We announced this tonight.QUOTE:This month is AVSIM's 15th anniversary and we have undertaken a look back at our hobby and our role over these many years. We are pretty proud of the contributions that AVSIM and its volunteer staff have made over the years and we think you will find this retrospective enlightening, if nothing else. AVSIM's Publisher, Tom Allensworth, takes a look back in part one of a multi-part series on our hobby and how AVSIM has "fit" in. You can read Tom's Part 1 Retrospective in his Blog, which you can read here. UNQUOTE

A very enjoyable read Tom, it brings back many memories.One wee mistake though - Lauda Air are not from the UK, they are Austrian, founded by the ex-F1 world champion Niki Lauda. If I recall correctly Peter Tishma was also claiming exclusive rights to the British Airways logo/livery at the time, so perhaps this is where the UK confusion comes from?I also remember around that time Graham Waterfield of PSS (now Black Box) claimed that Tishma had failed to pay him for work he had done developing products that were published by Papa Tango. I can remember those products being on the shelves of a computer game chain store in the UK. I believe it was also some detective work by Avsim that revealed Peter Tishma's involvement with Ariane.Now I think about it, didn't this whole affair result in American Airlines deciding that nobody could use their logo in a payware download? I seem to remember many commercial packages were distributed without AA liveries. I seem to remember the earlier versions of Ultimate Traffic had AA aircraft with a modified logo to get around this.A "Pandora's Box" is a very fitting description.As for Fly! - I really think Terra Sim (if that was the name?) also deserves a mention. A freeware tool that allowed users to create Ultimate Terrain style scenery for Fly! All the stuff we take for granted in UT, accurate roads, railways, rivers and water features, coastlines, landclass... TS did them all and for free years before UT was realised in MSFS. Nothing epitomises the heady days of Fly! better than that I think. Very exciting days and such a loss to us all when Richard Harvey passed away. It's also worth mentioning a gentleman by the name of Rob Young who started out making revised flight models for the default Fly! aircraft. I also remember a company by the name of Precision Manuals Development Group who made their first products - a 757/767 and 777 for Fly! I wonder what became of them? ;)Looking forward to the next part.

One wee mistake though - Lauda Air are not from the UK, they are Austrian, founded by the ex-F1 world champion Niki Lauda. If I recall correctly Peter Tishma was also claiming exclusive rights to the British Airways logo/livery at the time, so perhaps this is where the UK confusion comes from?

You are absolutely correct. I will have to amend the entry. As for the rest of your post... Some of that will get addressed in the next installments.

Great blog Tom....I posted further in the comments section.Cheers

Happy retirement TomJimCYWG