Jan Visser
Must've been the mid 80's when a friend of mine asked me: "Hey, Jan,
you being such an aircraft nut, did you know you can fly an aircraft
right at home if you buy this computer and a special program?"..."No,
I didn't!" I replied, "tell me more about it! Must be pretty
expensive, huh?" "Nah", he said, "only 600 guilders...." (about
$300). "Really?", I replied, getting more and more exited, "where
can I buy this thing then?"Thus started my flight simulator hobby, very much regretted by my wife because she already had to cope with my interest in aviation, R/C aircraft models, modelling aircraft, railroad, ships, making Super8 home movies, sailing my boat, keeping tropical fish and lizards, our dog and cats, oil painting and drawing and a few other bits and pieces on the side if that wasn't enough already. On top of this, around that time, and before, from the mid-60's on, I was a practising musician, playing bass guitar in quite a few different bands, even scoring a world hit record in the 70's ("Little Green Bag", nowadays used in quite a few TV commercials all around the world and also part of the music track of Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs, a great piece of work "movie-wise" but not exactly my cup of tea ).
The 600 guilders got me a Sinclair 48K Spectrum. The "special program' turned out to be "Nightflight", a well chosen name because apart from some crudely drawn "gauges" and 12 (could even have been 18...) white dots depicting the runway, everything was pitch black. I cannot say how thrilled I was when later on I upgraded to an Atari 1024ST and Flight Simulator II...now this was something else!
Follows the typical story of one computer and one FS version leading to another until ending up with FS2000 and currently a Dell XPS450 with 19" monitor. I took up FS aircraft design first thing BAO's A&SD hit the shelves and, like with FS itself, I have always been upgrading to newer design programs so I'm working with FSDS now, compared to A&SD, AAF, AF5, AF99 and in cooperation with AA and FS2000 a real "FS aircraft designers' heaven". Thanks a million Louis Sinclair and company!
The old and venerable prop airliners are my main interest in aviation hence my current Douglas DC-3 project with which I hope to release many versions/liveries and upgrades with emphasis on "bare-metal" skin texturing, kind of a hobby-horse of mine. You can bet your bottom dollar a DC-4, 6 and 7 and especially a Connie are already "lined up in sequence" but only time will tell when they'll eventually get their FS take-off clearance since it'll be not unlikely for the odd aircraft of other gender to sneak up in between.
O, ja...I am 52 now, born, raised and still live in Krommenie, Holland right underneath the ILS path for 19R at Schiphol. I don't like tulips, wear wooden shoes nor live in a windmill but I kill for a piece of 'belegen Goudse' cheese and a 'bak snert'.
Jan Visser
jg.visser@chello.nl