In January 1990, I earned my private license. The flight school in San Marcos had closed, so I had been forced to finish in Austin. It was different, with a control tower and commercial flights landing on the parallel runway, but it was closer to home. About two weeks after my private pilot checkride, I rented a Cessna 172 and got checked out. This is a recreation of that flight.

This was not my first flight in the FSX Cessna 172. I have flown it at home with my CH Products yoke, and I have flown the FS2004 version many times. This summer, I flew the FSX 172 with the Saitek yoke, throttle quadrant, and rudder pedals at Phoenix Arising Aviation Academy in Austin. Phoenix Arising is an aviation-themed summer camp/after school program founded by Zay Collier. I taught boys and girls ages 7-15 how to fly the simulator. Although they mostly wanted to fly the F-18, I insisted they practice with the C172 in preparation for time in the Redbird FSX full-motion simulator. The Redbird is very realistic. I sat in the right seat and had them practice landings before showing off on a flight with their parents on the last day of camp.

I want to recreate that first flight from Austin in a C172, but it is not easy. For one thing, the FSX Austin Mueller airport has big yellow X’s painted on the runways. In 2000, the city’s major airport was moved from downtown to the re-purposed Bergstrom Air Force base. (I was actually visiting Austin at the time. I flew in on a commercial flight to Mueller and flew out from Bergstrom.) At least FSX still has the runways. In real life, the airport property has been converted to housing, retail, and a children’s hospital, but the control tower still stands.

I appear on the taxiway between the parallel 13-31 runways. I taxi to the general aviation side of the field and prepare for take-off. Looking around inside the plane, everything looks familiar. Outside, the plane looks just as it should: a bigger and boxier version of the 152. Looking around the airport, the control tower is still there, and the aprons and runways are in the right place, but there are no hangars or terminals.

The sight view from the cockpit seems slightly higher than the 152, sort of like sitting in a truck. I depart to the southeast and fly a very decent left hand pattern to a nice landing. I take off again to look around the city of Austin. Maybe it is my old, slow computer, but the scenery details are not what I expected. At Phoenix Arising, I have seen the downtown area with skyscrapers and even an attempt at the state capitol, but the only building I see is a factory where the capitol should be. At least the topography is right, down to the river bisecting the city and the cluster of transmission towers in the hills to the west.

I find my way back to Mueller (no controllers to talk to), and make a direct approach to 13 Left (no airliners to worry about.) Another decent landing at the airport that was my home base for over two years.

VIRTUAL LOGBOOK

C172 G-BAFM (FSX)

From: KATT (Austin Mueller, Texas)

To: KATT (Austin Mueller, Texas)

Landings: 2

SEL: 1.1 hours

LOGBOOK

February 12, 1990

C172 N4908D

From: AUS (Robert Mueller Airport, Austin, Texas)

To: 3R3-AUS (Austin Executive-Austin Mueller)

Landings: 3

SEL (Single Engine Land): 1.3 hours

Remarks: AC systems, climbs, descents, level off, sim forced landing, traffic pattern, take-off, landing, cross-wind landing

Dual: 1.3 hours