After analysing the results, Navigraph resumed the community this way:
The typical flight simulator enthusiast is a 43 year old male from the United States. He flies simulators 2-3 times per week for about 5-10 hours in total and was introduced to flight simulation 20 year ago. There is a 27% likelihood he already has some sort of pilot license. If so, he was introduced to flight simulation before he pursued his pilot license. Moreover he has a bachelor’s degree, is full time employed, makes 50,000 USD per year before tax, and spends about 250 USD on software and 200 USD on hardware annually. He prefers X-Plane 11, but Prepar3D v. 4 is also popular.
The full report is 74 pages long and spans through a variety of information and ending with the comparison between some key factors in regard to last year’s survey.
Helicopters and VR
A couple of graphics were particular interesting: one of them has to do with helicopters and the fact that about 40% of the 15.000 users that responded to the survey have some sort of contact with this type of aircraft. Surprising!
Also interesting is the how nearly 17% of the community members own a VR device. Although only 11% use it for flight simulation, the numbers are starting to get interesting and I can’t but wonder if our community has something to do with it as we’ve seen a big penetration of VR into the helicopter flight simmers.
It will be interesting to see next years’ report for sure.
More information
You can read more about the survey (and download the full report) at the Navigraph blog.
