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Bruce Nicholson KMFR

Are you ashamed by your hobby?

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Guest crashing_pilot

N O !!!!!!!!!!.......but i am sometimes feeling ashamed about the community in general..............the way some individuals react on certain messages....my 2 centsTom van der ElstUhhhh.....well i've got no fancy line to type down here....if you know one....let me know...maybe i'll look smarter then *:-*DASH 7 FOREVER! :-bla

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You raise an extremely important point - in my eyes, anyway. That is, that flightsim is rare among computer games in that it teaches you stuff that is useful in real life, as it is 'reality based'. Perhaps, it will be useful background and backup to your eventual flight training (although you'll get jumped on by those who'll tell you that FS provides no real world shortcuts) but it is also, simply, a provider of good general knowledge. I don't fly, but I've been a big sailor all my life; I understand nautical navigation thoroughly but was never quite sure how aeroplanes got about. Now I know, and that makes me feel richer in experience. As a kid, I built, collected and read all day about aeroplanes. To be able to actually get in them and fly them in FS ... well, add a little imagination and you're anywhere you want to be. It's Christmas every day, and all of it factually based so I don't feel I'm wasting my time bashing some goth on the head in some dismal tower.It also enables me to talk to my many real pilot friends on their own level; no longer am I in the dark. Except for my name, of course.Mark "Dark Moment" Beaumonthttp://www.swiremariners.com/cxkaitak.htmlhttp://www.swiremariners.com/reds.htmlhttp://www.swiremariners.com/cxkaitakv3.jpg

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Everyone repeat after me, "I'm a geek, and I'm proud!"A few weeks ago, I met up with some guys from my VA at Vancouver International to do some plane spotting. For some strange reason there was a television reporter there wanting to do a story about plane spotters. He followed us arround for about an hour and a half, and did a pretty good story for the evening news. In the story, he refered to us as, "wannabe pilots". My seven year old son saw the story. The next day, for show and tell, he proudly announced to his class that his dad was a "wannabe pilot". So there you go, my reputation at the school is sealed.

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Ashamed of my hobby? Absolutely not.I've no shame over my flight simulation hobby. I simply explain that I've been into aviation since I was small (at 6'4"+ and 250lbs... 196cm and 120kg for the metric types, nobody ever beleives that I was ever "small"). My wife thinks private aviation is for "lunatics and people who don't have children to raise" and won't let me take to the skies again until after the children are safely off at college.I grew up in an Air Force family and the guys who got all the girls were the guys who wore wings. Yeah, I wanted to do that. Thanks to a little thing called "progressive myopia," I just was never going to be able to live out that dream. Didn't stop me from getting a PPL and using the FAA's High Altitude enroute charts as a big wall hanging in my den, either.I'm not ashamed of the fact that for years I've been collecting the pilots' badges from around the world. I'd never wear the badges, but I just like how some of them look (my favorite recent addition was a communist-era Bulgarian first-class military pilot's badge). Most of them are in nice box frames and hang in my den.Friends of mine have asked "Doesn't flight sim get boring?" To those who don't understand the simple joy of looking down at your own house from 5500' on a nice clear VFR day, I suppose it might get dull. The hobbies other people have might be dull or pointless to me (my wife collects elephants... damn house looks like the Serengetti, for God's sake... No clue what the fascination is). They've nothing to be ashamed of, why should I?Wearing something that says "Microsoft" on it, however, is a different story. I've got no gripe with MS... I just don't feel a need to be a walking billboard for them. Hell, I won't even wear the golf shirts that I get from the company I work for, why would I want to advertise somebody else's?'course, that's just the opinion of one dude in Philly.

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Hello my name is Dave W. and I'm a flight simmer. I tell people I am medically disqualified from flying, the next best thing is flight simming.

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GEEK! GEEK! GEEK!I am the epitome of what I thought I would never become. It all started with FS 5. Over the years as the simming got better I dove deeper into the geekness of it all. I don't have a bumper sticker that says "I'd rather be Flight Simming!" But I probably should being I am a Flight Simming GEEK! I am glad there is a support group like this forum so that all of us geeks can discuss how to make our sims better. If I ever start wearing a jacket that say flight simulator on it with a flight simulator pen and pocket protector, then uninstall my FS2002 and take away all my addons and burn it. Then lock me up and throw away the key!!!!!!!GEEK!

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Your wife collects elephants?Wow, it must be true what they say about Americans having really big houses.

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Ashamed? What a weird question. It's like asking if you are ashamed of the movies you watch, or the brand of you lawnmower.I would definitely not buy any apparel with Microsoft Flight Simulator on it. I also wouldn't buy anything with any corporate logo because that's paying a company to advertise for them....a stupid thing to do.That brings up another question. Why do people actually spend money on a shirt with a Nike logo, or Chevy logo, etc? Seems kind of dorky to me.Having said that, if Microsoft gave me a free t-shirt, I would wear it because it has utility value. But I would never buy a piece of promotional clothing. That's paying a company for the privilege (?!? :-lol) of advertising for them.

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That seems a bit dramatic- what is to say you are not training for the real thing? Do people laugh at those who sit in real simulators and call out emergency procedures, etc.Now I know most of us aren't training for the real thing nor is it "legal" to use FS as an offical training tool, but my oh my I think I would have dumped her in this case...

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Guest slydon

I am not ashamed of the hobby but I doubt that I would buy clothing that advertised it. By the way, you realize that every time you buy a car there is a sticker on the back from the dealership. They sure get a lot of cheap advertising. Whenever I buy a car, I strip off that little sticker. I am not a travelling billboard. Don

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>Your wife collects elephants? >>Wow, it must be true what they say about Americans having >really big houses. Now that's one of the funniest things I've read in ages. Thanks, Damian.

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I'm replying having not read any of the other responses... I didn't want to prejudice myself one way or another.So I'll relate a story. I work in a fairly small local IT group. We're a staff of ten or so, out of around eighty company wide. You'd think IT folks would be open to any display of our technology, such as simming.One of my peers and I drove to Frys the other day, and I took a peek in the software section. Of course I went to the simming area. My peer--he went off to what I refer to as the "shoot everyting that moves aisle". When I talk about simming, he stifles a yawn. Yet he can talk for hours about Playstation, about Mame, about dozens upon dozens of gaming titles. My other peers--I mention flight simming, and they are more interested in the home finance spreadsheets I made (many of them moved to Phoenix in the past year, and I did a simple spreadsheet to help them weigh financing options).To date, I've not found one simmer in my company.So it's not that I'm ashamed of my hobby--it's that I have no one to discuss it with, other than on these forums. My wife? No chance....

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Guest nutmeat

With tears in my eyes from the last several posts...you've made my day! What a great hobby LOL!I also am not ashamed of being a flight simmer. I usually explain that I do have a PPL, used to fly military jets, but now cannot continue to do real world flying do to physical and financial constraints. This is a great way to continue my nav and IFR skills, and, its fun!And no, I also do not agree on wearing MS Logo stuff, either in or out of the house.

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ashamed not,but I'm trying to hide it.You know flight simming(and aviation in general) is such a weird thing: people who don't do it ,don't understand why you do it,you can only realise that when you get caught by the aviation virus.Like some-one mentioned,having to do something with aviation in real-life can be a good excuse,after all that's why I started my PPL :-lol

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