In raising this topic, I’d like to be careful to note the forum rule: “Politics [does] not belong in the Microsoft Flight Simulator forums.” so this OP will strictly stick to the ‘facts’ of troubled world locations and not stray into any political commentary around the circumstances of those locations.
I was flying over Chernobyl nuclear plant recently and found this quite the somber experience despite it being (in the sim) another group of buildings between trees. The real-life reality informed how I felt about it, despite the sim being quite sanitary.
I’m expecting to soon fly over the war zones of eastern Ukraine and I’m expecting the sim to represent only at a very superficial level (only what Bing ‘sees’), the destruction and geographic reality of the conflict. For example, I notice that Donetsk Airport [UKDT] which in real-life is a ruined shell, will welcome me for landing with matching ATC.
We can fly ‘for entertainment’ around the world, yet can visit in a simulated sense war zones in Afghanistan or Yemen, hurricane and disaster sites. We can fly to and over locations simply impossible to fly over in real life, for a range of reasons.
I’m going to do it, but I can’t help giving pause to the individuals affected by real-life wars and real-life disasters.
What’s your reaction to flying to and over ‘problematic real-life locations’ if you do?
Flying over regions like that to respectfully commemorate those lost is a good thing. I personally don’t, because I like to keep my sim experience “happy.” The only current exception is Pearl Harbor. And back in FS9, I had a gorgeous addon scenery that depicted the American cemetery at Normandy.
I was there a few weeks ago and was pretty surprised that Pripyat looks basically how you you’d expect it to look from above. The earth is slowly taking it back. If you went to the plant itself, just a little south, you can tell where the sarcophagus is meant to be which isn’t shown in 3D.
The beauty of actually flying over forbidden/high risk locations is that there’s no real danger to do so. It kinda helps make things a little bit more real yet there’s nothing wrong with feeling weird about it, even though it’s irrational to feel that way.
Well I’ve been recently watching The World at War blu ray and the allies assault on Italy. It showed the battle at Monte Cassino and I was intrigued at the monastery on the hill that the germans used to fortify their position and that the allies eventually bombed and over ran. So i went for a flight there and found it, sitting on the massive hill rebuilt. The sim is amazing.
The sim is widely recognised as a great tool for digital tourism. I have lost account of the amount of places I have flown to just to get a context of scale and layout. I think the one that stands out the most to me is the Barringer crater.
I am also a bit of a history geek. The sim is an awesome tool to go visit location when reading about an incident. You understand it a lot more when you can get that feeling of relevance.
