The clock is ticking towards midnight once more. You find me sitting in the dark of the junk room once more. Perhaps I should stop calling it the ajunk rooma, and call it athe officea - although saying that, the only clear wall is now covered with an aviation sector map of the southern United Kingdom.
Donat ask.
Actually, perhaps I should tell you what itas all about. It will explain the absence of new posts from me just recently.
You know how sometimes you pull a loose thread, and it ends up unravelling an entire piece of clothing? Thatas busy happening to the idiot escapade Iave been engaging in since the pandemic.
If youare not aware, during the pandemic my Dad gave me his old computer - a computer capable of playing video games on - something I had not had for perhaps twenty years. The first thing I bought was a flight simulator - so I could join in with the group my Dad had been meeting up with online for the last decade or so. It kept me out of mischief, and provided a great excuse to spend time with my Dad.
Fast forward a couple of years, and while sharing my idiot exploits in pretend aircraft, Iave somehow grown a YouTube channel with a lot of subscribers. Enough that the channel is monetised, which provides an added incentive to keep at it.
The problem with churning out content on the internet is you eventually run out of things to share (this blog is a great example of that, I suppose). Thankfully aviation is kind of like an onion - as you pull back one layer, another is exposed below. Thatas kind of whatas been going on with the videos pretending to fly planes on the computer.
At some point I thought awouldnat it be good if I took a look at what real pilots actually doa, rather than winging it all the time. And thatas how a huge parcel arrived in the house last week - filled with the materials a student pilot might typically acquire in their journey towards a private pilotas licence.
So Iave started studying, and recording videos replicating areal worlda exercises. You know when youare near an airfield, and you see a little Cessna go pottering past overhead, with an all-knowing instructor perhaps guiding a nervous student around the local circuit? Iave been doing that - and recording it - and sharing it.
You know what? Itas exhausting. In the same way that doing mathematics is exhausting.
Playing a video game is one thing - but trying to control a simulated aircraft in authentically simulated weather, and operating it in a manner agreeable with wisened all-knowing certified flight instructors is something else entirely different. And yes, real-world instructors have been watching my exploits, and wading in with helpful (read: chastening, dispiriting, but also helpful) critiques.
So yes. Thatas what Iave been doing.
It started as a tactic to get more views on YouTube, but had rapidly become a huge slippery slope. A slippery slope that scratches a mental itch. I asked for math books for Christmas a few years ago - I suppose this is in the same wheelhouse as that kind of mental idiocy.
Anyway.
Itas late. I should probably be in bed already. We both know Iam going to end up scrolling the internet until 1am, donat we.