How far DCS has come

I used to work for a flight sim site back in the late 90s and early 2000s.

Combatsim.com, and we were good friends with Carl Norman, who was with SSI and the early Flanker/2.0/2.5 productions. I was going through some old stuff the other week, and found this link to an empassioned letter Carl had written a couple years before he left ED to go work on DARPA related drones/etc. Funny how close it could have come to never having happened, I think his words show how worried he was that Flanker Attack and what would become the DCS world we now have, would never end up happening. It didn't end up being "game over", Carl's final words in his post, it became more like "game on".

Thank you Wags and everyone else at ED that has seen this through to where we are now. With F18 and so many other great modules coming, I hope for continued success with everything DCS related. Great job, I'm sure if Carl could have looked ahead the day he wrote these words, he'd have been very satisfied with how ED/DCS products evolved into what they are now.

http://www.combatsim.com/memb123/htm/2001/02/cnorman/

I'll cut/paste the last couple paragraphs which make my point -

The past year has been very tough on me and several others working on Flanker. With the reorganization of our Studio, the sale of the company by Mattel, and my additional duties, I was unable to spend the time needed on the Flanker projects. Unfortunately, there was really no one else to manage the Flanker line at the time. This hurt the project and caused delays.

 

I am very, very pleased to now have Tim Goodlett and Matt Wagner on the Team. These Lads and the fine folk at Eagle are just what this project needs to be successful. Tim and Matt are doing an outstanding job on these and our other simulation projects.

 

The only other thing we really need now is the support of the community. Not just the Flanker community, the entire simulation community. It is time for all of us to support this product line and encourage others to do the same. All of you need to go out and get others interested in this product. Once we start putting up the promotional material on this site for the product we need you to help direct others in the community to get on this forum.

 

This is our last shot people. I am not kidding when I say that if FA is not successful, that is it - Game over.

 

Cheers,

Carl

 

------------------

Carl C. Norman

Director of Product Development

Game Studios / SSI

The Learning Company

Thanks ... I didnt knew the story behind Flanker ... very interesting read.