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Last night I had dinner with a bunch of guys whom I consider to be sources of inspiration. These guys are real world pilots. Two of them fly for Cebu Pacific, a third one could become one a 5J pilot himself soon, and the fourth is a genav pilot who is well on his way towards a bright future in the airline industry. A fifth guy, an iStoryan, was also present. I invited him to dine with us, so that he could hear some words of wisdom and the outrageous stories from the these guys who have much to share about life in the aviation industry.

But what's interesting about this is, the binding thread that made us gather together, the very reason why we were all there, sitting on a table and having dinner at Mooon Cafe, is none other than flight simulation. You see, these 4 real world pilots are also flight simmers. In fact, 9 years ago, when the organization we are in just started out (the Philippine Flightsimmers Group), only one of them was flying a real airplane and the rest of us were all just flightsimming. But in just 9 years' time, dozens of individuals, young and old alike, with a passion for aviation and flying, have crossed the chasm between virtual flight and real flying, and have become true-blue pilots.

There's two in particular that I've known for quite a while now, and they are simply just swell guys. One of them is an iStoryan named Tarmac. Imagine my surprise when I found him tapping on my shoulder in the aircraft plastic scale modelling thread. Nag-abot ra gihapon mi diri hehe. It would probably take me several pages to write about this awesome guy, so all I can say for now is, you don't want to get into a verbal tussle with this guy, because you're liable to trip on your own words

The other guy, we call him Windwalker...why? Because he walks the wind. He's currently a captain for Cebu Pacific and flies the A320 for a living Now this guy is a real hero, in more ways than one. It's almost hard for me to think now, that, one boring summer afternoon in 1999, we were just emailing each other on ways to repaint a virtual DC-8-50 jet into Philippine Airline colours for Flight Simulator 98...and now, Windy is a real airliner captain.

These guys have taught and inspired me a lot throughout these years. I feel really blessed to have them as friends. May they all have blue skies ahead of them soon.

-RODION