Up, Up & Away!!

<<< This is me!!!!!

I'm sure I'm boring everybody stupid with this Flight Simulator X lark. I remember writing previously that I'd tried earlier versions and got bored quickly but this time, I'm afraid, I am totally hooked.

From those early beginnings with a microlight, through the kamikaze stage and further on to having the confidence of actually believing that, not only can I find another airport, but actually land there, I have become a veritable Biggles aspirant.

I have to say that the technical side of it is awesome (to coin that annoyingly prevalent American import). Just downloading another aircraft and assimilating it into the software was leaving large hand-shaped lumps of hair all over the flight deck..........oops, I mean desk. These aircraft simulator creators are a strange breed: the manual for one single airplane was 84 pages long and included all specification, wiring diagrams, pre take-off visual inspection instructions, pre-taxi checks, pre-start checks, pre-take off checks etc etc. Now I really can't be arsed to do all that; I just want to take off and fly. The trouble was, with this particular aircraft, attempting so to do created a very realistic engine fire and, subsequently, a gently smouldering Bertie legging it back to the safety of the perimeter fence. It was after I spent about an hour going round all the instruments and switches religiously performing all of the flight checks that I found the "Easy" mode - bums!

Now I'd got the hang of the basic controls, I started to think about learning a few more things. I have many aircraft available, ranging from inter-war biplanes to a Boeing 747 as well as various supersonic fighters and figured I really ought to try and familiarise myself with one particular model rather than dip in here and there. I settled on the Cessna C172SP Skyhawk.

This is relatively simple to fly but incorporates the Garmin 1000. 'Uh?' I hear you ask. In order to explain, let me quote the blurb from the actual Garmin Corporation:

G1000 puts a wealth of flight-critical data at your fingertips. Its glass flightdeck presents flight instrumentation, navigation, weather, terrain, traffic and engine data on large-format, high-resolution displays.

In other words, it does virtually everything apart from make coffee but requires an amazing amount of understanding. I printed off 14 pages of explanatory notes and am gradually learning what does what, when, how and why. Mind you, might I respectfully suggest that they incorporate a CD player in future! It's a lonely life being a sky jockey.

Right, I could do all the various bits to some small degree but what next? I decided that I really rather fancied a circumnavigation of Britain so sat down and spent ages plotting a course clockwise around the coast. I figured it might be fun and would certainly hone my take-off and landing capabilities as I had vectored in 36 stops along the way! (note pilot speak - vectored!) I set the time as 4am on an August day and duly took off from Gatwick amidst a beautiful sunrise. Heading south, I was soon down to the coast and then heading west to the Isle of Wight.


9 airports later I am at Filton in Bristol, well on my way and, amazingly enough, enjoying every minute! The beauty of the software is that the terrain is totally accurate and based on satellite data photographs so it really is possible to imagine you're actually up there. Cruising serenely past Chesil Beach, gazing down at Falmouth and then the real excitement of reaching St. Just aerodrome at Lands End was so satisfying; I had reached the end of England! From here I was entering unknown territory as I knew the area I had already travelled pretty well so I now have the joy of visiting places I've never been to before - all from the comfort of my own desk.

I shall pop over to the Isle of Man and then divert via Shannon and Belfast before I head up to the Highlands & Islands, then back down the east coast and home. It's all real time so I will have some night flying to come.....wonder where the headlights are?

My apologies if you are bored to tears (assuming you made it this far) but I really do have my head in the clouds. Some people go to much greater extremes - honest. Here's a photo of someone's somewhat more serious set-up and, as you can see, I'm a mere greenhorn in the aviation world.

Just one final comment; it's possible to video one's flights but the format is unsupported outside of the software. Another happy couple of hours were spent working out how to convert and compress into a publishable format and here's my first effort. It's choppy, performed before I had really got the realism settings optimised and I was flying a very fast Pilatus turboprop at about 300 knots which I'd been in about twice. Consequently, it doesn't show off any great skills or geographic accuracy but it was fun to do..........and I did it first take!!!

(Incidentally, any mid-vid pauses which may occur are down to Blogger's buffering and not me - sorry :( )

Well, as we aeronauts say, Bravo Bravo to Tower - Over and Out!