|
Hans Linde |
|
Nicks:
The Captain, Kirk, John Lime Born:
1959 (age 46 as this contribution is written) in Berlin, Germany Location:
City of Hannover, Germany Status:
Married to Astrid, two sons, Johannes and Felix (born 1994 and 1998) Occupation:
Analytical chemist, employed as an administrative of the governmental
authorities of the State of Lower Saxony, department “Workplace
safety”, field of work “Chemical, biological and explosive
hazards” Other
interests beside FS:
Family, travelling (favourite destinies: Sweden, France, Italy), Star
Trek (TOS), model railroads, computers, Swedish blondes (merely academic
interest, to comfort the wife unit), cooking (to comfort the wife unit
once more.) Flying
has been a dream of mine since my childhood days when I grew up in
West-Berlin in the sixties. Living near the airport of Tempelhof (EDDI),
I was able to identify the approaching Viscounts, DC-7s and 727s without
looking out the window, just by engine sound. My parents told me the
story of the glorious days of the allied Berlin airlift in 1948/49 and
from there on it was clear I wanted to become a pilot. Well, fate
didn’t want it to happen and had other plans with me. I
have been involved in flight simulation since 1988 when I had FS3
running on my laboratory computer, a 286 with a yellow Hercules graphic
screen. I learned to virtually live my childhood dreams and achieved my
virtual PPL during long nights in the lab, waiting for the experiments
to be completed that were supposed to prove to the world I’m a
successful and skilled chemist, worth of being a respected member of the
scientific community. (To be awarded with a PhD.) Since
that time I regularly have updated the sim through FS5, FS98 and
further. I have stayed a GA pilot during all that time, occasionally
launching the sim for a little sightseeing turn somewhere at a beautiful
place on the globe, combining my love of flight with my love of travel,
expanding those travels to a virtual level. All
went kind of smooth until I got FS2002 as a birthday present. I was
totally hooked when I discovered the whole world of flight simulation on
the internet, started to download scenery and planes and “took
lessons” in instrument flying. When I published an editorial
about flightsimming and the calamities of real life on www.flightsim.com
I became a celebrity among the flightsim community for a short
time and got a lot of feedback from other addicts and fools. One of them
was Ron Blehm, our esteemed flounder, and he asked me if I would be
interested to join his new “Flight of the Month” club. I told him
that I’d love to, but he should be warned, I’m not able to fly the
heavies by hand, can’t do a CAT IIIc approach at zero visibility and
never flew an “Around-the-world” journey in a paper glider. He
answered “No matter, it takes all kinds to fill the highways, welcome,
mate” and there I was. The
following two years revealed a new world to me. Although I’m still
very happy to have ILS and autopilot on a jetliner I figured out how to
handle the birds to get them down with a probability larger than 90
percent and have improved my skills in real weather and instrument
flying. But nevertheless I’m the guy still being the “sightseeing
consultant” of the club. I prefer to spend an evening installing
scenery addons before planning a transcontinental jet flight in order to
jump on a Cessna the next evening to achieve the illusion of really
“being there”. I’ve never been to Alaska or South Africa, never
seen the Grand Canyon or the Barrier Reef. But if someone occasionally
tells me of his real world trip experiences I have to pay attention not
to reply “San Francisco Bay, huh? Lovely scenery. I’ve been there
also, half a year ago. Flew underneath the Golden Gate Bridge, a
scream!” I
always have been a generalist. I really can get hooked on issues but
usually I’m not addicted long enough to become a real expert in
something before I decide to move on to look for the next challenge. In
this way I can play a little bit of chess, guitar and am a reasonably
fair cook. I know a little bit of how to fix cars and claim the “power
user” status concerning computers. And though I can’t really fly the
heavies I know how it is done in principle and that I could learn it if
I took the efforts needed. So flightsimming kind of shares the same fate
as all those other passions and my “hot phase” meanwhile has cooled
down to normal temperature. I hardly find the time to fly all the FOTM
features, not talking about submitting monthly pireps. But I love the
duty of submitting a Flight of the Month every nine or ten months and I
really love to have all those friends from all over the world, forming
this wonderful community. It surely is something that expands my horizon
and is much more than a virtual or nerdy illusion. Since I’ve met
Alastair in London two years ago and after I figured out that all those
funny blokes out there do exist in the real world and aren’t just
schemes in my computer box I dream to be able to start a real world
round-the-world-trip one day in order to meet all those fabulous people
face to face, just once in a lifetime. The
Captain April
2006
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |