Thank you, Dimus !
Well, honestly it has not been unusual for me to see a runway threshold before me when coming out of the murk on a 'strictly steam gauge' IFR flight during an ILS approach...I mean, such a sight is not really reserved for digital ILS gauges only, is it... I must say watching the localiser needle creeping in on its way to the middle of a steam gauge and trying to keep it there has always been part of the great fun it is to fly IFR. Still the same in a glass cockpit of course but for me... i don't know, not *really* the same....
As you can understand my knowledge of RW glass cockpits and the development of their digital counterparts for our beloved virtual flying world is at an absolute minimum. This statement already holds the 'reverse contradiction' in itself that worries me so much: they are both the same ! Both we ourselves and our RW colleagues looking at the same digital stuff ! Most simmers will say : "What's wrong with that !" And i have to sort of humbly agree...
Maybe this little anekdote will explain better what i'm talking about. One of my first Flightsimulator creations was an engine sound for the first ever DC-3 model in FS made by John Kelly (might have been FS5..). We were obliged to fly this aviation icon using the sound of the default Cessna 172...
Can you image that ? Yessir, really true. So i couldn't just sit there and let that happen, learned how to create sound for FS and put a sound file together that sounded as much as i could manage as the Pratt & Withney concert for two R-1830 Twin Wasps. ( not easy because no internet yet...)
My first upload for FS ever. I believe it was thru Compuserve back then. Already quite a vast FS community. I'll never forget the first comment i got for uploading my DC-3 sound file. It was from RW 747 Captain Mel Ott aka 'Captain Tarmac'. He said " Thanks very much for the DC-3 sound, Jan. I LOVE flying the DC-3 in the sim, i can always fly a 747 at work ! "
Computers are made to produce digital instruments for aircraft a.o. Without computers no flightsimming possible. Both real word and virtual world come together like two peas in a pod. Our home computers simulating RW computers..Personally i can't think of anyhing more boring than that... (take with a pinch of salt please...;-)
Computers simulating mechanical gauges that's a total different kettle of fish. Personally i find that waaay more interesting and exiting not to say innovating.
Surely creating a glass cockpit is no joke either and maybe the same amount of work and time goes into it if, like you say, there is 'n exceptional amount of functionalities involved ( although 'knowing' Captain Sim like we all do that would be an exception to the rule....;-)
In ending another example: many moons ago i created an ATR-42/72 model. I was asked by a friend who ran a Virtual Airline. Myself i didn't know anything about the ATR. Thru the development of it i began to fall in love with the graceful commuter also because i got aquainted with a RW co-pilot who flew ATR's for American Airlines. An absolute gorgeous steam gauges panel was created for it (must admit with glass AHRS and HSI). It became one of my fav aircraft to fly in FS and so i was over the moon when i heard about the release of a native ATR-42/72 for MSFS2020. I bought it instantly and have never been dissapointed so much when for the first time i entered the cockpit. The gorgeous looking steam gauges panel had been thrown overboard to make place for 5 boring iPads in a row.....
Even the beautiful external model cannot persuade me to fly it. I have a small hope maybe it will be refurbished sporting the original steam gauges panel some day.
I know it's probabely an oddity here but i do love these Busses and Boeings as well, coming over my house each day (when the wind is southerly) on their way to Schiphol 19L, 19C and 19R and certainly now we have 'Sayintensions' and 'Chase Plane' (soon) i'll be putting some of them thru their paces so no doubt i will have to take my share of dealing with these glass cockpits. So be it.... One is an aviation hobbyist or one is not.... ;-)
Thanks again for your respons, Dimus !
blackbirdsims.com
