts it, when you are really flying there is no 4X button in the cockpit. I usually check to see where there is ATC coverage and fly there. Two hours is about all the time my wife will let have. 8(

 

Most (not all) do these flight real time. Some will use time accelaration. All my flights are 1X, though I don't often do the 6+ hour flights.