AOPA Pilot Magazine - November 2020 - 37

HEADLINES THAT
AFFECT YOU

Recent news from the aviation world

who founded A2A Simulations to produce
realistic digital aircraft models for various flight simulation platforms. Slowly,
digital modeling and computer simulation worked their way into pilot training,
giving us the basic and advanced aviation
training devices found in flight schools
around the country.
Flight simulation became a shared
experience, thanks to online communities such as AVSIM that hosted forums
to share software plug-ins, offer troubleshooting advice, and organize simulated

company a clean sheet of paper and the
keys to Microsoft's Bing Maps database.
Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020) seems
unlikely to be a one-off, but the first step
in Microsoft's bid to return to dominance
in home computer flight simulation.
It looks gorgeous. The fine details of
lighting and shading are captured in still
images released by the company to support preorders and watching the videos
of recorded in-game action stirs a familiar longing in the heart of this pilot, at
least. The airplanes appear to move like

Perfect timing

Releasing the first major overhaul of Microsoft Flight Simulator in a decade
in the middle of a pandemic was probably not part of the original marketing
plan, but as luck would have it, there are many pilots still stuck for something
to fly. As flight schools, clubs, and pilots emerge from pandemic lockdowns
and look to limber up, realistic flight simulation can help. The AOPA Air Safety
Institute recently published a Return-To-Flight Proficiency Plan, a handy
resource for any pilot who has not seen a real-life flight deck or climbed into
a cockpit in a while. Note that Step 2 of the six-step procedure recommends
using home flight simulation to "hone your skills further before getting back
into flying."

flights. By 2009, competition from other
flight simulation engines had taken the
realism to new levels and left Microsoft
behind. The company shuttered its Aces
Game Studio that year, but Microsoft
Flight Simulator was licensed to Dovetail
Games, which released a Steam edition
of Flight Simulator X. (For those of you
of the Intel 8088 generation, Steam is an
online gaming protocol that allows multiple players to remotely access a game
hosted on a single computer.) There
was also Microsoft Flight, a free download released in 2012 that was more
like an arcade game than a simulator,
though it has its fans (and its own forum
on AVSIM).
But for this 2020 release, Microsoft
turned to French software development
studio Asobo, and essentially handed the

airplanes do, carving through a virtual
world where weather and wind can be
customized to an unprecedented degree.
Early reviewers have raved about the
release, which is available (for computers running Microsoft Windows) online,
starting at $59.99 for the basic software
package, which includes 20 aircraft and
30 "hand-crafted" airports, simulated
in more detail than the other 37,000 airports in the game. Add-ons (airports and
aircraft) can be bundled to enhance the
experience. The Deluxe Edition ($89.99)
adds five aircraft and five highly detailed
airports, and the Premium Deluxe package ($119.99) adds 10 more aircraft and 10
airports with the full digital treatment.
That should tide us over for a while.
EMAIL jim.moore@aopa.org

PILOTS, AIRCRAFT OWNERS BUY
MOONEY INTERNATIONAL
A group of U.S.-based general
aviation aircraft owners and pilots
have taken majority ownership
of the financially challenged
airplane manufacturer Mooney
International, pledging to support
airplane owners, provide transparency, and make Mooney more
competitive.
HURRICANE LEAVES PATH
OF DESTRUCTION
Hurricane Laura made landfall
along the Gulf Coast early August
27 as a Category 4 storm and left
a path of destruction in its wake.
CNN shared satellite images of
Lake Charles Regional Airport,
showing destroyed hangars and
widespread debris. The National
Weather Service's Doppler radar
at the airport was also destroyed.
NTSB EXTENDS TERM FOR GA
SAFETY EXPERT LANDSBERG
NTSB Vice Chairman Bruce
Landsberg, an aviation safety
expert who is a familiar face to
general aviation pilots, will serve
in his NTSB leadership role for
three additional years, the board
announced. The former AOPA Air
Safety Institute executive director was appointed to a five-year
NTSB board position in August
2018, when he was also designated the NTSB's vice chairman for a
two-year term.
X-37B SPACEPLANE TEAM
WINS COLLIER
The team behind "the world's
only reusable, autonomous
spaceplane" has been named
the winner of the 2019 Robert
J. Collier Trophy. The U.S. Air
Force contracted with Boeing
to develop the X-37B Orbital
Test Vehicle (OTV) "to demonstrate technologies for a reliable
reusable, unmanned space test
platform" and to conduct "experiments which can be returned to,
and examined, on Earth," according to the Air Force.
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - November 2020

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