Where Did You Start At?

[scianoir 610]

Started with something on an Amstrad PC and although I can’t remember what it was called, I do have memories of vivid but featureless plain blue sky and plain green ground and a few basic instruments. At the time however I thought it was amazing. After that I moved on the the Airbus simulation on the Amiga and then to FS95 and each of its subsequent reincarnations. 

If anyone had described to me twenty or more years ago what flight simulation would be like today I probably would have thought they were crazy dreamers! We owe a lot to all those who have laboured away on the development side without whom flight simulation would not be at the truly amazing level we experience today.

Bill

[THibben 16]

Started with Sublogic Flight Sim 1 probably in 1976 on an Apple.

Been Flight simming ever since.  I am presently using FSX and have tried the newer systems but am getting to old to figure some of them out....grin  I have a high end system and get very high frame rates on most planes.  I am now using mostly single engine and an occasional dual engine.

 

Tom

[signmanbob 592]

It is amazing, looking at what we are using today, to think how satisfied we have been with what was available.

But I remember, even with FS2000, that I didn't think it was real looking enough.  I still had to use too much imagination.

To me what really took a step forward was the use of virtual cockpit and TrackIR.  That's when I got addicted.

Actually I have a friend that was deep into flight simulator and worked with me at a sign shop back in the mid '90s.  He would tell me how much he enjoyed it, but I never thought that it would be something that I would like to do.

My friend now has finished building his real world airplane and flies it pretty regularly while I'm addicted to flight simulator.  That's as far as I'm going.😊

[fs4fun 366]

My first time messing with flight sim was Sublogic FS II on Atari ST, back around 1987 and also had MSFS 98 but was only a casual user in those days.

In 2012 I got FSX and became really serious about learning all the ins and outs, eventually learning to fly the PMDG NGX and J41, but lots of other aircraft along the way. YouTube and communities like this one were an enormous help in learning the ropes.

I've was bitten by the development bug some time ago and made some mods for FSX but now I'm spending most of my time developing on Unity3D (but still making airplanes fly, LOL).

[BIGSKY 316]

Flight Sim 3.0 in 1988.

[Guest]

Started with fighter sims in the mid eighties on an Atari ST. Switched to pc, gave FS 4 a try, gave FS5 a few more tries, and so on, until FS9 which I think was the first civilian sim I bought addons for. Also flew the FU series in between. Stopped using fighter sims in the late nineties. Also stopped flying for months and months every now and then when I was playing games. With FSX I got more serious. Bought more addons and kept on playing it more regularly. Never really stopped simming ever since. Switched to P3D v2, deleted FSX. Was a big fan of MS Flight but well... Bought XP in 2016 but only used it a few months. Bought AFS2 shortly after that and used that one besides P3D 3 and 4. In the meantime flightsimming is the only ‘game’ I play. Currently only have AFS2 installed and fly 2 or 3 times a week in a rather relaxed mode. 

[Jude Bradley 659]

This one -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-16_Combat_Pilot

then https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A320_Airbus_(video_game)  The manual was so thick, you could beat whales to death with it. 

Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_4.0 where the graphics blew my socks off. 

After that, the MS franchise from FS95 

 

[dmarques69 316]

My first "flight simulator" was ACE... in the ZX Spectrum. OMG im feeling so old now!

Hours of fun i had with it until my tape was damaged due to sun exposure, in a desperate measure i tried to wash it with water (i was a young and foolish boy back then) but didnt work and i was so sad 😭

 

 

[SierraHotel 974]

F15 Strike Eagle Sinclair Spectrum

 

[John_Cillis 2,406]

4 hours ago, signmanbob said:

It is amazing, looking at what we are using today, to think how satisfied we have been with what was available.

But I remember, even with FS2000, that I didn't think it was real looking enough.  I still had to use too much imagination.

To me what really took a step forward was the use of virtual cockpit and TrackIR.  That's when I got addicted.

Actually I have a friend that was deep into flight simulator and worked with me at a sign shop back in the mid '90s.  He would tell me how much he enjoyed it, but I never thought that it would be something that I would like to do.

My friend now has finished building his real world airplane and flies it pretty regularly while I'm addicted to flight simulator.  That's as far as I'm going.😊

I agree, the virtual cockpit was a big awakening for me, made me feel like I was right there, in the aircraft, vs. the 2d cockpit if you go all the way back to FS-II or Flight Assignment ATP.  I knew what was coming in our sims when I bought a book that showed what Evans and Sutherland were doing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evans_%26_Sutherland 

When I saw what mainframe computers could do back in the 80's in simming, I knew the PC would catch up to, and surpass that 80's power if I waited patiently, which I did, which we all did here in our community.  My purchase of the Atari ST amazed me in the advancing of Flightsim, the Atari ST was a cool computer, music oriented with MIDI ports, which I connected my keyboard to, a worthy competitor to the Amiga and Apple at the time when it came to a GUI interface.

I had a phase where I had a dual boot system, I put a fully bootable Linux/Ubuntu GUI on an SD card to play around with.  It was quite fun to use.

But I digress, seeing the evolution of simming has been amazing for all of us, we have so many options now, two big ones with Xplane11.20 and P3DV4.3.  We thought our hobby was going to die when Microsoft backed out of the simming business, then comes Lockheed Martin and Austin Meyer to save the day, and our hobby is flourishing now.

John

Edited July 17, 2018 by Cactus521

[WingZ 547]

5 hours ago, signmanbob said:

It is amazing, looking at what we are using today, to think how satisfied we have been with what was available.

Yes 30 years on, almost to the month, NOW I understand why everyone else was puzzled at my enthusiasm for those almost wireframe animations! 30 years from now folk will be amazed at the level of immersion we achieved in front of a 2D display.

Having said that, forever locked in memory was the gigantic Janes F-15 Strike Eagle. To play that properly, you had to learn that fat manual and give it everything you had... I never returned without sweaty palms, or an Over-g warning 🙂

 

Edited July 17, 2018 by WingZ

[fppilot 4,350]

The original version for the IBM PC in early 1982.  It was the second program I purchased.  The first was Visicalc, the original computer spreadsheet program.  I wrote my own word processing program in IBM Basic computer language by massaging examples in TRS-80 magazine.

[markadeane 272]

Flight Simulator II on the Amiga was the first one for me.

Honorable mentions on the Amiga were:
- F/A-18 Interceptor (with its faux top-gun intro music)
- Fighter Bomber
- F-19 Stealth Fighter (massive gameplay area and the first truly immersive flight sim I played, good career mode as well)
- Wings! (A bit arcadey but had an excellent back story)
- Lancaster (totally arcadey but fun)

At some point in the early 90's my Dad got an IBM compatible laptop, which I immediately got FS 5.1 for. No sound card so the prop and jet sounds were just a buzz form the PC speaker!

After much saving (and probably a bit of begging) I got the Japan, New York and Caribbean packs for that sim over the course of a few years. I can still remember going into the computer store and just staring at the box for New York, admiring the detail of the city.

Along the way I had FS98, and FS2002, and then FS9 and beyond.

[signmanbob 592]

5 hours ago, WingZ said:

Yes 30 years on, almost to the month, NOW I understand why everyone else was puzzled at my enthusiasm for those almost wireframe animations! 30 years from now folk will be amazed at the level of immersion we achieved in front of a 2D display.

Having said that, forever locked in memory was the gigantic Janes F-15 Strike Eagle. To play that properly, you had to learn that fat manual and give it everything you had... I never returned without sweaty palms, or an Over-g warning 🙂

 

Yes, I know exactly what you mean about Janes.  I was really bummed out when I found out it would be discontinued.  I probably still have the manual around here.  I loved that simulation and spent hours on it.

[Indy511 686]

Sublogic Flight Simulator II Commodore Plus 4. Owned every version since.

From this...

...to this!

 

Edited July 18, 2018 by Bills511