We understand that the current 20-minute minimum flight time for PAX and XP generation is excessive, especially for closely situated airports. What minimum flight time realistically justifies using an airplane over other modes of transport like a car or motorcycle? Please select the appropriate minimum duration below (in minutes):
Poll closes June 15th - we will implement the community choice once the poll closes!
Roberto
Letās not forget that the purpose of this measure is to prevent the use of the Bunny Hop technique, and in reality, it would only take about 5 minutes to stop someone from taking off and landing again before reaching the end of the runway.
The survey offers a minimum of 10 minutes, which could be acceptable. But a measure aimed at realism should never produce the opposite effect. It is entirely realistic to fly between two nearby airports or even to do recreational or training flights in your own area (obviously in such cases, the 10-minute rule should not be an issue).
I believe the person who proposed such a long time did so in an attempt to prevent token farming, but in fact, their proposal is based precisely on hoarding tokens. Iāve read many arguments like āWho would do such a short flight if itās not profitable, it hardly generates tokens.ā Well, itās exactly this kind of comment that reveals the obsession with accumulating wealth.
Why canāt I start a flight, encounter a problem, and instead of losing the flight, turn back and land again? Maybe Iāll only earn 1 XP or 0.001 tokens, but why should I have to give that up?
Some of us fly more advanced aircraft like the Piper PA-24 Comanche from A2A, which for those who know it, fully simulates all the aircraft systems and potential failures. It doesnāt refuel automatically, and parts can get damaged. Itās not the first time Iāve noticed a failure while in the air. Why should I cancel the flight just because it wonāt be productive, when I could simulate a malfunction and return home?
Simfly should accommodate all kinds of interpretations of what simulation means, and not exclude anyone.
Because such restrictive measures are not necessary to reduce potential exploits ā most of them can be solved with much simpler checks: fuel consumption, maximum distances, flight ceilings, etc., tailored to each aircraft.
The 20-minute solution is like using a cannon to kill a fly.
Yes, totally agree.
For example, think about new joiners. People discovering and learning to fly. They tend to practice traffic patterns, and this is just 10 minutes (or less) manouvering. It is much more important (if you want to provide extra points) starting a plane and using a checklist rather than fixing a time.
And people playing FS2024 with Missions and Career. These are short flights, just to practice in a local aerodrome returning in few minutes.
In that cases is nice to have this short period of time. Controlled, but short.
@MaNaZaS @falcon.FL380 Thank you for your insights. I would love to clarify that there is much more than just the 
(see what I did ahaha) in setting a minimum length for the flight. When we only have the license, as asset that can be activated, I would agree, 2 minutes would be enough, but now we affect also the airport, the airplane (especially if rented) besides the license. A bunny flight, but also a 3 minutes flight between 2 airports, ends up leaving the airplane and the airports with minimum income, and without rotations and with ground operations (so the airplane cannot be ranted for a while, and the airports cannot enjoy landings from people flying from far. Yet, as you say there are people learning (I am one of those) so short flights for me are essential to learning landings, etc. For this reason, flights below 20 (or 10) minutes are not canceled, are kept, registered in the pilot logbook, are valid for statistics (number of flights done, etc), etc. They are perfectly valid flight (they even consume the license timers), but - not to damage others - donāt pay others (and thus if there is revenue sharing also the pilot), and donāt consume airport movements and the airplane can be immediately used again. This is why 20 minutes is a reasonable number. Smaller the number and bigger the damage to the other assets owners!
Okay, I accept your argument that rented airplanes are temporarily grounded.
At the moment, you already have a solution implemented for that ā the maintenance time of an aircraft isnāt the same if it has flown for 1 hour or 5, so it recovers more quickly after a short flight.
But let me go further. Why choose an exclusionary measure when we could take a positive approach instead?
You donāt want someoneās plane to be grounded for 10 hours after a 15-minute flight?
Then rearrange the maintenance timesā¦ and if someone does a 10-minute flight, let it only affect the owner for maybe 1 hour.
Or simply donāt limit the maintenance to a single flight, but rather to a minimum number of hours, like a license.
I can use my 2 licensed hours in two 1-hour flights or in four 30-minute ones.
Assign a number of flight hours for maintenanceāthis is how itās done in FSEconomy and in real life.
Inspections are done every XX flight hours, and engine changes every XX.
Iām sure many users would applaud a measure like that, which allows them to do several short flights in a single day, with small breaks in between.
Maintenance time is precisely what causes people to think: āIām going to look for the longest flight possible to make the most out of the only flight I can do.ā
And whatās the most profitable flight, at least in XP?
āIāll just leave the PC flying overnight on autopilot so that with that one flight, I can fill half the progress bar of my plane.ā
Or Iāll just do 4-hour flights because theyāre more profitable ā even if I donāt enjoy them and just go on autopilot while I watch Netflix.
Think positively, not negativelyā¦
A solution that subtracts is not a solution.
A solution should add.
Unfortunately, in todayās society, thereās so much hatred that we care more about the defeat of those who think differently than about our own success.
The solutions proposed for the problems that have arisen have always been aimed at benefiting oneself, even if it means screwing over the other person.
I havenāt seen anyone offer solutions that benefit both sides. The only goal seems to be to harm the other, and if my proposal gets approved, Iāll make sure to rub it in their face.
I wonāt name anyone, but many have done this, showing just how petty some people can be.
Very true, sadly. I agree with all you say. IMO there are so many small things, that, now that we have learned them, would require a full redesign of the full ābackendā of SimFly (ala āthe brainā) and a complete redesign of the DB architecture, would make faster to roll out new solutions, that would also give us the opportunity to test things just for the sake of testing them. Until we have the resource to do this we must compromise as much as possible between survival and accommodating people request. What I love of the fact we have now the voting, is that we can really hear ALL the community, as most often we focus, as you point out, on our perspective, and we forget that many other we co-live with ā¦ well, think different 
I am glad we have made a step ahead in MSGA and thanks to you too!
rearrange the maintenance times is a good task to consider, also according to airplane category. Maybe not every single one different, maybe cat1, then cat2 & cat3 togheter, and so on. after this, there will always people flying to recover their āinvestmentā, who will fly watching Netflix, overnight with AP on, and so on. And also I think, when all the features of simfly will be active, just like some expenses due to whatever, I suppose users will calm down a little on their actual flight behavior and think more reasonably.
It looks like your main concern is with rented aircraft at other peopleās airports. That is understandable, but what if I want to do patterns at my airport, and I want to use up the rotations, and since Iād use my own aircraft, I donāt care if itās in GC time. A lot of us have airports that no one is going to visit, especially Cat 1. The only way to make an airport like that attractive to potential visitors is to level it high enough to make its earnings comparable to a higher Cat airport. Remember, youāve always stated that it is up to us to choose how we manage our own assets, for our own goals. If Iām willing to burn some rotations now to make my airport a better option for visitors, why canāt I. Pattern flights are very much a legitimate flight.
I think, as we always compare simfly to real life flying habit, we can just do patterns as in the real world, training with a cat1 didnāt take me less than 10 minutes, maybe the avrage was 15. From take off, turn left climbing to 1000 ft agl, downwind. Check speed At 45 angle from the runway threshold, check speed, turn left, flaps, descent in base leg, more flaps, check speed, turn left to final leg, and so on.. more than 10 minutes. If no traffic is around right after take off. In that case, out of the pattern.. thatās real life..
a standard circuit over an airport by an aircraft:
|Light aircraft (C172, microlight)| **4ā6 min
|Turboprop aircraft (e.g. ATR72)| **5ā7 minutes
|Regional jet (e.g. CRJ900) **6ā8 minutes
|Jetliner (e.g. A320, B737) **8ā10 minutes
|High-speed military jet |**2ā5 minutes (tighter and faster)|
as you can see among all these types of planes you never exceed 10 minutes so for me 10 minutes is the right standard measure.
Are there commercial reasons to do this? If not, then why one should be paid? if it is for school, learning, etcā¦ But yes, letās see what the community votes. IMO on one side airports and airplane owners, on the other pilot license owners (that rent airplanes)ā¦ Probably, for the future, a more complex rule that consider who is the airplane in question, which mission one is flying can allow this and that 
Maybe not payā¦ But XP for sureā¦ You get xperience training.
I can see a short post-maintenance flight being a version where the flight is short but paid. CFIs and safety pilots might get paid to do pattern work, or to be there when patterns are flown. Usually there would be multiple touch and goes in that session, but simfly cant handle a multiple touch and go session.
I think that the limit time should consider the CAT of the airplane flying.
And the winer is??? @capodieci ???
well, 14 minutes for now We are almost done with a feature that can set a different minimum time and maximum range for each airplane, so we will have more voting to do, but for now the poll result is 14 minutes
14 minutes is the average of the votes, not the most voted option.
When you vote, the option with the most votes wins, not an average.
Youāll have to publish how many votes each option received, and the one with the most votes wins.
Correct, this is what usually happens in communities, associations or organizations
And how come the poll āFOR NOWā shows 14? The poll clearly states it ends on the 15th, so any votes after that date are not valid. The poll should already be closed and published, as stated in the announcement. The fair thing to do is to publish the results now.