User:Johan G
| Location | Sweden |
|---|---|
| Interest(s) |
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| MP callsign(s) | SE-JG |
| Favourite aircraft |
I'm Johan G on the official forum and here on the wiki. I enjoy seeing how FlightGear and its users develop, have a keen interest in (slowly) learning new stuff, and tend to have a weakness for Petar Jedvajs's Pilatus PC-9M.
About me
I have a long interest in aircraft and flight and for a few years in the 1990's I used Microsoft Flight Simulator 5.1 (the first MSFS on CD) together with a CH Products FlightStick Pro.
What I do on this Wiki
Originally I did not have that much plans, but I did a lot more than I anticipated, mostly categorization. Also about half a year after my first edits on this wiki I wrote a user essay about some things on this wiki that I was frustrated with, mostly the lack of a starting point for new users, a lack of structure and coherence and a short-sightedness in not thinking a couple of years ahead. In a way it has served as my strategic plan and thankfully some of these things have been improved without my help.
Some of the things I have spent an extra 'umph' on is categorizing uncategorized images/files on the wiki, and I can honestly say that I have done most of that work so far. I have also begin improving the help for new users by extending the help pages and documenting a lot of templates, though some other users, mostly Gijs and Hooray, have done some work there as well.
I become one of the administrators in November 2013. A nice surprice. :-)
Me and FlightGear
As for FlightGear I have had a few looks on FlightGear through the years from as early as 1997 or 1998. Unfortunately, if I recall correctly, no computer I privately had access to could handle OpenGL, so I couldn't run it.
In April 2010 I had a look at it again and realized my latest laptop, and probably the one before that, could handle FlightGear. Wednesday 21 April 2010 I downloaded and installed FlightGear 2.0.0 and a few aircraft from the official download page. Only one of them was flyable with keyboard and mice, but at the other hand it flew really well.
I got really hooked really fast. As I had not touched a flight simulator for many years, the first thing on the agenda was repeatedly flying the good old traffic pattern, many times enough that my then room mate thought I wasn't mentally well. Many things came back, like primary and secondary effects of throttle and rudder, not to hunt the altimeter and airspeed needles etc.
Me and the FlightGear community
The nice thing with open source is the 'tinkerability' of everything. It's a really good route to learning new stuff, specially for someone with my curiosity. After just a short time I started to look at the forum and Friday 6 August 2010 I went on to join the official forum.
I have noted that I often tend to spend twice the time on the Forum every day compared to the time I spend in FlightGear during the entire week. Even though there can be some brawls, almost trolling, the forum is very rewarding to follow. There is a lot of progress, in so many different areas.
My lack of real flight experience
I am no pilot, and as for real life flying, as in actually being in an airborne aircraft, I have only five memories, three during my teens and two remaining even from before that.
Fun things to do in FlightGear
- "Canyoning" in multiplayer.
- Loose formation in multiplayer.
- Closed circuits, flown as planned, to the second (or as close as possible).
- Aircraft interception. Though coming announced (when I remember to ask).