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What, oh what is there to do when you have logged a few thousand hours?
Well here are a few things that people have done over time, if you have any favorite things you would like to add
please let me know, also if you have any questions on a specific topic let me know and I may
be able to help.
Virtual Airlines
One of greatest flight sim past times of many virtual pilots is flying for a Virtual Airline.
Virtual Airlines have evolved greatly through the years and are now larger and more common than ever.
At one time there was about 3 or 4, decent ones. Now there are hundreds, including:
popular Noble Air,
Transit International Airways,
WestWind Airlines and many more.
A Virtual Airline normally follows a certain format. Most include many pilots, spread through
different hubs which are controlled by Hub Captains, some times with the help of Assistant Hub Captains.
Normally a ranking system is used based on how many hours a certain pilot has flown, ranks are
not always the same in different VA's, some include Flight Officers, Captains, Senior Captains, etc...
As well, most Virtual Airlines have their own aircraft, and sceneries for download, along with
manuals, schedules, and other information on making bids for flights, and sending in flight
reports, all is normally covered in manuals.
To sign up for a VA, normally one merely goes to the web site, and finds the recruitment, or
new users area, somewhere you should find a place where you sign up.
Virtual Airlines are a lot of fun, and sometimes work, some people find it hard to find the
time to fly their flights, others set up the computer over night, or turn on autopilot
and move on to other works. VA routes are extremely fun if you have flight charts, and other
real world navigation papers.
Cessna Tag- Is it just me or does the name say it all?
The basics of this simple game is easy, you connect and play with another user, I started
playing this with my cousin using FS5, and both take off from the same, or close airports.
Then you play tag, either by having crash detection turned off, or by try to get
in front of the other player. Now you must use the same type of aircraft, a Lear vs. a 182 RG is
simply not fair...but fun :)
Distortion- Now this is a game that requires some explaining.
It is simple, have a buddy come over and get flight sim turned on. Now you pick an
aircraft and set for a high altitude, normally between 20,000-40,000 MSL. Depending on
whose turn it is, have one person not look at the computer, or put them in another room.
Now you mess up the game, what I mean is, put it at really bad angles or attitudes, or in a
complete nose dive, turn off an engine or two, gear, spoilers, etc... While keeping it
fair enough for the person to possibly save it.
Now pause it, get the person in the room, but not looking, and unpause and have him try to
save the aircraft. NOTE however you will want to set realism to different effects, or else
you may encounter a problem of wings falling off long before he can even attempt to restart
a single engine.
Globe Spinning-a simple idea, merely return to the flying techniques of early flight simming..
Get a globe, spin it, and point your finger down to find a location, check for the the closest airport in FS to that location and fly their from your local airport.
The trick, is using nothing but the globe, and of course pressing Shift+Z to see your lat and long.
It is not the most accurate flying, but it gets you there. My cousin and I used to do it constantly..though
the 12 hour flight to Austrailia was a bit long, lets say we used video games, movies, the swimming pool, and
many other activities while auto-pilot was one.
Race ya!- to CMI.
Now this is an old one, everyone remembers their first simulated cross country flight, and I
don't mean from CGX-ORD. Yes, that first Lear or Cessna to CMI. Well if is that much more
fun to race a person via modem to that airport, simply because it is a short flight, and can stay rather close
when racing.
True you could race farther and different airports, and some people enjoy that, but this one
keeps the boredom level down since autopilot needs to never be engaged in this one
Real Airline Flights
- Now this is fun, and extremely simple.
Well, if VA's are not real enough for you, then why don't you fly a real airline flight.
It is simple to find airline aircraft, one of the greatest places to find wonderful airline
aircraft is at Project Freeware.
Then simply go and fly a flight for that airline. Personally I prefer United Airlines flights.
If you need help finding flights let me know, I have all kinds of great flights, and suggestions for scenerys to use with them.
Acrophobia
- This is fun for some people
Personally I have never really gotten in to it, but if you have FS95 or FS98 then you are
all set by already having an acrobatic plane installed.
Though this is fun even with a Cessna..(Gee... were my wings supposed to fall off like that?)..
Anyway it consists of the usual tricks and maneuvers and becoming ground darts. Low level
through Chicago is always fun. This is something that really happened to my father at a local
airport once however. He was cleared for takeoff in his little Piper, and to his
surprise found a nice 'liner coming in to land right in front of him, he was forced to dive down
and ended up at building level through downtown, (no not Chicago).
Controlling-Now I used to do this for a buddy of mine, simply because
he got tired of being talked to like it was a CB. And did not like finding stupid controllers
putting him at 5,000 ft when he was over 200 miles out in a 777.
Thankfully this is rarely a problem with all kinds of Controller instructors and
academies for simulation use. This is fun, and can be done either of two ways, using a program
called ProController for those running SquawkBox, both made by Jason Grooms, a great guy
I have had the please to know via the IRC as MeNtO, and also through EaglesATC.
Squawk Box and ProController
Communicating-Well, you have to find a way to spread your wild stories of flight sim
exploits don't ya?
Now there are several ways to communicate yourself on the net, personally I love the
IRC
Then there are Java chat rooms, and all kinds of junk.
Some people are members of places such as Microwings and Avsim and write articles for these magazines.
While other just enjoy using message boards at places like Microwings, e-flight,
Simulated Turbulence (what, you think I was not going to
mention it?),
VA boards, the many boards at flightsim.com and several others. Not to mention newsgroups.
Web Pages-one of my favorites :)
I find my self working more of web pages then flying seems lately. Anyway, there are
thousands of myriad personal web pages out there on flight-sim. One thing I must stress is
the need to find new and unique things provided at pages. Instead of finding more and more
of the same thing. Now there are already huge places like flightsim.com, wings.ark.com,
and IUP with gigantic storages of files, that is why you don't find a huge amount of files
at this site.
Many sites have these darn Parachat Java Chatrooms(just no one is ever in them), that is why
I merely liked to a friend of mine's Java Chatroom, not worth having another individual empty one.
Message Boards, File Libraries, Scenery Gallery's, and much more are becoming more and more
popular with places to get free space like Geocities
Then also people must also learn HTML, the programming language of web pages, and being good at
graphics help a lot too, now most people now a days have switched to using HTML editors like
MS FRONTPAGE, but all you really need a good text editor.
Scenery Building-Many people love building scenery.
Personally I have never been very good at it but there are many programs used to build
scenery, merely run a search at flightsim.com or look around at wings.ark.com such as BGLGEN, SCASM, FSASM, and there
are commercial products such as Scenery and Object Designer.
The one place I can point out that should help a lot is Tiger Mapping Service
with great digital maps to help you work.
Aircraft Design
-Just another one of them things I way never really good at
Sure I could build paper planes, and unrealistic/Sci-Fi aircraft, and I could re-paint aircraft
but I never got building commercial stuff down.
None the less hundreds of people love building aircraft and some are practical Guru's (sorry
Mike, could not help it). There are places like Project Freeware and Virtual Skunks where
aircraft designers gather into groups. And many do work only for virtual airlines.
What really got aircraft building going, after the come out of FS5, (I think you could build
with FS4, but then FS5 you could not), was the program called Flight Simulator Flight Shop by
BAO, now sold by Apollo. If you are an FS5x user, I suggest you order the program via
either fscentral, or 4CD's. It allows you to use other aircraft, build aircraft, fly adventures,
build adventures, and create flight plans..etc...
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