I had no idea there were other places as mentioned, although I'm not interested in them myself. But I'm surprised there's as much or more interest in flight sims today, if only from my anecdotal experience...

Why am I here? See attached pic below (my apartment in 1990/91 during the Gulf War...remember when speakers were bigger than the screen? smile ).

I'm here because I was fascinated by the aircraft and FLIR/LGB footage they kept showing on CNN. I was fascinated by all the aircraft shows of the day, from Discovery Wings to Dogfights, and even Modern Marvels. I would drive out to Dobbins AFB (Marietta, GA) and watch the bustling activity from the end of the runway when Desert Shield/Storm started (mainly F-15s and large cargo planes). Not to mention that I grew up on Firefox, Blue Thunder, Airwolf and Black Sheep.

All of this resulted in purchasing my first flight sim from CompUSA, Microprose's F-117A Stealth Fighter 2.0. I was hooked because I wanted to play out what I was seeing constantly on television, and the captions on that big heavy beautiful box looked promising (the F-19 developers made sure to add a FLIR screen and Iraqi theater for F-117A).

During Desert Storm I was 23. So what inspires kids and young adults today to want to play flight sims?

Attached Files Apartment.jpg

The rusty wire that holds the cork that keeps the anger in
Gives way and suddenly it’s day again
The sun is in the east
Even though the day is done
Two suns in the sunset, hmph
Could be the human race is run