I did not take lessons to learn to fly real aircraft. When I was in my senior years at high school (1976-1977), I applied for a pilot training position in the Australian Air Force. I sat for various tests, went for a medical examination, and had an interview with an Air Force recruitment officer who used to be a pilot. After all of that, it was felt that my eyesight was not quite good enough for undertaking a position as a pilot in the Air Force. I felt devastated. I was so sure that I would go on to become an excellent pilot. Now it felt as though the responsible thing to do was not to become a real pilot.

I have however, learnt to fly using flight simulation on computers. I now know, largely from learning about flying through flight simulation, that we have developed a range of very effective navigation techniques, air traffic control, and air traffic communications, to keep flights as safe as possible. We have reached a stage where we can have safe regular flights performed during just about any time of the day or night, and during any weather conditions.

Early Flight Simulation

At around 1985, my youngest brother showed me a computer game he had for his Commodore 64 personal computer, called “Sublogic Flight Simulator II”. The graphics looked pretty crude, but good enough to give a sense of a real aircraft instrument panel with lots of amazing dials, as well as a simple wire frame view looking straight out in front. Our imagination is what makes such a thing possible. I loved the challenge of trying to fly this artificial aircraft in an artificial world. The manual that came with the software explained the basics of aircraft flight control (most of which I already knew), and which keys needed to be pressed on the computer keyboard to operate the various systems that had been implemented. The manual contained a lot of very interesting information about aviation radio navigation and managing an aviation engine, that I didn’t know about. At that time, I was visiting my youngest brother from interstate, so I couldn’t spend a lot of time on the simulation. The program was very inspiring though.

Below is a display of screen captures taken from Sublogic Flight Simulator II (released in 1984) running on a virtual Commodore 64 computer. Hopefully, you can get a good sense of the graphics produced by the program and the imagination being requested by the producers of the program of those using the flight simulator. The first image is supposed to be looking down runway ‘36’ of the Meigs Field Airport, in Chicago, USA. The airport is built on a small connected island, just out from the Chicago CBD. The tower you can see to the left of the runway, is supposed to represent one of the bigger buildings that makes up the dynamic skyline of Chicago.

When I first operated my own computer, an old 8-bit Commodore Vic-20 (passed on from my father), I looked at a range of programs that were ‘kind of’ flight simulation type programs, but there was nothing I found that was quite like the “Sublogic Flight Simulator II” that I had seen on my brother’s Commodore 64. I eventually wrote my own flight simulation program, and this allowed me to ‘kind of’ get a sense of flight. I had to write a lot of the program using assembly language, to have sufficient processing speed to quickly and constantly calculate the state of the modelled aircraft and apply the changes to the graphics. This meant a much longer development time frame for the program.

My program was set up to operate within a single vertical plane (no steering was possible). With my program, I could apply power and move the elevator of the aircraft to get airborne, to climb, to cruise, and then descend and hopefully land the aircraft with a vertical speed that was less than a specified amount considered safe for a landing. The graphics were pretty crude, and gave a ‘cockpit’ view out the front of the ‘aircraft’.

Screen capture of my own program running on a virtual Vic-20 computer.

The aircraft is travelling through the air at about 100 knots per hour, is at an altitude of around 3,250 feet, and is rising at about 5 feet per second (even though the dial says metres per second).

I needed to create all of my own instruments. The basic instruments that were created included an engine tachometer, an airspeed indicator, an altimeter, and a rise-or-fall indicator. I also included an indicator to show the position of the elevator, and a stall warning indicator. I enjoyed working out which instruments to include, and designing the graphics for them within the limitations of the low resolution screen of around 160 pixels wide by 176 pixels high. I had planned to also include a brake indicator, an ignition indicator, and a fuel gauge, but I never added the underlying code to finish these. As it was, I had to write a lot of the program using assembly language, to have sufficient processing speed to quickly and constantly calculate the state of the modelled aircraft and apply the changes to the graphics. This meant a much longer development time frame for the program.

The view out the front of the cockpit was really only a horizon level, which really only gave a sense of the attitude of the aircraft. Remarkably, using a fair bit of imagination, it could give a sense of lifting above the ground, and landing. Eventually, I found that I could perform loops and even fly upside down.

This is the default starting scene that is shown when you decide to go for a free flight in the program. As mentioned earlier, this is supposed to be looking down runway ‘36’ of the Meigs Field Airport, in Chicago, USA. The airport is built on a small connected island, just out from the Chicago CBD. The tower you can see to the left of the runway, is supposed to represent one of the bigger buildings that makes up the dynamic skyline of Chicago.

This program is based on an original program by Bruce A. Artwick in 1984. Specific versions of essentially the same program were developed for a range of personal computers operating at the time, such as the Commodore 64, the Apple II, the Atari, and the PC.

This flight simulator came with a ‘simulated world’ that consisted of four regions based on real world areas within the USA (regions surrounding Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Seattle). Each region was like a simplified map of the real world area it corresponded to, containing coastline shapes that were simplified to straight line segments, about 20 simplified airports (based on the coordinates and layouts of real world airports) and about 20 positioned radio beacons (based on the coordinates and frequencies of real world aviation radio beacons) in which to use for radio navigation. The surface detail within all of these regions was kept to a minimum, because of the amount of 3-dimensional calculation required on every defined point in space in the region, by the program. For example, only a very small number of major roads were modelled, and only as single lines. The odd building was attempted, depicted mainly as simple rectangular prisms. The program does has the ability to show scenery objects with some different levels of detail, depending on how close the aircraft gets to those scenery objects. However, the level of detail, even when the aircraft is close to a scenery object is usually still fairly minimal. Even though details were kept to minimal levels within the program’s simulated world, it is interesting how the user’s imagination can use the spatial arrangement of the elements that have been modelled to give the user the impression that they are flying within an equivalent space to the real world region.

Extra scenery disks (at least 15) were developed as add-ons to provide other scenery regions throughout the USA and some scenery regions in Western Europe (such as southern UK, France, and southern Germany).

This was captured from the next generation of the “Flight Simulator” programs developed by Bruce A. Artwick, and is shown here running on a virtual PC. The view here is the same as that for the opening flight used by Sublogic Flight Simulator II - that is, looking down runway ‘36’ of the Meigs Field Airport, in Chicago, USA. You can see that the display here has a higher resolution, and the graphics are much clearer. Note that the arrangement of the flight instruments is the same between the two programs. In fact, the arrangement of the primary flight instruments is based on the arrangement from a real general aviation aircraft (see the capture from “Flight Simulator X”, two images below). The program now has menus that allow the user to easily modify many aspects of the simulation. The aircraft simulated here is supposed to be a Cessna 182RG, with retractable landing gear, hence the section of the right hand side panel that shows ‘Gear’ is ‘down’.

This is a screen capture that shows the way that aircraft were typically depicted in this early flight simulator. Note that the aircraft has been dramatically simplified into a basic 3-dimensional construction of polygons and lines. The shadow shape under the aircraft helps to give a sense of the aircraft sitting on the runway. The license number of the aircraft (“N4081 L”) has been done using short straight lines that are drawn from points that are calculated in 3-dimensional space, along with the rest of the aircraft. Compare this depiction of an aircraft with those shown on the next page (from “Microsoft Flight Simulator X”), which look photographic.

With Microsoft Flight Simulator X, we have come along way in terms of the graphics created by the simulation. I present this image mainly to give a better idea of the ‘real’ scene being depicted in the above early flight simulators. Again, we are looking down runway ‘36’ of Meigs Field Airport, in Chicago, USA. The aircraft here is a Cessna C172SP Skyhawk, an excellent single-engine general aviation aircraft. We can get a better sense of sitting in the aircraft, with a much more realistic depiction of the instruments on the instrument panel. We get a much better sense of the city of Chicago, and Lake Michigan on the eastern side of the runway. The engine is running. We can see that the propeller is spinning quickly in front of us, by the thin blurred slightly darker circular shape in front of the cockpit. There are now even reflections shown on the inside of the windows. The sound of the engine is very realistic, and characteristic of this particular aircraft.

As I moved on to more powerful personal computers from the Commodore Vic-20, such as the Amiga 1200 computer, and then the more common Pentium-based personal computer (PC), I rediscovered flight simulation, firstly through a variety of flight simulation games on the Amiga (such as “Knights of the Skies”, “Tornado”, and “TFX”), and then by purchasing “Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004”, and now “Microsoft Flight Simulator X” for PCs.

I am very impressed with the realism that comes with “Microsoft Flight Simulator X”. The aircraft look like accurate representations of the real aircraft. The ‘flight modelling’ feels realistic. The views from the aircraft seem very realistic. The simulator provides a range of viewpoints that each show realistic animation of the changes in the scenes all around.

Remarkably, the simulator comes with the land-masses of the whole planet simulated in considerable detail, along with the main rivers, main roads, main railway lines, main cities, main bridges, main landforms, main forests, main deserts, main beaches, main farming areas, etc. This means that some navigation (depending on the light, the cloud cover and the altitude being flown) is possible using real world maps. The position and phase of the moon has been simulated, along with the positions of the stars in the night sky. Simulating all of that is an incredible achievement. It is a remarkable simulator!

Flight Simulator X, like all of the other previous commercial Flight Simulators I that I have used, allows for adding expansions that can provide even greater realism. For example, I have an expansion pack that provides more realistic scenery for the whole continent of Australia. I have also added a range of other aircraft, to give some idea of what it may be like to have flown those aircraft. Some expansions are free (provided by enthusiasts who just want to share their work), and others that I have had to gladly pay for.