Budget Flight Simulator

I am an avid simmer by heart. I enjoy taking time after a long day at work to put in a few flight hours as a relaxing activity. I work at a financial institution where every hour has to be accounted for! In addition, I don’t get to travel as much as I would like to because of my job position set up, but the opportunities for vicarious travel abound with Microsoft Flight Simulator. The experience becomes greatly enhanced when the perfect add-on sceneries are included. I think I know my way around the Seattle-Tacoma Intl., and Portland International airports pretty well now – even though I have never flown into any of them in real life.  I am now familiar with the South Florida coast line and the Islands of The Bahamas. This makes my real flight trips between South Florida and the Caribbean that much more exciting as I can pinpoint exactly where I am at any given time. Of course if the cloud cover makes a VFR flight difficult, the default Garmin GPS always comes in handy!

As I write this blog, I am reminded that many persons who start their flight experience in front of a PC have a very good chance of becoming real pilots, even if it doesn’t happen until years later. I got my private pilot’s license years after sitting in front of a PC for my first sim flight. I am currently sitting in my room in front of a “PC cockpit” purchased on a budget. I had been collecting new add-on software (i.e. scenery – airports/vegetation/city landscapes/water/clouds, weather, aircraft, virtual passengers, virtual ground crew) over the past 5 years.

I earned a myriad of new things about technology, history, and weather. I have flown to virtually every corner of the world in real time, with real weather downloaded from the internet. I got to become familiar with new airports that I had never flown into before. This experience was enhanced by acquiring add-on software that was modeled after the airports in exact and brilliant detail.

I enjoyed medium haul flights between Seattle-Tacoma airport (courtesy of FlyTampa software) and Phoenix Intl. (courtesy of Flight Scenery/ Flight Zone); and flights between Miami Intl. (courtesy of FlyTampa) and Lynden Pindling International Airport in Nassau, Bahamas (courtesy of Imagimesim) as captain of a Boeing 757-200 (courtesy of Captain Sim), all the while maintaining contact with the Control Towers and Centers en route.

I’ve flown long haul flights between Logan Intl . in Boston to Dubai Intl. in the United Arab Emirates (both airport sceneries courtesy of FlyTampa), as pilot in command of a Boeing 747-400 (courtesy of PMDG). These flights brought an enormous sense of accomplishment after I had spent time planning and executing my virtual trips.

Real pilots can practice a flight for an upcoming real world flight to become familiar with the navigation and airspace procedures for that trip. He can also become familiar with a new airport.

While simming will not literally get you off the ground and into the air, it can teach the sim pilot a lot about the natural sciences such as physics and geography. It can also teach you a lot about proper navigational planning and time management.