Are you ashamed by your hobby?

[Guest]

Hi all :-)I saw the post on the front page about the Microsoft Flight Sim store, and it got me wondering....Personally, I wouldn't be seen dead in a hat or jacket or anything else which proclaimed to the world that I'm a flight simmer. In my experience, you have to be careful who you talk to about this hobby. With some people, you might as well tell them you're a serial killer.You may say I'm a coward (and you'd probably be dead right,) and that I should hold my head up high about my chosen pastime. But I don't. What about you?PS This is just a light-hearted notion for a thread. I know some people can get VERY defensive about stuff, so please don't think I'm in any way being critical, or insulting, or anything like that.... please. ;-)

[Jim Padgett 11]

I look at it as a question of.. Do I want the merchandise bad enough to pay M$ more money? .. Nothing more nothing less...Just my take.....

[Guest CapnCol]

Whilst I don't go round madly proclaiming to be a "flightsimmer" I will own up if anyone asks what my hobby is. I am not at all embarrassed by it but I doubt that I will buy a sweatshirt or hat. It is more likely that my brothers would buy them for me as a christmas or birthday present (I have already had a flying lesson courtesy of them, so who knows).PS They also call me Biggles and greet me with the Dam Busters tune.Colin

[Guest GabrielR]

mmmmmmmm.... let me think what to wear today for the staff meeting?a. My FS2002 sim-pilot style leather jacket (its not really leather because we are not Really pilots)b. the Chicago meigs T-Shirt with a 3D AI plane stuck on the runway messing up other plane's landingsc. My "autogen" hat with poping trees and buildings?I don't think so.....

[Guest CapnCol]

or maybe your blurry sweatshirt?Colin

[Guest]

"My autogen hat!!!" :-)Maybe Tom could set up a new forum... MS Clothing Conference.It would fill up with posts from people complaining they can't get 50 fps on their socks, or that one of the buttons on their shirt is in the wrong place and should face up instead of down.

[Guest Richard_H]

Honest, very honest.Flying for real helps provide an excuse. Just the other week I took a couple of work colleagues up, and one asked if I used FS2002. I said yes, and one smirked: "do you use a joystick"? Seeing where he was coming from, I replied totally deadpan: "No I use a Yoke and Rudders". They looked at me like I was geek of the year.I felt like I had just outed myself!I am a flight simmer :-) ...No, I wouldn't wear the gear either :-lol

[Guest jaapverduijn]

"(...) In my experience, you have to be careful who you talk to about this hobby. With some people, you might as well tell them you're a serial killer (...)"What nonsense. Just about everybody in my area knows I'm a fligtsimmer, it was even mentioned in a local newspaper a few months ago. Ninety-nine percent of the people couldn't care less, and the remaining one percent were kinda giggly, asking in an amused tone: "Do you loudly holler 'Vrrrooom, vrrrooom!' when you're flying?"I know that your are not critical or insulting, and neither di I want to be... but what kind of crowd do you live among, if they produce such crazy reactions? Maybe you should change neighborhoods (grin)!Jaap Verduijn.

[Guest]

Maybe so Jaap, but you live in Holland, where people tend to be a lot more laid-back and less judgmental of others, in my (limited) experience.Maybe the British government could set up an experimental system here, based upon the Amsterdam coffeeshop model. That way simmers could indulge their hobby in a controlled public environment. Of course, the shops would only be allowed to sell soft ware - al forms of hard ware would remain illegal.Sorry, it's a bit pathetic but the best I can come up with! :-)

[Guest jaapverduijn]

Don't worry, I like your reply (wide grin)!Jaap Verduijn.

[Guest]

Hi All,You wouldn't catch me dead in a FS (insert clothing article name here)! And when I ask myself why, it really does come down to the geek factor. "Look at the wannbe pilot", hehe. I'm not ashamed to admit that I suffer from Flightsimulus Infinitis, it's just that I don't feel the need to broadcast it to every stranger that can read.Now hire me as an Air Canada '47 driver (or any other airline or type) and I'll wear that hat, shirt, and tie to the grave!BTW when I went to look at what they were selling, I was kind of disappointed that there was no pilot supplies, per say. No kneeboard, map holders, etc. Stuff for the desktop pilot and so on. Who the heck wants to buy a FS pen? Perhaps to sign that virtual Boeing 747 order :)Maybe if they had Dragon Wings (a 1:400 scale die-cast and plastic airliner model manufacturer, here's a link for those interested http://www.dragon-models.com/html/wingsf.htm) commission an "American Pacific B734" or a "Global Freightways B744" model, I'd buy them. But I think I'll stay away from the "I'm an FS nerd" hats, backpacks, and oooh, flight jackets.CF-AOA

[Dark Moment 0]

I don't believe in buying any product which turns you into an advertising hoarding for the very thing you have just paid for. Brand snobbery has achieved such silliness that it seems nowadays everybody wants to wear their labels inside out. Daft. Mugs, those who follow such fashion; I prefer the ideas of manufacturers in Germany who in some instances actually pay YOU to carry advertising on your car or whatever.Ashamed to be a flightsimmer, though? Surely, not. Friends' gentle smiles when I first tell them about my hobby usually turn into gapes of genuine incredulousness when I explain, and hopefully demonstrate, just what FS can achieve today.OK, I don't actually show them how many hundreds of aircraft are lurking on my hard disk ... scenery never looks quite so good when you're showing it to someone else ... and FS usually chooses to lock up only when someone is looking over your shoulder. But if it's good enough for the RAF's crack aerobatic team, it's good enough for me.http://www.raf.mod.uk/reds/downloads.htmlMark "Dark Moment" Beaumonthttp://www.swiremariners.com/cxkaitak.htmlhttp://www.swiremariners.com/reds.htmlhttp://www.swiremariners.com/redsig.jpg

[Guest]

just as matter-of-factly i can say something:1. in switzerland more canabis is consumed illegal than anywhere in europe.2. flightsimming is a hobby that people accept and even admire you because you can land a 747 without crashing (sometimes :D).so, if we add up points 1 & 2, plus the holland-posts i think acceptance of our hobby and joints are kinda proportional :(

[Guest]

FS is certainly the least shameful of all the PC Games out there. Personally, I use it as a learning tool, in lieu of spending thousands of dollars on actual flight instruction, and I'm certainly not ashamed of that. I know that I will eventually need "real" flight instruction, but how many hours (translate to hundreds of dollars) will this cut from my eventual instruction cost? Certainly more than the $200 or so I've spent on FS2002 products.

[Guest]

Questions I always get asked when I tell people I like flight sims:Do you fly from London to New York and just sit there watching the screen?Do you get your girlfriend to dress up as an air hostess?Do you wear a pilot's hat/uniform/codpiece etc.I remember leaving a copy of PC Pilot magazine lying around the house, and my missus was idly looking through, shaking her head in disbelief and looking at me out of the corner of her eye from time to time. She came across an article by some bloke with a beard, who was described as a "flightsim expert." He had written a (pretty good) article on standard procedures, and he was basically saying that, during the take-off run, you should actually call out stuff like in real life..... you know, "V1, rotate, gear going up" etc. My girlfriend told me if she ever heard me doing that, on my own in my PC room, she would dump me. I don't think she was joking.The thought of being caught doing that makes me cringe. You might as well be caught in the middle of.... well, you know....