Folks,

Dux:

LOL! C51 has received the birding photo. He sends to you this perceptive observation:

C51 wrote:
"Nice picture from Old Dux, I can just about make out the nudist colony on the other side of the marsh."

File this under ancient Man types Flight Sim trivia:

As you will remember, I have installed an 8 times better vid. card and I am trying to resurrect my old flight sims, EAW, Janes WW2 Fighters, MA, FCG plus a few others that still reside buried somewhere on my wheezing old hard drive. I have had no problem with any of these except MA and FCG. Unlike the original BoB, even with help from others, they still continue to evade me. On the other hand, last night I found the .exe of a late 90's sim that some of you ancient warriors may still remember fondly, Jane's Fighters Anthology. I had almost forgotten about USAF Fighters, Marine Fighters etc. Here they were all grouped together in one place.

I looked all over but I could not find the CD. So I went online and found a NoCD file for that program and downloaded it. I was amazed to find so much on the web for this ancient compilation sim (any title over a few months of age is considered old these days due to the speed of technological development). I knew that, like BoB, EAW enjoyed a continued support by many modders and players but was unaware that JFA had been brought into 2008 with new missions etc.

So after a few hours, there I was at 5,000 feet over sunny downtown Vietnam, my afterburner blasting and my hair on fire as I waxed several MiG 21s and a Bear or two. For the first time I could run this thing with everything maxed out. Even then the graphics are less than perfect. Remember the old Gerrard shading? Perhaps I'll look for some mods?

Or maybe not. OK, I am a confirmed prop man and not all that comfortable with the afterburner crowd these days. Nothing old and certainly nothing new will likely take the place of BoB which is nestled down deep amongst the magnetic crevices of my hard drive...or at least not until that HD finally greets me one dark morning with the sound that a spoon makes when it falls into your blender.

I found the JFA CD this morning along with that of SWOTL. Now that is an even older game than JFA with some interesting aircraft. Why does he keep this shi...cra...junk you are asking yourself. I'm a pack rat by nature; I keep lotsa useless stuff until I find I can use it after all.

I still have my first flight sim "The Dam Busters". I got that back in '84 along with the first F-16 sim that I know of titled "Jet". I seriously doubt that I can run TDB and I won't try. If I could I'd see that TDB has very crude graphics by todays standards of course, however, as far as I know, it was the first multi-tasking flight sim. You could pilot, fire the guns, and navigate. At the proper moment you could even release the anti-rotating bomb. I have fond memories of playing that game with my then 7 year-old son. Although I am still about the same age as I was then he has somehow aged and is 31 today. He plays console games with his 6 and 8 year-old boys.