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Microsoft Flight Simulator - AucklandFlight Simulation

I've always been thrilled by the world of flight, planes and airports. This way, it was love at first sight when I detected Microsoft Flight Simulator 4 in a shop someplace back in 1991. PC flight simulation has gone through some ups and downs since, but developed from a leading gaming genre in the 1990s into a niche elitist old men's hobby after Microsoft closed the Flight Simulator product line in 2009.

Thus, it hit like a bomb when Microsoft announced the forthcoming re-entry into the market with a brand-new Microsoft Flight Simulator which was published in August 2020.  This one excels with some radically new concepts like using photogrammetry, AI-based autogen (buildings and trees) created out of Bing data and streaming of scenery, world-wide live air traffic and weather data out of the box. Even more, the wide market reach of Microsoft brought fresh blood into the genre and led to an explosion of addons available, payware and freeware alike.


After several years of "flying a desk", this is my present equipment mimicking a Cessna C172:

Cockpit Panel: X-Wishes Flight XTOP Pro Panel
Yoke/Pedals/Trim Wheel/Pro Flight Panels/Flight Instrument Panels: All by Saitek/Logitech
Flight Instrument Panel gauges: FSXTimes driven by SPAD.neXt.
Computer: Custom Made by Jecosys Redlich IT
Monitor: LG 34UM95-P
Simulator: Microsoft Flight Simulator
Scenery: Auckland City freeware by spas3man
GPS (via a networked laptop): FS Flight-Control (where I am in the beta team).   

Photo: Matthias Basler


Three colors red / Favorite filmsCinema

Cinema - a fascinating topic during all my life! I stood in a queue for tickets for My Fair Lady with unforgettable Audrey Hepburn in the 1960s. I recall performances of Sergej Bondartschuk's Masterpiece War and Peace on 70 mm/Todd AO screens in the 1970s. And, I still have in mind wonderful art house films like Fanny and Alexander from directing legend Ingmar Bergman from the 1980s, now available on DVD. Click on the DVD cover on the r.h.s. for some Feature Films I'll probably always stay in love with.

Cover: Ingmar Bergman: Fanny and Alexander, DVD available from The Criterion Collection - thanks for the kind permission.






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