Coincidental Floss: Thrilling Cities

Flying Down to Reno

Sun, 25 Nov 2007 23:02:29 GMT

And Now ... The Rest of the Story
Heading into Reno, Nevada last September, I was inevitably reminded of a trip I'd taken to the city just about exactly 15 years prior, back in September of 1992. I'd taken off from Geiger International Airport in Spokane, Washington, in a Cessna 172 (grossly over-) loaded with 3 friends and weekend baggage.

There was a girl at the FBO with friendly eyes and a quick laugh that were more interesting to me at the time than the fact that she'd misunderstood my fuel order and given me half as much gas as I'd asked for. The fuel gauges in that airplane were wildly inaccurate and tended to read a half tank high until it had gone down to below about one eighth. I might have seen this when I "dipped" the tank during my preflight, but I was in a hurry - the airplane was about 100 pounds over gross weight, it was getting hot, and my planned route was going to take us across some rough landscape, out of range of any navigational aids, so I wanted as much daylight as possible.

Several hours and at least that many more foolish-young-pilot decisions later, I was lost over desert mountains in the dark, effectively out of gas, and asked to respond to a ghoulish request from Oakland Center to "...state (the number of) souls on board." There were four souls on board, though I'd have sold mine in a heartbeat for more gas or the sight of an airport.

That trip ended successfully, and the lessons I learned have helped keep me and my passengers safe ever since. This latest trip ended successfully, for me and mine anyway, as well, but, as I've mentioned in a prior post, three pilots were killed at this year's event. Fitting, if grim reminders from a city known for its gambling that, sometimes, it just comes down to luck. But, while each of these incidents cast their own shadows over the place, it seems a much better idea to break the spell and talk about the rest of it, the parts where nobody died, or even came close.

The Arrival
As I mentioned about eleventeen years ago in the Prologue, I'd recruited a team of employees, MVP's, and volunteers to help demo the Flight Simulator X:Acceleration expansion pack at the National Championship Air Races. For anyone to whom it isn't terribly old news, Acceleration features the Reno course along with other single-and-multiplayer racing missions. The timing was mostly good, since Acceleration RTM'd (Release To Manufacturing - software-speak for the moment when we take our stuff and give it to the people whose job it is to burn DVD's by the zillions and stuff them into boxes for sale) just a few days after the show, making the Air Races our de facto launch event. I say "mostly good", not because I'm equivocal and like using adverbs as adjectives, but because this also meant that a lot of the team was so busy finishing the product that they couldn't break away to help show it off. In spite of the aforementioned mostly part of the mostly good timing, however, I had strong support from the team, not to mention a great group of volunteers.

15 Characters in Search of an Exit
The ragtag, fugitive band I brought included my boss, Community and Partner Development Manager Brett Schnepf, and Experience Architect Mike Singer, also from Brett's team. Test, Design, Development, Program Management, and Art were each represented by Mike Lambert, Paul Lange and Brandon Seltz, Susan Ashlock, Eric Matteson, and Irvin Gee, respectively. Joining us from elsewhere in the recesses of Microsoft was Milen Lazarov, and rounding things out (by which I mean "doing all the work") were Flight Sim "alums" Roy McMillion and Matt Gamboa, MVPs Brian Gefrich and Norman Blackburn, and ~~homeless drunks~~ pilots and "friends of the team" Dan Sallee and Scott Marshall.

It's amazing to me to see the number of volunteers we get from outside the team (in Milen's case) and outside the company to help support us at events like these. While I have to admit that I'd jump at the chance myself if I were still strictly a Flight Sim customer (as opposed to a Flight Sim customer and employee), I still think we're remarkably lucky to have such a dedicated and passionate group of people willing to come to the rescue. I've been reasonably pleased with, say, the Dyson vacuum cleaner I use at home, but I can't imagine working their booth at a vacuum cleaner convention. Yes, I suppose that it is a terribly unfair comparison, but I'm the one doing the typing so just sit comfortably and leave the awkward analogies to me.

Messrs. K & H Assure the Public, Their Production Will Be Second to None
I'd also be remiss (not that I remember being miss the first time) if I didn't mention Steve Mallinson. Steve works for a legitimate-sounding company called The Production Network, and we employ their services on those occasions when A) we have a major event to run and 2) we're behaving intelligently. Anyone who has read much of anything here or seen us at Oshkosh, AOPA expos, and now Reno knows that we have a large booth property, designed and beautifully realized by our friends at Moto Art. Contrary to my long-held assumptions, this booth doesn't just magically appear whenever and wherever we need it, like Billy Mumy wishing things into a cornfield in The Twilight Zone. No, the booth actually has to be stored somewhere. And transported. And maintained, and even upgraded.

That's where Steve and TPN come in. Case in point: When I staggered into an early planning meeting for the Reno show, unshaven and reeking of Hot Tamales, I blurted something incoherent about decorating the centerpiece "control tower" of our display to look like one of the pylons at Reno. Steve took the idea and ran with it, along with every other random request I had - shelves, coat hooks, improved cooling for the computers, dancing girls, new logo banners, mid-desert wireless Internet - ideas that could only dream of making it to the back of a napkin. You name it (or, actually, I named it) and Steve just made it happen. I only hope we pay him enough.

(Pink and) Blue Meanies in Pepperland
We stayed in a hotel called the Peppermill in downtown Reno. I'm presuming that the place was memorable, since I can still see the subtly understated explosion of pink and blue neon that covered every inch of the decor any time I close my eyes. The rooms were spacious (or at least seemed to be, the mirrors made it difficult to find the edges), and included the wonderfully named Robo-Bar, with a sign right next to the lock that read "no key required".

Another delightfully anachronistic retro mod con was the Valet-o-Matic, an automated scanner that, through the miracle of an allegedly harmless bombardment of sizzlingly visible laser radiation, summoned guests' cars from the valet, with a functional success rate approaching 30%. If I concentrate, I can still smell the ozone crackling off the back of my hand. Not to be outdone, the human service was courteous and helpful, though it will take a team of economists another several years to make sense out of the 33-page receipt they gave me for my expense report, including a single unspecified charge for exactly one cent.

The Biggest Little City in the World (and home of the squandered oxymoron)
I've found that the overall feel of the hotel matched that of the city itself, in microcosm. Reno is like a high school kid dressed up for homecoming: he cleans up pretty well, but the tux is rented and a bit out-of-date, he fiddles with his tie and cummerbund a little nervously, and hopes that nobody knows that he's not nearly as sophisticated as he's trying to act. Once you get past the "Shut up - we are just as good as Vegas!" attitude of some of the casinos, though, you'll find that the people are nice and approachable, and the city seems to relax quite a bit.

Entschuldigung, bitte, mein Gambling ist nicht so gut ...
Being an unabashed Ian Fleming aficionado, it was inevitable that I spend at least a short time in a casino, preferably playing James Bond's card game of choice, baccarat (not Texas Hold-Em, as shown in the otherwise fairly faithful Daniel Craig adaptation of Fleming's first Bond novel, Casino Royale). The fact that I really had no idea how to play ultimately worked in my favor as I threw myself on the mercy of the terribly bored looking dealer sitting ruefully alone at the only baccarat table in the Peppermill. The dealer, a kind and slightly maternal blonde woman called Hyde, was a patient instructor, once she gave up trying to convince me that I shouldn't play this game, especially at $25 a hand, until I know how.

As I eventually, learned, the baccarat I played that night is not the same as what features so prominently in the Bond novels. The European variant that Fleming describes in such detail is also known as chemin de fer, and lends itself to complex strategies, careful decision making, and alternating alliances and antagonism among players. The variation found in American casinos is known as punto banco, which is French for "no skill or thinking required." Basically, punto banco is like Blackjack, though the goal is to get to a value of 9, rather than 21, most of the cards aren't worth anything, and the player has no say in any aspect of it except where on the table to pile up the chips before they're removed by the nice lady in the red vest.

It goes like this: First, you place your bet by putting your chips in either the box labeled "Player" or the box labeled "Banker". (It took some time for me to grasp the idea that I wasn't the player, and the dealer wasn't the banker, though the complete absence of anything for me to do other than to try to pick a winner helped drive the point home.) Once you've bet, the dealer deals hands for the player (who isn't you) and the banker (who isn't her) and each hand stands or gets "hit" according to the proscribed rules. One of these two fictional characters wins and the other loses, or sometimes they tie. You, the real player, better described perhaps as an invested observer, win or lose based on who you guessed would win before things got complicated with the introduction of cards and numbers and things. Truly, you don't so much play this game as watch it, and, because it's a 50/50 shot, the equivalent of betting on a coin toss, it has some of the lowest "house advantage" of any casino game. Of course, even when you win, the house gets a commission.

Interestingly enough, I did ultimately win. I started with $100, and walked away with $200. I suppose it was only fitting that I won at a game where you only pretend to participate, since the only reason I played was the fact that I was inspired by a fictional character, usually under cover, no less. Not to mention the fact that I spend my life working on ... a simulation. Before I follow this to its logical conclusion, one which most likely involves some kind of existential breakdown, I'll switch gears and head for a more important bit.

On With The Show
Our presence at this show was the most extensive we've ever had, a total of 22 computers setup in two different locations. The first was in the general admission area, behind the grandstands, and consisted of the Moto Art booth - 8 PC's stuffed in airliner galley carts mated to bits of TBM Avengers with a control-tower-turned-race-pylon in the middle - along with an additional 8 PC's at desks for competition races. The second location was in the racing pit area, only accessible to pilots, crew, event staff, and those members of the general public who either paid an additional fee to get in, or just wandered up when nobody was looking. We took over a substantial portion of a hangar for 6 demo PC's and a bar, and built a VIP lounge under a tent out front. The lounge and the hangar were decorated with Moto Art bits - a radial engine desk, a DC-9 cowling bar, and chromed propellers. Moto Art also brought a set of first-class airliner seats that reclined in case the heat, lack of oxygen, and free-flowing drinks weren't enough to induce napping.

Our two spots were quite a ways apart, and the distance fluctuated wildly with the ambient temperature. It was the shortest at about 11:00 AM, while the beastly afternoon heat and the spiky morning cold each tried to outdo the other in making the walk seem longer and longer. One of the many side effects of the walk (or at least that's where I have chosen to lay the blame) was my constant and shocked misreading of a sign at a booth selling handdipped corn dogs. Have a look at the picture to get an idea of what I imagined I saw, and thank Photoshop for helping me bring my "dreams" to life.

V is for Visitor
Both locations proved to be well placed, and gave visitors the impression that Microsoft was everywhere, but not in an oppressive "call the DOJ" sort of way. In fact, the reception from the crowd and the treatment we received from the event staff was fantastic. Steady streams of spectators, pilots, and crew got hands-on with Acceleration, on their own or in scheduled races, and the response was excellent. There was a nice mix of "I had no idea I could do this sort of thing on a computer!" and "It's about time you guys added racing!", with only the occasional "When are you guys going to do a version for the Xbox360 / Mac / iPhone?" and the odd "The bartender says I have to talk to you if I want more than two drinks..." A man I called "the guy in the hat, no, not that one, the one who hugged Paul" turned up several times to announce that we'd be fools to charge anything less than $200 per copy.

The multiplayer races that we had at the booth were far more successful than I'd expected, frankly, since most attempts to introduce any kind of organization to the crowded chaos we're used to end in a whimper of cat-herding futility. This time, though, thanks in large part to the crisp efficiency of Mike Singer, (and the booming note of authority lent to his voice by the portable PA we found at Wal-Mart) the races ran smoothly, and proved to be a major attraction. The race winners became minor celebrities, and a number of them have since received spectacular prizes by mail.

A Day at the Races
Other than the regrettable and somber periods when the air port was closed to investigate one of the accidents, there was a pretty steady stream of aviation activity each day. Each of the race classes - Sport, Biplane, Formula One, T-6, Jet, and Unlimited - generally each flew one race per day. The jet class was just introduced in 2002, and was initially limited to a single type, the L-39. This year, the class was expanded to include "...any non-afterburning jet with less than 15 degrees of wing sweep", which opened the competition to L-29s, T-33s, and a T-2 Buckeye. While the jets are popular, the undisputed stars of the races are the airplanes in the Unlimited class. Unlimiteds must be piston-powered and weigh a minimum of 4,500 pounds, and the majority of them are WWII vintage warbirds, or at least they started out that way before some extraordinarily extensive modification. P-51s, Hawker (regular and Sea) Furies, and F-8 Bearcats are frequently seen, along with Yak-3s, along with extremely rare types such as the spectacular F-7F Tigercat.

Between races, there were a number of traditional airshow acts, like real-life "Loopy Larry" Kent Pietsch who flies a technically brilliant "comedy act" in his Interstate Cadet, culminating in a landing on top of a moving RV. Also flying was Dan Buchanan who does a well-choreographed aerobatic routine in a hang glider. Remarkably, Dan is a paraplegic, a fact that usually isn't sprung on the audience by an overly melodramatic local narrator until after he lands. Dan is a spectacular pilot, and his routine is inspirational, but there's a great deal more to his flying than the fact that he does it in spite of a disability. There's just something off-putting about a narrator smugly, almost happily announcing "That's right folks, Dan can't get out of his hang glider yet ... because he CAN'T WALK! There's his ground crew, bringing him his wheel chair BECAUSE HE CAN'T MOVE HIS LEGS AT ALL! How about that?!?!"

Rounding out the show each day was a typically gorgeous performance by my long-time favorites, the Canadian Forces Snowbirds. After their last routine of the show, the split into a loose trail formation and ran several laps around the pylons before departing. Pure class. And speaking of class, and the Snowbirds, for some spectacular pictures of the team, check out Roy McMillion's shots here.

Another Bowl of Whiskey, Mister Bryan?
This trip gave us the chance to spend some quality time with some friends of the team. Dave Hall and Donovan Fell from the previously-mentioned Moto Art always make good company, and it's a pleasure to see so much of their work firsthand. Brian Terwilliger, director of the film One Six Right, popped in a few times, as did Ron Hamilton of the National Aviation Hall of Fame. Dale "Snort" (yes I know the story, and no, I'm not telling) Snodgrass and Rolf Getty from American Top Gun Productions, and their associates Dan McCue and Sean Carroll rounded out our entourage, or we theirs, it was difficult to tell.

Rolf also works for Sky Blue Radio, and takes a persistent and sadistic delight in ambushing me for interviews and commentary. I wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, having heard Rolf's voice in a nightmare, his signature "I'm here with Hal Bryan..." ringing in my ears. Then, mercifully, I close my eyes and take comfort in counting the flashing retinal sears of the Peppermill lobby as I drift back to sleep.

Dale, Dan, and Sean are all consummate pilots and frequently gentlemen. Dale, retired from the US Navy and the highest time F-14 Tomcat pilot in the world now flies Mustangs and an F-86 in airshows, often as part of a heritage flight. Dan is a retired airline pilot who flies, among other things, an F-4U Corsair, and is actively prepping a dozen Northrop F-5's for sale to airshow pilots and collectors. Yes, he promised me that I could fly one. Sean is also an airshow pilot, and has flown his Yak-3 at Reno in years' past. At dinner our first night, shortly after I toasted the table with a bottle of Scotch (a wonderfully generous gift hand delivered by Norman Blackburn), using a soup bowl since my quaich was, regrettably, at home, we all got to be friends. Their insights, not to mention their introductions, made the show a lot richer for all of us.

Nothing Delicate About the Sound of This Thunder
Another friend of the team, Mitch Carley, was responsible for what was certainly the single most memorable evening of the trip, the world premiere of the film Thunder Over Reno. Mitch, known to a lot of airshow goers as the man behind Duggy, the constantly smiling DC-3, wrote, produced, and directed the film, a lot of which was shot on location at the Reno races. The film is billed as "the world's fastest love story", but, for those of us in the theater watching it, time unquestionably stood still. It's the quintessential coming-of-age tale of a farm boy who makes good, hearkening back to the classic and familiar stories of adventure, love, loss, and redemption that we've seen over and over for years.

The acting was raw and enthusiastic, with romantic leads Hawk Younkins (yes, that is his real name) and Natasha Yi throwing such effort behind their performances that even their quietest and most introspective scenes weren't in danger of being drowned out by the titular thunder of the flying sequences. (A certain hot-shot Yak pilot at my table who shall remain nameless was actually tearing up at one point. But don't tell him I told you.) Even with all this competition, pilots Jimmy Leeward and Bob Odegaard (who was also the Executive Producer) turned in some of the strongest acting performances, playing themselves.

From the moment the guests arrived, filing into the hotel lobby past two Mustangs and a red and white Super Corsair that had been trucked over for the premiere (and that all featured in the film) to the instant they left as they credits rolled, there was something palpable in the air. It was truly an experience, and those of us who attended could hardly imagine the luck that brought us there. For fans of the genre, it's a must-see, and I can hardly wait for the DVD to take its rightful place in my personal collection.

Not Such a Bitter End
The show wrapped up, as it does every year, with the final race of the Unlimiteds. Thanks to Snort and company, I watched most of it from a seating area atop the support trailer for the Miss America P-51. The last race was certainly the best, with more passing than most, a number of emergencies (including a stuck throttle for the winner, Rare Bear), but all were handled skillfully and ended safely. I remember a pretty groggy dinner that night, ordering from a French menu that I wouldn't have understood even if I wasn't half asleep, then my usual night-before-departure ritual of "pack up and pass out".

This wasn't an easy show, in many ways, though much of it went as smoothly as the best of them. But, in spite of everything, it was a great trip, and another excellent opportunity to get face-to-face with the people who pay our salaries.

Hey, Wait ... Before You Go ... Just to be Sure That There's No Hard Feelings ...
Interestingly, my skill at games that require absolutely none paid off one last time as I was leaving the hotel after checkout: On a whim, I dropped a single dollar in a slot machine, and won $100. Given that the $100 I won was just a piece of paper with "$100" printed on it that I'd have to give to the casino cashier in order to get another piece of paper with "$100" and a picture of Ben Franklin printed on it, I decided to push my luck. I sauntered jauntily (which is something to see, believe me) into the "high stakes" slot machine room, put my $100 chit in the first Gamblotron I saw, pressed a button, and out came a new chit. I assumed it was simply a "thank you" note, given that I was now officially a high roller, but, actually, I'd won again. $200, this time.

I'm not normally known for, shall we say, under-doing things, but, in this case my devil-may-care "Easy come, easy go" was clubbed over the head by a miserly "quit while you're ahead". So I did.

Another lesson learned, at least temporarily.

Additional Photos


Milen Lazarov	PM Eric Matteson writing emergency code!	Paul Lange not giving anyone else a turn.	Mike Lambert ... Bartender?!?

Donovan and Ron	Sean and the 1,000 yard stare.	Dan, Rolf, Sean, Kathy and Brett.	Brian Terwilliger Charming Security.

Because it needed more color.	PMDG T-6 ... Sort of!	When one prop just isn't enough.	Rounding the corner.

I will not, under any circumstances, mess with Texas. Don't worry, Mr. President.	Snowbird, far from home.	I don't know, I'm still pretty set on the Prius.	Sean, Rolf, and Aces Design Lead Pat Cook feigning interest.

Reno 2007: Prologue

Thu, 13 Sep 2007 08:29:29 GMT

I Should be Writing About Toronto, But I'm Here in Stead
Reno / Stead airport, that is, the home of the 44th Annual National Championship Air Races, where I've blown into town with yet another army of volunteers, demoing Flight Simulator X: Acceleration. This event is unusually timely, given that the ability to fly the Reno course in multiplayer is a key feature of FSX:A.

Before I got here, however, and after I left Germany, I had a fantastic if all-too-brief trip to Toronto, where I did a day of press demos and interviews for an amazing range of Canadian media. I will tell that story and share some pictures, but I'm going to fiddle with the order of things here by necessity, since I'll need to provide some reasonably timely (and, thanks to the elevation, oxygen-deprived) updates from here in the high desert.

Even that won't really start just yet, because it's late or early or something, and I'm tired from yesterday's setup and today's semi-public dry run.

So, here's some pictures to look over. I'm going to go take a nap.


The simple and understated elegance of our hotel lobby, a poignant reminder of why you should never use a hair dryer when bathing in Pepto-Bismol.	Mirrors make small spaces look bigger. I get it.	Here's a shot of the bed in my suite, taken from the campsite which was as far I as I got the first night. I hope to summit before first light.	My first look at the famed "home pylon", the inspiration for the changes I had made to the centerpiece of our booth.

The booth, complete with newly customized center bit, basically up and running after setup.	Check out Flight Sim, get bombed - a look at the bar in the corner of our VIP lounge area.	Another part of our lounge, complete with first-class airline seats and a radial-engine coffee table.	Ladies and gentlemen, you have a race ... The first public run of the multiplayer Reno race mission.

Meine Schöne Münch'ner Stadt

Thu, 13 Sep 2007 07:56:23 GMT

A Pleasant Trip to Germany - Part II

After the talkative cab ride to the Leipzig-Halle airport as mentioned in my previous ... epic, I wrapped up my last half hour in the former DDR with the Besondere Frühstuck, the special breakfast, at what I would modestly insist is the best airport restaurant in the world. It's called Ilyushin 18, and is named for one of the prettiest Soviet-era airliners, known more simply as the Il-18. The airplane, once the backbone of the DDR's state-run airline Interflug, looks like the prettiest bits of a DC-6 and a Lockheed Electra (the 188), with just a hint of the bomber-style greenhouse cockpit that lends a slightly sinister air to most East-bloc civil aircraft of the day. The breakfast, meanwhile, the backbone of my assertion about the quality of the restaurant, was made from the tastiest bits of eggs and pigs, with hints of potatoes and cheese, and there was nothing sinister about it. Except, perhaps, its stubborn refusal to be available elsewhere.

The breakfast was delicious, and I left for my departure gate sated and well-prepared to enjoy the smug, comfortable decadence of another day in the soft life.

An Opportunist Knocks
When I went to Leipzig last year, my return flight was routed through München (Munich), which sparked an idea for this year's trip: If I was going to pass through the city anyway, why not pay a visit to my contact Matthias Knopp, one of the curators of the world-renowned Deutsches Museum. I met Matthias two years ago when he attended a presentation I gave at a gathering of Air & Space Museums hosted by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. He'd expressed some interest in using Flight Simulator in the museum, and I'd promised to arrange a stopover at some point. Emails were exchanged, and, though Matthias himself was unavailable during the time I'd allotted, he arranged for me to meet with chief curators (titles) of the aviation collection of the main Deutsches Museum in downtown Munich, as well as the aviation-only satellite facility at Uber Schleißheim, the oldest continuously operating airport in Germany. The perfect chance to do a pleasurable bit of opportunistic business while I was in the neighborhood, as it were.

The flight from Leipzig to Munich takes about an hour and twenty minutes. Or at least I assume it still does, even if I wasn't on it. Given the fact that every single person on the planet flocks to Leipzig for Game Convention, it only stands to reason that, when it is over, they all leave. And so it was that flights from Leipzig on the day after the show were booked nearly solid, and my hour-and-twenty-minute hop to Munich turned into a seven hour excursion, half of which was spent in the Vienna airport. If you know your Geographie, or can find your way around a map, this routing is thoroughly non-obvious to anyone not versed in the dark arts of airline scheduling.

Coincidentally, seven hours is the amount of time it would have taken me to travel directly to Munich by train, and an hour and twenty minutes is precisely the amount of time by which my flight to Vienna was delayed, thanks to a mechanical in Dresden.

Waiting at the gate, every quarter-hour or so the agent would make a lengthy and exceedingly detailed announcement in German that came across so fast I was lucky to catch one or two words per sentence: "Ladies and gentlemen ... flight ... furniture ... Vienna ... apple juice ... minutes ... thank you." Then, thankfully, she'd paraphrase the announcement in English, which was always the same: "There is not news about the flight. We will tell you later. Thank you."

Eventually the airplane arrived, and it was impressed upon us that we needed to board as quickly as possible. There was something over the PA about an apology for the hasty turnaround, alluding, I thought, to the fact that there wouldn't be time to do a normal clean and prep of the cabin between flights because of the already lengthy delay. Again, when it came in English, it was a bit lacking in detail: "Here is the airplane. Board quickly, now. Thank you."

A Fool and His Luggage are Soon Parted
The flight, operated by Austrian Air under contract to Lufthansa, was short and pleasant, the thankfully-enjoyable-and-evocative-but-literally-non-stop strains of Strauss waltzes punctuated by a periodic series of apologies for the delay. It was the final apology, the one delivered as we were standing to deplane, that included a piece of information, tossed aside a near-afterthought, that really caught my attention. This apology, it turned out, was the one in which Austrian Air was not only still sorry for the delay, they were now sorry that they made us all board so quickly that they didn't actually have time to take on any of our luggage. Of course, we were assured, it would catch up to us eventually, but would we please make sure to speak to the airline representative who would be waiting for us at the bottom of the stairs as we disembarked?

I have one piece of advice for anyone in my vast readership of several who might one day find themselves in a situation like this one: do not, under any circumstances, allow yourself to be the last one off of the airplane. If you do, you will see the aforementioned airline representative ushering anyone who had checked baggage to report missing on to a bus, a bus that then will drive off (presumably to some magic Information Haus) without you, just a few steps before the soles of your shoes first touch the tarmacadam. Wilkommen im Die Österreich.

I spent the first half of my layover turning slowly in a circle, trying to figure out exactly who I should talk to, wondering if I'd even properly understood that last apology. I've lost bags on tight connections before, but I've never actually encountered an airline that consciously decided not to load the bags that were neatly assembled and waiting for the flight, just to save a few minutes on a schedule that had already been blown to bits. Eventually, the prudent thing to do seemed to be simply to deny the problem and worry about it when I got to Munich. My bag has traveled as much as I have, and I had every reasonable confidence that it was mature enough to find its way there on its own. I poked through the airport shops, and, in a spasm of non-jingoistic-self-deprecation, couldn't resist buying a mug emblazoned with a yellow road sign, the silhouette of an animal, and the inscription in English (the only language in which the joke makes sense): "There Are No Kangaroos in Austria".

Once I got to Munich, I reported to the Lufthansa customer-service area, and took a number, happy to see that there was only one customer ahead of me at each of the two service desks. I would have been even happier had I seen that my number was already being called at a third service desk, hidden on the other side of a partial wall behind me, but I ended up there soon enough. I explained my situation and described the lost bag, the Lufthansa agent's eyebrow arching slightly when I noted the color as "two-tone, black and plum". The eyebrow went the rest of the way up when I explained that the flight had left without any bags, not just mine.

"I should like to point out" he pointed out, in crisp English, "that this flight was not operated by Lufthansa directly. There are some situations that might arise when we subcontract a route that simply wouldn't happen if you had chosen an actual Lufthansa flight. However, we are, of course, pleased" - his expression was anything but - "to take full responsibility to see to it that your luggage is delivered to you as quickly as possible." On the bright side, his incredulity at the situation helped him forget his contempt for the high-visibility color scheme that adorns my suitcase.

He gave me a copy of my report, and a tracking number for a website that would enable me to repeatedly verify throughout the evening that there was absolutely no new information with respect to my bag. Then he handed me a large black-zippered pouch that looked it might need to be delivered to an embassy, and said "With our apologies for the inconvenience, we hope the amenities in this kit will help minimize the difficulties you encounter in the absence of your luggage." I thanked him and stated to leave, but he gestured for me to wait a moment, and he had a quick exchange with one of his coworkers. He then turned back to me and said "A small number of people - perhaps one in a thousand - have reported a bad ... allergy to the" he interrupted himself with another exchange with his coworker "toothpaste or deodoriser or hand lotion or something in there. I am certain that you will suffer no such weakness, but consider that carefully before you use the conditioner or the gel for your hair."

As it happened, his warning was entirely unnecessary, since it was the shampoo to which I had the impertinence to be allergic. I gleaned this not by actually using it, but by simply opening the amenity kit to find that the shampoo had leaked, and soaked nearly everything else inside. Everything, that is, except the plastic-wrapped emergency mu-mu disguised as a double-extra-large T-shirt, and a maddeningly clever hairbrush with a built in mirror that folds in on itself in a way that doesn't actually defy the laws of physics, but does seem to snicker at them under its breath. The bag and the rest of its contents, along with the 60 Euros I spent on the cab from the airport, were disposed of with equal haste.

After several seconds of unpacking, which consisted of setting my carry-on down on a chair in my hotel room, I took a walk into the city.

Eins, Zwei, G'Suffa!
Yes, for those of you that know Munich and are wondering, I went straight to Die Hofbrauhaus. For those that don't know, you should assume, incorrectly, that this is not the most obligatorily touristesque thing I could have done. In my defense, I had a long-standing reason: those of you that found your way through my first report from Germany know that I studied the language for a year in high school. In that class, one of the things that we found ourselves ... well, forced to do was to learn to sing two German songs. One, Bude Jacke, was set without irony to the tune "Frere Jacques" (or, if you prefer, as I do, it was set to the tune of the backup vocal line in the Beatles' Paperback Writer.) This was the song that taught me that church bells in Germany don't make a "ding" or "dong" sort of sound - rather, they say "bim" and "bam". I didn't believe it in 1986, but I do now.

The other song was a traditional Bavarian drinking-hall song, and, for reasons that elude me, I couldn't forget the first line even if I tried to manually cauterize that part of my brain with a soldering iron: "In München steht ein Hofbrauhaus, Eins, Zwei, G'Suffa!". Unfortunately, I not only remember the song, I can also hear it sung by a room full of disaffected teenagers, mumbling their way phonetically through it. Dear Mary "Van" Whalen might have generated a tad more enthusiasm in the class had she more fervently emphasized the fact that this is a song that celebrates beer. Regardless, she clearly did something right, since I'm stuck with it for life.

So ... the Hofbrauhaus it was. By this point, my palate had become well enough attuned to the fine points of assorted wursts that I could tell that the food was a bit bland, but the beer ... well, it had no business being anything but excellent, and it was. Or wasn't ... help, I'm trapped in a turn of phrase! Anyway, beer = good. The entire liter that constitutes one serving. (Note for my fellow metrically-challenged Americans: For some reason, we all know how big a two liter bottle of Coke is - this, then, was precisely half of that.)

From die Hofbrauhaus, I did a bit of exploring around the city, but, unfortunately, this stopover didn't permit much in the way of the sort of self-taught history that I love to digest, muddle up, then share with self-important ignorance. Which turned out to be fine, actually, since there was considerable history in my immediate future.

Eventually, my luggage found its way to my hotel, and I was able to unpack and use the energy I'd spent wondering about my bag to start wondering just why it was that the hair dryer was under the television.

Hier ist mein Visitenkarte
The Deutsches Museum von Meisterwerken der Naturwissenschaft und Technik, or, well, anything other than that for short, is the largest museum of science (Naturwissenschaft) and technology (you can guess) in the world. And it is terribly impressive, even before you walk in. There is a large cobblestone courtyard in front of the main entrance that features a gigantic sundial, while the museum's prominent tower sports a gargantuan barometer and hygrometer. This sets the tone for the exhibits inside, many of which are large, intricate, and and infused with efficient analog complexity.

My host, however, Ludwig Dorn, the curator for aviation (Luftfahrt), was infused with good-natured hospitality, patience with my efforts with the language, and an even greater enthusiasm and depth of knowledge of the subject matter than I'd have guessed.

When I arrived at the museum, I presented my business card (Visitenkarte) to the employee at the information desk and said, with the confidence that comes from having practiced for twenty minutes, "Grüß Gott. Ich heiße Hal Bryan, von Microsoft, und Ich bin für ein Meeting mit Herr-Doktor Ludwig Dorn gekommen. Hier ist mein Visitenkarte."

The "Grüß Gott" bit is worth calling out briefly. On second thought, it really isn't - it's just a bit of the sort of tangential trivia that I enjoy obsessing over to destroy any inadvertent sense of flow and order in my writing. So, I'll call it out anyway. My adventures with speaking German had thus far been confined to the area in and around Leipzig, where they use a dialect called Mitteldeutsch, or Central German (I could also legitimately refer to it as Thuringian-Upper-Saxony, but then I'd just be showing off). Munich, however, is in Bavaria, where Oberdeutsch, or Upper German is the dialect of choice. Apparently, my usual and well-worn Mitteldeutsch greeting of Guten Tag, or "Good Day" is considered prim and distant to someone who speaks Oberdeutsch, and can often lead to misunderstandings. While I don't seem to be comfortable traveling unless I'm actively doing things that lead to misunderstandings, the last thing I wanted the good Bayern Volk to attribute to me was any sort of prim distance. So, "Grüß Gott", literally, "God bless you", it was.

(Speaking of (here we go again) ... a number of my German friends initially found it impossible to believe that we sometimes use their word for good health, gesundheit, after someone sneezes. Once I explained that A) most of us don't know exactly what it means, and 2) we giggle like idiots when we see the word in giant letters in a pharmacy (Apotheke) window, they began to accept it.)

My tour of the museum, and my discussions with Ludwig were superlative. The museum boasts an impressive aviation section with an even mix of artifacts and interactive displays showcasing the science of aeronautics, testing and research equipment, etc. The initial entry into the aviation hall shows a 1909 Wright Flyer - like the lesser-known 1908 Flyer in the Smithsonian, this example is entirely original, and, to me, provides a more direct link to the brothers' achievements in aviation than the partially recreated and restored 1903 Flyer. This area also features a 1910 Etrich-Rumpler Taube, the only airplane I've ever thought had a wing that might rival a Spitfire's in terms of sheer beauty. There is also an original Lilienthal glider on display, and a 1909 Grade monoplane, which looks startlingly like a 1978 Weedhopper ultralight. A Weedhopper, in turn, looks startlingly like something cobbled together from the Garden Center at Fred Meyer - a vinyl awning, a patio chair, some wheels from a garden cart, and a lawnmower engine all lashed together into something with a basic airplane-like shape.

Along the side of this first room is a series of cases that explain the mechanics of flight in nature, something that is often overlooked in aviation museums. If there is a single display that I think highlights the intricate and analog nature of most of the exhibits, it was a case that demonstrated how a maple seed autorotates. There was the expected samples of the seeds, and a diagram showing how the single rotor-like wing spins to help carry the weight of the seed pod, etc. The remarkable bit, however, was the seed that had a small hole drilled in it, mounted on a wire that ran the length of the case vertically. Ludwig pushed the first of many buttons of our tour, and the first of many powerful fans came on, and the seed, kept in the airflow by the wire, spun, and autorotated its way straight up to the top of the case. It was simple, rugged, and an absolutely perfect mechanism to demonstrate exactly how this principle works.

Certainly the standout in this opening hall for me was the nose structure from the original LZ-127, the Graf Zeppelin. This conical collection of aluminum alloy girders was nearly hallowed to me. If I believed in past lives, I'd say for certain that I was a regular voyager on this particular airship's transatlantic crossings from 1928-1940. There's always been something amazing to me about the fact that, just one year after Lindbergh fought cold temperatures, fatigue, and stale sandwiches on his groundbreaking flight, one could make a similar trip in opulent comfort, with formal meals, a private stateroom, and someone who would shine your shoes if you left them outside your door when you retired for the night. I hadn't known that there were any such substantial pieces remaining - I love to be pleasantly surprised.

The remainder of the aviation section of the museum is laid out on multiple floors, and it's charmingly incongruous to walk into a room full of airplanes, and then look up to see the nose of something as large as a JU-52 peering over the edge from a second floor balcony. This section included notable Messershmitts (misspelled on their website as "Messerschmidt" - tsk, tsk!) including an M17, 108, 109, 163, and 262. There was a V-1 and V-2, and the boldly optimistic but ultimately unsuccessful Ba349A Natter "semi-dispensable rocket interceptor". Unfortunately, the engineers behind this one also considered the test pilot to be semi-dispensable, since he was killed by a windscreen that wasn't up to the task.

Other notable artifacts included a Junkers F13, the first purpose-built airliner, a Lockheed F-104G Starfighter, an American design better utilized by the Luftwaffe than any other air force, and an HFB320 Hansajet, a clean-lined business jet from the mid-60's that is made strikingly elegant by its forward-swept wings. There was a design that, from across the room, I'd have guessed to be an early protoype from Arado, but, in actuality, was a crude-but-viable homebuilt twin made from cast-off BMW motorcycle bits. Its first flight was intended to be its last, a one-way trip in 1989 from the East over the Wall to the West, but history snuck past it, and, it never flew because it didn't have to. Located throughout were cockpit displays, mechanical simulators, and all manner of wind tunnels - a celebration of the science of flight.

I could go on and on. In fact, I just did.
And I've only just touched on the aviation portion of this, the main branch of the museum. There were equally impressive sections donated to chemistry, optics, and electricity - in this last, there was a demonstration of lightning that defies explanation, and, had it been displayed in the US, would have been challenged to defy litigation. It consisted of a roped-off collection of what looked to be giant Van de Graaf generators, a model of a small town, and a docent pulling levers and terrorizing the city with massive lightning bolts, twisting knobs and turning levers like a modern-day Rotwang. The downtown museum also includes an impressive maritime collection. My enthusiasm, if not my encyclopedic knowledge of German maritime history which consists of about 3 things, got me access to the restored bridge of an original Norddeutscher-Lloyd liner that they have setup as a surprisingly immersive simulator, not to mention close-up looks at pieces of the Tirpitz, and the rare privilege of actually touching the original ship's bell that is all that remains of the Bremen.

Needless to say, a visit to the museum is an absolute must for anyone who finds themselves with some time in Munich. Unfortunately, the train and automobile collections had recently been moved to another building across town and my already straining schedule didn't accommodate a visit.

Throughout my tour and our ongoing discussion, Ludwig expressed a strong desire to begin updating the museum to take advantage of new technology, and introduce some more digital elements amongst the analog. I'm certainly excited by this, since it means that Flight Sim (and Train Sim 2) can find a place in the museum, and, as we brainstormed, be utilized as an informative and entertaining tool to enhance visitors' experiences. However, the flying maple seed, the myriad dioramas, wind tunnels, and even mechanical simulators have a tangible richness to them that is extremely effective, and it would be a crime to see any of that lost. My hope is that the Deutsches Museum learns a lesson from George Lucas - right now, the Museum is "A New Hope" ... I'd hate to go back in a few years and find that its become "The Phantom Menace", if you catch my meaning.

Il Stravino Armonico
That night, after spending some time in my hotel catching up on some work, I explored the city a bit more. Again, I wasn't able to delve terribly deep, but the hustle, and certainly some of the bustle, did me a world of good. In a bit of light irony, it was a group of Italians who made the strongest impression on me that night in Germany. I was working my way back to the hotel through the middle of the Marienplatz, a cobblestone plaza in the heart of downtown that is restricted to pedestrians, and a small handful of Mercedes station wagons with special passes that may have been pedestrian hunting permits. Walking along, I saw a crowd slowly coalescing under an eave outside a large department store. Being tired, and generally hating crowds, I made straight for the middle of it, and saw a group of four musicians getting ready to play. There was an accordionist, a cellist, a man playing an upright bass, and the leader, a balding violinist who inspires adjectives like "lean", and, given his chosen instrument, the inevitable "sinewy".

I've tried to describe the music I heard that night to friends and family, and have fallen terribly flat. They were the tightest, richest, and fullest sounding ... cover band I've ever heard. Ripping their way through pieces of gorgeous complexity, they'd lean over to each other and swap inside jokes, all without missing a note. Their repertoire consisted of things like Ave Maria, Pachelbel's Canon, Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro, and the Allegro non Molto movement of Vivaldi's Winter, from his Four Seasons. Listening to them from just a few feet away was something like being inside an orchestra. Not an ordinary orchestra - an orchestra that played simply for their love of the music (and a few euros tossed in a cello case), an orchestra that didn't follow a conductor's baton to interpret the piece, but seemed to channel the composer's passions directly. It was, truly, like nothing I've ever heard.

The highlight for me, even more potent than the Vivaldi, a lifelong favorite, was when the violinist got the audience's attention and said: "Meine Damen und Herren, Ladies and Gentlemen ... and now for something completely different: From Giachino Antonio Rossini, Il Barbiere di Siviglia". The piece was somehow at once technically flawless and emotionally raw, all of it beautifully executed. But that wasn't what struck me. What struck me was the nearly overwhelming urge I had to sing along. Not in the original Italian - I have more than enough trouble mit meine Deutsche, danke schön! No, the words that came to my head were those from the interpretation of man known to the animatoscenti as Carlo Jonzi, as sung in the first opera I ever loved ... by a bunny called Bugs. It all came back to me ... "Welcome to my shop, let me cut your mop, let me shave your crop ...", "Lots of lather, lots of soap, please hold still don't be a dope", "There, you're nice and clean, although your face looks like it might have gone through a ma-chine."

I resisted the temptation, and managed to slip through another situation that very nearly exposed the fact that I actually have no culture, whatsoever. I did not, thankfully, resist the temptation to buy a CD to take home. I recommend it, highly, but it doesn't even begin to capture what it was like to luxuriate in the music as it was performed live. I walked the rest of the way back to the hotel, trying not to feel profoundly affected, and failing miserably.

Deutsches Museum Flugwerft Schleißheim
The next morning, I spent approximately a billion Euros on a taxi ride to the Flugplatz Oberschleißheim for the second half of my meetings with the Deutsches Museum. I was joined for this meeting by Michael Nagler, the Games for Windows Marketing Product Manager for Microsoft Germany. Michael combines the unstoppable professional enthusiasm of a good marketeer with a remarkable appreciation for and understanding of Flight Simulator - ahh, the joy of competence found.

Unlike the main Museum downtown, the annex at the Schleißheim airport is devoted entirely to aviation. The airport is the oldest one in continuous operation in all of Germany and was the home of a commercial pilot school as far back as 1923. Our host and my primary contact for FS projects in the future was Uwe Froemert. Uwe proved to be a fascinating tour guide, and was extremely patient with my efforts to establish some measure of credibility by identifying aircraft (there were a few that had me stumped, I'm not proud to admit) and bandy about names like Ernst Udet and Gustave Weisskopf.

The collection at Schleißheim is broad, eclectic, and impressive. One of the first aircraft you see after entering is a Luftwaffe C-47, which at first looks glance looks like a bit of sloppy set dressing from a bad war movie - you can imagine James Coburn and George Peppard swaggering out of the airplane in poorly-researched Wehrmacht uniforms before being driven away in an open-top Mercedes with too many flags on it. But, actually, it's quite legitimate.

Other aircraft in the first hall include a Fieseler Storch, a Bücker 181, a Waco YKS-6 (the only Waco on the German registry), and, staggeringly, an entirely original Fokker D7. Entirely original, even including the fabric and the elastic bands that make up the suspension on the main landing gear. There are very, very few even mostly original German aircraft from WWI still extant. The iconic Fokker DR1 triplane (dreidekker) of "Red Baron" fame, for instance - there isn't a single one left anywhere in the world. All of those that fly, even all of those on display in museums are replicas. To see an original D7, then, was remarkable. To have the velvet ropes lowered so that I could walk right up to it was humbling.

The next room was devoted to some pioneering efforts from around the turn of the 20th Century. There was more from Lilenthal, and I was glad for the chance to set aside my usual nationalistic diatribes and make it clear that I understood just how significant an impact he'd had on the development of aviation. The Wright brothers themselves referred extensively to his book, Der Vogelflug als Grundlage der Fliegekunst (Birdflight as a Basis for Aviation) when doing their own research, and said that Lilienthal was " ... without question, the greatest of the precursors."

A Bag of Rocks
It was then that Uwe pointed us to an interesting looking glider, and again the ropes were cast aside and I was able to walk straight up to a flying machine from 1907. The innovation in this design was so staggering, and its existence so completely unknown to me, that it took the bris right out of my hubris, to coin a phrase. The glider was built by Alois Wolfmüeller, and included some innovations I'd have thought impossible, or at least hopelessly anachronistic, had I not seen it for myself. You might be thinking to yourself: "The Wright brothers flew a powered machine, a real airplane, not just a glider, in 1903, four years earlier - what's the big deal about a glider?" (In actuality, you're probably thinking to yourself "this is long though not as long as the last one but there are no booth babes in it and I no longer care ... is it time for Grey's Anatomy yet?") You'd easily be forgiven for thinking either.

However, the Wolfmüeller Gleitflugapparat included: A conventional rear-mounted tail plane with horizontal and vertical stabilizers with elevator and rudder. These controls were manipulated by cables threaded over extended control horns for leverage. It had separate control surfaces off of the the trailing edges of the lower wings for bank control - these controls weren't hinged, rather they used a warping mechanism, so they weren't quite ailerons, but they were awfully close. This was over a year before Henri Farman added the first generally recognized ailerons to his biplane, and quite a few years before the Wrights and Glenn Curtiss would get entangled in litigation over the idea.

The aspect of Wolfmüeller's design that really got me, however, was a bag of rocks. This bag was tied with a loop to a long bamboo pole that extended in front of the glider by probably two meters. The pole had markings on it that Uwe explained corresponded to various wind velocities, and the bag, serving obviously as a counterweight, would be slid fore or aft to the appropriate marking based on the wind at the time of the flight. What this was, then, was the first pitch trim mechanism in history.

I realize that this may not be terribly impactful to those of you who maintain a healthy lack of my unhealthy obsession with the arcane details of fly-y trivia. But the discovery of a mod con like pitch trim, something used in contemporary aircraft as a work-saving device for pilots, is a little like discovering an abacus with a USB port. It's enough to make one wonder if history doesn't just rearrange itself slightly, having a bit of fun when we're not looking.

What's That And Why Did They Name it After Me?
The remainder of the museum yielded some old favorites, like a former Soviet Army AN-2, which was obviously a VIP transport because of the threadbare Berber on the cabin floor, and the curtains in the windows, a Focke Wulfe 44 Stieglitz, a MiG 21, and even a Cessna 195. We were able to walk the floor of the restoration hangar which was dominated by their He-111, which I, as part of my ongoing and misguided campaign to trade trivia for credibility, identified as one built after World War II in Spain by CASA. Then there were some remarkable rarities like a massive Do-24 flying boat with original engines, the VTOL Dornier 31 and Yakovlev 191, the latter known with a certain disrespect as the Harrierski. There was the EADS / Boeing X-31, and the Eurofighter 2000 DA-1 prototype. I saw my first MiG-23, and Saab Draken. Then there was a shiny silver jet fighter that looked a little bit like every shiny silver jet fighter from the late 50's through the late 60's. I saw a resemblance to an F-100 and a Sukhoi 15, and more obscure types like a Hawker Hunter or a Supermarine Swift. I was stumped, so I immediately took a bunch of pictures with which to taunt my like-minded brother the second after I knew what it was. As it happens, I, of all people, should have known what to call it; it seems it was a HAL HF24, built in India by Hindustan in 1961.

Uwe had to leave us for about thirty minutes to attend another meeting. While he was away, Michael and I talked and took a number of additional pictures. He asked me what he could do to help me in my ongoing relationships with an organization like the Deutsches Museum, and I explained that one of the best things that we can do is arrange donations of our software to organizations like theirs to help offset some of the costs of upgrading. In the US, however, it is a bit more difficult for me to get German language versions of some Microsoft software, but it is very easy for Michael to obtain. In addition, Marketing has a much larger budget for that sort of thing which helps quite a bit. What it came down to, then, was that Michael, perhaps in an absence of good judgment, agreed to an arrangement in which I make all manner of irrationally exuberant promises of software donation, and he'll make good.

Michael and I were both very happy to see that Uwe has what looks to be a superb Flight Sim cockpit under construction. They're fabricating their own airliner-style yokes and utilizing a number of high-end components from existing FS cockpit companies. The cockpit will be largely based on a 737, but they're leaving it somewhat modular and flexible to recreate other aircraft as well. It's unquestionably going to be a compelling attraction for anyone who may not immediately find the same level of excitement as I did at the sight of a bag of rocks.

The day wound down far too quickly, and the next morning found me flying from Munich to Copenhagen, then on to Seattle on an SAS A-340. The best part of that part of the story is the fact that the transatlantic trip was every bit as good as every other transatlantic trip I've made on an SAS A-340. The SAS 340s standout to me for three reasons. First, there is a self-serve galley in business class where they just leave precious airborne commodities like bottled water just sitting out for the taking. Second, there are two windows in the restroom - I don't know what it is about a loo with a view, but it feels remarkably decadent. And, finally, there are two aircraft-mounted cameras accessible via the in-seat video monitors. One is pointed straight down, the other is mounted on the nose and points straight ahead, allowing back seat pilots like me innumerable opportunities to critique approaches and landings, among other things.

But, really, I think the story ended in the paragraph before the last one with the bit about the rocks. I just kept writing to make sure nobody thought I was still in Germany. I'm not. In fact, since I got back, I've slept at home, at a friends' house in Olympia, Washington, at a hotel in Toronto, at a hotel in Chicago, and now at a hotel in Reno.

Clearly, I've got some catching up to do. In the meantime, here's a final picture from Schleißheim, a shot of the fantastic Dornier 31: