Flightsim
Real vs Sim
Or
My Christmas Present
finally Arrived
Now I know that this is a forum dedicated to us “helo” types but I couldn’t resist sharing this with all of
you.
My wife is the “greatest”. She knows exactly what type
of gift to give when it comes to gift-giving.
Jan, this one’s for you!!!!
Several years ago for an anniversary gift she bought
me a flight in a hot air balloon. What a blast that was.
Well to make a long story even longer, I became
friends with Mike, the owner, and last year he became the proud custodian (they
don’t call themselves owners) of a 1941 Stearman
Biplane Navy Trainer.
My loving wife found out about it last Christmas and
bought me some “airtime”.
I talked to Mike briefly to get some guidelines as to
when we could fly and what would be the agenda.
Knowing that I had some flight background he pretty
much left it to me as to where we would fly.
The only restriction in my area is Aberdeen Proving
Ground but it’s real easy to stay clear of them.
Here’s where Flightsim came into the picture.
Using Dave Eckert’s Stearman
in Flight Sim, I was able to practice the flight several times before the day
we flew.
This would help me get the lay of the land so I could
tell him what I wanted to see.
The appointed day came on June 1st and it
was the best weather one could ask for.
You can probably tell from the smile that I was loving
life.
Four weeks later and it’s still there.
Shortly after we took off we headed south towards the
shopping center where my store is located.
Jan and the rest of my girls (sales associates) were
standing in the parking lot just waving away.
You can’t see them in the picture but they really were
there.
We “buzzed” them for a few minutes and then headed
east.
The noise of that big radial engine was really loud
even with ear muffs.
The Stearman has no verbal
means of communication between front and rear cockpits so all com is done by
“stick tapping” and hand
signals in the mirror under the top wing.
About ten minutes into the flight I “got the tap”.
Mike had given me control of the aircraft and I was on Cloud 9 literally and
figuratively. I hadn’t sat behind the stick of a real airplane in 25 years and
even then it was a control yoke on a Cessna. The last time I had a “fixed wing”
stick between my legs was when I was taking “gliding” lessons in
Mike grabbed my camera and took the rest of the
pictures.
(Pretty good trade in my book)
The aircraft handled beautifully and I had no trouble
maintaining altitude and airspeed even in the turns. It was amazing how easy it
was to maintain a coordinated turn after all those years.
We then flew north towards Havre de Grace. That’s where
the LPGA tour was just held at Bulle Rock.
The picture below is from Flight Sim but it’s pretty
realistic.
We then turned up the
Left is Flight Sim ---- Right is Real
After leaving the Dam, we flew south back towards the
airfield
After about an hour of stick time, I got the tap once
again and it was time to turn the bird back over to Mike for the landing. In no
time at all we were on the ground and my time in heaven was over.
I have to give a lot of credit to Microsoft for their
work on Flight Sim and to Dave Eckert for his rendition of the Stearman. The flight dynamics are much closer to real than
I had ever imagined.
While I certainly don’t believe one could become a
pilot solely through Flightsim, I think the program definitely has value for
realistic practice.
Thanks Jan & Mike for a wonderful flight.
You can visit Mike’s Web Site at
Light Flight Hot
Air Balloons/ Barnstormer Aero
Paul
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