I remind myself often that there was a time where getting to 'fly' a P-38 was nothing more then a dream. I remember lying on my bed as a kid looking up at the formation of model B-17s and 24s hanging from my ceiling with the model 109s, Spits, 51s etc 'fighting' around them. I wondered what it would be like to be able to shrink down enough to get in one of them to see what it looked like. Unlike my cartoon 38, I would have not been 'moving' and seeing through the glue stained windscreens, product of a 10 year old's modeling skills might have ruined the view!
As the model building got better it was to detail them, or even better build the old Monogram "Phantom" Mustang with the battery powered prop and gear that you could lower and raise. The ping pong table made a great carrier deck for those Monogram USN birds. You could take your SBD out and drop it's bomb, or take the TBF and drop the torp. Of course those P51Bs raced around an imaginary sky chasing imaginary 109s too.
Flying lessons follow and while expensive, you at least could pretend you were really flying a WW2 fighter. I remember vividly my instructor getting on my case about squaring off my downwind, base and final legs during landing. "You aren't flying a P51!" He told me. Of course there was the time a buddy and I, both having just soloed, worked it out so we both went up at the same time. We tried to fly formation without much luck and then 'dive bombed' a couple of farm houses. We tried to talk to each other, thinking we were on the right channel. Turns out we were on the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport approach frequency. If two 17 years olds in Piper Warriors could do a quick double take and try and hide in the sky, it was us, as we both broke opposite directions and ran for 'home' as fast as we could.
College comes along as does going broke. Marriage, kids, and still broke. Along comes this thing called a computer and a green screen game called Microsoft Flight Simulator. It's got a dogfight game! OK so it's stick airplanes that can only shoot each other in the face. No matter how you try and tail chase, it's always nose on. But the imagination of that little kid comes back in a flash. SWOTL, Aces over Europe and then a chance meeting with Airwarrior on AOL. I get to fly with and against real people! Into Relaxed Realism we all go turning like mad, never blacking out and having an absolute blast!
It's then you run into the purists and the flight model critics. Full Realism is the place to be! That's how it feels to fly a real plane! So you make the move and struggle along trying to learn the 'right way'. It's then, while sitting at the home of an actual WW2 combat pilot who also flies Airwarrior that you hear him say that he preferred relaxed realism because it compensates for the 'feel' of actually flying. "Is it anything like the real deal? The vet gives you a smile and says no, but it's fun. He goes on to explain that he prefers trying to sink carriers with a TBM.
On to AH and the graphics are better, and the game overall just seems nicer. The Flight model critics are out in even greater force. But having done this long enough, it's hard to get too worked up about the flight model anymore. All I know is that little kid in me, who dreamed of flying glue spattered model planes, still can't get over the fact he gets to 'fly' his cartoon 38s with his buddies and pretend he's a cartoon fighter pilot!
