When I was young, I wanted to be a pilot (every kid wants to be one right?). I love planes. I love flying. After high school, I applied and got an interview. But then, God decided that He has something better for me and put in the IT line :p. (not that Im complaining). The thought of getting a private pilot license (PPL) hit me but it's too costly for me. Maybe when I'm rich I can afford to do that. So, the closest i can get to flying a plane is with Flight Simulator.
I remember my first flight simulator. I think it was Flight sim 4.0 or something like that. It ran on an x286 IBM PC Compatible with 1Mb of RAM and 256k video RAM. The graphics were wiremeshed monochrome. :)
The Flight Simulator have been around for about 20 years or so. If someone come up to me and ask what's the best product available from microsoft, I'd say Flight Sim without thinking.
Some say Flight Sim is boring. I remember when a friend of mine watch me fly, he asked, "Can't you shoot anything...? What's the point?" Some people just dont have the passion.
Late last month, Microsoft released Flight Simulator 2004. It was labled A Century of Flight. I can't wait to get my hands on it. More planes, more airports and killer graphics. Apparently the game was optimised to be used with medium configured machines, which is good news to me. What im looking forward to is flying the DC-3, a classic transport airplane (remember Jack Dalton from McGuyver? he used to fly one of those ;)). I will write a review the moment i get to play it but for the mean time, here's an extensive review from Tom's Hardware.
p/s: One thing I noticed, when i was a kid my dreams were bizzare. As I grew up, my dreams become more down to earth. I wanted to be an astronaut, then a pilot, then an aeronautical enginner... now im a systems engineer.
"I'm looking to the sky to save me
Looking for a sign of life
Looking for something to help me burn out bright
I'm looking for a complication
Looking cause I'm tired of trying
Make my way back home when I learn to fly"
Learn to Fly, Foo Fighters
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