Is it just me or has the pace of things happening in the flight sim world really picked up? I mean REALLY picked up.

The flood of new releases – both freeware and commercial, upgrades, patches, readme's, FAQs, tweaks, and just general stuff that comes out each and every day is beginning to get to overwhelming dimensions – at least if you want to stay current with what's going on. If you're not interested in staying current don't read any further .

Think about it. If you miss a week of online connectivity to the world of flight simming you are a very long way behind the power curve Mister (and Ms) these days. Heck – if you even miss one day you're already playing major catch up ball. I can remember a time not so very long ago when it was not all that unusual for several days to go by without a new upload or new release or news event on the major flight sim sites. Of course we complained on the forums of the time about "why are things so slow?" How come there can't be some bright shiny new airplane, scenery, or product every dang day?

Well we got our wish – now there is a flood every day – and its changed the nature of simming in a fundamental way I think. Bear with me while I ponder on this a bit. . .

Used to be – "in the old days" – I would come home, fire up the PC, and go flying – supposedly the object of our hobby.

Now – it's more like come home, visit all the flight sim sites, try and digest all the news, download the latest add-ons, download and install the newest 10 mb patch and try and get it working, try to understand the increasingly thick user manuals that come with the downloads, try out the latest cool tweak to increase framerates, get the latest hot gossip off the forums, and – added on some days – make a swing by the mall for the latest box product release to install on top of all this. Hey wait a minute – where did all my flying time go?

Simming, it seems to me, has become as much about "keeping up" as it is about flying – maybe more.

Now I guess that's not necessarily "bad;" but it is definitely a different slant on the hobby than I had when I got into this racket. To put it in numerical terms it was 80% flying 20% keeping up when I started out – now it's the other way around, 80% keeping up 20% flying – and the keeping up part shows no signs of leveling off.

OK, I know what you're saying – easy answer: "forgetaboutit" Bill – go flying. Well you know I can't do that – and I suspect neither can you – because you see we're all the same here. We gotta have the latest stuff – and the latest stuff changes every day! And if you miss enough days YOU WILL NEVER CATCH UP!

So here we are – "keeping up."