Do You Fly All Your Addons?

[dougal]

Just curious really, do you keep all your payware addon aircraft installed?

It scares me a little sometimes, just how much I spend on FS Addons, especially aircraft. What's more, because I'm a 'tight git', I can never quite bring myself to ditch aircraft that I don't fly very often. This means my FSX aircraft list is loooong....

How do you deal with yours?

 

[Tako_Kichi]

My previous build of FSX had a lot of aircraft that I only flew a couple of times and then parked but they were still in FSX and consequently FSX would take an age to start up on the first attempt (subsequent re-starts were always much faster) and I had hundreds of thumbnails to look through to find an aircraft I wanted to fly. To get around this problem I created a new folder outside of the main FSX folder that I called 'FSX_Backup_Hangar' and then I would cut and paste aircraft I didn't fly very often into this folder and pull them back again when I wanted to fly them.

I recently built a new computer and my new FSX build currently only has aircraft I know I will fly. Load times are very quick now and aircraft selection is much easier. I still have my old computer on the network and can pull aircraft from there as and when required plus I have everything backed up to DVDs too just in case.

 

[JIMJAM]

I admit I am a impulsive buyer and combined with the fact I have bored with FSX long ago means I have huge hangers of dusty planes. I fall into that new car fever like the newly released plane or heli is going to relight my passion and be a game changer. Problem is this euphoria last maybe a week. If that.
Not counting repaints or variants I must have 70 or more FSX planes and helis. On another HD I also have at least that many that are dormant being either the zip,download links and folders. Another HD has twice that, well over 100 of FS9 planes,helis and sceneries.

 

[falcon409]

Somewhat like Larry, I have folders for GA, Military, Vintage, Bush and WWII besides the standard Airplanes folder. Inside those are the few regular aircraft I fly from those categories and each of those folders has a "Hangar" that I dump the little used aircraft into. There are two to three times the number of airplanes in the "Hangar" as there are in the main folders. . . .many of them are payware FSX aircraft I just "Had to have".

 

[Killbilly]

I have a pretty extensive hangar (which I try to keep reasonable by only allowing myself one or two liveries per plane). I do fly all of them on occasion, though. I've done a couple of extended flight plans (like around the world or from pole to pole) in short hops with the rule that each hop has to be the next plane on the list (I start with a random plane). That can make some of the hops pretty challenging and a lot of fun. Sometimes I've had to fly a couple of short hops back and forth along a coastline until I come to a plane that can make the trip over large bodies of water. It keeps all my addons fresh.
Right now, I'm trying to hit every airport in OrbX's North America sceneries. It's going to take a while, and I've had to choose my airports carefully based on the next plane in the hangar.

 

[warchild]

I wish I could. truth told, get a plane i'm interested in, even enjoy, and because of my chedule, it mostly just sits there till some opportunity arises that lets me fly just for the enjoyment of it. I used to put in seventy to a hundred some hours a week building flight models, but that drove my health into the gutter and i'm no longer able to do it, so of late i've been taking more time to enjoy flyng and the planes i've collected. Some of them, like the A2A P-40, the WBS P-51, and the NGX are masterpieces not only in appearance but in their flight characteristics as well, and a true joy to fly. Others arent so memorable. With over 2000 aircraft6 in my hangar, its doubtful i'll ever get a chance to fly them all, but I'm working on it ..
Pam

 

[EMatheson]

No. In fact, I only have about 1/3rd of them all installed (and of those, I only fly half of them regularly). Kinda wish I'd spent my money better - then maybe I'd have a little saved for tuition next semester! Oh well, live and learn I guess... my next hobby will not be so expensive.

 

[PRB]

I tried to organize all my addons by making different SimObjects folders to hold them all, but I could never settle on a “scheme”. “GA”, “Airliners”, “Military”? Ok, so where does the C-54 go? And is the DHC-6 an airliner or a GA? No matter what scheme I decided on, there were planes that fit into more than one category. I finally settled on just two folders: “Airplanes” and “Airplanes_Hold”, the latter of which holds planes that I don't fly much, but want to have available, but not clog up the Airplanes folder.

 

[robert41]

I only keep A2A's payware aircraft and the default aircraft permanently in the airplanes folder. All my other payware and freeware aircraft, I keep in a hangar folder just outside of the FSX folder. When I want to fly one of these, I simply drag the aircraft over. When Iam done, move it back. Trying to keep my FSX as lite and simple as possible. Loading times are instant. Right now I have 30 aircraft in the airplanes folder. And about 72 in the hangar folder.

 

[wombat666]

I only fly [and FWIW buy] aircraft that 1] I'm interested in flying and 2] are relevant to my environment.
As for the FSX default aircraft, they are permanently 'hangered' on a backup drive.

 

[italoc]

My Simobjects weighs 40 Gig .....

Starting FSX takes ages .... but I hav'nt yet decided what to do, and I fly regularly only five-ten of them !!!!

I think I'll soon decide to create an hangar to recover most of them.

Italo

 

[EMatheson]

The problem is that I think most of us plan on flying all we buy... but that our desires for flying time outweighs what is actually available...
Then, too, we change over time. For instance ,I started with a liking for WWII era aircraft (and then my warbirds got plenty of flying time). After passing through a bush phase, I mostly fly cessna and other GA and LSA aircraft from fairly normal municipal airports. So my warbirds and my grungy bush plans sit idle while my cessnas and ultralights are getting a workout...

 

[falcon409]

The problem is that I think most of us plan on flying all we buy... but that our desires for flying time outweighs what is actually available...
Then, too, we change over time. For instance, I started with a liking for WWII era aircraft (and then my warbirds got plenty of flying time). After passing through a bush phase, I mostly fly cessna and other GA and LSA aircraft from fairly normal municipal airports. So my warbirds and my grungy bush planes sit idle while my cessnas and ultralights are getting a workout...

I believe that's it in a nutshell for a large majority of us. I started out (because I was still working on F-16's) flying nothing but Fighters. If it couldn't do at least 400kts I wasn't interested. Then came Bush Flying, then GA (the longest stretch of any I've flown) and now it's WWII, specifically the Accusim B-17 as I'm flying with the 91st Bombardment Group. I'm sure I'll go back to the slower stuff (GA) at some point, but ironically, the one I started out with (Current Military Fighters) I don't fly at all any more, lol.

 

[Sundog]

Actually, the part that takes the longest for me on startup as deciding what I want to fly. It usualy depends on where I'm flying from and to, etc. I fly a lot of what I have, but there are some I don't, so I move them off and into the hanger; such as poor VC or poor FDE. But I fly all over the world and try to fly aircraft that would actually be flown there, especially if I fly military aircraft.

For instance, right now I'm mostly flying low and slow GA because I'm exploring Orbx New Zealand South Island. But I'll be flying from there to Oz soon, as I have new airports there to check out, like Alice Springs. I haven't yet decided if the flight from NZ to Oz will be in a civilian airliner, a biz jet, or a military aircraft. I have to figure out where I'm going to fly to first, then that will help me decide what I will fly.

But I definitely don't fly everything I've loaded and over time I do remove the planes I don't really fly, both payware and freeware.

 

[mfitch]

My flying is controlled by time available (usually quite limited) and real time weather which I use extensively. Thus what kind of aircraft is determined by the combination. I also switch out my flight controls (hotas to yoke/cessna to yoke/twin). The current combination of factors usually mostly picks my planes. This leaves a few rarely flown due to time constraints (anything with a complicated startup procedure).

 

[dougal]

Thanks for all the interesting feedback guys.

Now though, as some are aware, since posting this, some theiving git's have stolen my FSX rig (and some).

So, won't be flying any of them in the very near future:-(

Shouldn't be too long before I'm running again though.

 

[ThePlainsman]

How do you remove planes from FSX? I want to remove almost all of the default planes and keep only my few add-ons, about six.

 

[greenie]

Hi Plainsman, I would advise against uninstalling any default aircraft. Reason being is that some addons use bits and pieces from the defaults i.e. if you remove your defaults you may find yourself without sound or gps ..etc on some addons.

..back on topic ,I have aircraft still in their wrapper unused and never seen the light of day. Those $5 bargains !!

 

[pilottj]

My airplanes folder has gotten quite hefty over the years. I have many flying moods. I try to keep a wide variety ready to go. One week i'll be in a warbird kick, another I'll be in a vintage biplane kick, another week will be a glider kick, then a GA kick, then a tubeliner kick....etc. Right now the P-40 gets a lot of flight time. It probably will for a while because it is such a great release, but I don't forget the planes that got me into FSX in the first place. I am grateful for all the developers who have provided me with many many hours of fun. Hate to think what FSX would be without addons....probably like FLight.

For safety/security I keep a backup drive on another computer in a different building with all my payware receipts and setup files.

 

[racartron]

I have a huge number of planes in fs9 and a rapidly growing fsX inventory. I learned from back in the fs2002 days to keep the active folder as small as possible so I greated a hanger folder up in my documents area and plan moving it to a separate drive entirely when feasible. The hanger set up is fairly simple but has done the trick for me over the years. They are all zipped up just waiting their turn.

Library
..Documents
....My Documents
......fsX Holding folders
........Hanger
..........Antique
..........Commecial
............Jets
............Props
..........General Aviation
............Gliders
............Jets
............Single Engines
............Twin Engines
..........Helos
..........Military
............Post WWII
............WW II Era
............WW I Era
..........Other Flying Thingies
..........Vehicles

These are all zipped up nice and tight and when I want a specific bird I just unzip it into the appropriate SimObjects folderand take off. When I'm done I just delete the plane and move on.

All of the folders have quite a few birds as my flying tastes vary a lot. My rationale for selecting a bird might be a simple as watching a movie or TV show that sparks my fancy and off I go to get the proper bird. My interest also might be peaked by a news event, a novel or a casual comment someone makes. Often the idea is sparked by a SOH thread.

By the way, I already have over 200 unique planes in the fsX hangers but only 5 "on the ramp." The fs9 folder is many time bigger, but that is abother story

Also I tweak most of the new birds when I D/L them. And as soon as I finish fiddling with one, I immediately "hanger" it for security even if I'm still flying it.

Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.