Francois “Navman”
A. Dumas
Born
in Holland many years ago (in 1952, so go figure), married to a
wonderful wife (from Romania) and blessed with a wonderful
daughter..........still living in Holland, although we have a small
apartment in the French Alps where I should have been born really!
I am currently employed by a big US marketing research company as
Director of IT Infrastructure for Europe. So I am not in Holland a
lot. And yes, I fly a lot but unfortunately not in the front seat.
Have done several lessons in Cessna's and ultra lights, but just
don't have the money and the time to get to do the real stuff.
I have been an aviation freak since I was 5 years old. I stayed with
an uncle of mine who had two aircraft models in the guest room. A
wooden one and a metal one, he'd made himself. So this is 1957 ! No
toys around.... these were the first aircraft models I ever saw. I
played with them and got to keep one that I took home. After that my
father started to take me out to Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam.
Standing on the hood of the car, behind the fence, I could just see
the 'Connies' take off and land and taxi to the passenger building.
I was hooked !
I was mostly interested in military aviation (and other military
things), it being just after the war and a lot of publications
around covering that event. Next stop was modeling... started with a
plastic model from Lindbergh Lines, a US model company, later we got
Airfix models and a load of other brands. I built the models, my
brother did a model train emplacement, I made the scenery for it and
put my models in.
And I got into war gaming... with plastic models, and paper tables.
Nobody in Holland that I knew did this and my friends thought I was
kind of weird (which I probably was and still am). When I finally
saw an Apple computer with a 'landing simulator' on it, I knew I HAD
to get into information technology somehow to get my hands on it. To
make a long story short... I did, and went from Philips 2000 to
Commodore C64, C128, PC XT and so on to my old 450 Mhz today... yes
I DO need a faster machine ;-)
I have bought (well, copied in the old C64 times) almost every sim
that came on the market... and for now I am totally hooked on
FS2000. Not because it is the absolute best but because I feel you
can only really be good in any one thing at a time. For fun I fly
CFS2 and Longbow2, and I drive GP 3 and several rally games (because
I used to drive racing cars in my youth this still attracts me ;-) )
Oh, my nickname was given to me by an American friend and
colleague.... I drove him queer through Europe and showed him some
fantastic places, notably in Germany, Austria and Switzerland... and
because I never lost my way (would you really believe that !?) and
always knew the best places, restaurants and roads, he called me The
Navman... ;-)
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Aidan “Akulla”
Williams
Let
me introduce myself to you all.
My name is Aidan Williams and I am 29 years old.
I am currently employed by the British Army and work in the
field of Information Technology.
I have served in the forces for 12 years now, and intend to
carry on for a few more years.
I am currently located in Wales in the United Kingdom, but
consider my home the Isles of Scilly, which is located 28 miles
Southwest of Lands End.
I
have had a passion for aviation from a very early age. The islands
have a small airstrip that caters for the everyday needs.
There is quite a lot of naval activity from near by bases on
the mainland, and I was always fascinated by anything that was
flying around and above me. My
father used to take me to air shows when we went on family holidays,
and I have been attending them ever since.
My
discovery of Flightsimming goes back to the early days of ZX
Spectrums! I had an “interest”
then, but never really to any high degree.
I really started to get the simming bug a few years later
when I got hold of Flightsim 95 by Microsoft.
I progressed up through the various other sims that were
released in the following years (Flight Unlimited, Longbow, Falcon
etc.) I started using the Internet with Flightsim 2000, and found
myself being addicted to it. I
was constantly on the MSN Gaming zone for hours on end, and learnt a
great deal about the workings on Flightsim 2000 and how to rectify
problems. Having joined
the world of Flightsim on the Internet, my interest and enthusiasm
has rocketed! Now how could I give some of this back to others?
I saw the advertisement on Avsim for reviewers, and thought I
would offer my services. I have had a number of reviews published to
date.
In
case you might be wondering where the nickname “Akulla” derives
from…. I will explain.
It’s Russian and it’s meaning is “Shark”. It’s also
a class of hunter/killer sub used by the Russian navy.
I “acquired” the name whilst on tour of Bosnia back in
1996. To keep us amused
in the evening times we would play poker.
Winning more than average hands, I was soon called a card
shark! So I kept
with the name and adopted the name Akulla |
