I'm a Pilot, Simulate Me!

I, like many others when I bought my first PC, made the excuse that it was for educational reasons. I also knew that that I was talking out of my bum because I wanted it for games......pure and simple.

I like my games: Half-Life, Age of Empires, all the strategy and tactical ones with, preferably, the ability to blast somebody or something to Hell and back. They've changed a lot since those first offerings back in the early 80s but there is one particular genre which has caused me more frustration than a blind monk with a porn magazine.

I've always enjoyed anything to do with aircraft and, when the first flight simulators came out, I eagerly purchased the Microsoft flight sim. It was primitive, with jaggy graphics, 2 colour scenery and little choice of aircraft but I was totally entranced. The only problem was that I was total crap! My dreams of flying round the world were shattered by my singular inability to co-ordinate the various actions needed to become a pilot. Biggles need not have worried: I was the equivalent of of a particularly hyperactive bull in a china shop.

Every so often I have flirted once more with various simulations. They fulfil a need to learn as well as demonstrate some skills. I toyed briefly with Train Simulator on the basis that it was 2, rather than 3, dimensions but found the excitement of travelling along rails and stopping every now again left something to be desired. I got very into a submarine simulator (Silent Hunter 3) and became pretty good at sailing out of port, zooming off to the Atlantic, maintaining my sub and watching the empty seas. The only problem was when I spotted the enemy!

Calculating attack angles, navigating to the correct position and remembering the 101 things to think about was all a bit of a nightmare. The number of times I fired off tubes 1 to 4 in a very pretty fan formation, only to watch a juicy convoy full of tankers sailing serenely into the distance as I missed totally. Ho hum, another 3 weeks waiting for another one! If, by a combination of luck and ...........well, more luck actually, I hit something, I was immediately besieged by ace destroyer captains and basically, not having the patience to sit there and play Hide and Seek, would crank up to flank speed and hightail it. Did I succeed? Well, let's just say I am now fluent in 'Abide With Me' in German.

3 or 4 years ago, Microsoft Flight Simulator had become a far more sophisticated and I had another go. The scenery had improved, you could fly anything you wanted and I had managed to sublimate my previous ineptitude. This new confidence, naturally, didn't last for long. Initially, I took a flight around the Great Pyramid in a small 2 seater and managed to crash into it! I thought I would be flash and fly under the Golden Gate bridge - it almost worked! I took on an enemy plane whilst flying an F16 jet fighter: by the time I had worked out what I was doing I was about 200 miles past my target and, gazing at the several hundred instruments didn't help me. I just had time to wonder why the ground was blue and the sky green before my (inverted) aircraft plunged into the ground.

Well, it's happened again. I saw this guy yesterday who had not only the latest super whizzy version of Flight Simulator but also a ship simulator. I checked it out and decided that steering the Isle of Wight ferry wasn't for me but the new Flight Sim was amazing. The graphics are based on real photos from the NASA space shuttle and are extremely realistic. You can fly anything from a microlight to a Jumbo jet and I have a very nice joystick. Right, time to download the demo.

I started off in a microlight in flight. A gentle exercise where you learned to manouvre the aircraft and had to drop flower bombs on targets in the sea. Needless to say, I missed by miles and my record at actually remaining in flight before plunging into the briny stands, I think, at 57 seconds. There was also a facility to land on a convenient aircraft carrier to replenish your flour bombs. I'd lost sight of that within the first 10 seconds!

OK, perhaps, I just go on a gentle flight and get used to it all. I sat there on the runway in Hawaii in my powered microlight thinking to myself what a piece of cake this was going to be. Simple controls of throttle, brakes, rudders and push the joystick back or forwards to go up or down. 2 hours later I had charged up that runway about 200 times without leaving the ground. I'd whack up to full throttle and hurtle up the runway before frantically cutting the power and jamming on the brakes as I saw the end coming (in more ways than one). I'd then gently turn round and charge up the other way to repeat the whole procedure. Unfortunately, other aircraft would suddenly taxi into view and turn onto the main strip prior to their takeoff slot and I would have to do some nifty swerving to prevent a rather nasty and embarrassing accident. In fact, my slalom technique has now improved considerably.

I'm sure if there had been a radio in that bloody overgrown kite, I would have received a few choice words from Air Traffic Control but one thing was irrefutable,I was irrevocably attached to terra firma. I Googled the keyboard controls to see if I was missing something and found there are 5 pages worth! OK, not just for my microlight but it gave me a clue just what I had taken on. I struggled on and, after taking Mrs B's advice (much as I hate to admit it) succeeded in getting my wheels off the ground. At last! I hit the pause button and triumphantly rushed into the other room to tell her. When I returned to continue my gentle circumnavigation of Maui, I was met with the message:

Your trial period has expired. Thank you for using Microsoft Flight Simulator

Oh, terrific!

The software is now firmly on my birthday list and I have cast covetous glances at the USB control yoke, throttle unit and foot pedals which you can buy to go with it all. I know I shall never understand it all and, until I can clone a polydactylic octopus, the intricacies of the different controls will always be beyond me. There is a facilty to load scenery disks of, for example, South East England which has actual seamless imagery down to objects 14 feet apart so, if I ever get that far, I can come and quite literally see the cars which were parked in my road at whatever point the photos were taken.

Beware people, I could come crashing through your door at any time. If you see a Boeing 777 meandering erratically towards you, let your last words before a fiery demise be "Hello Bertie, nice of you to drop in".