When I was five years old I used to watch the birds as they soared in circles in the sky , and I never outgrew my longing to do the same.
But in my 22+ years of service in the USAAC and USAF , though I flew many types of aircraft, ranging from a 40 horsepower cub through multi -engine jet bombers, and though I held every flying rating in the USAF except that of radio operator, I have always felt more like a railroad engineer than like a bird .
But now, at age 85, thanks to the sailplane in FSX and the superb simulation of soaring the program provides I am at last flying like the birds.
Amazingly, arfter my first simulated sailplane flight, which lasted about as long as it takes a fledgling sparrow to hit the ground after being pushed out of the nest, in a few short hours I was able to soar from Torrey Pines on the shores of the Pacific, across the mountains and desert to Sky Harbor, in Phoenix AZ . ...
Two hundred sixty five miles!
In four hours aloft!
Using the updrafts from upslope winds and desert thermals instead of noisey engines , or even flapping my wings!
Was I bored during that four hours?
NO WAY!
I was continually forced to make decisions . ...
To seek out the proper updrafts yet remain roughly on course. (I probably zigged and zagged another 50 or so miles over the strasight line distance )...
How long to stsy circling in a thermal to ride it high enough to insure clearing a mountain ridge on the horizon ... or making it to the next updrsft.....
Whether to trade altitude for speed to get to the next thermal ...
Jjudge whether I was approaching a mountain from the windward or lee side by comparing my heading to the wiind angle .... If I judged wrong I got a down draft.
Would I ned to land short of Phoenix since the evening was approaching and thermals were diminishing ... could i make it to an airfield in that situation... etc etc.
When I greased it in at Sky Harbor, I felt a sense of accomplishment that I have never before felt in a simulator
Try it, You'll LIKE it!
... And if enough of us do, perhaps Shockwave will build us a package of sailplanes someday.
.
. There is something special about being in the air with no engine noise and just the whistle of the wind over the wings, it's as close to being a bird as you can get I guess 
