MIND GOOGLING 2005-10-21
Nurse, we wanna stay up late tonight, there's a championship in Spain.
- C'mon Davis, there's always one of your meets somewhere. You know it's not good for your body rhythm. I am getting tired of your pranks. You and your gang mess up the whole schedule. You are supposed to be resting. O.K. you're on holiday, but still, you know there are some rules. After all, this is some form of an old folks' home, and you're 94.
- I know, I know, but we're old and bold pilots and you know it's the mind that keeps us going, and going far and fast too. Not so furious these days, but nurse, that's a substitute for sex you know, so it's got to be good for our health.
- Yeah, I'll see what I can do.
\"Never, never\" caters for special groups of relatively healthy super-seniors. Will special tastes. They have special equipment: a room with full size wall-screens on all around; and the new \"google flight\" software. And with that, who needs a flight simulator? This is much better, and with a little help from past memories, so much closer to the real thing. Thomas, Manfred and Davis helped develop the project. Their motto was : \"Old farts never die, they just linger in the air\".
So it is understandable they want to make the best of their time at \"Never never\"
The flight room, which they call the \"pressure googler\", has all the latest gizmos, but who cares about the techno side of things? It is just that it feels like old time. You have all this landscape in front of you, the whole world, any time, any day, any season. Dead sure to fly somewhere. And no airport delays, no hassle with rented cars, no heavy glider to carry up and set up with lurking dust devils.
The quest had been to go as far as possible. In a way it has come full circle, combining the eastern and western vision of time, an arrow piercing the yin and yang. Or does that make it a spiral-like thermal, still drifting in the wind? These guys can occasionally get lyrical, but only with a bit of additive in their blood ; with age they need less and less to befuddle their minds, but of the other thing they still have to have their daily fix, almost. They suggest it is a sense of freedom. And most people have at least a slight clue as to what that means.
I have tried the flight room. Like everybody I checked out my home. I also went back to the Red sea; I saw the cliffs, past Sharm el Cheik, that I had spotted on the plane, the sandy islands, the emerald greens of the Assal salt lake near Djibouti. That was just to refresh my memories.
I had new flights too, in regions I am more familiar with. In the center of France you can't miss the Cantal, a huge extinct volcano. From the air, rather high up, it looks like the impact of a huge meteorite, star shaped, and as you zero in with the mouse, you recognize the features. It is like discovering the geography of the place from a new perspective, adding the missing parts to the puzzle. I wish I could say it is like reconnoitering for future expeditions, but that may come too late.
The present is in Ager, Spanish Pyrenees. There was a world championship there once. Manfred and Thomas won there at some point. And for Davis it will be a change from the flats of Texas or Australia. The challenge is there.
I wonder if the young people who are competing are going to experience this the way it was. Today will be flown differently, because there won't be any risk of crashing for real. I think we have no regrets though. We are having fun. Just like old times. Except today I can fly with them. The \"home version\" of the flight room will soon be on the market, upgraded (with scents and sounds). I can already hear the swishing wind as the wing rushes through the air ; I see dust and leaves rising in the up-draft
- \"Guys, the nurse says we can do it if we take a nap now. And then we'll show them.
- Yeah, and she says complete check-up before dinner: don't forget the dentures, or that restricted area will remain off-limits even for the winners.\"
L'article a été publié sur le site de OZreport.
Pascal Legrand
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