A couple of years ago, I fell in love with flight simulators all over again. I was initially really into them on my Commodore 64, and would put up with the nine hour load time (wink) of Flight Simulator II and Jet 2.0, and immediately crash because I was too young to realize that real flying is difficult. I'm not sure exactly what it was that got me back into flight sims, but the presence of Fly and X-Plane for Macs got me back in. These are two really cool simulators. X-Plane wasn't the best looking simulator (X-Plane 6.x has improved a lot), but made up for it with a large amount of really really cool things to fly, including actual X-Planes like the X-1 and X-15. Fly2k, on the other hand, had very few planes but meticulous detail both inside and outside the plane. In X-Plane I'd tend to fly around just for kicks, but I actually tried to learn about flying in Fly2k. I found a nice Salt Lake scenery pack (this was when I was living back in Virginia) that included a detailed model of the airport (no other buildings though). I'd fly around in the little Cessna 172, using simple VFR rules (or IFR, as in "I Follow Roads" (wink)), but my favorite thing to do was to take off or land in a light rain. Fly2k had full-featured cockpits, and unlike other flight simulators, it didn't try to cram the entire dash into a single display. This allowed for great detail on all the switches and electronic gadgets. So it was nice to start up, set up the plane, and start out in the General Aviation area of KSLC - surrounded by other static Cessna's. Fly would let you start up an airplane completely manually - which, even on small planes, requires so much more than starting up a car. I don't know why I loved this part of the simulator so much. But I got a lot of glee from flipping the switches and pushing the gadgets on my flight yoke (yep, I bought a yoke and rudder pair) and listening to the airplane come alive. But even better than starting up was that rain landing, coming in to KSLC, taxiing, parking, and then shutting down the parts one by one, listening to the rain. In a similar vein, X-Plane 6.10 (I believe) introduced actual roads with little virtual cars on them moving about. A rainy or sunset flight here was beautiful too - seeing lines of freeways with little lights moving off into the distance or directly beneath you. For those of us who have many years yet before we'll get to sit in a real plane like this, it's a joy to fake fly. I miss flying, even as a passenger. I'd do it a lot between New York and DC because the Delta/U.S.Air shuttles were so cheap on weekends. But on weekends where I was recovering from the previous, or just got up too late, a fake flight from my little Fredericksburg den/studio was always fun. It's curious that I haven't done this lately.
In any case, I knew a long time ago that Richard Harvey, lead developer/engineer at Terminal Reality (creators of Fly/Fly2k/Fly II), was diagnosed with cancer. I wasn't aware, until today, that on Jan 30 2003 he left his final post at the AvSim forums, knowing that it was time to go home and let nature take its final course. I wish him Godspeed, and add in my thanks for providing a great fake-flight experience. How else would I have ever learned that I get great glee out of starting up and shutting down airplanes? Now, if only I could figure out why ;).
Among Richard Harvey's personally approved good-things-in-life is this:
Appropriate Drinks:Ooooh yeah. While living in Virginia, I had access to some great east coast microbrew root beers that ALMOST matched Weinhard's (which I found out about AFTER I left Utah), but not quite.
There is only 1 -- Henry Weinhard's Root Beer, fully chilled, no ice. [ed: Weinhard's is a local brew from Seattle, available in Utah though!]
Speaking of approved good-things-in-life, I've been getting a lot of enjoyment out of Willie Nelson's version of Time After Time (from "The Great Divide"). But the most beautiful thing I've heard since my Grandfather passed away last October remains Johnny Cash (and Family!)'s version of We'll Meet Again from "The Man Comes Around". Of course, these are only my personal recommendations - your mileage may vary.
Addicted to Joy, j.Shell