Simulators

a writes:

Our resident most frequent poster has written about sitting at his
desk as PIC watching an entire flight simulated under automatic/
autopilot control, for God's sake.

I don't know of any aircraft that allows for fully automated flight from
takeoff to landing, although some modern transport-category aircraft can come
close, and the concept was successfully demonstrated decades ago. Even in
MSFS, you cannot carry out an entire flight on autopilot or under FMS control
(since you can't do it in real life).

It can't be true, but I seem to remember him writing about enduring
gate holds or traffic delays too.

That is possible when flying on VATSIM with MSFS. As far as I know, the
built-in ATC won't do this.

I'd find simming an entire flight mind numbing, but he in a recent
thread talked about doing it from before start check list and "Clear"
to tie down.

Flying for hours in a real aircraft can be mind-numbing, too, just like
driving down a highway for hours at a time.

The advantage of a simulator is that you can skip the parts of real flight
that you don't like, as long as you don't mind the nominal loss of realism.