I started thinking about the longest flight phase: The cruise.
We all love planning those mega long-haul routes like WSSS - KJFK (Singapore to New York) or London to Sydney. But let’s be honest: staring at the autopilot screen for 12 hours is a bit boring!
What do you actually do during the cruise phase of a long-haul flight
A. The Overnight Sleeper (I take off, go to bed in real life, and wake up before descent)
B. The Multi-Tasker (I study, work, or watch movies on another screen)
C. The Active Pilot (I stay at my device, check step-climbs, and monitor winds constantly)
D. The Short-Haul Fan (I never fly long-haul, I don’t have the patience!)
Once I have the Pro subscription, I won’t be doing many long-haul flights. If I do, I’d choose A or B, and very occasionally C.
What is your longest flight ever in the simulator, and what is your best tip to make sure your battery doesn’t die overnight? Let’s hear your routines!
I am in the process of doing my first long haul from WSSS to LFPO and I turn on AP+ when I have to do something but when I’m free I just watch the World Cup I guess.
i usually do long hauls at night so I’ll just sleep through the flight and if the flight is <9h then I’ll turn on auto exit (oversleep protection) but the only times I use AP+ is when I do long hauls during the day or when something presents itself and I have the leave it on AP+ or on school days or just during the day in general then I’ll just leave it on AP+ and check back every here and then to maybe to increase the cruise altitude if the altitude is <FL320 and come back an hour before descent
I usually mimic real flights and depart at the same time they do and land at the same time so I usually am awake but if I end up sleeping then I wake up about 2-3 hours before to finish the rest
Typically I schedule the 11+ hour flights as overnighters or during workday. Yes I literally take off in the morning, get ready, and bring my iPad to work lol.
This lets me step climb which adds a little realism but not a big deal especially since I’ll overnight with no step climbing.
Then most of the time I just check where the plane is at and how many hours to go. As I type this my plane is over France en route from Washington DC to Dubai with about 6 hours left to go, and about 4 hours left of work
I use AP+ on almost all my flights except those under an hour and a half. I set several alarms on every flight around the times I have to step climbs and I always come back 30 minutes before arrival to prepare for landing. But if it’s an overnight flight and I’m sleeping, obviously I can’t keep waking up for step climbs. So I usually just set my initial cruise altitude a bit higher than planned.
I once completed a flight of over 14,000 kilometers in one go — nearly 16 hours from Shenzhen to Mexico City. Back then we didn’t have AP+ yet so I had to keep my phone charging the whole time. Honestly it does take a bit of a toll on the battery life
You couldn’t have made a true post. I do the same with AP+ and everything that you mentioned (setting alarms for 30 mins from TOD) etc.
Flight Resume was cool and took a load of the battery life but it wasted a lot of time since you were “on pause”.
However I’m glad you remember the days of having to plug in a device for hours lol. I remember doing my first long haul (JNB-ATL) and my phone was steaming hot from being plugged in so long and my battery definitely suffered from all those long hauls.
