Growing up, I was a serious aviation geek. I used to pedal my bike to the library every week so I could check out the latest books on flying. I eventually took flying lessons (enough to solo, but I never got a license) and I majored in aerospace engineering in college. So you might think I’d really be into computer flying simulations. But I haven’t really fallen for any. Flight simulations are extremely accurate these days and often gorgeous to look at, but it’s still hard to translate the kinesthetic sense of looking around a cockpit in three dimensions to staring at a flat screen on a desk.
So I was intrigued when I came across a little flight simulator for the iPhone called X-Plane. With the tiny screen and limited memory, you lose a lot in terms of display richness, but with the accelerometer-controlled input you get a surprisingly immersive experience. Basically, you tilt the iPhone as though it were the control column of an airplane. It sounds odd, but it works very well. It’s also entertaining for other people in the room, since the “pilot” is constantly swaying left and right while hunched over his cell phone.
Here I am flying my plane into the side of a mountain. As I said, I never actually got my private pilot’s license.
Seeing the plane in the display is pretty for the newspapers, but it’s not a good way to fly. Here’s what it looks like with the Head-Up Display.
If you prefer, you can fly with your head down in the instruments, and you can even practice some basic instrument flying by dialing in your radial to the nearest VOR station.
A note on the price. This is expensive for an iPhone app: $10. It got uniformly great reviews until the same company released two other flight simulators for only $5 each. You’d be amazed how many people who bought the $10 sim went completely apeshit cuckoo bananas insane with rage once they realized they might have paid five dollars instead of ten. Murderous, spluttering fury over less than the price of a roast beef sandwich. Micro-economics is a funny thing.
Rambles Blog at Star Chamber 