Short memories?

[EagleSkinner 36]

It is only about six years ago, that the great Emperor in Redmond declared war on FS9 and made a few new decrees about the next generation of the Emess Flight Simulator. Tempers were short, third party developers up in arms, even us lowly painters were wittering on about bumpmaps and speculars as if they were voodoo. As a one time avid supporter of a small group of bushies who loved a little place in the PacNW region of the top left corner, I was often drawn to writing vindictive prose about the subject because small user-founded interest groups would have to change their ways. In my case it was the Emma Field crowd who were being pushed out because FSX made it impossible to use the old Lago software.Now those days are long gone, but the uproar caused by the changes in FSX provoked me into writing a (witty?) essay from the view of a certain fictional character I had created and whose very name caused the avian population to go pedestrian when he was airborne. So let me present anew, just one of "Old One-Eye's" tales - the rest of his writings are on the eagleskinner website and hidden behind a transparent clickspot on the Eagle cockpit...And if you read between the lines, you may well recognise just how the sim world is reacting to MS Flight - it could really be a case of...(What follows is a work of pure fiction. Any resemblance to real people and places is purely intentional - within the bounds of satiric prose) The Emperor’s New Clothes… or…...how One-Eye and Limp cope with the threat of FSX...Old One-Eye walked into the clubhouse bar with a pronounced limp, No, this time it was one of his own making - our other intrepid hero was already there and waiting.Limp stood up to greet his friend and (tor)mentor and helped him hobble to a comfy chair. “Oh deary me,” he said, “looks like you have been in the wars. What’s up, have you been out fishing for that Great White again?”“What, Jaws?” said One-Eye.But before he could even catch himself, Limp punched the sky in victory, after all, he had been practicing and waiting for the right opportunity for months. “Why thank you One-Eye, I’ll have a pint of Créme de Menthe please. Bar steward!”“What’s this? Uncle Elmer’s not good enough for you anymore?” One-Eye sighed and nodded acknowledgement to the barman. “Anyway, Limp, I wasn’t out fishing, I had a slight run in with the Wealdron-King boys – there was a bit of a dispute about my last cargo flight. But if I look bad, you should see the others.”The bait cast, our intrepid Limp rose to it like an Orca to a shoal of mackerel….“What Wealdron-King boys?”There was a rather spirited chorus of “A pint of Uncle Elmer’s number five – thanks Limp” from around the bar – after all, it was Fly In day and even Gary, Pups and Madaz was there with a healthy thirst, not to mention the boss, officer Barbie and all the others…Limp sighed – “Oh well…” and pulled out his wallet, his victory of a short moment ago suddenly as hollow as the mole burrows after the recent smoke-out. “By the way One-Eye, have you heard the latest news? It seems those guys across state from here are changing the rules. Emma could be closed down. Old Fritz is in a foul mood. He’s even threatening to up sticks and move to Alaska – keeps muttering about going up ###### Creek with Bill and a few others. There’s even thoughts about taking all the gear, packing up the hangars and hiring those club members with anything big enough to fly the whole kit and caboodle up there.”“WHAT!!!! Just because some number crunchers in Redmond have changed the rules?”“Yes, but also because the old group of the club’s planners have fallen out and no one can agree about the deeds and who’s responsible for the necessary modifications to the runway and so on. It seems like they’re prepared to let Emma revert to scrub and bush.” Limp pulled a flyer out of his pocket and handed it over to One-Eye, “Here, it’s all in this.”One-Eye took the leaflet and began to read. He was not generally a fast reader, but he was lucky, because it had taken a long time to print that leaflet. Slowly his lips formed words like ‘vertex level’, ‘texturing’, ‘eff ess ecks’, ‘bump map’ and ‘specular’ – all the while his expression darkening.“Don’t worry One-Eye, the majority want to stay, especially Uncle Elmer. We’ve already got a petition going and we’re badgering the deed holders to let us stay on.” Limp took a sip of his drink and smiled, “hmmm, this tastes nice – I wonder why I haven’t tried it before?” He took a larger swig, “Tasty.” And then another. “Hwassetmarrer? Hweep… spffftt, whirrrooophhh, hwowwwwhhh! That ish one tasty dring!”He downed the rest in one, choked and turned a similar shade of green. “Hwarraluvverlytashtydringtharrish” and with with the grace of a sack full of Uncle Elmer’s mash, Limp went limp, folded up slowly and pooled himself somewhere down at spittoon level.One-Eye eyed his soggy friend. “Ah well, he’ll be right. Let’s just mop him up, wring him out and hang him out to dry. Come on guys – and no smoking or we’ll all be limping for weeks to come.”And as the gang set about setting up oil spill booms to prevent a major, a breeze from the open door lifts up the leaflet and places it in the eye of the beholder…

PUBLIC NOTICE By order of His Royal DOSness, the Ming Emperor Lord High Muck-a-Muck Bilga Tess: Be it known by all!

In this the year 35 AD (Anno DOS) and in the month of Octember, all territorial rights previously granted to FBO, aircraft manufacturers, cartographers and claim stakers have been declared null and void. All territorial rights and air rights to an altitude of 1,000,000 (one million) feet above Ming sovereign territories shall henceforth be redistributed to highest bidders at Imperial auction. New territories, aircraft, buildings, bridges, other static and mobile objects whether controlled or AI shall now comply with the conventions listed at the appendix to this proclamation. In addition, new commandments have been proclaimed to ensure that all Ming subjects live in harmony in my new world. These are as follows: 1. Thou shalt worship no DOS but the one DOS and Emmess shall be his name. 2. Suffer not those who make craven idols for those who make cravens idle are an anathema to me. Nor shalt thou maketh thy processor idle with other dos for my source code is holy. Blessed are the piece takers, for they have taken the piece out of the forbidden fruit. 3. Thou shalt not take the name of thy DOS in vain lest I smite thy PC with file errors, blue screens and other devious and cunning devices of my whim. 4. On six days shalt thou labour. On the seventh thou shalt defrag thy drives, carry out full system scans, delete old files and download all updates and install them. Unbelievers shall be punished by the use of 28k analogue connections. 5. Honour thy Bios and thy motherboard 6. Thou shalt not delete payware add-ons. 7. Thou shalt not peel bananas in a lascivious manner. 8. Thou shalt not use unregistered add-ons. For lo, I shall see thy deeds from afar and bestow upon thee a plague of viruses and wipe thy discs. 9. Thou shalt not falsify thy flight logs by leaving the thy sim unpaused whilst thou maketh the tea and have supper. Thy flight log shall record only time at the desk. 10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s PC nor his hobby budget but shall be happy with thine own rig. If you have stutters and slide shows, then livest thou beyond thy means – move the sliders leftwise! Addendum! 11. Thou shalt not populate thy sim with pagan add-ons. save that they can be converted to my will. Signed by my royal seal (Barents Grey) Ming! Emperor Lord High Muck-a-Muck Bilga Tess the Thirst! [The passing breeze wafts the leaflet closer to the beholder’s eye and a spidery scrawl can now be seen in the bottom margin:9 “I do rather like number 7, neat touch, don’t you think?” BG …and as the gust gusts some more, the faithful beholder can now see the reverse of the leaflet. Here there is a long, long, very long list of airfields, FBO, equipment and aircraft that are now deemed unworthy of the Ming Emperor’s will. Also here is a second listing of conventions and requirements that threaten the very core of the simmers’ world.Meanwhile, the gang have finished mopping up our champion Créme de Menthe drinker and he is now hanging out in the warm late afternoon, late summer sun of the Pacific North West to dry.We shall return another day to see how he fares and how the club members cope with absent landlords and new imperial decrees.Now go forth an multiply and be happy, my sheep and disturb me not, for I must go gather the forbidden fruit and make burnt offerings to our DOSness, for the smell of roasting apples is pleasing to him.Footnotes:"###### Creek" really exists - even in the simulated flight world. There is even a paddle shop there. Quite a few Emma Field supporters went there for a fly in or two. Many others fell in love with Plum Island and made a home there. Bill and Phil created a modification to FSX - Pacific Northwest - for which I was honoured to write the book of words for. I uploaded Pac NW here to Avsim and more than a few thousand have downloaded that senery addon. Thank you all.Old "One-Eye continued to scare the birds and poison the fish between Pleasant Valley and "Brisland Bridge" near the ruins of Emma Field.Then we were blessed with the return of Misty Moorings - another great home from home for "Bushies" and at last score was still doing well.One-Eye and Limp also exist in the real world and are based on other fictional characters ;) Read the stories on the Eagleskinner pages if you are curious. He's a "Been there, got the tee shirt, seen the film and even eaten the cast (in appropriate cases)" type of guy. The epitome of the old and bold pilot, he was last seen sneaking into Hawaiian airspace in a "borrowed" Maule, hauling a cargo of Uncle Elmer's finest. Oh - and if you are wondering why Kilauea still bubbles - I think it's because Limp accidentally disposed of a rather potent pile of Elmer's Mash leftovers in a dormant crater - which is now rather peptic again.Now we have Flight - a poor man's sim. From what is trickling through, it looks good but doesn't simulate. Who knows? No one's telling yet anyway - except for a few disgruntled beta perps. Perhaps One-Eye could tell us about how Hawaii is developing, but evertime I ask, he mutters veiled threats like "If I tell you what I know, I will have to kill you..."However Flight turns out, we are experiencing a rerun of the panic that FSX started. It also seems that everyone has forgotten that FSX was released as a free demo at first - a Bombardier CRJ, a Trike Ultralight and some really glitzy scenery called St. Maarten.So now, six years later "EVERYONE" is shouting out and complaining about the "LIE" that MS Flight is Free and that to get a decent game we will have to BUY extra addins... pretty much the same situation as six years ago...Have fun folks and I wonder how many of you I will see in Flight - or Aerofly, or Lockheed Martin's ESP-based flightsim. There's only one place you won't find us and that is in Xplane.PS - if you really want to read about One-Eye and can't find the stories, despite the cryptic hints, then unravel this URL: http:// www dot eagleskinner dot com/OneEye/OneEyesTales dot htm

[Scottj85 0]

Christ that's a lot of words

[Tierborn 191]

Christ that's a lot of words

I couldnt bring myself to read them ... too many!

[Dillon 2,198]

I just stopped in to see who actually read this.

Edited January 31, 2012 by Dillon

[VegaSS 2]

Yeah. I stopped after the first paragraph. I wish I had that much time on my hands. Must be nice. :(

[alainneedle1 97]

:(

[Fsau 0]

LOL

[SpiritFlyer 987]

I read it and thought it was very good! Chris, you have a great sense of humour and a real turn of phrase in story telling. Don't mind these guys, the only books they can read and understand are coloring books. Even then they have trouble staying between the lines!. :( Kind regards,

[alainneedle1 97]

I read it and thought it was very good! Chris, you have a great since of humour and a real turn of phrase in story telling. Don't mind these guys, the only books they can read and understand are coloring books. Even then they have trouble staying between the lines!. :( Kind regards,

:( ....Personal attack found, we need a mod to remove his post and give this guy a 30 days vacation.... :(

[n4gix 4,955]

Chris, that was a masterful bit of whimsy. Those that didn't read the whole thing are really missing out on a terrific tale! :LMAO:Of course I've had the advantage of having read your other tall tales in a previous lifetime... B) :(

:( ....Personal attack found, we need a mod to remove his post and give this guy a 30 days vacation.... B)

Oh, truth hurts, does it? :(

[Scottj85 0]

Don't mind these guys, the only books they can read and understand are coloring books.

Books? What are these strange things you speak of?

[EagleSkinner 36]

Don't worry folks - it doesn't mean much. 'twas just a piece of 'Whimsy' as one character so rightly put. My main aim was to remind folks that we aren't experiencing something new with Flight - we had a lot of ranting six years ago. OK, admittedly that was not quite as (amusing?) loud as the current flush of ranting......and from what I have seen and know about Flight, all I can say is: we (the paying people) don't really know enough about it other than to say let's wait and see if the Emperor really does have new clothes. All I want to say about Flight is that if only we could blend the best of MSF and FSX, then we'd have a killer game/sim.Oh - to my critics: Bux (Sebastian Balthazar) was a character in "Never Ending Story", Bucks (if one pronounces it like a "northerner") is one of the British home counties, Buchs is a town in Switzerland and books is wot no one over the (mental?) age of five years of age seems to read these days; not even hand books are read anymore. ;) Because those who are old enough might just recognise a touch of Russ Tobin and Buzz Malone in the characters and a touch of Terry Pratchett's anarchic mayhem in the style.And whatever you do, just don't take my message (too) seriously ;)

[Ben Cap 89]

Christ that's a lot of words

:( Same problem here

[EagleSkinner 36]

:( Same problem here

Your welcome...My "essay" was actually aimed at those literate people who might want a spot of light relief from all this shouting about Flight by what, in some cases, can only be described as "the unknowing".

[GaryGB 10]

Hi Chris:Great fun reading a tale from your "Flights of Fancy" again... you've been sorely missed over at the Emma Field Forum ! :(...Speaking of which, the next round of Old #5 at the Emma Field bar is on my tab, when I next see you there. :(PS: Help !!! ...With Fritz keeping a low profile (ever since faking his death), there's a lot of "chores" to be done around KEWL. :wink:Hmmm... Microsoft F(light)... looks like MS Game Studios lost their "S" ...and subsitituted a "light" version instead ? Happy Flying ! GaryGB

Edited January 31, 2012 by GaryGB