The Beginning - Tiree, Scotland,

 

Is this a silly idea? Have I gone mad? My plan: Play the new Microsoft Flight Simulator. Go on a tour. Take off from an airport, fly to a different airport. Next day, start at that destination airport and fly somewhere else. Repeat. No magical jumps - Wherever I end up, I can trace a continuous path from my starting point.

I think my motivation is sound.

The entire world is represented in the game, using a mixture of high resolution satellite photos, Bing map data, photogrammety where available (actual pictures of real building fronts etc) and elevation data sourced from governments, national surveyors etc. AI looks at these pieces of data and procedurally generates 3D buildings, pylons, wind turbines, trees etc where it believes they would actually be. So if you want to go and look at your house, it's there. Maybe there won't be the right number of storeys on a tower block. Maybe it'll think (as it does with mine) that your breeze block garage is a cute mini-bungalow - mortgage valuation team, take note! But in broad strokes and down to a surprising level of detail, it gets it right.

My logic is thus; if I can go anywhere in the world, the choice loses meaning and perspective. Hawaii one day, approach Lukla airport high in the Himalayas the next, then pop over to SoCal before finishing up with a brief flight over Uluru in Australia. All represented in exquisite detail, yet with no effort involved on the part of the player can you really appreciate it?

Many might answer: "Who cares?" I say: "NO!"

I don't have a plan at this point beyond broad strokes. I'm going to start on Tiree, an island just off the Scottish mainland, because why not? Scotland is where I was born, it's a beautiful place, and I'll start the sim off with a landscape I'm familiar with. Then I'll fly down to where I live in the middle of England. Then over towards the continent. From there, let's just see.

My aircraft of choice: The Cessna 172 with a glass cockpit. "Glass cockpit" just means that instead of a load of old steampunk style dials and indicators, it's got a nice modern Garmin screen - Autopilot, GPS navigation. But it also flies slow and low enough that I'll be in the landscape, and not just cruising so high above the world that it doesn't really matter where I am.

So... let's begin.

A word on the weather; it is based upon real weather reports. And I'm not going to deviate from that. If it's raining it's raining and that's the way it is. It's out of my hands. So it is with some trepidation that I watch the loading screen. It's late September, and the weather in Scotland may well be rubbish.

It is not. The game loads up, and I'm sat in the cockpit of my virtual Cessna, parked in grass. The cockpit screens are dark, I can hear the sound of other traffic filtering through the windows. Small fluffy clouds float in an otherwise blue sky. It's been ages since I played a flight sim. I try to remember how to even turn the power on. Down here by the door? No. Up on the roof? No. Were this a real aircraft I'd expect security guards to be running towards me in horror right now, as engineers dropped their clipboards in dismay that a Total Bloody Idiot has somehow got to the point of trying to steal a plane.

I find the power switches - battery and avionics. I flick them and with a beep the screens come into life.

Ah! There's an ignition key just like a car! I remember! The engine catches and dies. Hmmm. Then I remember the fuel mixture knob - it's all the way out. Push it in, try again, the engine catches and revs up briefly before settling into idle with a nice reassuring roar.

The air traffic control system is pretty easy to use in the game. I announce my intentions, taxi to the end of the runway, and push the throttle forward.

As the engine's idling turns into a high power roar, the nose immediately starts pulling to the right and I start flying toward the side of the runway. I overcorrect with the rudder control, and nearly crash off to the left. My virtual life flashes before my eyes. Then fate intervenes, and I realise I'm flying! The altimeter rolls up - 50 feet, 100... airspeed is 80 knots. This is fine! My journey begins. Flying is easy. I'm a master. The nose of my Cessna has rolled up far above the horizon during these short seconds of self congratulation. Airspeed 55 knots and falling. I'm going to stall and fall out of the sky. Doomed. What folly!

I push the nose down and see the fields falling away quickly to the ocean. The mechanics of flight are coming back to me now: The faster you go, the more the nose wants to rise of its own accord. The slower you go, the more it wants to sink below the horizon. It's all about the balance of forces - the plane has a centre of gravity. We're all happy with that concept - every object has one place where you can balance it - where there's the same amount of weight on all sides of that point.

Are you following so far?

The wings produce lift, which pushes you upwards and counteracts gravity. This lift? It's got a central point too - the centre of lift. It's the point where all the parts of the plane producing lift - the wings, the little tail wings at the back, sometimes even the body of the plane itself - balance equally.

Now, here's the fun part. The centre of gravity doesn't change based on your speed - it's down to the weight of the plane, and the weight of the passengers. The centre of lift does. In the Cessna, the faster you go the further forward the centre of lift is. When it's in front of the centre of gravity, it pulls the nose higher into the sky. When you slow down, it moves backwards and the nose wants to sink.

Luckily, makers of aircraft are aware of this, and planes have "trim" tabs on the wings that are used to offset this. So instead of always having to pull back on the stick to stop the nose falling, or push forward to stop it rising, you can adjust the trim until the plane happily holds itself level at whatever speed you've chosen to travel at.

This remembered, the flight becomes much more orderly. I do some turns, some swoops, some steep climbs and dives, staffed a couple of vehicles that looked for all the world like Royal Mail vans, and then turn the nose to the east to begin my journey towards the Scottish mainland.

My trusty little Cessna pulls itself up into the sky at the "best rate of climb speed" of 75 knots, its little 150bhp engine whirling away in front of me. The rugged coast slides past the side window. We're on our way.