It's true. I think I have a problem. I've been trying to stave myself off of this, but it is a difficult, up hill battle. Before I go too much into this. This addiction is not a bad one. (Or is it?) I would like to hope that this habit is helping my skill. It all started about a week ago. A feeling of nostalgia came over me, so I decided to try something. When I was younger, I had these two combat flying simulation games, Jane's Longbow (1&2) and Jane's F-15 Strike Eagle. These games ran on my family's old Gateway 2000. If I can remember correctly, this dinosaur had a Pentium II (233MHz) processor, 32 MB of RAM, and a 4GB hard drive, running Windows 95 and later on a Windows 98 upgrade.
I would spend hours on this computer, playing Longbow 2 (my most favorite of the games) flying around in an AH-64D Apache Helicopter, launching hellfire missiles at enemy tanks. Flying missions with the joystick, I was unstoppable.
So, this past weekend, I decided to see if I could rustle up that old nostalgic feeling. I found those games, and attempted to install them on my desktop computer. My current system, compared to that old Gateway is miles ahead, featuring a Pentium 4, 2.26 GHz, 1.5 GB RAM, and a 160GB Hard drive, running Windows XP. A custom built machine, it was a high school graduation present. After an attempt to install these games, to my surprise, I found that they successfully ran. With a smile across my face, I then looked to find my old joystick, the Microsoft Sidewinder 3D pro. Unfortunately, I did not have so much luck with the old joystick. I assume the years of storage, coupled with the years of use finally took its toll. A tad disappointed, I began a search for a replacement joystick. When I bought the old one new, I recall a $70 price tag. I'm not that big of a computer gamer, so I set out to find one at a reasonable price. To my luck, I found a nice $35 joystick a Best Buy, and after a quick plug and play connection, I was off again, flying that Apache, shooting off hellfire missiles at those enemy tanks.
This nostalgic feeling of satisfaction caused the gears in my brain to begin turning. My focus turned to aviation. Initially in the start of my flight training, I had considered buying Microsoft Flight Simulator to add to my training experience. I decided against this, because my instructor mentioned that most students who come off Flight Simulator tend to be unable to take their eyes off the instruments. I figured by now that I had enough experience under my belt, that I could be able to avoid this.
After coming home and installing the game on my machine, I was immediately blown away by it's features. What surprised me the most was the fact that I could fly out of my home airport that I do my training out of. What was even better is that I can actually get simulated weather accurate within 15 minutes of what is occurring at the actual airport. The icing on the cake is that I can also fly the airplanes I my dreams, Mooneys, Learjets, and CRJs. Of course, I have to adjust to each aircraft, for now, I'm sticking with the 172.
Upcoming in my training is my first cross-country flight. So as an added idea, I decided to fly my cross country in the sim. Everything went well, and from what I did in the sim, I feel even more comfortable getting in the actual airplane. Tracking VORs has become easier to understand, and flying traffic patterns has sharpened my skills too. At least in flight simulator.
Since I have installed this program, I have NOT been able to take myself away from it. As soon as I am home from work, I am on it, getting in as much practice as I can.
I think I may have a slight addiction.
