My ancestors helped the Wright brothers in developing the first aircraft and flying has always been in my blood. Here is a picture of great great uncle Henry testing airfoil design:

Following getting a privates pilots license around 16, I turned to dentistry to make a living because of not having the eyesight (at the time) to go into the Air Force or commercial aviation. Around my midlife crisis I had the unique opportunity to "retire" and purchase the skeleton of a flight simulation facility called Fightertown in Lake Forest, Ca. This facility had fighterjet simulators and offered the opportunity to be a jet fighterpilot for a day, or if you really got hooked like I did and so many of my friends, a squadron fighterpilot for 10 years or more. Anyhow Flightline Flight Simulation Center was born and moved to Irvine, Ca. where we had 5 wonderful years of teaching the likes of Tom Cruise, billionaires or housewifes how to shoot each other down and blow shit up. Or as anyone who knew the place would remember "101 the good news is you blew up the ship, of course the bad news is you did it by crashing into it". We also had a program of at one time nearly 80 very experienced flight simulation guys (squadron members) some who were pilots or even retired fighter pilots who would fly monthly with names like Stinger, Slot, Bagger, Six-Gun, Shadow or Tack.

If you read the home page completely please skip this next paragraph:

The simulator was to be built for a flight school/entertainment venue but took far too long to complete before that business disappeared. Initially at about the time that the simulator was just starting three things happened. First a great guy call sign "Doc" took a look at the incredible pile of hydraulics, electronics, metal, etc., laying on a hanger floor and said "no problem, lets build it". Second the top test pilot for Boeing at the time (who had flown every military and civilian aircraft up to the 777) stopped by and shot the breeze regarding the future of cockpit design. Basically everything would be a computer monitor touch screens. It was even possible that a pilot in a future transonic design would never have a real window to look out of! (sounds like the distinction of simulator and plane gets a little blurry). No millions of miles of wiring for buttons and switches. Aircraft cockpits could be updated just by changing the software and the GUI (graphical user interface). And of course Josh a geek of geeks started developing code and even building circuit boards by hand to bring the airship from drawing board to reality.

More info follows on additional pages. Now with a little history, on to the present. Below is a picture of the current state of the flight simulator this week:

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