kontextmaschine:

kontextmaschine:

retrocgads:

UK 1985

When I was on AOL in the early-mid ‘90s flight simulators were still a big, if then legacy and not headline thing. There were forums where people would team together into “airlines” and do (and post replay data of) 4-hour cross-country flights several nights a week. They would have custom controller “cockpit” setups. They would trade mods that let them play audio clips telling passengers to return their seats and tray tables to the upright and locked position at the appropriate time.

It is weird to recall how much “piloting an airliner” was a prominent fantasy – the trope of the private pilot passenger who has to take over and land when the crew is incapacitated. I learned to fly single-engine planes, and I knew what to do if that ever happened – set the radio to 121.5 and ask for instructions on turning the autopilot on

Then Microsoft Flight Simulator finally dominated the genre and aside from 9/11 shenanigans we never heard of it again