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Saturday 27 April 2013

Excuse me while I run my imaginary airline!

For those who subscribe to my blog, you may have noticed I've been a little quiet over the past month or so. Well, there's a reason, & it's summed up in just two words: Airline Empires.

There are a number of airline simulation games on the web. Many of them cost real money, either to purchase or participate in. Among the free ones, some are pretty lame (eg: www.puffgames.com/airline), some are initially addictive but ultimately pointless (eg: www.takeoffgame.com). Some I've found to be incredibly complicated or slow in their gameplay (eg: www.airlinemogul.com), although that may be just due to my own impatience.



And then, like an oasis in the desert, I discovered Airline Empires. This game is seriously addictive & realistic enough in enough respects. There are various game worlds which usually span a forty year period, some starting in the '60's or 70's (when Fokker Friendships & DC-10's ruled the skies), whilst others might start at 1980, 1990 or even 2000, the latter ones including all models of B787's, A350's & Bombardier C Series aircraft. Game play usually runs at 1 Day = 20 min real world, which means 1 month in the game will take about 10 hours real time, or a year takes about 5 days. And it's totally free.

I do have a few criticisms of it. It doesn't appear that you can do refuelling stopovers, so Sydney to London for example is out of the question if you can't stop over in Singapore or (for QF flyers now), Dubai. The other problem is that you're competing against other online players in real time, many of whom are die-hard, experienced players who take the game very seriously. Many players are also teenagers on the other side of the planet flying airlines in your home country with no idea of the relevance or importance of any of the particular cities. When you start competing against B727's flying between Sydney & Newcastle (think Jetstream 31 territory), you know something is wrong.

But for those looking for an innocent obsession & are interested in airline simulation games, I highly recommend it. And they haven't paid me a cent to say this.

Find the game here: www.airline-empires.com

PS. Just don't mess with Airboss777 or Benevolent Airlines!

Wednesday 10 April 2013

6th Gen Fighter on the Drawing Board

As I've said before, I'd prefer to talk about civilian aviation than stuff that goes bang, but occasionally said stuff catches my eye.

Case in point, the F/A-XX. Whilst the US Air Force is shutting down squadrons left, right & centre (See story - USAF sequestration groundings), & the F-35 is still basically wrapped in cotton wool & years behind schedule, the US Navy has reportedly already put out an invitation to the industrial-military complex to come up with the next big thing.

Without plagiarising someone else's work, see the story here.

It seems the US Navy still has money to burn.