I have been wanting a copy of Flight Sim for quite a while, but never had a computer that was fast enough to run it properly. I would often hear from other pilots how it was great for instrument procedure training, practicing hold visualization, NDB approaches, and so on. Anyways, the day comes where I get a shiny new fast computer at work. I decide to splurge, and hop online to order my very own copy of Flight Sim 2002. I don’t order a yoke or a joystick, since it says it isn’t required. I am a poor college student who justs wants procedure practice, so the mouse should do fine.
I anxiously await the mailman every day. Finally, my much-anticipated package comes. I take it to work, and spend about an hour getting it all installed and set up properly. I fire it up, and sit looking down the runway here in Murfreesboro from the cockpit of my fully-IFR equipped Cessna 182. I tune in the radios, set the trim, and firewall the throttle. Hurtling down the runway, I watch the airspeed straining towards 70 knots like a 6 year old standing next to a measuring tape. Finally, I reach rotate speed and gently pull back on the mouse to establish my climb, ready to blast into a beautiful virtual VFR day.
Nothing happens. The mouse pointer goes to the bottom of the screen, and I continue to accelerate down the runway. I think, “Hummmmm… must be a setting here somewhere to use the mouse as a yoke. I remember seeing it on my friends copy”. So I poke around a little bit looking for that setting, while my $230000 virtual airplane rolls down the runway doing 70…80… knots. A few minutes later, as my airplane runs of the end of the runway into a house, I realize what the problem is:
MICROSOFT FUCKING REMOVED THE ABILITY TO USE THE MOUSE AS A YOKE!
That’s right, every other damned version of Flight Sim lets you use the mouse as a yoke, if you don’t have a joystick. But in this version, they removed that feature. For no apparent reason. Your only option to fly the airplane without a joystick is to use the keyboard. Needless to say, unless you’re in a 777, you can’t fly a damned airplane with the keyboard, even for procedure practice.
Since I really can’t have a joystick attached to my work computer, and wouldn’t want to spend the money even if I could, I now have an essentially worthless copy of Flight Sim 2002 on my hands.
Thanks a lot, Microsoft. I hope your corporate pilot gets stuck holding over a NDB in a 40 knot crosswind, with one engine feathered, the other on fire, and Courtney Love riding jumpseat.
Bastards.
