Island Airlines
Several decades after jet aircraft first took to the skies, a small airline still flew a fleet of Ford 4–AT Tri-Motors for their short-hop, short-field circuit from Port Clinton, Ohio, to small islands in Lake Erie.
Island Airlines billed itself as “The Shortest Airline in the World.” The Ford Tri-Motors served as school buses, flying students from the outer islands to high school campuses. Some islands were so close that when the plane landed, its wheels were still spinning from takeoff.
To read more about the Ford Tri-Motor and to re-create Island Airlines flights, click Century of Flight on the left side of the main screen.
To learn more about terrain and scenery objects, read the Scenic Highlights article in the Learning Center.
Flight Simulator offers the chance to re-create not only history’s milestones, but your own favorite travels and flights as well. To get a sense for how real a simulation can be, try this exercise:
Fly your Flight Simulator aircraft to a place you know well, and see how the experience brings memory to life.
Similarly, when you re-create the Vickers Vimy’s first transatlantic crossing in Flight Simulator, you’ll get a sense of the distance across the Atlantic Ocean that no book or film can truly convey. Or try Amelia Earhart’s transatlantic flight at the controls of her Vega, and look down as you leave the Newfoundland coast and set out across the dark north Atlantic. In a way, Flight Simulator encompasses history.
The Scenery Below
From aviation’s early days, flying has changed the way pilots looked at the world. Topographic features you’ve never noticed—or needed to notice—from the ground suddenly become all-important from the air. If you’re following a river, that river becomes part of your flight’s navigational plan. Or perhaps you use landmarks, such as small ponds, dirt roads, or a stand of trees to gauge final approaches or estimate glide slopes. Again, the scenery below has become an essential part of your flight. And the array of scenery that lies beneath your wings in Flight Simulator can be amazing.
Have you ever wanted to fly to a certain airport or over particular terrain during various seasons? It’s possible in Flight Simulator. When you change the season, you also change the ground texture: In winter, snow cloaks the prairies; spring turns the hills green. Changing the season gives you a challenge, and a different feel for a place you thought you knew so well.
To learn more, read the Time and Season article in the Learning Center.
Wyoming in Summer
Wyoming in Winter
San Francisco at Dusk
