Microsoft Flight Simulator pulls the most amazing trick

Microsoft Flight Simulator pulls the most amazing trick

Inside the early version of the Microsoft Flight Simulator, my little Bush plane was at the very end of the runway, locally known as Lukla Airport. As an Illinois flat native, this is one of the most horrible places I have ever been inside a video game. At the end of the runway it falls into a river about 9,000 feet below. A bad storm is rising from the next valley, so it is now or never.

I started pushing the throttle to the maximum, lowering and moving the toe brake. The runway immediately drops to a 12% slope. Walls and buildings are crowded everywhere as you rise to the other end of the valley to fill the windscreen. My eyes glued to the centerline. As the tail grows, my legs work harder to keep the small sage cube on both wheels. In my peripheral view, I am waiting for the airspeed indicator for the plane to head north at a stall speed of 58 kilometers per hour. When it’s done, I lift the little yellow plane ginger into the air and go back to the stick. It can roll aggressively and with a little extra hull can only keep the wing tip from pulling on the ground on the right side.

I can finally take the viewing area while cutting the plane to a safe cruising height. The clouds, the earth, the shadows that work on it are all breathtakingly beautiful. Behind me, a small silver of tar called LUA disappears in the distance.

Five minutes later, I was flying a twin engine turboprop over Sicily. Then Cessna in the Greek islands; Sahara Desert; A muddy river in Vietnam; Bright lights of Tokyo. I was on an Airbus A320, banking in the wild architecture of Dubai. And then, I decide to stop by the hut my wife has been in the family for almost 100 years.

Before the hour was up, I was lapping up on the water near Dozyak, Michigan. It’s a little paradise, I’ve ridden on a motorcycle hundreds of times before, with a beer in one hand and a pontoon boat wheel in the other. At this point I was in my office and flying around on an A5 amphibious plane.

This is pure escapism offered by Microsoft Flight Simulator, an extraordinary mix of known and alien. It combines more than 2 petabytes of satellite and photographic images from Bing and other partners to create a realistic simulation of the entire planet Earth. Game - It's weird to call this complex a "game" - within a month.

But this is not correct. There are moments of probability, where virtual and real occupy the same space for a single moment. But the illusion is shattered forever. These types of obstacles are not what you see in regular games - not all of them are minimal. I had the plane for no reason when parked at the gate. Pulling back from the gate at Heathrow, I was able to pull through the gate without incident. But some of these errors are very difficult to explain.

Flying over the Chicago River, I got a glimpse of the iconic bridges that connect the Loop with the rest of the city. I can see the car going over the towers at the ends of those bridges - not the actual road surface - the toys are being pushed around by a big toddler who doesn’t know how the bridge works. Does. Above London, the beautiful horizon with the shape of the window - especially at night - is not covered like the poorly kept stickers on the Lego model.

However it is not just like bridges, office buildings. The same manipulations apply to rivers and roads - all you need to navigate the plane safely. This is called VFR or "Visual Flight Rule". Developer Asobo Studios says the goal is to navigate the entire planet via VFR, but it's a very easy task