Having been interested in aircraft from an early age and making the decision, after a lot of thinking about it, not to become an airline pilot at the age of 18, planes have nevertheless remains something of a passion and interest for me.
In uni I studied aircraft design initially before switching to a more general electronic engineering course. Even though my career has not been aircraft or flying related, I spend significant periods of time at airports and in various aircraft and even took a number of a small aircraft flights into the mix.
Airshows were always a hit and on my honeymoon, my wife surprised me with a visit to a aircraft museum and flight strip in Palm Springs. There I met a WW2 flight engineer who took the time to explain to me the timing workings of the radial engine, one of which was on display and sectioned to really show the inner engineering.
In later life, having some time and a few bob, I've decided to engage with a long awaiting hobby, flight simulation.
In the years since I first began to follow this hobby, things are really moved on. Whilst the likes of Microsoft have left behind a great legacy and no longer see the FS market as profitable, companies like Laminar Research [X-Plane] and Lookheed Martin [Prepar3d] have taken up the gauntlet. Microsoft's swan song 'Flight' is best left without further mention.
As a flight sim community, we do have a lot to thanks Microsoft for no matter how disappointed the author was with their ill conceived bean counter driven swan song. Fact is, without MSFS, we'd have a different FS reality.
So, still using Microsoft FSX, I've been flying the virtual skies and having fun but I wanted to simulate more and have my virtual flying mean something more than ...well ... just flying.
I found and bought a few addon products to enhance my flying, one where the player/simmer can emulate a transport company called Air Hauler. Others offers more high fidelity aircraft models such as Flight1 Cessna T182T and Precision Manuals Development Group [ PMDG]. Yet another, Mindstar Aviation, introduced me to the general aviation Glass Cockpit. finally, Tileproxy was an addon that afforded me some fantastic scenery visuals during my Visual Flight Rules [VFR] virtual flights. Superb enhancements one and all.
Yes, there was something else was missing, the simulated Air Traffic Control [ATC]. Enter VATSIM.net.
This is a global volunteer community organised to provide virtual pilots flying any of the above mentioned flight simulators the experience of communicating with a real human being virtual air traffic controller. The organisation is vast, the quality highly professional and the overall functionality, truly impressive.
Training, mentoring and support is available, pre-requisites are a little as a willingness to learn and access to some simple tools and the net. Membership is free and the only requirement on the membership side to be active at least once per quarter. One can join as a Pilot or Controller. It's something else and from an impact to your virtual flying experience, it simply cannot be even matched by the programmed ATC in my sim.
You heart rate rises, you think, crap .. what do I need to say .... there's a real sense of being put on the spot and a huge sense of satisfaction and achievement when it all works out ... which with a little preparation invariably it always will.
To take matter further, VATSIM as a global organisation, though divided into regions and sub divisions, offers Pilot training courses to enhance the skills sets of the pilots flying on the network and thereby improve the experience for all users.
The courses are completely voluntary. They are proper courses however, complete with syllabus detailing learning objectives, theory and practical examinations and results recording and logging.
I've recently completed and passed my P1 rating course [Pilot] which is an online [read ground based] rating which teaches the student all they need to know about being a new pilot on VATSIM and how to start.
Future courses cover all the advanced airman ship capabilities and qualifications and there seems to be a deliberate parallel with the real world.
Note: None of this is valid or applicable to any real world situation. It is purely simulation and will never amount to anything more!
So, there you go, Jack is meeting really cool people and learning lots and having great fun.
To only be recommended.
