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In early 1996, before Flight Simulator and Microsoft Windows had been formally
introduced (which happened with FSFW95, released in August that year), a developer
shyly posted an
FS5 version of the de Havilland Mosquito to the FSFORUM on CompuServe.
It was, as the readme pointed out, Shigeru Tanaka's first attempt at designing
an addon for Flight Simulator, and had it not been for the devastating Kobe
earthquake of the previous year, it might never have appeared at all - because
until that disaster struck, Shigeru had been an aero modeller. When all his
wood and plastic scale models and many of his posessions were lost in the quake,
he turned to flight simulation, on the principle that if anything similar happened
again, at least all his planes would be safe on the 'net. This article is a
salute from all of us at FlightSim.Com to a great talent.
Fans didn't have long to wait after the Mosquito appeared, because Shigeru's next post, a Mitsubishi Dinah 3, came only a few weeks later. This was followed by a Gee Bee racer and then an absolute explosion of releases including a Piaggio Avanti, Beech Starship, Concorde, Learjet, Buggati racer and a wide variety of Japanese warplanes from the World War 2 era. Encouraged by an enthusiastic following, Shigeru responded by releasing his first pure fantasy creation - a flying London double decker bus. This marked the beginning of a long association with highly imaginative projects, and also with experimental aircraft; and it wasn't long after that fans got to play with a Pou de Ciel, or Flying Flea. Other fantasy and film-related projects released in the early days included the Nausica gunship from the cartoon; the spaceship Orion from 2001: A Space Odyssey; Taro the Flying Dog; and a Daedalian transport from Star Wars.
One of the characteristics of Shigeru Tanaka as a developer is that he has
a long term view on projects and has a virtually unequalled track record on
upgrading all his babies as each new version of Flight Simulator appears. This
has been nowhere more evident than in his support for his
'next generation SST',
which first appeared as a 130k FS5 file in July '97 and most recently as a 6
Mb FS2004 file, having gone through numerous versions in the interventing years.
Each upgrade has kept on adding features and it isn't surprising that the this
plane has always been one of the most popular downloads on FlightSim.Com.
Another classic Tanaka package is his P-51D Mustang, which first appeared for FS98 and has been downloaded tens of thousands of times. The release of FS98 was an opportunity for Shigeru to reissue most of his planes in an updated format, most of them being substantially upgraded to take advantage of the additional features of the new version of Microsoft's sim. Looking back, it is quite noticeable that Tanaka designs took a noticeable leap forward at this point, the Pou de Ciel appearing with a sophisticated 'Japonaiserie' art livery and even Taro the dog getting a high-tech kennel and a jet engine retrofit. An F-86 Sabre released shortly after the Mustang proved incredibly popular, the John Glenn livery alone getting 7743 downloads; and there was a Supermarine Spitfire too, before a new version of Flight Simulator was released and the upgrade cycle began all over again.
Most of us remember FS2000 with mixed feelings, but the Tanaka Lockheed F-117 Stealth Fighter nonetheless generated an incredible 43,000 downloads, being followed up in quick succession with an F-4 Phantom II and a Beagle Basset. The Basset did well for such an unlikely choice, but then it was a great simulation of an attractive airplane - and it was followed in turn by an F-16, upgrades of most of the FS98 planes and a very popular set of replacement trees. Reflecting the fact that many simmers had stayed with FS98 (which was the first version of Flight Simulator that looked good and ran fast on computers than normal people could afford), Shigeru continued to issue repaints and even new planes for the 'old' version of the sim. So we got a Grumman Panther and a hangar full of F-86s and P-51s to keep us happy until FS2000 was replaced.
When FS2002 arrived, Shigeru's releases for the new version of the sim trickled
out by comparison with with a flood of his FS98 work, but when declining download
figures showed that users were at long last abandoning the faith with '98, he
jumped ship with the rest of us. When the FS2002 Tanaka Mustang
'Glamorous Glen
III', 10,000 people downloaded it, against a mere 600 or so for the FS98 paint
of 'Big Beautiful Doll'; and that marked the beginning of a move over to FS2002
design. As Shigeru began to upgrade all his planes, he somehow found time to
issue an
F-16XL Super Falcon
and an
ATF Alcione, which racked up 20,000 downloads
between them. We also got an FS2002 Harry Potter flying broomstick, Rockwell
Lancer, Il2 Sturmovik, Grumman Hellcat, a flying Cutty Sark, Grumman Martlet
(Royal Navy version of the Wildcat), flying Beatles Yellow Submarine, Sea Harrier,
Fairey Firefly, a Sky Baby, Grumman Avenger, Hawker Sea Hawk and Sea Fury and
upgrades of much of the FS98 stuff.
Phew.
Then FS2004 came along. By now, many of the class of '96 freeware design school had moved on to payware or other things, but Shigeru is made of sterner stuff and he just sat down and began upgrading his packages again, many of them for the fourth time. First off the block was the Sky Baby; followed by the SST, now in its 2010 version; the P-51; the Nimbus flying broomstick; and a 'mini Sky Baby'. So far, these packages have racked up just under 90,000 downloads between them and last time I checked, Tanaka had no less than three files in the top 100 for the year, which is an extraordinary achievement for a single individual.
One thing that has always set Tanaka's freeware apart from the pack, apart from
its quality, is the fact that he has consistently devoted as much thought to
the packaging as he has to the planes themselves. All the FS2004 packages can
be unzipped straight into the sim's root folder and then flown without any further
ado - no messing around finding panels and sound files, because everything is
set up for you. Okay, so in some cases, effects and 'flight' files need to be
moved into the correct folders, but the readmes always tell you what to do and
if you are an absolute beginner, you can always leave them where they are, because
the packages work just fine without them. All the planes fly well - really well,
in the case of the SST, which can make FL300 in the time most aircraft take
to reach rotation speed - and none appear to have any serious vices. The panels
are neat and though the virtual cockpits are seldom anything to shout about,
you can hardly complain, because everything else is just about as good as it
gets.
The other distinguishing feature of Shigeru's work is that he never chooses
anything boring. A flick through the file lists shows that he has consistently
gone in there and done stuff that users have really wanted to see, the P-51,
F-117 and the SST being just three examples of his nose for good subjects. At
the same time, he hasn't fought shy of spending time on projects other developers
have dismissed as whimsy; and then proved them wrong by posting them and watching
the downloads rack up. When the
Sky Baby first appeared, I would never have
imagined it was going to do as well as it has, except for the fact that it had
the Tanaka name behind it.
So, Mr. Tanaka, good wishes from all of us at FlightSim.Com. May you continue to build on your good reputation and we all look forward to seeing what the future brings, because with you around, one thing it will never be is dull.
Andrew Herd
Download
Shigeru Tanaka's files for FS2004
Download
Shigeru Tanaka's files for FS2002
Download
Shigeru Tanaka's files for FS2000
Download
Shigeru Tanaka's files for FS98
Download
Shigeru Tanaka's files for FSFW95
Download
Shigeru Tanaka's files for FS5
