Imagine Flight Control, the way popular phone/tablet game app that has users landing planes with their fingers, minus all of the stuff people like about Flight Control: no touch-screen, fun graphics, stewardesses, instant sensory feedback, or simplicity. Suck all the Angry Birdsness out of it. Personally, I don’t especially dig on all that anyway. I’m a simulation geek (if a mostly latent simulation geek). Not like simulation in the Civilization sense — though I love Sid Meier’s Railroads! — but in the Flight Simulator X or Railworks 3 Donner Pass: Southern Pacific sense. So, instead of Flight Control I’ve been “playing” a lot of ATC Sim, a free online air traffic control-type simulator that’s dull and technical enough I even hesitate to say that one “plays” it at all. Well, OK, if you consider testing algorithms in MatLab playing, than ATC Sim might qualify.For non-members of the site you get nine free airports, like London’s Heathrow, Chicago O’Hare, and Sydney’s Kingsford-Smith. You can sign up, pay 20 bucks, and get a bunch more too. Each of those airports is a collection of runways in different configurations, anywhere from two to six or so depending on the airport, and a collection of navigation markers. And, basically, using typed commands — like QFA712 C 2, meaning “Quantas flight 712 cleared to altitude 2,000 feet” — you’ve got to guide planes in and out of an airport (and to navigation markers), keeping them apart by at least 1,000 feet vertically and three miles horizontally. It’s one of those weird things that comes along that makes you wonder how something so plain and outwardly dull can be so intense and actually scary.Anyhow, I look forward to a Siri-enabled mobile version. Just imagine being on the subway or bus yelling at your phone “United 211, set course to 035 degrees left, expedite!” You would win some kind of award. Also, a quick disclaimer: this thing probably dates back to tape-based PC games, but I’m guessing it’s still new to you.Reach this writer at michaelb@motherboard.tv.
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