Hi Quilljar,

Interesting, thought-provaking,and well written.

Soooo, what are the winning Lotto numbers going to be next week? Come
on, you can tell me - I won't tell anyone else, and we can split the money,
upgrade the Parhelia and computer, buy that Sim', and start working our way
through the payware addons... :-))

Regards,
John
"Quilljar" wrote in message
...
I just looked in my Directories and found a 'joke' review that I wrote for
a
Flight Sim magazine three years ago. They did not print it as it seemed a
bit too far fetched! Looking at it again, I thought a few of you guys
might
like to see how so much of what I wroteas fantasy then has become fact
already...

Eastern Promise June 2001

Flight Sim Breakthrough from the Balkans!

Report by Christopher Jarman


We have been studying reports of a completely new Flight Sim brought out
by
two
programmers from Kosavo. Marc Svetlanski and Igorich Bjomic have been
working on the
software for four years ever since seeing a hacked version of MS FS98
given
them by an RAF
enthusiast. Uninhibited by Western ideas of simming, Marc, a brilliant
programmer from the
university of Ulaan and his partner Igorich who runs a small computer
assembly works, have
come up with some totally original ideas.

To begin with the Sim is designed to be run on five screens. It will not
even work very
well on one alone. In order to obtain a more realistic all-round
experience
the panel and
forward view is placed on the centre monitor and the quarter and side
views
on either
side. GPS and moving maps can be placed in any of the screens. The
terrain,
which at
present is of Eastern Europe only, is completely realistic as it is
constantly downloaded
from US satellite pictures. Thus while flying over a city, it is
theoretically possible to
look down and see what is actually taking place in real time. Due to
licensing
difficulties with Washington, the final details and permission for this
effect have still
to be worked out.

Full ATC interactivity has been built in from the start using a huge
database of
conversations recorded from international air traffic frequencies. At
present, while
English is the universal language PC Pilot feels that the European accents
of both pilots
and controllers would make it hard for English or American simmers to
understand, but the
programmers have promised to work on this. Future upgrades are designed to
tap into your
own actual local ATC, which you will be able to hear but not, of course,
to
transmit to.
The exciting development is the aircraft. There are heavy Russian civil
jets, a whole
fleet of Tupolevs including the military Tu-126, all the latest MIGs and
many of the
famous small trainers and acrobatic aircraft from that part of the world.
The flight
models are said to be first rate and have all been provided by the
manufacturers' own
experts who gave up their spare time freely to make this Sim as accurate
as
it could be.
(Three of the flight modellers are Heroes of the Soviet Union, and one is
an
ex cosmonaut
who had to retire from space flight due to an addiction which we must
assume
was vodka.)
The weather is automatically set to real weather gathered from the
internet
every thirty
minutes from worldwide meteorological reports by default. However, it is
possible to select artificial, weather to your own requirements if you
wish.

Complete coverage of the exercise area in maps to a scale of 1:500,000 is
available. The
interface is similar to FSNav but using full colour. The map provision is
intended to
cover the whole planet eventually, in great detail including the
underwater
terrain, as a
submarine Sim is being developed alongside this one.
Another innovation is the ability to take on the personalities of some of
the more famous
USSR and Warsaw Pact pilots, both men and women. You select who you wish
to
be and as well as fitting you to the appropriate aircraft, you are
programmed to fly in the same style.
It is possible, for example to choose to work as Yuri Gagarin and to take
part in a
historical space mission. With the help of Soviet Psychologists the
program
has been
cunningly written to provide headphone feedback and cues to the way you
need
to react and
behave in order to stay in character with your chosen pilot.
As soon as we are able to obtain a copy of this program - codenamed 'Blue
December' we
will be giving it a full review. In the meantime have a very happy
Christmas.