Regular readers will know that I have a private pilot’s licence and suffer from compulsive flying disorder. I fly a Cirrus SR-22 out of an airfield in Northwest London and I edit a flying website, Golf Hotel Whiskey.
Anyhow, I saw a video on YouTube with a side-by-side film of someone landing a real plane at Princess Juliana Airport in the Dutch Antilles and someone landing there with Microsoft Flight Simulator X. It’s hard to tell which one is real and which is the sim. (Clue the one on the right is the sim.)
It almost made me want to give up flying. I mean, where’s the challenge if you can do and see the same thing at home for £30. Then, on Saturday, it was such a beautiful day, my wife and I decided to go flying. Two hours later we were in Cornwall on our way to Rick Stein’s for lunch. It was such a beautiful flight that I forgot my flight sim depression.
I took this picture on the flight from about 5,000 feet. It shows Exeter in the foreground and Torbay in the distance, dusted with a light mist and a million miles of visibility. This is the area where I grew up and went to school. It simply couldn’t be generated in a flight sim and – believe me – it looked even more beautiful in real life. This is why I am a pilot.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
nice:) job depression is just a sign that we have forgotten why we love our jobs:)
I’ll be darned! I was thinking on Friday of driving down to Padstow early Saturday to stay over at the guesthoust and enjoy his wares.
I don’t know why but of all our chefs on TV, he was and remains the one I identify good food with. Ramsey is well – a Michelin Star man but Rick? He is in my opinion what cooking is about and he does the lot.
But I got stuck indoors building headboards for the beds!
Hi,
I gotta say I love that picture you took. How high were you at that stage, and about what time of day>
Darryl
It was about 4pm last week, so nearly dusk. I was at FL50 (5,000-ish feet to civilians).
Matthew,
Thanks for the post. It was inspiring. Makes me wanna get into flying.
This also makes me think about a discussion I had recently. About how online communities and virtual worlds are taking young people away from experiencing the physical wonders of the outside world.
You should be proud to be suffering from compulsive flying disorder.