No, not the Maxis Game that so many people around the world seem to love. I’m talking about flight simulators. I figure they are better than nothing right now, and right now I gotta whole lotta nothing, so why not try and at least learn what some of the dials and levers on the control panels do.
I’ve been playing with two on my iMac. X-Plane, which seems to be a stunning demo, and Flight Gear, which crashes frequently or just plain fails to start up. I suspect the Flight Gear software needs some configuration which I just haven’t had the time to dig into yet, but X-Plane seems far superior for the moment. I haven’t taken the plunge and dropped the $60 for it, but it appears to be a pretty damn good piece of software and I may just get it.
I did, however, buy a Logitech Extreme 3D Pro Joystick. This is the first time in over 20 years I’ve used a joystick on my home computers, and boy have they come a LONG way since then! I chose to spend a quick $45 at Best Buy on one because the alternatives, the CH Products, while sexy and luring with their siren calls, are out of my price range for the moment. My money is going to be better spent getting airborne than chairborne (did I just make up a word for flight-sim practice there?). Plus, I don’t know what I’ll be flying regularly, and I suspect if I settle into one style of plane or another, I’ll want a coordinating joystick/pedal setup at home for more practice time.
I’m not kidding myself. At home, on my own machine, I’m not going to learn how to fly. But I see the potential, especially in X-Plane (and perhaps Flight Gear) to learn how to navigate. After spending hours reading the Stoenworks aviation pages, navigation in the air actually makes sense to me. I’m also a HAM radio guy (kc9iem) so the prospect of working VOR’s and such from above seems utterly fascinating. Of course, I’m reading mutterings around the ‘net that GPS is going to blow all that radio tech away, but who knows. In any case, the very elegant ways that navigation can be done seem utterly logical to me.
It’s funny. For the last week I’ve been looking up at the sky more than I ever remember. And every time I do, I smile.