Inquiring mind wants to know

[binarkansas]

Being an old geezer of 67 years, many of my kinfolk and friends don't understand my passion for the hobby of flight simulation. Can anyone give me a rather semi-accurate number of active simmers world wide? I'm very curious about this.

[glh]

I don't see any way to get a ballpark number for ACTIVE people in the flight sim hobby. You could collect sales figures in units for sims and add-ons but from where ?? and are all final buyers ACTIVE ??

No, I just tell people that I'm passionate about women and flight-simming but the latter is more relaxing and far less expensive ...

[johnwillimas2]

Well, Flightsim.com claims a membership of 670,000+ on their forum of which just under 100,000 are "active" (whatever that means). Dovetail Games claim over 500,000 copies of Steam Edition FS-X sold.

[Paul Domingue]

Being an old geezer of 67 years, many of my kinfolk and friends don't understand my passion for the hobby of flight simulation. Can anyone give me a rather semi-accurate number of active simmers world wide? I'm very curious about this.

Did you get confused? Your age is displayed as 66. From one old geezer to another.

[falcon409]

Being an old geezer of 67 years, many of my kinfolk and friends don't understand my passion for the hobby of flight simulation. Can anyone give me a rather semi-accurate number of active simmers world wide? I'm very curious about this.

Honestly, outside of the folks I know from this hobby, anyone else I mention it to, be it just in a passing conversation with friends or my immediate family. . .the reaction is the same. . ."Oh that's nice (yawn,yawn)". . .a few eye rolls and it's on to something else, either something they're interested in or "ok, well, see ya later". Most are less than interested, see it as a pure waste of time and nothing more than . . ."one more of those games that kids spend hours playing when they should be doing something constructive". I no longer bring it up if someone asks what I do all day since I'm retired. . .they would rather I said I went fishing or I do gardening than to say I fly airplanes on the computer. . .they just look at you like. . . .huh?

[rdaniell]

Honestly, outside of the folks I know from this hobby, anyone else I mention it to, be it just in a passing conversation with friends or my immediate family. . .the reaction is the same. . ."Oh that's nice (yawn,yawn)". . .a few eye rolls and it's on to something else, either something they're interested in or "ok, well, see ya later". Most are less than interested, see it as a pure waste of time and nothing more than . . ."one more of those games that kids spend hours playing when they should be doing something constructive". I no longer bring it up if someone asks what I do all day since I'm retired. . .they would rather I said I went fishing or I do gardening than to say I fly airplanes on the computer. . .they just look at you like. . . .huh?

Ed, you hit the nail squarely on the head there ole buddy. That's pretty much the same reaction that I get. If I mention that I also fly full scale airplanes as a private pilot as well as flying Radio Controlled Scale Airplanes, the only difference is that the dumb look lasts a little longer.

RD

[Paul Domingue]

It's primarily for aviation enthusiasts, that's the type of people most of us are. There seems to be the gamut from people, like myself who always wished they could fly to those who still do and many who no longer can but want to continue in some way. There are also those who enjoy designing add-ons for personal and monetary reasons. I'm willing to bet there are a lot of aviation enthusiasts who have not discovered flight simulation.
I'm the same as you Ed when asked what I do, I just say I design aircraft and leave it at that. Surprisingly I get the same ho-hum response.

[Inductotherm]

I have no idea about the numbers but it is something that usually is passed down. For myself I was 7 or so and the first flight I was on was from New Orleans to Dallas Love on a southwest 737-200. I was hooked from that moment. Later in life found out a great uncle flew Torpedo Bombers for the navy in WW2. I fly on FSX daily and have one of my kids just as hooked as I am. She is only 7 but is already getting decent with it. She is still in fun stage but that is what it is all about.

[falcon409]

Ed, you hit the nail squarely on the head there ole buddy. That's pretty much the same reaction that I get. If I mention that I also fly full scale airplanes as a private pilot as well as flying Radio Controlled Scale Airplanes, the only difference is that the dumb look lasts a little longer.

RD

lol, lol. . .yep!

[binarkansas]

Did you get confused? Your age is displayed as 66. From one old geezer to another.

Not really, my birthday is in August and I guess I was already feeling it this morning!!!

[bazzar]

Logic would dictate that older people make up the core of flight simmers. If you think about it, the time required to appreciate the subtleties and scale of the hobby is only available to those who have it. And that would be the grays. That is apart from me who spends more time building the darn things than flying.

[txnetcop]

I've been doing this since the first flight simulation was made on a IBM System/36 mainframe...it was simply lines and numbers on something could pass for a cockpit. I did QC for Sublogic and fell in love with simulations under Bruce Artwick. I became a GA pilot, now I can no longer afford GA aviation, but I can afford this one to a small degree. Most of folks I meet talk about it just give you a look like REALLY...you fly a toy plane? Now I know how RCers feel! The good news is all my kids are now adults and they fly a PC!