Coincidental Floss: Flight Sim Centric

Out Here in the Fields

Mon, 30 Jul 2007 16:37:58 GMT

Driving south on 41 from the Super 8, I took my last look for the year at the few remaining bits of AirVenture detritus that are left at the airport. Most of what used to be camp grounds, beer gardens, parking lots, chair rentals, even a movie theater is quickly resurfacing as the rolling green grass that is roughly my 17th favorite thing about the Badger State.

Just as the airport came into view, the Who's classic Baba O'Riley came over the rented van's stereo. Normally, this drive is quiet and nostalgic, and I look to the big bands to get me through it. This morning, though, after a week of (a) hard labor of love, the lyrics struck me as fitting:

Out here in the fields
I fight for my meals
I get my back into my living.

I don't need to fight
To prove I'm right
I don't need to be forgiven

The relevance stumbles a bit in the next few lines - the area is a bit of a wasteland, but it's hardly teenage, and I don't know anyone named Sally ...

Don't cry
Don't raise your eye
It's only teenage wasteland

Sally take my hand
We'll travel south cross land
Put out the fire and
Don't look past my shoulder

The exodus is here
The happy ones are near
Let's get together
Before we get much older

The exodus is here, indeed, though I can't say that I was quite ready to flee the Pharaohs of the EAA.

Wait ... I'm Not Sure I Saw Everything ...

Mon, 30 Jul 2007 06:46:01 GMT

AirVenture, Day Last

Today was unusually quiet, though you'd never have known it by looking at me, zipping around on the golf cart, hauling boxes off to a shipping vendor, making last minute stops to see friends and business partners (usually both) one last time, and wondering why it was I couldn't find a t-shirt I liked this year.

The aircraft camping areas (the North 40, and its counterpart, the aptly named South 40) were extremely thin when I got to the grounds this morning, and the display areas, especially the warbirds and vintage spots, were nearly barren. Even Jerry and his One Man Band were gone today, postponing until next year my plans to buy a CD chock full of accordion-synth-polka goodness - thank goodness I have that excuse to come back. For a while, I thought that even that one guy was gone, since he was 90 minutes late getting to the booth. Turned out to be nothing more sinister or mature than a nasty hangover.

I was dismayed to learn that the pilot lost in Friday's crash was a close friend of two dear friends of mine, Tom and Laurel Lippert. Anything more than about one degree of separation among old airplane people (that is, people who like old airplanes) is uncommon - still, it was a bit startling to realize the close connection we had in common. Laurel wrote a great story about how they'd met a couple of years ago - I remembered the story well, but just hadn't recalled the name. You can read Laurel's story here - there's a freebie membership required, but it's painless and worth it. I'm glad to point to it here, even if only as a memorial.

I had a good chat with "Snort", who made a special trip to the booth to say goodbye. I ended up seeing him again later in the day, pulling up along side his P-51 in my not-quite-as-impressive golf cart as he was launching for his Heritage flight display with the F-22 Raptor. As always, he flew a flawless routine, and then left the area to take the Mustang home.

As the day wound down, I got all eleventeen of my boxes packed and handed off to DHL, while the rest of the group concentrated on uninstalling the FSX: Acceleration add-on ... and then using retail copies of FSX to repair the installation. It seems the uninstall routine in the build of FSX:A that we brought conveniently leaves FSX itself unusable. thankfully, this build was an Alpha (the one before Beta, or Male), and there's plenty of time to iron things out and polish it up.

I was a bit unsettled about the final teardown, since the computers and some of the monitors were going one place, the other monitors were going another place, and the crated booth structure itself was going ... one of two places, and we didn't know for sure exactly where, or when we'd know, and the guy who knew most of the things ended up running a bit late. Thankfully, he brought great news when he arrived just a few minutes later than expected: "You're done. We've got it from here." With that, we walked away at 5:59:07 PM Central Daylight Time, just under one hour after the official close of the exhibit hangar. This is a new record, one that I suspect will stand for some time, if for no other reason than that the thought of breaking it sounds utterly overwhelming.

Dinner part one found me honoring a tradition - burgers at Shepard's Drive In in Berlin (pronounced BER-lin), about 20 miles from Oshkosh. Berlin is a pitch-perfect take on the cliche of an idyllic middle-American town, but the joke's on the visitor, since it isn't a cliche at all. Dinner part two was a gift to my friend Brent, a rare opportunity, unavailable at home, to hit Taco John's and discuss the merits of Whiplash the Cowboy Monkey and his trusty steed, a dog called Ben.

This show is exhausting, even just as a spectator. It can be beastly hot, except during the occasional liquid insanity that they call rain in this part of the country, at which time it becomes beastly hot and wet. The crowds are thick, it can take forever to get anywhere, and the days are long - it's rare to leave the grounds after less than 12 hours. Even spoiled as we are as sponsors, with our golf carts, our VIP flightline passes, our access to special air conditioned havens of wi-fi and free lunch, just absorbing the event takes its toll, much less managing even our small slice of the logistical pie.

But I absolutely hate to see it end.

Somewhere around the second day of the show, when everything is setup, the things we remembered are working, and the things we forgot have been scrounged, and my routine is established, there's a sense of happy, if complacent luxury. "It's no problem, I'll be here for the entire show". Whether I say it aloud to someone I need to meet with, or just to myself as I choose where and with whom to spend my time, it means the same thing: There will be enough time.

I know better than that.

No matter how well I plan (and I was simultaneously much busier and dramatically more efficient this year than in year's past), there simply isn't any such thing as "enough time". By day 6, suddenly I'm Burgess Meredith at the end of the Twilight Zone episode "Time Enough at Last", wandering around a barren landscape, no longer able to see the things I came for. In my case, though, I'm not stranded alone in a post-apocalyptic library with no reading glasses, but I do tend to mutter to myself and meander ineffectually.

It's an embarrassment of riches, so many interesting things to see and be surrounded by in one place. Even more important than that, so many dear friends, many of them I've known for years, a few I've known for days, all here, all accessible to me every day. The chances it affords to connect the dots between and among those friends who know me but not each other is a dream for a professional common denominator like me.

I dread the sight of the deflation of this temporary city (whose visitors outnumber the population of Seattle by about 1.5:1), watching friends scatter back to the four winds, and the sudden switch of my weekly admittance wristband and credentials, my parking pass, and the golf cart from priceless to useless.

No matter how bittersweet (and mostly bitter) the ending, for one week out of the year it turns out that something close to heaven isn't in Ray Kinsella's Iowa, it's up and to the right, just to the left of Lake Winnebago. (If you miss and hit Sheboygan, you've gone too far.)

And now, before I pass out and miss my flight from Milwaukee to Seattle via Minneapolis, some 21st Century digital imagery:


Even the constant aluminum clanging and "One for the Ages" amplified pitch of the Little Giant Ladder Guy is a comforting sound, a traditional bit of AirVenture background noise.	Dale and Hal swap goodbyes, part one. Not pictured: Hal's envy at what Dale flies, and the precision with which he does it.

Our friends from Flight One, including Jim Rhoads on the left, and a gentleman whose name stubbornly escapes me in my tired delirium, guaranteeing an embarrassment hangover tomorrow.	The EAA's tireless 80 year old Ford 4-AT trimotor (NC8407, which is coincidentally also noted in my logbook) salutes the Super 8 as we prepare to go.

Dale and Hal's goodbye, part two. Not pictured: Hal in the criminally empty seat behind Dale.	Dinner at Shepard's! From L to R: Roy McMillion, Brent Conklin, Dan Sallee, and Hal Bryan. Not Pictured: Deep Fried Cheese Curds.

On arrival in Berlin, I immediately called a town meeting and made with the pontificating. I can safely say that I was firm but fair.	Objects may be more enthusiastic than they appear.

Get Some Rest, for Tomorrow We Tear Down ...

Sun, 29 Jul 2007 05:26:24 GMT

AirVenture, Day 6

Today was yet another day that didn't seem to have a particular theme. I was only in the booth for a couple of hours, but did some very well received demos to a few of the seemingly limitless number of pilots who have no idea what Flight Simulator can do for them, or, in some cases, that it exists at all. I talked with someone and their publisher about something I can't talk about yet, and I met for a half hour with that guy who has that one airplane that's part of another project I can't talk about. He was very excited to help us out.

It's always remarkable to see assorted flavors of Flight Simulator running at so many other people's booths. There's at least half a dozen avionics manufacturers that you try their products while flying with ours. You'd think they'd at least say "thank you", but what are you going to do? It's not like we're the richest company in the world with an army of lawyers ... Oh, wait. Actually, we love to see FS on display like that. The closer we come to ubiquity in the aviation world, the happier I'll be. And, to paraphrase Ian Fleming, nothing ubiqs like ubiquity.

I had a wrap-up interview today with Sky Blue Radio, and, in it, I said something convoluted about how time seems to be a bit schizophrenic at AirVenture - suddenly, it's the eve of the last day, and I'm only just now getting started ... yet some part of me feels like I've been here for years. Regardless, tomorrow is the day when I get to clean up the mess I made, shipping all the stuff back to Redmond that I shipped out here before I left.

The thoughts of a lot of people here go out to the family of Gerald Beck, the pilot and builder of a scratch-built P-51A recreation that was killed in a formation landing collision with a P-51D in front of the crowd here yesterday. This was probably the only time in my life when I was glad not to see a Mustang. I heard the crash, and I've seen some pictures, and that's already too much. (The images aren't hard to find on the web - I can't bring myself to post any links here). There's supposed to be some solace in the fact that he died doing what he loved, and I hope that's the case for his friends and family. Doing the things we love to do, those rare and precious indulgences that nothing can keep us away from, these things are what give us life ... for me, there's something particularly terrible when, in the random flash of an instant, they take it all back.

I suppose, however, that such is the risk of passion - the more we love something, the more power we give it to break our hearts.

Now that I've taken such a steep turn for the contemplative, I'm doing a lot more thinking than typing. Given that, I'll go ahead and offer up a few of my favorite pictures of the day (those taken by me, that is), then roll the dice and see if tonight's the night that I actually eke out more than 4 hours' sleep.


Flight Sim cockpits setup in the KidVenture hangar at Pioneer Airport. No, I don't have one of these at home, shut up.	The same sort of thing, but for bigger and wealthier kids - Redbird Simulations shows their nicely constructed and immersive cockpit.

It fits, and it matches my shirt, too.	I remembered today the first time I saw Jerry's One Man Band - I was 21, and thought his setup was spectacularly ridiculous. 18 years later, I realized just how much I count on him parked at the corner of Vern & Knapp, year after year. I'll probably buy one of his CD's tomorrow.

There's something so very promising about a biplane parked on the grass. Tailwheel airplanes have an optimistic stance and they sit literally looking up. That promise is somehow even richer at sunset: It isn't the bold "let's go, right now!" of a blue-gold sunny afternoon, but the warm aspirations of what's possible tomorrow.	Serenity.

P, Sure, But V and I? Who Knew?

Wed, 25 Jul 2007 06:33:52 GMT

AirVenture, Day 2.

I woke up across the room, having leapt there to answer the nerve-shattering wake-up call while still asleep. The calls are automated, rung with impertinent precision by some kind of PhoneBot, so my groggy attempts at "hello", "yes, I'm up, okay ... ", and "thank you, I've got to go get ready now" fell on ... well, no ears at all. Once I'd sorted out who I was and just what I stood for, the day began to improve.

I took the first hour off from the Flight Sim booth in order to see the ceremonial first use of a batch of computers that were donated to the EAA by our friends at Intel, with a bit of help from EAA's friends, us. The machines are setup in the EAA's Flight Simulator lab and are to be used to run FSX as part of a number of their educational programs for visiting students. Brett attended, as did Aces alum Roy McMillion, and we were joined before long by our friend Dale "Snort" Snodgrass, a consummate aviator whose bio makes me feel so terribly inadequate that I'm going to conveniently forget to mention it here. This will catch up with me shortly.

Here's a look at some of the PC's in action, being wrung out by a group of kids from all over the US who are attending the EAA Air Academy:

My time at the booth brought with it the usual series of conversations, questions, connections, interviews, and even a reunion or two. And then, having brought those things, it scampered off before anyone noticed.

In cruising around the grounds, we came across a newly-nearly-restored P-38 Lightning making it's official first AirVenture appearance. I say nearly-restored because the finishing touch - the application of the "Ruff Stuff" nose art commemorating the airplane flown in WWII by Wisconsin native Norbert Ruff, was taking place right there on the field, in front of an audience.

The tour of the grounds also found a lovely Australian Tiger Moth, about which I waxed authoritative and rhapsodic, while people whose room and board is being charged to my credit card did a credible job of feigning interest. You can see me in action on Roy's blog, specifically in this shot.

A bit later on we spent a couple of hours watching the airshow from the decadent comfort of the "flightline pavilion", a combination of air conditioned buildings, an outside seating area, free drinks, and two rows of chairs under an awning on top of a trailer. I stole about a half an hour from the show catching up and strategerizing with my friend Ron Kaplan, executive director of the National Aviation Hall of Fame. He apologized for the fact that my name was misspelled "Hall" in this year's program, and he felt doubly bad when I told him that the surplus "L" had happened last year, as well. I told him that I'd let him get away with it if he simply renamed his organization the National Aviation Hal of Fame. It wasn't all that funny then, either.

Here's a look at one of our designers, Brandon, and MVP Owen trying gamely to appear Very Important, as well as shot of the matching seating area just over from ours:

Later in the evening, after a premade-pulled-pork sandwich that actually had no discernible flavor whatsoever, we made our way to the so-called "Fly-In" theater, where the aforementioned "Snort" was going to be introducing the movie Top Gun. As it happens, Dale was an instructor at the titular school portrayed in the film (though, unlike Kelly McGillis' character, he was a fighter pilot not an astrophysicist, so he actually had some useful information to pass along), and some of the broad character sketches of Tom Cruise's Pete "Maverick" Mitchell character were based on him. We were sitting and waiting for the movie to start when Brett got a phone call, and ushered all of us into the VIP section of the screening. If you look closely at the picture, you can see that it was snapped during the scene when Goose ejects from the F-14 and, in a tragic miscalculation, is shot straight into the Sun:

From a practical standpoint, all this actually did was move us dramatically further from the screen, but the chairs were slightly more comfortable, and we were safely protected from the unwashed hordes of which we were so recently a part by a plastic picket fence. However, we were very well cared for and catered to, and I'm the first to admit that my vanity enjoys nothing so much as the chance to be on the other side of a fence from a lot of people. Besides, the company was good - Dale sat with us for a bit after he wrapped up his introduction of the film with a mention of the American Topgun Challenge, he gave a resounding plug for Flight Sim, and thanked us with considerable grace for attending. Getting a chance to talk to Francesco "Paco" Chierici and tell him exactly what we thought of his film Speed and Angels was an unexpected pleasure as well. (Note: we liked it.)

The contacts, the connections, the ideas, and the friendships continue to crackle and spark, and this was only day two, with five to go.

Oh, and a quick aside to Laurie Doering: In answer to your question, exactly what you'd think would happen at a Rubber Chicken party. And thanks for reading! :)

Three Thousand and Thirty Three Words

Tue, 24 Jul 2007 03:52:33 GMT

AirVenture, Day 1

I'm tired tonight, so I'll let the pictures earn their keep. The story behind the last one may be better left to the imagination anyway.

A Quantum of Solace

Mon, 23 Jul 2007 04:59:37 GMT

AirVenture, Day 0.

The booth setup today was almost eerily uneventful - most of the heavy lifting was done in advance, so all we really had to do was install a few bits of software. Even Flight Simulator X was loaded, configured, and activated, sparing us the 6 minutes per PC of activating by phone. Beyond that, we needed to work out some speaker issues and beg for some controllers to sit in for the ones we shipped that haven't found their way to us yet (thank you, once again, CH Products for filling in the gaps!).

Then there was the small matter of the two 42" plasma monitors that we need for our display that, technically, none of us forgot to arrange for, since none of us ever even gave it the slightest thought in the first place. Thanks to the miracle of modern cellular telephone technology, and the brute force of a Microsoft Corporate American Express card, this problem was solved when a company in Madison, WI, rented us the last two they had. They brought them straight to the booth and mounted and configured them for us. I haven't seen the bill, and I've a feeling I'll wish I never did, but the show must go on ... the roar of the greasepaint and the smell of the crowd and all that.

The show has already renewed old friendships, and sparked a few new ones. Tomorrow, that process will accelerate dramatically, as more people arrive, and the gates officially open. There will be noise and action and rapid-fire conversations and things to see and questions to answer or deflect gracefully. A maelstrom of activity, paradoxically some of the greatest peace I know.

Tonight, though, was about finding something akin to quiet, about the closest I can come to the sort of contemplative relaxation that normal people find laying in silence on a beach. Far closer, perhaps, than the stolen title of this post suggests.

The afternoon and evening brought together a few of my very favorite things: a huge Midwestern sky with a great sunset, a golf cart full of good friends, miles of fully gawkable airplanes, and ... someone who'd never been here before. I take a peculiar pleasure in being the person who has been some place amazing who can then, in turn, show it to someone else. It makes me feel like the drummer in That Thing You Do - "I led you here, sir, for I am Spartacus."

If any among the handful of pictures I took sum up a day-zero Oshkosh evening, I think it was this one. I'm resisting calling it the "picture o' the day", because I can't guarantee that there will be a picture tomorrow, or that there won't be another one in the middle of the night tonight. I'm just not ready for that kind of commitment. I'm resisting that, in fact, almost as hard as I've fought off the phrase "calm before the storm" in tonight's post, spraying my keyboard with Cliche'-be-Gone.

With that, then, here is the official "Picture of the Right Now, My Favorite of all of the Ones Inserted Here at the End, No Warranties Given or Implied".

Solace, indeed:

We've Arrived!

Sun, 22 Jul 2007 07:21:15 GMT

And to prove it, we're here ...

The Super 8 in Oshkosh, Wisconsin ... for one week every year, it is the second most desirable lodging in the world for pilots and aviation geeks as AirVenture begins.

My flight out from Sea-Tac was fairly uneventful - I had a three hour layover in the twin cities of Minneapolis & Not-Minneapolis. Dinner was a beer and a brisket sandwich, after which an enthusiastic waiter shook a bag of hot donuts at me for dessert. Two young kids played violin at the gate, having a very credible go at "Les Marseilles" - an odd choice, maybe, but it lent a certain ... I do not know what. After Minneapolis, I headed to Milwaukee (which, according to Alice Cooper, means "the good land" in Algonquin), seated next to a doctor who was angry because women can't give directions without discussing the way the elevators are decorated.

After landing and re-claiming (as opposed to simply claiming) my bag, I picked up the keys to my rental (a Grand Caravan with a Garmin glass cockpit, no less ... built, rather sadly, by Dodge) and set out through Milwaukee on the drive to Oshkosh, trying to decide if I was more of a schlemiel or a schlimazel.

I found Owen at the motel, and checked in ... before I'd said a word, one of the clerks said "You're Hal Bryan! I was told to place this directly in your hand ... " and handed me an official EAA tote bag that might as well (or mise well, if you prefer) have been the nuclear "football", given her dramatic timidity. I was flattered to be recognized, but, really, they're only happy to see me because I'm the one paying for all the rooms for the week.

Owen and I left and picked up Justin Lamb and Mike Lambert at the Appleton airport, then I came back to stuff exhibitor badges and lanyards and sponsor passes and all manner of other trade show flotsam into envelopes to be left at the front desk for the rest of our team.

That took longer than it should have, and I'm really tired, but for some reason I decided to write this instead of just going to sleep.

Tomorrow is setup day, but rumor has it the lion's share of the work is already done. All that really means is that the unforeseen disasters will have to be bigger than average in order to fill the available time.

Regardless, it is, as always, good to be back in America's Dairyland. Unlike mountain ranges and things that surround us at home in the Pacific Northwest (America's Barista), the terrain here is subtle, and just rolls along politely staying out of the way of the sky. It's beautiful in its way - lush and green, but, especially here, and especially now, the sky's the thing.

That seems like a half-pithy place to stop writing and go to sle

I Read the News Today ... Oh Boy!

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 16:13:44 GMT

While I'm still not entirely sure how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall (or even how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Brand Tootsie Pop), I do know this: the newly re-re-launched FSInsider website is finally live!

Give it a look. Or don't!

And He's Off!

Fri, 23 Mar 2007 17:31:23 GMT

All around the world ...

As I write this, a remarkable young man called Barrington Irving is on the first leg of a trip that will take him from Miami, Florida all the way to Miami, Florida, the long way, covering more than 21,000 miles in the process. His 5 week trip may not set any speed records, but he is set to be the youngest person in history to make this flight solo.

A number of us on the Flight Sim team have met with Barrington several times over the past year or so, but it was my good friend, colleague, and master of the pop-up Mike Singer who really figured out what Microsoft could do to help.

We're proud to provide his tracking info, and for our logo to make the trip with him. It's a rare pleasure to meet and do a small part to support the efforts of someone with a great idea, and the courage and dedication to follow through.

Symposuer

Thu, 22 Mar 2007 19:19:58 GMT

I've spent the last day and a half or so managing 3 FSX kiosks and offering demos and product info to attendees of this year's Microsoft Air Force Symposium. This event, just like every other symposium, conference, trade show, or seminar I've ever attended is whirlwind of contacts, acronym-ridden conversations, lanyards, credentials and swag.

Most of the event is focused on IT infrastructure, sharing best practices, shifting technologies and embracing new paradigms to leverage emergering methodolgies, maximizing efficiency while ... etc. There are a number of other vendors here, representing other Microsoft products, as well as third-party software and hardware, but the FSX stations are certainly among the most popular. Our traffic is surprisingly steady, even in the face of competition like the setup in the room next to me that says "Test Drive Windows Vista!"

While the number of current and former pilots that are stopping by is proportionally higher here than at a lot of shows, most of the questions are the same.

"What do I do?"

"What kind of computer do I need to run it?"

"It would be cool if you could use more than one monitor, or get rudder pedals or something."

"I used the first one, back in 2000." (For those not keeping score, Flight Sim 2000 was version 7.0)

"What happens if you crash?"

"If I buzz the White House, how come they don't shoot me down?"

As usual, I'm finding that real pilots will do very well at flying the sim, if I can get them to try it for more than about a minute or two. That seems to be how long it takes for them to think of the sim not as a toy to be messed about with, but to approach it as they would any new aircraft they'd evaluate, getting a feel for the controls, and establishing a basic input, analysis, decision, response cycle.

One pilot in particular, a square-jawed C-130 aircraft commander with steel hair and flinty eyes called - and I wish I were making this up - Colonel Manley, sat for more than 90 minutes, refusing to leave until he'd successfully flown our Red Bull time trial mission, and beaten the jet truck in the race.

When I asked him why it was that he kept crashing when trying to fly through Gate 5, he had this to say:

"Son, we live in a world that has walls. And those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it. I'd prefer you just said thank you and went on your way."

I might be paraphrasing, slightly. his actual quote was probably closer to "Because this joystick is so &*#@!! sensitive!"

Something like that, anyway.

Dear Marketing,

Mon, 05 Mar 2007 05:44:32 GMT

I told you so. You were initially a little concerned about watering down the FSX: Adrenaline announcement by mentioning Service Pack 1 and the DirectX 10 update in the same breath.

You weren't wrong, of course - it isn't good marketing to dilute the message of a commercial product by trumpeting the interim arrival of something free. However, we knew what was going to happen - as soon as we announced an expansion pack, we'd be on the defensive, facing accusations of incompetence and conspiracy. Incompetence, because not every single person involved with the ongoing creation of Flight Simulator is focused on a service pack, and conspiracy because, well, pretty much anytime Micro$oft does or doesn't do anything, it's conspiratorial.

I even wrote a post here that went live at about the same time, oh-so-cleverly entitled "Prequently Asked Questions", to hopefully head off some concerns. No, this doesn't mean that SP1 or the DX10 update will be delayed, no this isn't an evil plot to make you buy Vista ... Granted, fewer people read this blog than read FSInsider, and, I suspect, fewer people read FSInsider than read AVSIM.

But still, we tried.

You, Marketing and PR, listened to us against your better judgment. We told you that some segment of our customer base would react negatively to the announcement, because they'd assume it meant we were taking resources away from the Service Pack and DirectX 10 updates we'd promised. We also told you that we needed to emphasize the fact that the Expansion Pack was intended for both XP and Vista, since we'd be accused of forcing people to upgrade.

What we didn't tell you was that it didn't matter how clearly we tried to get these key points across - some people would still say we were unethical liars, simultaneously too stupid to build a decent piece of software and smart enough to dupe our customers, surely a far-brighter-than-average demographic.

We also forget to mention that our latest bit of transparency would mean that somebody would compare us to Hitler. Sorry for the oversight, but, really, you should have known that announcing a series of updates to a piece of entertainment software really is just another flavor of National Socialism. That should have been obvious. Come on - bang the rocks together guys.

If you haven't seen the threads, check them out:

I don't want to sound ungrateful but ...

- and -

New Expansion pack from Microsoft later this year

When I'm not shaking my head, finally understanding the full meaning of one of my father's favorite words - incredulous - I'm especially grateful for the cooler heads that find their way to the surface. Friends I've met, like Geofa, and those unmet, like Ladamson. And even, in fact I daresay especially, those who are disappointed with FSX, genuinely anxious for some additional support, and who manage to express that without accusing us of being dead fascist dictators. Those are the customers I like to think we're working for.

And for the record - I'm a fan of Ground Environment Pro. If there's anyone reading this who doesn't know their stuff, go check it out. Their work is an example of why we build a platform, and not just a product.

Anyway, I wonder if it would have been worse had we announced the Expansion Pack with NO mention of the other updates? I have to think so, though one wonders.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go and lasciviously eye Poland.

Prequently Asked Questions

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 21:19:26 GMT

Now that the cat is out of the bag, or, more to the point, the Adrenaline is out of the adrenal gland, I wanted to follow up a bit more informally here with answers to a few questions I suspect we'll be getting.

Q: Shouldn't everybody on the Flight Sim team be working on SP1 for FSX, fixing that and getting it released sooner, instead of worrying about something that you're going to sell, later?

A: No. Work on the Expansion Pack is not diverting people from work on Service Pack 1 or the DX10 update. All this means is that everybody is working on something new and interesting for FSX, which I think is great news.

Q: Does this mean that we have to buy the Expansion Pack to get the DX10 update?

A: No. The plans for the DX10 update haven't changed - that will be a free download as soon as it's finished.

Q: Since you're including some new aircraft and missions, aren't you competing with the third party community that has done so much for you and your customers?

A: No. The Expansion Pack will enhance the core FSX platform, and provide new functionality for the add-on community to build on. As always, we're just seeding the waters, to coin a pointless mixed metaphor.

Q: Won't the Expansion Pack require Vista, forcing us to upgrade?

A: No. Do we think it will look that much prettier on DX10 hardware (which does require Vista) and potentially encourage people to upgrade? Sure. But it will be a great value-add for customers using XP as well. Believe it or not, we can't actually force you to do anything.

Q: What is the capital of Nebraska?

A: The capital of Nebraska is Lincoln.

Dysfunction Junction ...

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 23:34:04 GMT

What's your major malfunction?

Some days, it's communication.

Any time you get a group of bright, enthusiastic, easily distracted people working together, it can create what we like to think of as a "dynamic workplace" - ideas popping like puffmais, and an electric sense of "get it done" tingeing the air like ozone in a thunderstorm. Every once in a while, however, "dynamic" becomes a Coveyesque synonym for "chaotic," and whatever that smells like, it isn't quite so pleasant.

A couple of cases in point:

About a fortnight ago, I wrote a blog post about the upcoming Service Pack 1 release for Flight Simulator X. In this post, I took a stab at explaining why we hadn't said anything formally on our official website, and gathered together some of the blog posts a few of us had made representing what little info we've been comfortable hinting at so far. A while after that, some people on the team told me that I should repost this writeup as an article for the FSInsider site.

Hmm.

An article on our website ... explaining why there is no article on our website. There was something paradoxically perfect about that, so why not?

So, I took the original post, edited it slightly, and then asked a few people to sanity check it and make sure there was nothing that I'd said as Hal9000 that they weren't comfortable with me saying as Microsoft. As the PM (Program Manager) "driving" the Service Pack release, not to mention the blogger who has spoken the most publicly about it, I wanted Phil Taylor's signoff before releasing anything to the web, which I got. So, the article went live on Wednesday afternoon. Once it was out there, I did a quick read of some of the Flight Sim forums. The first hot topic I saw was an announcement of new information about the FSX Service Pack ... on Phil's blog. Clickety-click, and there it was - a whole new post, with greater detail, and a bunch of before-and-after screenshots, the first that anyone has released about the Service Pack, rendering the article that I'd just finished posting on FSInsider largely obsolete.

I didn't know exactly what he was doing, he didn't know exactly what I was doing - we both just forged ahead with our shared goal: give our customers whatever information we could as quickly as possible. In the end, no harm was done - I updated the article after the fact to point to his post. Frankly, if I could do only one pointless and irrelevant thing per day, I'd be way ahead of the game.

The second example came the very next day, as it happens.

The morning started very typically - I came in through the side door (so that Lumbergh wouldn't see me), and sat staring at my desk for an hour, making it look like I was working. Then, I got an interesting email from one of my people, my vast and global network of agents, this one codenamed Branta Canadensis. In this email was a link announcing a webcast about the future of Windows gaming, featuring FSX and DirectX 10, with our own Phil Taylor as a primary speaker. This was definitely the sort of thing we'd want to promote on the FSInsider site. The problem was, I only had about 20 minutes to get it done, before I had to head offsite for a meeting.

I drafted a quick blurb, borrowed the banner from the cohost's site, and spent a few minutes in Photoshop painting out a glaring grammatical error. I built the page using an HTML template, got it live on our test server, verified it, and adjusted the properties to ensure that it would be called out on the FSInsider home page and that it would expire and delete itself after the event. Next, I exported the package using our content management system, switched to a production server and imported the changes and we were live. After that, I went and posted a notice on several public forums, and sent a good-natured email gently chiding Phil for not having told us about this. All this happened in about 15 minutes.

A bit later on, I learned that there was a fairly strict log-on process required to access the webcast - it wasn't private, by any means, but the online form that had to be filled out implied that you needed to be a Microsoft partner or developer or have some other credentials beyond just being an interested party. This didn't seem to daunt too many people, but it would have been a good thing for me to have checked out and at least made note of in advance.

The best part, though, came when Phil replied to my email to tell me that it was my team that had set up the webcast in the first place ...

Oops.

Once again, not every hand knew what every other hand was up to. While it's certainly safe to say that the odd missteps like these are the exception, not the rule, especially when it comes to actually building software, as it turns out, even soulless corporate drones like us are people, too.

Anyway, as before, no harm was done - we got the word out, and the webcast went very well.

So why in the world would I bother posting this particular bit of lightly-soiled laundry? Two reasons:

A) We've set pretty clear goals around being more transparent to the community, and, from what I've read, transparency doesn't mean "only show good things", and 2) I want people to think of events like these the next time someone suggests that we're pulling the strings in any number of vast and complex conspiracies. We'd all have to spend a lot more time in the same room than we do now, plotting and scheming, in order to pull off anything even half-sinister.

Now I have to plug the USB cable back into my brain for an upgrade before I have to head downstairs - Friday is my day in the money room.

They Like Us, Right Now, They Like Us!

Mon, 12 Feb 2007 17:47:26 GMT

It seems like only 19 days ago that I announced that Flight Simulator X had been nominated for "Simulation Game of the Year" by the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences.

Well, we won!

And congrats to fellow MGS title Gears of War, the Dixie Chicks of console games, for winning no less than eight awards.

Take that, Meryl Streep.

Sublime ...

Wed, 07 Feb 2007 17:42:32 GMT

Fresh from the editing software of someone called TPV71 comes this remarkable tour of FS2004 and FSX enhanced with some fantastic add-ons.

I have to agree with the person called ChrisMOd who says that this should be a commercial for FSX - or, more to the point, should be a commercial for what is possible when building on our platforms. Truly greater than the sum of their parts.

FSX-Box!

Wed, 31 Jan 2007 19:14:08 GMT

Had you going there for a second, didn't I?

Meh, probably not.

Anyway, our friends at CyberPower have built a gorgeous PC case that comes pre-plastered with images of Flight Simulator X goodness - something lovely to look at during those otherwise languid load times:

The FSX case is available as an option when buying a high-end system. In this instance, the "Gamer Infinity" -- "Infinity" being the clock speed which should give you at least 20fps at mid-range settings.

I'm kidding again.

We have a pre-release version of this box in our office - they really do beautiful work. And I'm not kidding about that.

Old News, But Still Worth Mentioning

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 22:10:57 GMT

While unpacking boxes from our recent office move, I came across a book I'd meant to write a bit about, but something shiny flashed by and my idea wandered back into the waiting room.

Anyway, if anyone reading this hasn't read a book called The Starship Diaries, you really should.

The book tells the story of an epic, two-year flight around the world in the sadly orphaned Beech Starship -- one of a handful of well-stylized airplanes like the X-3 Stiletto and the XB-70 that will always look like it's from next week. The author, Dallas Kachan, relates dozens of intriguing anecdotes about his voyage - fuel and mechanical troubles, hostile countries, a long illness - two years of flying and living, and nearly dying, against an ever-changing scenic backdrop.

Overall, Kachan writes well, and any weaknesses in his story telling are easily compensated by the facts of his adventures.

Or, rather, they would be if the flight had actually happened.

As it turns out, it didn't. At least not in the real world - the author did spend the time flying the flights, but he did so in Flight Simulator.

I'm not sure, but I think this makes him all the more brilliant.

It's an Honor Just to be Nominated

Thu, 25 Jan 2007 04:03:26 GMT

And we were ... FSX was nominated for "Simulation Game of the Year" by the Oscaresque-sounding Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences. As someone who has been credited with working on a number of relevant titles over the years, I am a voting member of the Academy.

We're up against a PS2 title I'd not heard of called "Tourist Trophy", and "Sid Meier's Railroads" - Sid's name is not exactly unknown in the PC world, since he's been producing games (including a number of combat flight simulators) since 1982, almost as long as FS has been around.

I've never used either of the other two titles (so I don't know what kind of frame rates they get) so I went ahead and voted for Meryl Streep in "The Devil Wears Prada".

Actually, they don't permit write-ins, which is probably just as well. People like my friend Mike who voted for Ronald Reagan as "Best New Age Pianist" in a Keyboard magazine poll back in the 80's would be spanners in the works.

Thank You For Flying Egalitair

Wed, 24 Jan 2007 23:01:01 GMT

The current issue of Newsweek magazine had a column that, like so many things, caught my attention momentarily, but, unlike most things, actually held it for a few minutes. In Steven Levy's The Technologist column, he's written a piece about an upcoming game for the Xbox 360 (though he spells it "PS2") called Guitar Hero.

Instead of a traditional controller, Guitar Hero uses a replica guitar, or "axe" to use the vernacular. Instead of strings, there are a series of buttons along the frets for the left hand, and a strummy bit and whammy bar for the right. The object of the game is to "play along" with music on screen by pressing the fret-buttons and the strummy bit in time with the color-coded prompts, then totally wailing on the whammy bar when it comes time for some sick shredding. The gameplay is a bit like the game Simon, but with a guitar instead of a thing that looks like Dr. Theopolis' intellectually stunted younger brother.

The part of the piece that really got me thinking was what people in the journalism business (called "journos" by my friends in the PR business) call a "pull quote". This particular pull quote reads "If a teenager can become a make-believe guitar hero, will he ever bother to master the real thing?"

I thought this was a really interesting question ... when is the simulated experience "enough"? Will Guitar Hero lead to a national hair-band deficit? To badly paraphrase the character Syndrome from the movie The Incredibles, if everyone can be talented, will anyone?

Levy's column quotes the game's developer as saying that the intent " ... is to provide the thrills of real musicianship to those who would not otherwise have the opportunity." In other words, it is, in effect, a guitar simulator, which will start to slowly drag me around to the closest thing I've got to a point.

Now, I fancy myself a musician (not precisely in the same way that I sometimes fancy myself the Archbishop of Canterbury), and dabble in a number of instruments, but not even the most charitable or hard of hearing would ever use the term "hero" to describe my talent. In fact, if musicians were superheroes, with Batman and Superman jammin' in the Hall of Justice, you'd find me in purple tights dressed as Zan in a drunken Wonder Twins cover band, working for free pork sandwiches in a bar on the bad side of Gotham.

But I digress.

Anyway, I've played Guitar Hero a couple of times. It is strangely addicting - a less humiliating Dance, Dance Revolution for the moderately sedentary. But, interestingly, my pre-existing and non-boastworthy musical prowess didn't give me any advantage when it came to gameplay - for the first two or three minutes, I was actually worse at pretending to be a guitar player than I am at being a guitar player. By minute four, I was less humiliated, and, after a half hour or so, the noise I was making was considerably better than anything I'm capable of in reality. While this was satisfying on some levels, I wasn't really developing any skills that would help me the next time I picked up the real thing. But, it's important to point out that it also didn't discourage me from playing - for me, Guitar Hero's virtual experience was largely detached from the real thing.

So what in the name of Eddie Van Hendrix does this have to do with Flight Simulator? Well, the parallels are pretty obvious, I suppose, so I'm more interested in the differences.

First of all, flying can be a dangerously unforgiving activity whereas being a bad musician is very rarely fatal - I'm living proof of that.

Second, flying is very expensive. Not that music lessons aren't, but just about anyone can pick up a cheap used guitar at a yard sale and use it to make some noise. Even if they sound as bad as, say, Nickelback, they are actually playing a guitar, possibly even for less than the price of the game. The retail cost of Flight Simulator X will pretty easily get you an introductory flying lesson, but that's a one-time thing.

Finally, even on the most basic of setups, Flight Simulator can teach you a lot about flying an airplane. What you learn about navigation, avionics, traffic patterns, etc, by using FS can actually help you learn to be a better pilot. Flight simulation in general is used in training pilots of all kinds - the next time you get on an airliner, bear in mind the the copilot might be flying, and it's entirely possible that they've never been in this kind of airplane before, having done all their training in a simulator with lower-quality visuals (but better flight models and frame rates that are about $30 million higher) than FSX. When properly applied, flight simulation can develop talent while a game like Guitar Hero presents itself as an unapologetic (and rightfully so) substitute for talent.

So what about Levy's question when applied to Flight Simulator? If someone can become a virtual pilot, will they ever bother to master the real thing? Well, given the fact that we have many more customers than there are pilots in the world, the answer appears to be a qualified "maybe". We hear from FS customers all the time who have used it to learn more about flying, or who were inspired to go on and become pilots. Others may be former pilots, or those that otherwise don't fly because of other circumstances. But, obviously, the numbers don't lie - some significant percentage of our customer base use Flight Simulator instead of actually flying.

After thinking out loud about this, my remaining question is "Does it matter?" While there appears to be no shortage of guitar players, there has been a decline in the overall number of pilots. However, there is no evidence to suggest that a product like Flight Simulator makes the real thing any less appealing - the fact that a lot of people can credibly recreate the experience of flying an airplane on their PC does nothing to devalue my skills as a genuine certified aviator. I'm every bit as pretentious and overly full of myself as I've always been.

So, whether you fly airplanes or computers, or both, whether you play a vintage Les Paul Goldtop or a Playstation, or both, everybody invests something a little different in the experience, and sees different rewards. As I see it, the awareness and enthusiasm raised and expressed in the virtual world will ultimately enhance the real one, and not detract from it.

Several paragraphs ago, I threatened that there would be some kind of a point to this, and, since I'm too lazy to edit, I'll try to deliver:

As long as you're not hurting anyone, not crashing innocent airplanes that I might want to fly myself one day, and not reviving disco ... and most importantly having fun, then the difference between real and virtual isn't all that important. Unless your parents disagree that is - if they tell you to get off the couch and go outside, you probably should. Oh, and, umm ... winners don't do drugs.

Where Have I Been?

Sat, 20 Jan 2007 23:27:47 GMT

I've Been Everywhere, Man ...

Toronto, Oshawa, Guelph, Burlington, Denver, Minneapolis, Oshkosh, Berlin, San Francisco, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Leipzig, Munich, Copenhagen, Barcelona, Palm Springs, Newark, Birmingham ... Not a bad 7 months, all told. Though I really need to go more places that rhyme.

And now, I've moved from dry-old Technet to the fun vibrance of Spaces (not affiliated with MySpace, so you almost certainly won't be seeing me on Dateline's "To Catch a Predator"). Plus, this ol' blog o'mine has a new name that is considerably less falutin' ...

Now that this is up and running, Flight Simulator X is launched and travel has transformed into something sane and predictable, I'll be the Baron of Blogmoor. If it kills me.

Many thanks to my patient readership of several ...

Lucy in the Sky Without a Man

Fri, 19 Jan 2007 01:07:15 GMT

(From the Archive - 3/6/06)

There was another interesting post at AVSIM the other day, that the author also emailed to us at tell_fs@microsoft.com, in which he offered suggestions for a "Wife Edition" of Flight Sim. It was full of jokes about shopping, shoes, housework, hair and make-up, etc. The full thread may be found here.

I don't want to pick on the author, whom I'll call "Andre" just as his parents did. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he was just having a bit of innocent, if anachronistic, fun. Judging by the subsequent comments on the thread, those that responded had a good laugh along with him.

However, since the topic of women in aviation combines the two things I spend all of my time thinking about anyway, I thought maybe I'd dust off the bully pulpit and chime in.

I've never actually seen any customer data of ours broken down by gender, but it's probably safe to assume that our customers are largely, probably even overwhelmingly, male.

I won't presume to suggest that the gender distribution of our customer base breaks down the same as it does in the world of licensed pilots - for one thing, we have more customers than there are pilots in the world, so extrapolation can't always be trusted - but it is interesting to note that, in the US, less than 6% of all licensed pilots are women.

The more interesting (or at least heartening) number to me is that 12% of all student (read: potential) pilots are women - hopefully, that figure will trickle up in the future and maybe we'll see the overall numbers continue to slowly change.

Do I think that would be a good thing? Absolutely, if for no other reason than it would mean more women would see what they're missing.

Regardless, it's clear that men outnumber women in real world aviation, so it's not likely unreasonable to assume that they do so in the virtual world as well. (Note to my long-time pal Katy Pluta: Stand fast!)

With all that in mind, here are some editions of Flight Simulator I'd like to see before we get to the Robert Young / Jane Wyatt Father Knows Best special commemorative release:

Flight Simulator 1911: The Harriet Quimby Edition - Hurry up and get your pilot's license before men let you vote!

Flight Simulator 1921: The Bessie Coleman Edition - Learn to fly in another country, because your gender and your race prevent you from training at home.

Flight Simulator Golden Age of Air Racing: The Jackie Cochran, Amy Johnson, and Pancho Barnes Edition - Fly faster and farther than lots of people, even some miserable blank-knocking men!

Combat Flight Simulator 4: The Night Witches Edition - Fly as many as 10 missions a night, dead stick over enemy lines, hand dropping bombs on the enemy before gliding to safety back in the USSR - all as a woman.

Space Simulator 2: The Valentina Tereshkova / Eileen Collins Edition - Fly Vostok 6 and the US Shuttles Discovery and Columbia on critically low levels of testosterone. (We could also do a pretty interesting Mercury 13 add-on.)

Flight Simulator 2006: The Nicole Malachowski Edition - After working your way up through US Air Force pilot training and becoming an instructor on the F-15E Strike Eagle, transition to the F-16C, and try your hand as Thunderbird 3. (By coincidence, Malachowski is Polish for "Better pilot than you.")

I could go on and on, especially if the criteria were expanded to include some women who may not be quite as famous, yet . . . Anne, Laurel, Bette, Michelle, Beth, Kirstin, Jennifer, etc. In the meantime, at least Flight Simulator 2004 includes nods to Amelia, Patty, and Martha.

With that, I suppose I have made my point with typically clumsy sincerity. Special thanks to my wife (the world's best navigator) and all my girlfriends for appreciating aviation, even when it doesn't happen to be pink and covered with butterflies.

This post was not sponsored in full or in part by the 99's, Women in Aviation, Women Fly, or the He-Man Woman Haters Club.

And Here's Another Clue for You All ...

Fri, 19 Jan 2007 01:06:30 GMT

(From the Archive - 2/23/06)

The Walrus was Paul!

Welcome Paul Lange, FSX Lead Designer, to the world of blogging. Paul is a pilot (lives on a private airport, just like I . . . used to) and brings some great enthusiasm and interesting perspectives to our world.

Not to mention that he might just write more than I do, which could take some of the heat off . . .

Grand Theft Flight Simulator

Fri, 19 Jan 2007 01:05:50 GMT

(From the Archive - 2/18/06)

Take a Little Trip, Take a Little Trip With Me

To the cool, cool water of the semi-pirateless Caribbean . . . In reality, my only excursion to the region was a week on St. Martin / Sint Maarten for my honeymoon, most of which was spent lounging at the Sunset Beach Bar on the beach, the one with some of the best airplane watching anywhere in the world.

(For those familiar with the island that know of Orient Beach - find your own link - the answers to your three questions are "Yes", "No, are you kidding?!?", and "Unfortunately, mostly wrinkled old German men.")

First thing Monday morning, however, I'm going to have to make a virtual return to the area, this time to take a look at the presumably fictional Cabo Cay, thanks to one of the more interesting and original Flight Sim add-ons to come out in recent memory, Smugglers of the Caribbean.

A few bits from their press release:

"Smugglers of the Caribbean - Cabo Key" is an add-on package set in the Caribbean on a small uncharted island just north of Havana. It is part 1 of a multi part series of add-on aircraft & scenery packages which will all be set in the greater Caribbean Area and will all tie in with each other. For us it was important to provide a full simming add-on “package” to MSFS2004 rather than merely a scenery or an aircraft. Our package includes a rideable ground vehicle, a boat and an aircraft and of course scenery and something to do. Smugglers of the Caribbean gives you an uncomplicated set of wings, set in a visually realistic environment.

When doing smuggle runs take off from base and rendezvous with the Pan Americana, a cargo vessel used by the clan to smuggle contraband to Europe. Drop your cargo and get back to base. Be sure to stay under flight level 1000 to avoid detection by radar, yet be aware of Coast Guard vessels patrolling the area. Once a month you have to take a boat ride to Miami or to one of the close-by islands to get spares and supplies.

This package includes photo textured scenery of Cabo Island, with its short and challenging landing strip, a Cessna Caravan 675, a "Gofast boat" and a 500cc Quad ATV. Also included is the Pan Americana, anchored a 30 minute flight north of Cabo Key, waiting for your delivery and AI traffic flying to and from your island such as Coast Guard patrol boats patrolling the area.

When my friend, flight sim texture genius and fairly new Horizon pilot Justin Lamb sent me the link, my first thought was that maybe my other friend Bill Lyons (creator of some of my all-time favorite add-ons) had finally turned evil or been replaced by a Bizarro version of himself. (Bill's add-ons always include a boat or a car, some great scenery, etc, but they tend to involve roughly 100% less smuggling.)

If anyone has a clever religious metaphor that they're not using about how and why the Lamb made me think of the Lyons, let me know. Otherwise, lets call it coincidence and move on.

Anyway . . . My second thought was how strange it was that they'd happened to use one of our rejected marketing slogans, inspired by the new FSX missions system we've been working on: Flight Simulator X: Something to Do.

My third thought was about how excited my friend Jim (not that one, the other one) is going to be when he sees this. (It's not Orient Beach (with or without the wrinkles) Jim, but it is a step in that direction. Give my love to Donna!)

My fourth and final thought, so far, was the absolute unadulterated (pun intended?) joy I will feel when I submit an official Microsoft expen$e report (product research) on Monday for €25, payable to Pimp Aviation.

I can't wait to put these guys on our Beta.

Is There Anybody Going to Listen to My Story?

Fri, 19 Jan 2007 01:04:55 GMT

(From the Archive - 2/15/06)

That hasn't already read it on Jason's ridiculously prolific blog, that is?

If so, then run for your life on over to Pixelpoke, and read a great and generous bit about some of my work on FS2004.

Jason, you are too kind.

In writing, anyway. Now get back to work and art me up some more FSX!

Weather or Not

Fri, 19 Jan 2007 01:03:52 GMT

(From the Archive - 2/3/06)

A lot of people have posted wish list threads and sent in suggestions for things they'd like to see in the next version of Flight Sim. Most of us that work on it do the same thing. Our internal wish lists usually, but not always, start with bugs that were postponed from last time.

One of the individual features I was most heavily involved with on FS2004 was weather. In fact, tdragger blames me for the ugly way that visibility layers interact with terrain. I fought for that, and, yes, I'd do it again, because, bad as it was, it was better than not seeing anything at all . . . which was the only other choice.

The fact that tdragger, as the program manager in charge of weather at that time, was the only one with the actual authority to make the choice to go with my recommendation is inconvenient, and I won't bring that up here . . . Instead, I take my share of the responsibility with pride. Fire away!

Anyway, Blogger-in-Chief Jason Waskey just sent me back an old email of mine in which I listed, hastily, my personal "Top 10" (that naturally goes to 11) wishes for weather in FSX, and suggested I post it here.

How many, if any of these changes will we get in this version, or the next, or the one after that?

I can't say.

When I say I can't say, I don't mean it like I can't say big words like "deoxyribonucleic", "obtufiscation", and "mayonnaisse".

I also don't mean "I could say, but I won't, because I enjoy keeping secrets". I mean I can't say because A) some information hasn't been announced, and 2) for some of these, I just don't know yet.

With all that baggage put out there, here's my Weather Wish List, in no particular order:

“Real” overcast – full on 8/8 coverage with no holes.
Better interaction – visibility + terrain.
Gradual transitions in and out of visibility layers.
Multiple visibility layers.
Improved precipitation curtains (ie, no more curtains.)
Falling precipitation affected by wind.
No more impostors (2d "walls" of distant clouds that we draw when 3D cloud percentage is less than 100%), even on low-end.
Fog when METARS demand.
Rainbows.
Wind smoothing ala FSUIPC.
Better forming / dissipation effects for clouds.

Time will tell, but wouldn't it be nice . . . ?