They say you find love where you least expect it. We certainly proved that one true. If you asked either of us if we thought an interest in fighter jet flight simulators would do it, we both would have laughed you off. Yet here we are...

A good friend of Chris's has a knack for expanding games from the surface level, and has done so with many games, the most recent being DCS. He introduced him to the immersion of flying in virtual reality and the complexity of flying a high-fidelity plane. He joined up quickly and became one of the original members of the flight-night crew. While he's learned to fly a number of different planes and has several different options available, he was frequently finding himself coming back to the Tomcat.

Lisa discovered DCS via reddit posts and was amazed and very much wanted to give it a try, but was hesitant because of how expensive a hobby flight simulation can become. Her friends ganged up and set out to help her out, buying her a stick and throttle set for her birthday, and a copy of the F-14 to fly in the simulator. These friends knew about the flight-night crew having played in the many previously expanded games. They knew the crew would be fun to play with and happy to help teach flying! Lisa resisted joining at first, intimidated by how much there was to learn, and not knowing what to expect from these simmers on the internet. After several weeks of frustration at landing the plane, the friends brought her into the channel where the crew was having flight night and introduced her to them. Lisa joined the group 2020, when meeting up was restricted to online activities. Flight nights became a passion, and she had a ton of fun and learned a lot and had a lot of laughs, especially when that other Tomcat pilot would buzz her plane while it was on the ground and startle her with a sonic boom!

Lisa's friends happened to be longtime friends of Chris. We first met in-person at our friend's wedding in 2021. She liked how warm and funny he was! He liked how many shared interests they had. Then we saw each other again at another wedding for another set of friends later in 2021: one that Lisa may not have made it to if it wasn't postponed from the year before. We had such a blast and danced the night away together! The next morning when everyone got together for breakfast before our various flights home, he asked Lisa if she would be interested in checking out a full motion 737 simulator that is at the mall near where he (now we) lived. She said she'd love to! We were finally able to meet up on Dec 10, 2021, and had a blast at the simulator. She stuck the barrel roll. He did not stick the 30-knot cross-wind landing. But that was not the landing he was aiming for ;). Who knew such a hobby could spark so much love? We have been happily together ever since.