Air Osama?

Overhype

from the oh-come-on dept

Salon is running an extraordinarily long piece wondering if would be terrorists are using Microsoft’s Flight Simulator to plan attacks. This seems like yet another “blame the technology” article, though, the author seems to deny that. He does seem upset that the FBI isn’t investigating this angle, though. The fact is, there are plenty of other things to worry about than whether or not a potential terrorist knows how to fly a plane via a video game. Also, it’s a bit odd that someone just now decided to write such an article. There were some over-reactions in the days after September 11, when some retailers pulled Flight Simulator from their shelves, but to suddenly bring it up again is simply trying to stir up trouble where none exists. As one pilot quoted in the article points out, the Flight Sim angle isn’t really important: “If you wanted to point an airplane at something on the ground and crash into it, you don’t have to know a hell of a lot.”