Tonight while I was browsing YouTube, I came across an old channel that I used to watch years ago for flight Sim. That channel was frooglesim. It got me thinking about all the old YouTube channels and the community we had back in what I call the Dark Ages of Flight Sim before MSFS 2020 came out but after Microsoft stopped development back then. 

 

Anyone else ever think back to those days or wonder what ever has happened to those people who were a big part of the community but no longer are with us or retired from it?

 

I guess with the passing of time and getting older it’s crazy to think back to those days of nostalgia. I remember meeting Froogle in 2019 at Flight Sim Expo but now he is retired. 

 

Another YouTuber Belgeode recently retired as well from Flight Simming and I had followed him for years. Age catches up to us quickly and I love everything we have now and flight simming is strong as it ever has been but I do have nostalgia for the past as well and what we had then. 

I went to the Avsim convention in 2004 in Denver where we were able to use United Airlines’ simulators.  It was fun putting faces to names from the forums.  We were also the first non-aviation-professional group to use the simulators post-9/11; the United Airlines employees commented how they enjoyed all our smiling faces and also enjoyed showing the simulators off as normally simulator users aren’t using them for fun.  It was also around this time I used to do repaints as well, so I do have nostalgia for then.

11 hours ago, Mike A said:

It was fun putting faces to names from the forums.

My wife and I did that on a long road trip.  Met old Hangar Talk members in Jasper Texas, Dunedin Florida, Toronto, Edmonton and Calgary.  Most names now forgotten but  I remember meeting Bruce Briggs in Tucson Arizona, Jesse Callahan in Jasper Texas (and he was a guest in our house a number of times), and Steve Mudry in Edmonton who had his private and gave me an aerial tour of the city in a Cessna 172.

Jesse was my sponsor when I joined the Confederate Air Force.  I was sworn in by General Tibbets at the CAF air show in Midland TX.

And Captain Bala, a B747 pilot for India Airlines.  I think he lived in Mumbai.  He brought his family to the United States one summer and spent a weekend with us.   He and I spent half the night talking airplanes and he spoke of a UFO encounter he experienced over the Assam Valley when he was flying MIGs for the Indian Air Force.  You can imagine the second looks and eye popping stares when his wife wore her sari and put the dot on her forehead for our trip to the Roswell Mall on Sunday..

Jesse Callahan was a Mustang driver during WW2 and is now deceased.  So is Capt. Bala.

Thanks Cubs105 for the memory jog.

Noel