It all started with an inside joke.

Before pilots depart or arrive at an airport with a control tower, they tune in the Automatic Terminal Information Service (ATIS) broadcast. What's an ATIS? The FAA explains it like this in their Pilot/Controller glossary:

AUTOMATIC TERMINAL INFORMATION SERVICE - The continuous broadcast of recorded noncontrol information in selected terminal areas. Its purpose is to improve controller effectiveness and to relieve frequency congestion by automating the repetitive transmission of essential but routine information; e.g., "Los Angeles information Alfa. One three zero zero Coordinated Universal Time. Weather, measured ceiling two thousand overcast, visibility three, haze, smoke, temperature seven one, dew point five seven, wind two five zero at five, altimeter two niner niner six. I-L-S Runway Two Five Left approach in use, Runway Two Five Right closed, advise you have Alfa."

So basically, the ATIS contains information about current conditions at the airport: the weather, the active runways, obstructions in the area, birds on the runway, you name it. Instead of the controller having to tell every pilot the same information, the pilots just listen to the ATIS.

A tower's ATIS broadcast is updated hourly, and each recording is named with a consecutive letter of the Phonetic Alphabet. The Phonetic Alphabet letter for "M" is "Mike." Back when I was flying regularly, I used to occasionally get to say, "Tower, Cessna 1234, five miles north, inbound for landing with Information Mike." That always made me grin (and I have to assume that Charlie, Juliet, Oscar, and Victor have had similar experiences).

Here on the Flight Simulator team at Microsoft we have lots of Mikes. So many, in fact, that a few times I've been in meetings composed entirely of guys named Mike. This gets very confusing, since when one Mike says, "While I understand what Mike is saying, I totally disagree with what Mike proposes," the rest of us Mikes have no idea which Mike is which. I figured I'd grab the blog name before another Mike gets as clever as I am.

I'm been a flight simulation fanatic for almost 20 years now, and I'm lucky to have a job so aligned with one of my life's great passions. I'm an instrument-rated private pilot, but I spend far more time these days immersed in virtual aviation than flying for real. I've worked on the Flight Simulator team at Microsoft doing writing and design since 1998. I wrote lots of what's in the Learning Center, wrote most of the audio scripts for the FSX missions, and I designed most of the new FSX multiplayer Tower Controller feature. I recently joined the new Flight Simulator Community team as the "Experience Architect." That's fancy talk for Idea Man. My job involves the design, creation, and evangelism of missions, Web articles, and some other cool stuff we have in the works.

Over the years, I've had the pleasure of getting to know lots of folks in the Flight Simulator community. In my new role, I look forward to getting to know even more of you. As I put it in my review of this year's Avsim Conference:

Flight Simulator the product may be all about technology and the simulation of technology, but the hobby is all about people. And this community has some amazing people in it.

One reason Flight Simulator is unique is because it appeals to such a diverse group of users, and this is obvious when a bunch of us get together. At this year’s conference I met little kids who were experts in airline operations. I met retired airline pilots who use Flight Simulator to fly their old routes. I met college students who dream of being software developers, and software developers who build add-ons that push the limits of what Flight Simulator is capable of. I met excited Americans who talked so fast I could barely keep up, and other simmers from far away lands who did a great job communicating with me in English since I didn’t speak French, or Spanish, or Russian. In an era when our differences make front page news, when people spend less and less time interacting with each other in person, events like this are important. It’s amazing, really, to think that a computer simulation can spawn such enduring friendships

My little "Information Mike" joke notwithstanding, my intent with this blog is not to "relieve frequency congestion by automating the repetitive transmission of essential but routine information." It's to inform, inspire, educate, and amuse you. Stay tuned!