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Do you like movies about gladiators? How about movies about airplanes? Well, if you're a fan of everyone's favorite airplane disaster spoof, you may already know what I just learned from my co-worker Rick Hudson: Airplane! is a remake of the 1957 film Zero Hour!

"So what?" you ask. Well, if you're an Airplane! fan and you haven't seen Zero Hour!, you should. While Airplane! certainly parodied the Airport series of 1970s disaster films, it was largely based on Zero Hour! Who knew?! Not me.

Well now I do, and soon I'll be watching Zero Hour! on DVD. Need a copy of Airplane! too? Good news: there's a deluxe "Don't call me Shirley" edition that's a must have for any true aviation comedy fan. Order one film, order them both. Whatever you do though, don't order the fish!

Read more about Zero Hour! (and see a clip) on New York radio station WFMU's Web site.

It's been a while since I posted, so I thought I'd start things off with some old news.

Apparently Barrington's not the only one using aviation to inspire people. On April 30th, British adventurer Miles Hilton-Barber touched down in Sydney, Australia finishing a 13,500-mile flight by microlight aircraft from London. That's impressive. But what's inspiring is that he's blind.

Hilton-Barber dedicated his world record flight to raising at least £1 million towards restoration of sight to blind people in the developing world. "I may never see again” he said, "but if, through this flight, thousands of blind people in developing countries can have this gift of sight restored to them again, it will be so incredibly worth it!"

Although Hilton-Barber is a fully-qualified microlight pilot, he was joined on the trip by two of the world's most experienced and decorated microlight pilots.

"I think there is a big difference between being adventurous and being foolhardy," he wrote on his blog before the adventure. "I need Brian or Richard on board on the flights, but we plan to have a lot of fun together flying to Australia, encouraging people along the way to focus on the opportunities in their life, not their limitations. When I first went blind I thought it was the worst thing that could happen to me- now I think it is probably the most exciting thing that has happened to me."

You can read more about Hilton-Barber, his flight, and how he did it (using speech-output technology to access his flight instruments and navigate the microlight) on MSNBC and on his own Web site and blog.

I spent a good part of Saturday night watching Barrington make his way from Asahikawa, Japan (RJEC) across the Pacific to Shemya, Alaska (PASY) on our Virtual Earth-based Flight Tracker.

As Barrington explains on his blog:

"I finally made it safely to Shemya, Alaska after crossing the North Pacific. What an experience it was, with shifting winds, different layers and types of clouds, and the possibility of icing on the wings. It was critical to avoid the visible precipitation that can cause icing, which forms rapidly at near-freezing temperatures and high aircraft speed. There is no real way to describe the experience of that flight; I'm simply grateful to be on U.S. soil again."

The reported weather at Eareckson Air Force Base was:

SPECI PASY 100722Z 19008KT 10SM OVC030 06/03 A2993 RMK.

Not too shabby. I kept refreshing the weather report with an eye on the ceiling since the Aleutians are known for nasty weather. At one point, I saw Barrington climb to about 20,000 feet.

During the crossing, Barrington was in touch with his team at Universal Weather, friends, and family via satellite phone. His videographer Juan Rivera (who's already in Seattle) told me that Barrington was also in radio contact with airline pilots making the crossing at higher altitudes. Times have certainly changed since the first around-the-world flights!

In case you missed it, below are some screenshots from the Flight Tracker. Note that the aircraft symbol does not reflect the aircraft's heading.

 
Almost there....

 
Land ho!

 
Descending toward the Aleutians.

 
Approaching Agattu Island.

Maneuvering for the approach.

 
On final for runway 28.

 
Safely on the ground!

 
The "Arrival" report.

Next up: weather permitting, Barrington plans to depart Shemya on Wednesday and fly to Cold Bay, then Anchorage. From there it's on to Juneau, Seattle, Denver, Houston, Mobile, and back finally home to Miami for the big gala!

Barrington Irving is slowly winging his way around the world, and in his latest blog post on Saturday, he had this to say:

"I’m glad to say that after being delayed by monsoons and a tropical storm, I made it safely to Hong Kong. Flying into the city was exactly how it is replicated on the Microsoft Flight Simulator--with 4,000 foot mountains below, you fly over the magnificent buildings of this extraordinary city.  As I came in for landing, I decided to do a missed approach and fly one more time into Hong Kong through the haze. What an experience!  After landing, I felt exhausted and couldn’t wait to get some rest. I think being 12 hours ahead of Eastern time has finally caught up with me and I must be careful now to get as much rest as possible. I am literally on the other side of the world and day and night have traded places."

Great to hear! "As Real As It Gets," indeed! (And particularly appropriate since Barrington credits Flight Simulator with a playing big role during his flight training!) If you haven't been following Barrington's flight, check it out. And I highly encourage you to follow along in his propwash and fly some legs for yourself in Flight Simulator X! (It's a long trip, but it'll be a little faster now that SP1 is out!)

Last Friday I had the pleasure of attending Barrington Irving's launch event at the Opa Locka airport near Miami. Barrington is a 23-year old pilot who's attempting to set a world record by being the youngest person to ever fly solo around the world, and the first person of African descent. As Barrington always explains though, it's not about the record: it's about the kids. He's making this flight to inspire kids, and it's already working.

The ramp at Miami Executive Aviation was filled with thousands of kids bused in from all over southern Florida. Before the festivities they wandered around an aviation career fair. Dignitaries from all over the country (well, world really, since a representative from Barrington's native Jamaica was present) spoke once the formal launch event started. Everyone had amazing things to say about this kid and what he's accomplished for himself, for aviation, for kids, and for his community.

I was there because the Flight Simulator team is a sponsor of the flight. Among other things, we put together a tracking map that "mashes" GPS data from Barrington's plane into the Microsoft Virtual Earth mapping engine. The result is very cool, and provides everyone with the opportunity to see exactly where Barrington is at any moment during his flight. Everyone seemed really impressed with this technology: his staff, his friends, and especially his family.

Unlike many aviation events I've been to, this one was not about macho bravado. It was about community, hope, and dreams. Watching Barrington climb into his Columbia 400, start the engine and taxi to the runway, I was awe-struck. Not because he was about to embark on a record-setting flight around the world, but because I have never seen a finer example of a dream turned into reality. There he was, this 23-year old kid sitting alone in an airplane I can only dream of flying, surrounded by a cheering crowd, about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime.

I couldn't help but wonder: how did he do all this? How did he make this happen?

The first step to achieving a dream is having a vision. You need to know what you want. Barrington figured that out at the age of 15 when Gary Robinson, a captain for United Airlines, invited him down to the airport to see the cockpit of a 777.

Then, you need to give yourself permission to dream your dream. Barrington--headed for a career as a football player--found his parents and teachers supporting him in his decision to do something a little more off the beaten path.

Next, you need to put your dream out there. You need to tell the universe what you want. And (if you believe in such things) the universe will respond. There's an interesting albeit new-agey documentary about manifesting what you want in life called "The Secret," and I couldn't help thinking about it as I watched Barrington start his airplane's engine. If a kid from Jamaica who grew up in inner city Miami could make something this big happen, then what's my excuse? What's yours?

I watched Barrington sitting in the cockpit, and as the plane started to move, I saw his mentor Gary Robinson give him the thumbs-up. In that moment, it all became clear to me. Barrington had a vision, he gave himself permission to dream his dream, and he put his intentions out there for the universe to respond to. He took one more step though, and it's arguably an even more important step than any of the previous ones: he took action.

The years leading up to this flight were busy ones for Barrington. He was attending college. Taking flying lessons and using Flight Simulator to practice at home. Starting a non-profit foundation to inspire kids to get into aviation. He wrote letters. Made phone calls. Scheduled meetings. And he refused to take no for an answer. Slowly over time, one by one, individuals and organizations came on board. He realized one of the great truths all successful people know: just because you don't know how to do something yourself doesn't mean you can't do it. You can learn. And you can associate yourself with people who know more than you do.

Barrington didn't know how to fly an airplane, so he learned. He didn't know how to write a business plan, so he found Philip Mann, the Director of the Entrepreneurial Institute at Florida Memorial University, who walked him through the steps. He didn't know where to base his Experience Aviation Learning Center, so he approached Miami Executive Aviation. He didn't know how to create a tracking map, so he approached Microsoft. And on and on, until he had a plane, fuel, flight planning, a staff of volunteers, and this amazing day in March.

Watching Barrington take off into the late-morning sky, watching him make several low passes in the fastest certified single-engine piston plane in the world, watching him finally leap into the sky and turn north as thousands of kids watched--this was without a doubt one of the most inspiring things I've ever seen.

Go to the search engine of your choice and type in "Barrington Irving." You'll be inspired too.

You can learn more about Barrington and his flight at www.experienceaviation.org, and you can read his blog at http://barringtonirving.spaces.live.com.

Also be sure to visit the dedicated section of FSInsider.com. You'll find the tracking map we created, as well as information on how to take your own virtual around-the-world flight using Flight Simulator. While Flight Simulator doesn’t include the Columbia 400, you can use another plane. Or, you can visit Eaglesoft and get a Columbia 400 of your own.

If you do decide to follow Barrington virtually, let us know how it's going!

Staying true to the theme of my last few posts, I thought I'd bring it back to Flight Sim and share something I came across yesterday: a new F/A-18E Super Hornet add-on for Flight Simulator 2004 and X by Vertical Reality Simulations.

If this is as good as it promises to be, it’s gonna be a first: a truly hardcore simulation of a modern fighter for FS. My favorite part of their site is the "Read more" section, in which (among other things) they provide details about the sensor and targeting simulation (bolding by me):

"Short of actually shooting down AI aircraft, sensor and targeting systems are simulated just as their real-world counterparts. You can lock up AI aircraft and receive feedback to the HUD, radar and early warning systems, just as if you were in an electronic military exercise -- the only thing missing is the lethality. The radar simulation takes a number of factors into consideration, including signal strength (range), aspect angle, closing velocity (Doppler shift), and more. A total of 8 radar modes (4 primary and 4 ACM sub-modes) are simulated."

This will obviously appeal to true study sim geeks like me, though I suspect most people will be annoyed that they can’t actually blow stuff up. But really, who needs explosions when you have loadable, slewable AGM-65Es and Fs that will maintain a gimbal on any designated point on the ground? (Just kidding. Sorta.)

As they explain in a post on their forum:

"Keep in mind here that there's a pretty broad difference between MSFS and a combat sim, and no amount of ingenuity can cross that. You can't kill things, and the underlying database isn't designed for things like providing IR values. We can only go so far, but I think you'll be amazed at what we've been able to accomplish.

"The bottom line is we're simulating the aircraft and its systems to the best of our ability within the confines of FS; Anything beyond that is gravy and subject to the limitations of the sim, or at least our ability to get creative with them."

Yeah, Flight Simulator has limitations (the lack of projectiles foremost amongst them). The community has always pushed the boundaries of what's possible within those limitations though, and these guys are certainly promising a lot. Can't wait to see it.

(No, not my ride report, unfortunately....)

In my last post I mentioned that:

"I find myself impressed with the folks who fly fighters for a living. Not just for their ability to multi-task to the edge of task saturation in one of the most stressful environments I can imagine, but also for their ability to withstand the sheer brutality of the physiological stress they subject their bodies to."

Well, I came across something today that you might find interesting if you've ever wondered what it's really like to fly in a fighter plane. It's a series of forum posts about two T-38 rides that do a great job of explaining what it's like.

Last July some guys from the team developing the forthcoming sim Fighter Ops spent three days at Laughlin Air Force Base doing research. Two of them managed to get rides in a T-38C. If you're a cocky hot shot PC-based fighter jock like I'm rapidly becoming, I highly encourage you to read their lengthy testimonies of what quickly became a humbling experience. Some hilarious writing, and full of good information if you're intrigued by this stuff.

In amongst the numerous posts, I found what at first appeared to be good news. Apparently, physcial conditioning can increase G tolerance. According to a page on E-Aerospacemed.com, increasing your anaerobic capacity and and muscular strength can improve your ability to effectively perform the Anti-G Straining Maneuver.

"Research has shown 10-12-wk weight lifting program can increase G-duration tolerance ~50% compared w/ non-exercise control group w/ direct individual correlation b/w muscle strength and G-duration tolerance."

That's the good news. The bad news is that "Aerobic conditioning has no effect on G tolerance," and that "Excessive aerobic conditioning can cause cardiac dysrhythmias a/w reduced G tolerance, increased susceptibility to motion sickness on centrifuge, and increased length of time of incapacitation w/ G-LOC."

Damn. So much for my wholistic approach to fitness. To blackout or not blackout: that remains the question. (And there's a great article about just this on SimHQ.com.)

Well, I guess it's back to Falcon: Allied Force and the FSD T-38 for me. At least until Fighter Ops comes out, or until someone offers me a ride in the real thing. My sick sacks are packed.

A few nights ago I watched the new documentary "Speed & Angels," about Jay and Meagan, two young Navy pilots chasing their childhood dreams of flying the F-14 Tomcat. The film is a combination of exhilarating aerial action, intense in-cockpit footage, and a thought-provoking human interest story about why people choose to become fighter pilots, what it's like, and what effect the lifestyle (and going to war) has on them and their families.

I thought the film was well done, a nice balance between high-stress adrenaline thrills in the air and more thoughtful reflection on the ground. The emotions I experienced while watching it were mixed. On the one hand, it fueled my "Top Gun"-inspired childhood fantasies and made me want to be a fighter pilot (well, to have been a fighter pilot...). On the other hand it made me realize that while the experience of flying a Navy jet is cool like few other things, the experience of life aboard an aircraft carrier during wartime is hardly something to fantasize about. Not to mention that combat flying itself is no arcade game. As pilots in the film mentioned more than once, there are few pilots who can carry out a combat mission without it profoundly changing them, and there is nothing fun about landing a jet on the swaying deck of a moving aircraft carrier in the middle of the night hundreds of miles from land...and thousands of miles from home.

In the end though, my love/hate relationship to the very idea of my having become a fighter pilot in an alternate life is rather moot. As a retired F-14 pilot recently told me (and the film confirmed yet again), those of us with lanky marathon runner bodies with great arteries typically have awful G tolerance. I suspect I'd have passed out during centrifuge training, only mere moments after the evil thing had started its spin cycle.

So yeah, I find myself impressed with the folks who fly fighters for a living. Not just for their ability to multi-task to the edge of task saturation in one of the most stressful environments I can imagine, but also for their ability to withstand the sheer brutality of the physiological stress they subject their bodies to. Truth be told though, the folks in the film who impressed me the most were the Radar Intercept Officers (RIOs) in the back seats: they just sit there and never puke. How, is a mystery to me.

"Speed & Angels" is a beautiful, thought-provoking film about following your dreams, and I highly recommend it, whether you fantasize about being a fighter pilot--or helping to make a world in which fighter pilots are superfluous.

Trying to fall asleep after watching the film, unable to shake visions of gusty night traps from my mind, I started thinking about the F-14 Tomcat, about its more modern replacement the F/A-18 Hornet, and about the fighter jet I know the most about, the Air Force's F-16 Falcon. I woke up six hours later with a bad case of the fighter bug. Boys will be boys, apparently.

So, last night after work I fired up Falcon: Allied Force and took an F-16 up for a virtual workout. It was getting late, but after parking the jet I opened my closet and took a good long look at the Thrustmaster Cougar HOTAS joystick that I bought on a whim a year ago and have barely used. Then I grabbed my binder full of F-16 documentation and headed to bed. Bad idea.

Today, I found myself poking around the Web at lunch seeing what's out there for F/A-18 simulations. For Flight Simulator X, there's Flight Deck 4 from Abacus, and the Aerial Foundry Hornets look promising. I also came across some great freeware planes and carriers. Ever the realist though, it seems like Jane's F/A-18 is still arguably the king, and probably the only Hornet sim that goes deep enough into systems and avionics for my admittedly eccentric "edutainment" tastes.

I'm in a bit of a quandary though. There's just something about the Falcon that's calling to me (especially when you refer to it like pilots do and call it a "Viper"). The Freebirds Virtual Fighter Wing has SO much interesting F-16 training material on their site, yet diving into yet another study sim right now is not something I have time to do at all, let alone two of them. But, the F/A-18 can land on aircraft carriers, and I've always wanted to learn how to do that....

As Navy Test Pilot John "Toonces" Tougas put it in a great article from Flight Journal that I just came across comparing the F/A-18 and the F-16:

"The F-16 Viper is like the Dodge Viper, and the F/A-18 Hornet is like a Lexus. If I want to cruise around town and experience pure acceleration performance, I would drive the Viper. If I want to cruise in total luxury on a long road trip with all the amenities and Gucci displays, I would drive a Lexus....The real bottom line is this: if I were a bad guy, I would hate to go up against either one."

A few days after watching "Speed & Angels," I'm obsessed as ever with this stuff. Yet truth be told, I'm not so sure I'd really want to go up against any bad guys at all. Fighter jet technology is unquestionably an amazing testament to what human beings can do when we put our minds to it. I can't help wondering though what we could accomplish if we didn't have to spend our efforts developing technology like this.

Tonight, I may just boot up FSX, hop into my virtual Piper Cub, and celebrate life...exploring this amazing planet that we live on at considerably slower speeds. But damn, I love learning complex things. I could have been a fighter pilot....

Greetings, ATC fans. Today we're talking flight strips.

What are flight strips you ask? A flight strip (more properly known as a "flight progress strip") is a strip of paper used by air traffic controllers to (you guessed it...) track a flight's progress along its route. You can read more about flight strips in this nice entry in the Wikipedia.

While paper flight strips in little plastic holders are being increasingly replaced by interactive computer-based strips, there are those who argue that paper still has a role to play in complex work environments like air traffic control facilities. Back in 2002, writer Malcom Gladwell explored this idea in a fascinating article about The Social Life of Paper.

Meanwhile, in the world of virtual air traffic control, we find ourselves presented with an interesting hybrid: a high-tech computer simulation of low-tech paper flight strips.

Both of the ATC clients for Vatsim controllers, ASRC 1.2 and VRC 1.1, include digital simulations of paper flight strip bays. Strips auto-fill with information from filed flight plans (just like real paper strips coming out of a printer), and controllers can add, edit, and delete information using the keyboard and mouse. IVAO's IvAc client has similar functionality.

Flight strips were beyond the scope of the new multiplayer Tower Controller feature in Flight Simulator X. That said, we fully expected innovative members of the community to improve on the basic ATC functionality we included, and it's already happening.

I was looking around FS-Multiplayer the other night when I came across "Strip Bay Manager," a stand-alone Flash-based application created by Mark "Wicked Penguin" Rossmore that you can use when controlling in an FSX multiplayer session. Each virtual flight strip features 19 text fields that you can use in any way you want, and the whole bay is very customizable.

Sure, you could just take notes on a pad of paper or make your own paper flight strips, but sometimes a simulation is more fun to use than the real thing. And, the digital version saves trees. You can download Strip Bay Manager from the FS-MP.com Misc. Downloads page. While you're there, explore the main site. FS-MP is quickly becoming an FSX multiplayer community that takes realism seriously, but also knows how to have fun. Controllers use the default FSX Tower Controller feature. Combined with Strip Bay Manager, the experience is on its way to becoming something pretty amazing. And you thought paper was passe...

I was looking at the contrail-like plumes emanating from AI aircraft in FSX last night, and I couldn't help but wonder: are those really just contrails, or are they something more sinister?

Arriving early at work this morning, I took the elevator down to the basement and conned my way into our new high-security Contrail Development Center. Not a single one of the 13 hard-working lab-coated technicians I came across had any comment. As I was leaving, one guy wearing a clean suit whispered through his respirator: "I'd love to tell you the truth, I really would. But it's not worth the risk. They'd take away our free soft drinks."

Moments later I was escorted back to my office by corporate security. Apparently the guy at the Dev Center door who accepted my offer of two vegan donuts for a look around ratted me out. Next time I'll bring beef jerky.

For now, all I can offer you in the way of an explanation is this: Flight Simulator X is "As Real As It Gets." If you believe the chemtrail conspiracy theorists speak the truth, then all those AI planes are indeed spreading chemicals across our beloved virtual landscape. Why our fictitious airlines would be involved in such an evil plot is a mystery to me, though I did notice that if you look at the Global Freightways 747-400 in just the right lighting around dusk in springtime, you can barely make out the hazy outline of a grilled cheese sandwich on the outboard side of the number one engine cowling.

Interesting stuff. For more on the real-world chemtrail controversy, check out this article from The Virginian-Pilot. It mentions that tonight's episode of "Best Evidence" on the Discovery Channel will be about "Chemical Contrails."

One of the coolest new features in FSX is thermals, and you can learn more about them by reading the "Soaring: Tow planes, thermals, and ridge lift" article in the FSX Learning Center. In FSX, making your way across the landscape by "riding on the sun" can be great fun. Especially in the soaring missions, which also include ridge lift.

In the real world though, riding thermals can be a bit more of a harrowing experience, especially if the weather takes a turn for the worse. I just came across an amazing story regarding German paraglider Ewa Wisnerska. While preparing for the tenth FAI World Paragliding Championship earlier this week, she was sucked into a thunderstorm near Manilla in New South Wales state, Australia and lifted 32,612 feet (9,940 meters) above sea level.

An amazing story, with a happy ending. Unfortunately a Chinese paraglider was killed by a similar experience in the same storm. Read all about it here.

Bruce Williams passed along a story he heard on NPR's "Morning Edition" this morning regarding air traffic controllers assisting pilots in trouble. The link to the recording and summary article is worth passing along.

Each year the National Air Traffic Controllers Association salutes the best examples of air traffic controllers who display extraordinary skill, dedication, and focus to ensure safety in critical situations with its "Archie League Medal of Safety" awards. The award is named for the first air traffic controller, and this year NATCA is honoring 10 controllers from around the country who were involved in nine different flight assists, or "saves." They are:

Alaskan Region – Jonathan Eisenmayer, Fairbanks Air Traffic Control Tower (ATCT)
Central Region – Chris Thigpen, Kansas City Air Route Traffic Control Center
Eastern Region – Bernie Nelson, Richmond, Va., ATCT
Great Lakes Region – David Murphy and Yasemin Parker, Champaign, Ill., ATCT and Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON)
New England Region – Stephen Schmalz, Boston Center
Northwest Mountain Region – Ivy Sylvain, Seattle TRACON
Southern Region– J.D. Smith, Pensacola TRACON
Southwest Region – Borden Byrd, Dallas-Fort Worth TRACON
Western Pacific Region – Michael Darling, Los Angeles (LAX) Tower

You can read about the award and listen to recordings of all the "saves" on the NATCA Web site.

Those of you who read my post yesterday regarding getting the multiplayer control tower to work in Free Flight to observe AI traffic will be pleased to know (especially if you tried it and had no luck) that there's a much better way.

Jon Patch encountered a bug that relocates you to 0 lat./0 long. when you select the tower cab. I thought that bug was history, so I'm a little confused. But...while there's a work around, it's all moot because I did a little poking around the Avsim forums and discovered that a few resourceful folks had come up with an even better method...months ago! Proof once again that our users often know more about some areas of the product than some of us do.

I just updated yesterday's post with the improved method, so if you're interested, check it out.

No promises, but if there's enough interest in this unsupported Tower Observer functionality in Free Flight, then maybe we'll consider making it a robust feature in FS11. If you try it out, let me know what you think!

If you already changed your fsx.cfg file based on my suggestion yesterday, you can leave it as is (you'll always see the tower cabs listed on the Select Aircraft screen, which is not particularly useful or neccessary with the new method). I suggest however that you go back to the file and delete what you added:

1. Open fsx.cfg with a text editor like Notepad. The file is located in C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Application Data\Microsoft\FSX where <user> is the user name you logged into Windows with. (On Vista, it's in C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\FSX)
2. In the [Main] section of the fsx.cfg file, delete the "ControlTower" entry that you added from the "User Objects" line:

     [Main]
     User Objects=Airplane, Helicopter, ControlTower

   3. Save the fsx.cfg file.

Sorry for any confusion this may have caused! Remember, there's no need to modify your fsx.cfg file at all with the new method (see my January 31st post).

Let's begin with a sad tale to set the stage.

Many years ago, when I was in my early twenties, I was just as passionate about aviation as I am now...but far dumber when it came to dealing with women. Late one night I drove to the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to pick up my girlfriend at the time. She was returning from a week-long trip to the east coast, and I knew she'd be ecstatic if I met her at the gate. This was back in the days when non-ticketed passengers could walk right up to the jetway door to wave goodbye, or to welcome weary travelers back home with a hug as soon as they got off the plane.

Romantic times, those. And I was a romantic. But I was also an aviation geek, and no trip to an airport was a good use of my time without a little indulgence. So my plan to meet my girlfriend at the gate also involved listening to Seattle Tower on my airband radio in the car on the way there. I figured that I'd hear her plane receive landing clearance, and that she'd be mighty impressed when I told her I heard her flight arrive on the radio. Mistake number one.

I left the house a good half hour before her plane was due to arrive, listening to the aircraft I could see descending on final above the freeway along the way. It was a busy night, and there were lots of planes on frequency taking off and landing. Not her plane though.

I arrived at the airport with time to spare, and headed into the parking garage. A few minutes later I parked in our usual spot right by the elevator. Her flight was due to land in a few minutes, so I decided I'd just sit in the car and listen for it on the radio.

I sat...and I listened. For thirty minutes. Mistake number two.

Eventually, I was startled by a knock at the window. It was a woman who looked remarkably like my girlfriend. Overloaded with bags that looked remarkably like my girlfriend's bags.

I spent most of the ride home sheepishly revealing the intricacies of air traffic control to her, explaining how every plane that takes off or lands has to talk to the tower, how I was listening to that frequency from the second I left the house, how impossible it was that I missed her arrival. She listened quietly, then finally spoke when I had finished my monologue:

"We were 45 minutes early."

"Oh."

What's a guy to say at a moment like that? Certainly not the words that came out of my mouth next:

"I'm really sorry. I had it all planned out to meet you at the gate. I was going to buy you flowers...."

Mistake number three. Three strikes and you're out.

I've learned a lot over the years, I'm glad to say. There's the lesson about always making it seem that your hobby really isn't as important as your relationship, and the one about never mentioning something you were going to do. Then, there's the far more important lesson that if listening to air traffic control communications is fun, it's even better from inside the control tower.

Anyone with even a passing interest in air traffic control who sees the new Tower Controller feature in FSX multiplayer loves it. Its functionality is not as deep as a Vatsim or IVAO client like ASRC, VRC, or IvAc, but it wasn't intended to be. I designed much of the feature, and for a first stab at giving users a new role to take on in Flight Simulator, I think we succeeded. Whenever I demo it to people, their eyes light up as they imagine all the possibilities.

Then, they invariably all ask the same question:

"Can I get in the tower in Free Flight and just watch the AI aircraft?"

Officially, no. We originally had a "Tower Observer" role, but realized that users would expect a very rich experience that we couldn't deliver on given other priorities. Such a feature would be dependent on AI traffic for there to be anything to see, and AI traffic could be turned off. It would be dependent on the user or auto-tune functionality tuning to the right frequency for there to be anything to hear. And it would need a simpler UI than what's in the multiplayer tower. Additionally, we guessed that once users saw it they might want to actually control the AI traffic. We knew we couldn't deliver on all this, so we decided to cut the observer feature and just focus on a multiplayer tower experience for FSX.

Unofficially, yes! All that said, here's the good news. There's a simple method that enables you to sit in the virtual control tower at an airport in Free Flight and listen to the AI controllers do their things and watch all the action out the window and on the radar. It's unsupported functionality, but it does work in the Deluxe version of FSX, which includes the Tower Controller feature in multiplayer. (Thanks to some folks on the Avsim forums for figuring this out! I had another method, but this one is much simpler and puts the tower cab in the right location.)

To use the tower cab in Free Fight (if you have FSX Deluxe):

1. On the left side of the main Flight Simulator screen, click Multiplayer.
2. Sign in (either a Gamespy session or a LAN session will work) and click the Sign In button.
3. Click the Host a Session button.
4. Click Next.
5. On the Session Conditions screen, in the "Select Role" drop-down list, select "Air Traffic Controller."
6. Change the location, weather, time, and/or season as desired.
7. Click the Save Flight button.
8. Enter a Title (e.g. "Seattle Tower") and an optional description, and click OK.
9. Click the Back button multiple times to back out of multiplayer.
10. On the left side of the main Flight Simulator screen, click Free Flight.
11. Go to Free Flight, click the Load Flight button, and load the flight you just saved.

Voila, you'll be in the tower just like in multiplayer, but in Free Flight! You'll have to create a flight from the Multiplayer screens like this every time you want to go to a new airport (since just changing location once your in the tower puts the tower on the ground at the new location). Better yet, go into Multiplayer as per the above instructions and save a bunch of "in the tower" flight files at all your favorite locations.

Whenever you want to observe from a tower, all you'll have to do is load one of your saved flight files. Note that you can load one of these flights from the main Free Flight screen, or via the Flights menu in the sim itself.

Once in the tower, you can tune the radios, listen in to the AI controllers and pilots, and watch the action out the window and on the radar display. For details about using the Tower Control features, see the "Acting As a Tower Controller" article in the Multiplayer section of the Learning Center.

Be sure to crank up the traffic sliders on the Traffic tab of the Display Settings screen so you have something to see and hear:

1. On the Options menu, point to Settings, and then click Display.
2. Click the Traffic tab.

There you have it. Now you can hang out in the control tower at your favorite airport for hours. It's pretty cool, especially with Real-world weather and the AI traffic cranked all the way up if your machine can handle it. And the best part? It's a simulation. You don't have to worry about an uptight supervisor wondering why you're still there, and you don't have to worry about remembering to get out of the car and walk to the gate.

I'll warn you though: it's addicting. If you ever get yelled at for being late to dinner because you had to watch just one more landing, don't blame me. And be sure to bring flowers.

Nobody asked, but if I have anything like a philosophy influencing how I approach my work on Microsoft simulation games, it's this:

A realistic simulation of a compelling real-world activity is game-like by its very nature.

Re-read that.

Rich simulations are by nature not (or not just) about blowing things up. Not just about quick thrills, or beating your friends. They're about a deep world that takes time to learn, and master, and explore. About visual and experiential nooks and crannies where amazing sights can be seen and thrills can be had. They're about feeling invested in the outcome of what you're doing, whether it's operating a train on a tight schedule, flying supplies to stranded climbers, or getting airline passengers to their destination with as few bumps as possible.

If the simulation has succeeded, when you finish, the journey is its own reward. If you get an evaluation or a score, or medals on top of that, sure--it feels good. But when you turn off the computer at the end of the night, your mind is filled not with memories of things you saw, but of things you experienced, and that is what you remember, what you crave, what you become addicted to. At least I do.

As Michael Hague says in his book Writing Screenplays that Sell (and I love this quote): "People do not go to the movies so they can see the characters on the screen laugh, cry, get frightened, or get turned on. They go to have those experiences themselves....All filmmakers, therefore, have a single goal: to elicit emotion in an audience."

It's the same with games and with those who make them. Whether someone's a project manager, or an artist, or a tester, or a sound engineer, or a developer, or a usability specialist, or a writer, or a game designer, I believe at root we all have a single goal: to elicit emotion in an audience. We each have our own bag of tricks with which to do that.

When my friend Bruce Williams was the Business Development manager here, he told us that we had won the war for bullet points on the box, and that the next step was understanding that "features are catalysts for experiences." A lot of folks took that to mean, "features are catalysts for structured experiences" (i.e. missions). But "features are catalysts for experiences" means more than that. It means thinking of everything we put in the simulation in a new way: from the glow of city lights below a layer of fog, to the reflections of the strobes on a wet runway, to the smoke coming from a cabin chimney hidden away deep in the mountains, to the urgent commanding instructions of an air traffic controller on the radio, to the raspy mutters of a deHavilland Beaver starting up on a cold morning, to the user interface that makes it all possible. Every feature has the potential to elicit emotion in an audience. The emotions--not the features--are what users who take the time to learn, and explore, and experience a simulation will keep coming back for more of.

Our challenge then, as a developer of simulation games, is to:

1. Consciously design the emotional experiences we want our users to have
2. Put these experiences and the features that elicit them into the product
3. Provide some structure in which users can easily discover these features and have these emotional experiences
4. Figure out ways that every user (from novice to hardcore) can have them

FSX took some bold leaps in this direction with its new mission system. The next version of Train Simulator will take some more.

I can hear mutterings from the back of the blog: "But they're turning my favorite sim into a game!"

Not to worry. Most of the people on the team I talk to about such things agree with me that our job should be first and foremost to dissect what people find fun (or challenging, or interesting) in the real world, and simulate that experience better than any other product on the planet. That's the attitude that we launched a genre with. We know that if we stray from it too far, we'll lose ourselves in a sea of games that were always games. We know that if we stick to it, we'll survive as a leading simulation developer. But we also know that if we stick to it and carefully expand upon it, we'll thrive, attract new fans, and ensure our existence over the long term.

Don't get me wrong: scoring, competition, and rewards can certainly add to the compelling nature of a simulation game. But it's not the essence of a simulation game. During the development of missions for FSX, I kept pointing out that if we focused on the extrinsic rewards too much, we'd be missing opportunities to focus on and design the subjective, experiential, and emotional experiences that we wanted people to experience and remember. Experiences that are inherent in the real-world activity (flying) that we modeled so realistically to begin with!

In the real world, hopping in the cab of a mile long train and trying to figure out how to drive it, and doing so for hundreds of miles up and over a mountain pass without killing anyone, and then stopping hundreds of miles away at another time of day, within 60 seconds of your scheduled arrival time--that's compelling and gamelike by its very nature. No need for a trophy or a badge after an experience like that. And yet, whine as I did about "the rewards" all through the FSX development cycle, I'm now finding myself actually enjoying getting rewards for successfully completing the missions I fly in FSX. Go figure.

I'm a simmer. I know how to make my own fun. But sometimes a little extrinsic motivation is nice. Like frosting on a cake. Interestingly, even console games that are mostly frosting are now starting to incorporate simulation elements. Everything's merging to a point where it's not only difficult to tell what's a game and what's a sim, but difficult sometimes to differentiate either from the real thing. You should have seen