In praise of enjoying what you have

[dswo]

Do you sometimes get in a fever? "Must buy X."* This is not to dispraise the devs; X, Y, and Z have given me some fine hours in the sim. What I'm talking about here is the fever of motion for motion's sake. ""Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers." I don't mean that we spend money on flight sim instead of groceries. (Though if you have a family, you shouldn't do that either.) Rather, we fritter ourselves away on too many things, and don't enjoy any of them properly. This morning I took up an old friend, RealAir Sf.260, to scout around Orbx's Queensland scenery, which I bought this spring and really haven't done justice to. What a perfect model! I started at one of Anthony's airports, Rockhampton, because I'd never been there before, and just picked landmarks to fly to. Eventually I switched to the Lotus L-39, because I wanted to make the coast before it was time for work. I got as far as Gladstone. What a delightful morning -- though it was evening in Australia!

* This from silly person who started the "Bargains under $20 thread."

 

[Lewis-A2A]

Agreed,

I still love flying some default aircraft. Esp the baron. I love taking it up from Humberside and flying down to Duxford, dreaming of being able to attend airshows that way.

 

[Naki]

Yes, yes totally agree..I have scenery and aircraft I have bought and they just sit there..but one day I might fly or fly from

Ive now made a list of flight sim add ons and for me to buy it it must meet certain criteria...this is so I dont go nuts and buy heaps just for the sake of it and fritter money away...now that Carenado Caravan looks nice...................

.....hey and I thought that $20 bargain thread was a good idea :salute:

 

[Bone]

Yes, I know what you mean. I've got some awesome models that I rarely fly.

 

[Dain Arns]

Having your job disappear, despite giving several years of your life to them, tends to make you appreciate what you do have real quickly.
It's been a real struggle lately, it really kills me with all of the wonderful releases recently.
Especially all of the helicopters.
I'm several behind now on that wish list.
In the past I would have just gotten them.

Many of the past purchases have been pulled from the back of the hangar, and they dust blown off of them.
Getting use out of them now...

 

[Mr.Mugel]

I have about as many payware addons as fingers on my two hands, and got many of those being lucky, or by participating in a beta, and paid only for a few (Don´t worry, all are fully legal, thanks to the generousity of some developers!).

I just don´t have the money to invest it into FS addons, I have a motorcycle that needs fuel and something here and there, and my bicycle needs some parts, too, as I ride it about 3000-4000 miles a year, mostly to work and back.
With all the freeware that is aviable, and the payware I have, I have enough to enjoy some flights, and when everything fits together it is still great, enjoying a Hawaiian sunset in a T-6, or buzzing around Hahnweide.
Still there are some addons I would really like to have, but I think it is also nice to have something to look forward too! Having everything doesn´t automatically make you lucky!

 

[AndyE1976]

Have to agree, I've bought a number of aircraft or sceneries and barely used them. There's so much stuff being released and it all looks so good.

I finally gave in and bought Dino's F35 at the weekend and found myself yesterday with time for a decent flight so I set myself up (coincidentally) in Queensland at dawn and flew that for a good few hours - it really is an amazing aircraft and made even better by Warrants RAF paint That was the first time I'd used the Orbx scenery for ages and I have the whole of Oz.

I'm really tempted by Razbam's A7, but I don't tend to fly navy stuff very often and I know that it'll be a great aircraft that will sit in the hanger.

PMDG's 747 is another that I've barely scratched the surface on - in fact I've never actually landed that one!

I tried to take a weeks holiday with the intention of getting to the depths of some of the payware that I'd bought, but that was canned when my firm called me to London for a meeting. It's still something I really want to do though.

 

[kilo delta]

I must have a variant of ADHD as my "flights" in my a/c consist of a take-off, climb out, multiple a/c changes en-route and a landing at a completely non pre-determined site/airfield/lake/road! I don't think I've more than a couple of hours in any of my individual fleet. If it weren't for my current FSX ctd woes I'd already have bought the new Carenado Caravan.

 

[expat]

I can afford to buy more payware but do so only occasionally. I sometimes regret paying for something that delivers less than so many excellent freeware items available. I get a craving now and then for a new plane and then sucomb to what Dave describes and what those of us who play rock & roll refer to as GAS - Gear Acquisition Syndrome. Part commodity fetish, but also the idealist hoping for finding the holy grail and "ulitimate" plane, scenery, guitar, hi fi speaker etc. Very much a male thing.

But, I do very much abide by "appreciating what you already have" - and can get as much or even a bigger buzz from the "re-discovering" a plane I had forgoten, but now enjoy in whole new and better way. Some free associating google search or a post at SOH will trip this off. Oh, and it applies to old payware as well. A recent example has been my mini-obsession with the Alphasim Crusader (5yrs old). That has now led to - can't remember how - a "discovery" of the once payware AS Mariner and playing with it and a seaplane tender around the Solomons.

In the end it's a balance: too much consumer craving (like too much drink or women) can leave a fellow feeling fatigued and jaded, but find the right balance in FS between the old and the new, and it is truly an endless source of pleasure.

 

[AndyE1976]

Absolutely, agree.

Having been 'burnt' on a few purchases that failed to live up to expectations I now don't buy anything I haven't researched before hand and have even removed planes such as the AFS Tornado in favour of freeware such as the patched IRIS Tornado.

I think payware downloads just fuel the 'I fancy one of those/download/fly' cycle.

Having said that I love the easy availability and the great products being produced at the moment, the developers out there are doing such a great job it makes it hard to resist the latest and greatest offerings.

It's a good time to be in flight sims and I intend to do a better job of fully exploring the products I buy.

 

[Roadburner440]

Definately is the truth. While I do not have to many add-ons that sit for long. It just never seems like there is enough time to fly them all. With the truck breaking down and having to deal with that there has been a couple add-ons that I normally would of bought that are put on hold (707, A-7). I defiantely know what you are talking about with that Gear Aquisition Syndrome. Is definately hard to resist buying new aircraft when they come out. Sometimes I think it is a little better to not be in that initial first group though for the reasons you mentioned. Although I have never regretted buying an aircraft as they all have a certain place in my hangar and fill a certain roll.

 

[ryanbatc]

I use the majority of my addons. The ones I don't - well they are hard hitters on FPS and maybe once I get a better PC I'll use those more often...

 

[Bone]

I must have a variant of ADHD as my "flights" in my a/c consist of a take-off, climb out, multiple a/c changes en-route and a landing at a completely non pre-determined site/airfield/lake/road! I don't think I've more than a couple of hours in any of my individual fleet. If it weren't for my current FSX ctd woes I'd already have bought the new Carenado Caravan.

I do this when I'm not flying with one of my recorded formation flights. It's a good way to squeeze in time on a number of good models.

 

[warchild]

I've got a few planes i adore.Some of them are payware, but some of them are freeware. I may not get to fly them much, but i do fly them every now and then..
most things coming out these days ( and I do have ADD ) i'm not all that interested in.. My work consumes so much of my time thats there's very little of it left free to simply have fun, and then theres the thought that i've seen promise after promise over the years, only to be disappointed by advertising hype, that nothing really appeals to me any more..
I admit, i havent tried Accu sim yet. Its probably a very good product, but you have to pay how much, on top of what you pay for the model?? No thanks.. I believe a properly written FDE can achieve the same thing for realistic flight, but admittedly, i'm still learning to do that. I'm good: I aint perfect..
For me, rather than planes, this month i'm investing 400 dollars in a case and memory, and next month another 500 dollars in a joy stick, all so i can do my work more exactingly. Guess thats as bad as buying one of every plane thats released huh??

 

[Aviator32]

I admit, i havent tried Accu sim yet. Its probably a very good product, but you have to pay how much, on top of what you pay for the model?? No thanks.. I believe a properly written FDE can achieve the same thing for realistic flight, but admittedly, i'm still learning to do that. I'm good: I aint perfect..

I must say I'm astonished. For someone who talks a lot about flight modelling never to have tried Accusim or even be be intrigued to see what it offers is like someone saying they are interested in art but not wanting to see a picture of the Mona Lisa! For the sake of a few extra bucks you are missing a whole new sim.

 

[XLR8]

This my friends is a very cool but honest thread . I like everyone have a budget . I have only be around FSX for a couple of years,and really enjoy it . At first I never bought a payware anything,until a year ago . Before that it was all freeware . And some of the freeware is great,and some stink .But I can say the same for payware . I have purchased a lot of payware planes . My problem is it has to be a plane that I really want to buy it,and some are just to rich for my blood .

I did expand beond the aircraft with REX . I like it,but still getting the hang of it . My budget right now allows me to purchase about 1 plane every 6 to 8 weeks . I try to fly every aircraft at some time .

 

[bkeske]

I can relate to Dain Arns, as my business/profession has been caught up in the current recession heavily, and there are times when I am barely scraping by right now, thus my free-spending FS days are on hold.

As I have mentioned previously, I actually keep a spread sheet of how many hours each of my aircraft have logged, and lately have been utilizing that tool to investigate all those aircraft that have between 1-5 hours on them total. So, I started flying them, and realized I had been missing out some really fun aircraft stored in my hanger (including freeware), and actually got me on my recent decision to fly all my Golden Age biplanes, 'Pig's' WACO, Ants Tiger Moth, the Auster, Bueker, A2A Cub, etc, etc etc. which got me back to some 'basic flying' as well. I now have over 10 hours in each of the above (a total of about ten aircrfat that I had barely touched prior), and I have barely flown Bill's great Pasped Skylark yet (which was an incredible deal), or that freeware DH Chimunk or Nord....and the list still goes on.

That said, I did splurge on the Orbx PNW scenery, and am glad I did, and also picked up the Carenado 185 and Bonanza, although have not really flown them yet, and really didn't 'need them', as I had similar aircraft already. The new Caravan looks great, but I already have the Lionheart Quest Kodiak which will do the same and more. Why purchase it? I know it will get minimal use. Heck, I bough the new Eaglesoft Citation X extreme, and have not even 'turned the keys' to it yet.

Really, bottom line, I could probably 'survive' on just a handful of aircraft....As David said, too often we buy stuff just because it is 'new and shiny' but do not 'enjoy them properly'. You could get much enjoyment in FS only flying that SF260 (his example), and getting real good at flying it too.

.......and then I remind myself, this is FS , This has been what we have done since I can remember (FS5)....we just keep adding stuff to the program, whether we 'need it' or not, as it is a bit of an addiction. I doubt that will change, but it is good to stop, step back, pause, take inventory, and make a decision to enjoy what we already have; properly.

 

[FAC257]

I'm using a completely different atitude with FSX than I did with FS9. It's a bunch of self-imposed goofy "filters" for add-ons that are there only to keep me from junking up FSX like I did FS9. The idea is so that I can spend much more of my time actually flying and enjoying myself and less time collecting aircraft, re-paints and scenery that I'll probably use very little.

With FS9 I would hit Avsim and Flightsim everyday as soon as the computer booted up and just downloaded everything I even had a hint I wanted.

These days........

Aircraft:
I use only payware aircraft, not because I don't think the freeware aircraft that are available for FSX aren't any good. It just keeps the number of aircraft I have in the hanger to a minimum. I only have aircraft that I really want and know that I'm going to rack up hours in.

Re-paints:
Not very many at all. The most I have for any single aircraft is the CS C-130 at 17 and I think maybe 30 or 40 re-paints total for all the other aircraft I have in the hanger. Where as with FS9 I would download just about every great re-paint for every aircraft I had installed. spent more time organizing re-paints than I did flying. Even on older warbirds I filter that with "Pacific Theater" only re-paints. I fudged that a little already with my collection of Rattlesden B-17s.

Scenery:
With very few exceptions like UTX and FSG, the only scenery I use is Fla, the Gulf Coast, Caribbean, Mexico, Central and South America.

What this does for me is to eliminate the big headache that FS9 always was to me in the background even while trying to fly and enjoy myself.

FS9 was very prone to meltdown and corruption of some sort or another. Usually to do with too many add-ons going in and out trying out all the tons of free stuff. With FSX and being very stubborn about add-ons, it stays rock solid. I almost have to create a lame exuse for re-installing FSX, which I love doing. FS9 was always inventing reasons to go sour.

My FS9 setup would take weeks and weeks to get back up and organized the way I wanted it. I can have FSX back up and fully flying within a few hours and in a day or so all my add-ons and repaints are good to go.

To the jist of the post, I'm doing exactly that. Far more hours spent flying using fewer aircraft, fewer sceneries and fewer re-paints.

Here's a non-serious formula to think about. Unless your a creator of aircraft, scenery or flight sim add-ons, the total number of posts on the flight sim forums you belong to should never exceed the total number of flight hours in your logbook. When that starts to happen get back in your aircraft, shut the door, relax and go flying.

FAC

 

[Bjoern]

Do you sometimes get in a fever? "Must buy X."*

Yeah. I sometimes get the hots for buying a certain add-on.
But then I think about the daily usability value versus the monetary effort and postpone the plan (indefinately).

Or I just fire up 3DS Max and say to myself "You can do that on your own. No need to spend money on that".

 

[warchild]

I must say I'm astonished. For someone who talks a lot about flight modeling never to have tried Accusim or even be be intrigued to see what it offers is like someone saying they are interested in art but not wanting to see a picture of the Mona Lisa! For the sake of a few extra bucks you are missing a whole new sim.

That few extra bucks is a lot of money when your on fixed income.. Accusim, for all that it does is system based, not fde based.. I have nothing against systems, but i'd personally rather write a proper flight model.. I looked into accusim when it was still being developed, and didnt find it to my liking. Thats not saying its a bad product. Its not. Its saying that its an extra outlay of cash i believe is personally neither necessary nor affordable on my income..