My neighbor across the street from me has a brother who is an ex-navy, now Southwest Airline pilot.He came to visit over the weekend and she invited the wife and I over for dinner.Afterwards he and I were chatting it up about step climbs and the various sid/star transitions for SFO (of which I am extremely familiar because of PMDG) and alao about KSEA (SEATAC Washington) and I asked him a specific question about when the Collins vs Honeywell MCPs were in use on the 737-700.All of a sudden he started breaking into pension plans and medical coverage for Southwest Airlines, and what eye care plan my carrier had...I hesitated for a moment and my neighbor laughed from across the room and said, "No! he's an airline pilot on the computer!" to which he replied also laughing, "Could have fooled me!"He asked me what program it was, (thank God he didn't say 'Game' ) :) and I said it was a 737 simulator called 737ngx... to which he then instantly said, "oh, the pmdg people, I have some colleagues who have tried it and they all said it was spot on except for the coffee" lol!We then had a wonderful discussion about what a great service something like 737ngx does for the aviation community in not only fostering an appreciation for flight and what pilots do, but also in generating an interest and enthusiasm for becoming a pilot in the first place which is an impetus that is slowly diminishing with the closing of more and more general aviation airports.That was something that I had never thought about before. He mentioned that ex-military aviators could only take up so much of the slack, and that if there was essentially no reasonably accessible way for civilian pilots to even foster an enthusiasm for flight (local general aviation airports) the next 10-15 years would see some drastic changes for the pool of excellent commercial pilots.He really believed that software like PMDG creates was a great positive influence on the entire industry :)

Edited March 5, 201214 yr by dho112

lol nice story!

LOL "No! he's an airline pilot on the computer!"

"oh, the pmdg people, I have some colleagues who have tried it and they all said it was spot on except for the coffee"

Awesome :(

This story reminds me of a picture I saw on my VA's forum.

This story reminds me of a picture I saw on my VA's forum.

That's funny!!!! :(

Edited March 5, 201214 yr by falcon999

Hey, great story, i just wonder one little thing, why didn't you show him how it works??

LOL "No! he's an airline pilot on the computer!"

From now on I'm gonna introduce myself like this :D.

This story reminds me of a picture I saw on my VA's forum.

SO TRUE!! haha

Thanks for sharing.

This story reminds me of a picture I saw on my VA's forum.

I hate to nitpick, but...whose panel is that in the "what i really do" box? :(

You got that right!

Looks like a freeware 757-767 panel that can be found at avsim, forgot who made it though...

Nice.

Good story :)I remember a topic on a forum for the Aeroworx B200 where this bloke was having a discussion about some technical aspect of the B200 before he said something that made the sim pilots realise that he was talking about flying the real B200. So they put him in the picture and he made a rapid (and slightly rude) departure....