Great thread - Being a young 67, flight simming has been my escape for many, many years. My introduction to flying started with my Grandad who soloed in 1919, was a draftsman for Travel Air, turned to barnstorming with the budding companies flying with the such as Stearman, Beech… knew Cessna. Went on to have his own aircraft company in the 20’s (Pheasant was the plane)… My Grandmother was known to do some wing walking with Granddad before they had my Dad and Uncle. Flew with him as a youngster, he was still crop dusting until he passed away in the 60’s
As a teenager, I was fortunate enough to have my best friends Dad being a flight instructor,. Got to catch rides with them and when my friend got his PPL before his drivers license, we would fly in his dad’s super cub when we both could pool enough money for fuel.
Viet Nam was winding down as my friend and I graduated from High School but we both went into the service… him to Air Force ROTC, me to the U.S. Coast Guard Academy… my eyes kept me out of flight school so I went to sea until I retired from the service in the 90’s, my friend retired and went to the airlines.
Ever since flight sims came out in the early ‘80s I have used them to get my flying fix, took flying lessons after retiring from the service, but time constraints and the ever increasing cost lead me to the decision that simulation was good enough for me. As others have stated …. VR is as good as it gets.
Neither am I young…My father was an airline pilot ( DC-3, DC-6, Brittania, DC-8, 727, 737-200 ( captain),747, DC-10 (captain)) and I am lucky enough to have all his flight logs. Looking forward to running those old Prairie and Yukon routes in the DC-3. By learning VOR and NDB nav, I have even more respect for him than ever. Try lo viz IFR into Castlegar in a steam gauge 737-200…thats for real men! Flight sims allow me to have a chance to see what that might be like.
old dude here - 76. Got my private pilot cert when you could rent a C170 for $40 an hour wet. Always brought and played the new version of flight sims - from both MS and XPlane. At some point, I could sadly no longer pass the physical the only place I could ‘fly’ is in my games. I’m relatively forgiving with the faults of various sims mainly because I understand both the computer world and the airplane world. Both are complex and not forgiven for human faults and desires. I.E. you do it their way or you crash.
dw
ps this is an image of my first flight lesson textbooks.
I see what you mean, there is some resemblance indeed. And about the day the picture was taken, it was indeed a beautiful day. This was at the floatplane base on Lac Saint Augustin near Quebec City’s airport, CYQB. And my girl is still with me, so life is very good. I’ll be ninety in a couple of years but I don’t feel anything like being close to that age.
Not very many old timers around, from what I see. It’s possible they don’t hang around the forums much, I don’t know. I was hoping to hear from more old simmers in this thread but some posts got a bit off the track and devolved to other subjects. Still, reading the reminiscences here was certainly a pleasure.
That is so Awesome! This sim is such a cool way, especially in VR, to continue to fly for so many pilots.
I fly with a guy that is 85 almost daily online together, he is still a great pilot, and its fun to talk on discord about everything under the sun, while we fly all sorts of planes, all over the earth.
Here’s an old book…well its not really that old if you stop an think about it… Needless to say we refered to a iPad as something you wore if you hurt your eye! Almost 3" thick…and it’s only Texas! I actually kept it up to date until about 15 years ago. Im not sure if the Jep subscription still covers paper now days… ever watch a 707 or 727 captain , first, or 2nd officer carry one of these on the plane?
I got my first one when I was working on my instrument rating…used it with both real aircraft and msfs over the years from version1 thru fsx. Msfs 2020 I decided to go with a tablet.
The book was expensive and so was the subscription!
The subscription is still expensive…but it comes on a sim card I insert into the G1000, and yes I eventually gave in and have a tablet or two that Navagraph rules instead of Jep.
I’ll add my 2 cents to this fascinating topic-- age is 87; PPL on my birthday in 1952. First lesson was in 1949 at age 14. Active in CAP in my teen years which provided a lot of flight hours in many types of aircraft. Have been simming since the beginning and anxious for the updates on Friday, especially the return of Meigs. I flew out of Meigs in 1953 with Tommy Bartlett in his Cessna 195, a treat after appearing on his radio show “Welcome Travelers.” Have been most impressed with MSFS which has provided the chances for flying complex aircraft and the airliners, only a dream back in the day.
Tonight I loaded up the Community Meigs airfield and did some night time patterns in VR, along with a few passes through the spikes on Sears/Willis Tower.
OMG, it looks so much better than it did in the early 80s! I was just a kid and some of you guys were about my current age back then. Chicago is just beautifully modeled!
As low quality as the graphics were back then, that airfield and the skyline seem so familiar to me.
Hi,
When I flew corporate 727s, we carried seven large cases full of Jeppesen books on board. They covered most of the world’s airports with runways longer than 6000 feet. And every two weeks we received a huge stack of revision letters from Jeppesen to update all these charts. Took the entire cockpit crew quite a few hours to insert all these revisions. Every two weeks.
I have the Chicago upgraded scenery…Add that to the Meigs field add on and it’s fabulous! I grew up in the NW suburbs, and I often fly up the CNW (now UP) tracks to my old stomping ground…Niles/ Park Ridge area…Makes this old bold pilot feel young! Thanks MSFS! It’s hard to believe that was almost 70 years ago! I have really enjoyed this thread on the forum!
IM going to try and log a couple of hours on my other expensive toy tomorrow morning. As long as I can keep passing my FAA Medical Exams, IM going to keep flying both my 182 and MSFS. When the doc says…no…Thank goodness I still have MSFS!
I Just shot the instrument approach IM going to fly in the morning on MSFS…It’s so cool to do it on the sim, and then do it in the aircraft. I just got the NXI upgrade on my last annual and IM still learning how to use it…Yes MSFS helps. but the sim just touches on what it is capable of. I had a separate KAP140 Autopilot (Exactly like Carnado’s MSFS 182 does), but the NXI upgrade has it built in to the G1000 now.
Here’s a picture of the 2 most expensive things in my life: Wife and my 2007 182T
OH…Aircraft are REAL good investments. Unlike autos depreciating…they appreciate!
A new one (same features C182T) costs $675,000 Plus . I paid $405,000 in 2007 (C182T G1000) brand new Fully Loaded. It is worth 95K more now than when I purchased it. Add the NXI upgrade and it’s worth 125K more…But the NXI upgrade cost me 28K.
WOW! NBC’s Welcome Travelers! That’s really cool!
That was Capitan Kangaroo and Howdy Doody time for me!
MSFS is bringing back Meigs field?? I…along with others, have the flightsim.to version and the upgraded version. Do we need to get these out of our Community folders before Friday?
I’m trying to remember when we switched to plastic from paper certificates…early 2000’s? Wasn’t it supposed to be a 911 thing to prevent someone with a printer printing a fake pilots license?
That was about the same time we were required to let ATC know we had a gps…“two one niner tango golf is a Cessna one eighty two SLANT golf, requesting permission…etc”
I still have my first plastic one…but like you said…it’s a eye test to read it. $2 to get a new replacement still?
We need to start a poll/list for…“you know your an old bold pilot and simulator pilot when:”…Jeff Foxworthy style
Lets list all the things and have a poll…
Here’s a few suggestions…
…your license is so old that you can’t read the print, even with reading glasses…
… Your first flight simulator you could count the pixels…
…Your charts made you change the weight and balance of your aircraft …
The flightsim.to Meigs creator has a upgrade available…8 euros… but it’s only a little more detailed…you can walk into the terminal building…etc.
No matter what…I have really enjoyed it. Only downside is no charts available for approaches. Wonder if Asobo is including the paperwork?
At 90, I must be the oldest flight simmer. I started with the rudimentary IBM sim, which came out when personal computers were in their infancy.
And now I have a great setup with an Alienware laptop and a 55 inch Oled screen.
Here is my latest flight video:
