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Japanese Airline Sells Flight Sim On-Board
Thanks to GameSpot for their report that a Japanese airline are selling a PC flight sim on-board their domestic routes, allowing resourceful laptop owners to buy the game in mid-air, and then replicate the flight they're currently taking. According to the article, "This game, called 'A Flight with Skymark,' allows players to take control of a Skymark badged 767 and fly any of that airline's routes", and this PC budget software "will be featured in in-flight videos and the airline's magazine as being available for purchase during the flight."
I wonder if my pimp will offer GTA
You bank right in the flight sim, the aeroplane you're in banks right. You bank left in the flight sim, the aeroplane you're in banks left. Oh my god, you're controlling the friggin' 'plane! You wake up with a startle.
This is actually just a cost-cutting measure. By using passengers with laptops to control the plane, they don't have to employ pilots. Welcome to the future of aviation! Shades of Ender's Game and all that.
I've gotten strange looks from people in bars and other public places as I or a friend discuss what we did last night on GTA (running over cops, chainsawing hookers, etc). I imagine talking of 767's crashing by over-zealous gamers(Oh SH*T the wing's come off!) is not a good thing on board a plane.
...that this is just a plan to fly the plane using passengers as a cheap, distributed, AI cluster? Just think, if you average the maneuvers of each of the sim pilots... ;)
*everything* is Orwellian to cats.
A pilot friend of mine was telling me that a joke ammong pilots is "I can't fly for crap anymore, but I can type 60 words per minute."
It's sad when choosing an installation directory on your own qualifies you as an "advanced user."