I remember it like it was yesterday, shopping at the mall Dec 1998 with my wife (well she was shopping, I was just to standby to carry bags). Been a fan of the air shows at the local NAS and WWII weekends at Reading for years and grew up near 2 NAS's one of which was a test center. Wandered into a Game Spot ( I think it was) and started browsing like I was at Barnes and Noble. I wasn't into gaming, didn't even own a PC, the one at work for work was enough. Saw "Falcon 4" sitting on a shelf, I read the back cover and my mind boggled. The publisher was Microprose. So I bought it for around $65.00. Took it home knowing at some point I'd finally have to buy a PC to make use of it, (Got a Pentium III and 15" (or so) monitor and MS combat stick a month later). It came with a wonderfully fat printed book of instruction. The book and training syllabus was put together with input from a Pete "Boomer" Bonani, an experience F-16 instructor. The instruction manual was fat, and there were 160 key code combinations to remember some of which would be assigned to the stick.
In the opening pages their was something mentioned that I never forgot. "How do you eat an elephant?" "One bite at a time".
And down the flight simming hole I went big time. Some of that CH gear dates from 2000, talk about durability. And I have 2 sets of Thrustmaster HOTAS Cougar, one is NOS and still in the box. You can never have enough backups in some hobbies.
This was not a game but a serious simulation requiring a good bit of reading and practice. I followed that with MSFS Flight Simulator II (the Pacific campaign) and loved it, still miss it. Somewhere along the line I got introduced to civilian planes and I followed that with all MSFS title offered starting with 2002, as well as some others from other publishers.
Over time with newer OS's and Direct X's and newer hardware, running the older sims became more difficult, but eventually I decided to stay with the MSFS line. Still running MSFS Accel with Win 7 now but will go to the MSFS 2020 and Win 11 in a month or so. Going to stick with A2A planes this time instead of trying every new TOTL offering that comes down the pike.
The changes in sophistication of the addon software over the years has been impressive. The ability to download real time world weather in all parameters while flying with active air traffic and ATC, head tracking gear instead of hat switch panning, ground and in-plane shadowing effects, Orbx and Aerosoft and other software devs provide a very real world to fly in, and on and on, have held my interest. The incredible PMDG line of heavy metal. But I'm more of a stick and rudder guy, give me an A2A J-3 up the Snake River Canyon at all times of year but especially winter, cruising the Pacific NW up through Tongass Fjiords, British Columbia and on to Alaska in a Cherokee or Comanche. Or the islands of Polynesia or New Zealand..........
But, I'm getting off topic and flight simming is unlikely to make the sine wave
So back to your regularly scheduled programming!
