Win 2K i Jagerfly

[Håvard Solvang]

April 1, 2002, 4:30am

Saudi Arabia, US Air Force Base

Lieutenant John Falcon waved to his friends and climbed into the cockpit. He felt the surge of pride. Of course, it was such an honour! He learned it from General Break who said:

- "You must be proud, Lieutenant. You are going to make the first operational flight on our newest top-secret aircraft F-22M."

- "'M' means modified?" - asked John.

- "'M' means Microsoft." - replied general. "The aircraft was fully reequipped by those guys. They claimed that any idiot would be able to complete any missions now. But for the trial run we have chosen you - one of our best pilots. Your goal is to destroy the Iraqi nuclear center."

- "Yes, sir! You may already present your condolences to Saddam." - John was very enthusiastic.

As usual, the lieutenant fastened the seat belts and only then he noticed that the instrument board was quite different from the standard one. There were less instruments, and in their place he saw a weird looking metallic mouse. Falcon shrugged his shoulders and turned the power on. On the half-transparent display he saw 'Microsoft Winwars 2002' inscription against a background of sparse clouds. Soon the engines began to work and the flaps moved into takeoff position.

"Thank you for buying Microsoft Winwars 2002!" was written on the display. "Now the war will become more convenient, the flight will become safer and your missiles will be more precise. Tip of the day: release the landing gear before landing."

- "Falcon-1, take-off permitted." - heard John the voice out of his helmet.

- "But I didn't request permission." - replied he being surprised.

- "You don't have to. Plug'n'Play." - replied the base.

The aircraft immediately picked up speed and several seconds later was in the air.

- "Winwars 2002 will now install your warheads on the selected target." - reported the system. "Target selected: Iraqi nuclear center."

For no particular reason Falcon clicked on "Browse other targets" button and saw a long list, containing the White House and the base he took off from several minutes before, in addition to the Iraqi nuclear center. He hastily pressed "Cancel".

- "Choose the installation type. Minimum - only bombs will be dropped. Normal - bombs will be dropped and missiles will be launched. Full - the whole aircraft will be dropped on the target." The default setting was "Normal" and John decided not to argue with the smart system.

- "The system is going to test the performance of your machine. Close your eyes to avoid damage during the test." The engines roared and John's eyes popped out of his head from the acceleration. He felt like he was in hell; the aircraft shook, entered steep spins, turns, and so on... Soon everything went back to normal; the mouse fell back to its place and John revived.

The system said: "You are using: F-22M aircraft with two Boeing engines in SMP mode. Maximum speed: 1451 mph. Tip of the day: never increase the clock frequency of your engines above the value specified by the manufacturer. Expected warheads installation time 0:34:16."

 

The same day. 4:52am

Sky above Iraq

The percent bar at the bottom of the monitor moved slowly. Meanwhile the system advertised WinWars for tanks, submarines and marines and also promised a free applet "Kamikaze 1.01" for all customers of WinWars for aircrafts. John was enjoying this calm process when suddenly he heard an alarm sound. A green dot appeared on the radar screen.

- "New hardware found: Enemy aircraft!" contentedly reported the system.

John had already taken the joystick going to make a steep turn, but suddenly noticed a "Delete" button. Without any doubts he clicked it.

- "Are you sure you want to delete the enemy aircraft?" - inquired WinWars suspiciously.

- "I'll say!" - thought John and pressed "Yes". The green dot disappeared from the radar.

- "Wow, so quickly?" - wondered lieutenant. "Microsoft must be employing very talented guys."

He was utterly astonished and even started reading the list of advantages WinWars gives to disabled pilots, when suddenly he was distracted from this task by an enemy missle whizzing just above the cockpit. Falcon turned back and saw an Iraqi interception plane.

- "What the hell?!" cried John and only then noticed a drawn aircraft empennage protruding out of the undistinguished icon "Recycle Bin" in the corner of the screen. Lieutenant furiously clicked this icon and pressed "Clear".

- "Are you sure you want physically destroy the enemy aircraft? It will be impossible to restore it." - courteously asked WinWars.

- "YES!" - roared John hitting the mouse. A missle got away from under the wing, and leaving a white, fluffy tail, rushed to meet the Iraqi interceptor. There was a bright flash, and the burning remains of the enemy machine flew to the ground.

- "New device found: surface-to-air missile!" - reported the system several seconds later and froze. Vainly Falcon stroke the mouse looking at the sinister green dot approaching the center of the radar. At last the system awoke.

- "Can't find the driver for this device. Insert the disk with the driver and press OK." Cursing, Falcon pressed "Search".

- "The most suitable driver is "hand grenades". Install?" John jerked the joystick , attempting an anti-missile maneuver, but it was too late. His plane shuddered from the explosion. Falcon hardly recovered the aircraft from its dive, and clicked the "System" button. After clicking the plus near the "left wing" string, he saw a menu with yellow triangles and the exclamation marks next to "aileron" and "flap". Everything else was ok, so he got off lightly. The blue strip at the bottom of the screen was already showing 82%, so still he had a chance of completing the mission. The radar displayed two more enemy aircrafts, but they appeared from behind and Falcon didn't cared a lot about them. He knew that Iraqi crap simply couldn't catch up his ultra-fast F-22. However, the aircrafts approached. Puzzled, Falcon took a look at the spedometer and saw that his speed was constantly decreasing.

- "Damn, what's going on?!" - exclaimed the lieutenant. "The engines work without any problems and the fuel tanks are full to the brim."

Shortly after this, the hourglass icon appeared on the screen. The instrument needles jerked or remained in one position for a long time.

- "Not enough memory available" - decided to explain the system. "Unload one or more unnecessary tasks to increase the available memory."

Falcon launched the task manager and tried to understand what names like "winppl" or "v666apl" meant, and which ones were unnecessary. Meanwhile the engines grew silent and the speed dropped to the critical level - a bit lower and the aircraft would fall. Iraqi pilots, stunned because of such unusual battle tactics, swept along the F-22M (one on the right, another on the left), and, still not understanding what was going on, bumped into each other.

At last the lieutenant found and selected a string named "Enemy tracking" with a "[Not responding]" inscription near it and pressed "OK". The radar screen went out, but the airplane finally started accelerating. The blue strip was already showing 99% ... and at last, 100%. Puzzled, Flacon looked to the ground. The desert below had nothing in common with the nuclear center, of which he had seen the satellite photographs many times. It appeared that WinWars thought the same; after 100% it displayed 101%, 102% and so on...

On 106% the screen got blue and the system started cursing: "Error 000000e, caused by module VXD0000(0) from module VXD0000(0). Normal flight continuation is still possible. You can press Eject to catapult or press any other key to continue the flight. Attention! If you choose Eject, the unsaved aircraft will be lost."

Falcon wans't going to catapult, all the more, he saw the nuclear center ahead. Not relying on WinWars anymore, he prepared to drop the bombs manually. He reduced the altitude, waited till the sight appeared directly over the target and pulled the trigger. Yeah! Something creaked and the new system message appeared on the display:

- "The bomb hatch has executed the unexpected operation and will be closed."

- "F#ck!" John pulled the joystick to raise the aircraft but nothing happened. The ground quickly approached. In frantic haste he browsed through the numerous menues looking for any problems.

- "Joystick can't be detected." - he read finally. John knew only one method to solve all these problems and he used it. He turned the power off and on.

- "The previous flight wasn't correctly finished. Press any key to start checking the aircraft integrity."

- "Shit!" - snapped John, pressing Cancel. He saw the Winwars 2002 logo and the system began booting. It definitely didn't hurry anywhere.

The aircraft was only several hundred meters above the ground.

- "The system is booted in safe mode." - mocked WinWars. "In this mode the flight and weapon functions are disabled. You may only drive the aircraft on the runway." Realizing that nothing else could be done, Falcon hit the "Eject" button, expecting the cockpint to instantly open, preparing for the powerful blow that would throw him out of F-22M. However, this didn't happen and another question appeared on the screen.

- "Do you really want to eject?"

- "YEEEESS!" - yelled John, looking at the nearing ground.

- "Wait, the system is preparing the catapult..." imperturbably reported WinWars and froze.

 

April 2, 2002

Baghdad. Saddam's palace.

- "Thus," - briskly continued the general, "thanks to the selfless efforts of our pilots, who courageously fought the American agressors in unequal battle, we have saved our nuclear center and destoyed the enemy's newest top-secret aircraft."

- "Really?" - the dictator shot a glance at his general and he dropped his eyes.

- "Well, really unequal. There was one and they are lucky to have died because he still managed to reach the center. We must thank Allah that it wasn't destroyed." It gave the general the shivers. He knew that even Allah wouldn't save him now.

- "You have 30 seconds to justify youself," idly responded Saddam.

- "This is it!" - exclaimed the general, taking a shining CD out of a sealed container. "We found this in enemy aircraft debris. The newest military software! Top-secret American technology!"

- "Ok, you've got a small chance," the dictaror settled back in the arm-chair. "This must be installed on all aircrafts in our army in 3 weeks."

- "Your order is a law for me!" - exclaimed the general.

Three weeks and one day later Iraq surrendered.

[Fredrik Edvardsen]

Hadde jagerfly hatt Windows tror jeg utfallet ville vært at de fikk system crash før take off,og aldri kunne fly.

[Alexander]

There was a pilot flying a small single engine charter plane, with a couple of very important executives on board. He was coming into Seattle airport through thick fog with less than 10 miles visibility when his instruments went out. So, he began circling around looking for a landmark. After an hour or so, he starts running pretty low on fuel and the passengers are getting very nervous. Finally, a small opening in the fog appears and he sees a tall building with one guy working alone on the fifth floor. The pilot banks the plane around, rolls down the window and shouts to the guy, "Hey, where am I?" To this, the solitary office worker replies, "You're in a plane." The pilot rolls up the window, executes a 275 degree turn and proceeds to execute a perfect blind landing on the runway of the airport 5 miles away. Just as the plane stops, so does the engine as the fuel has run out.

The passengers are amazed and one asks how he did it. "Simple," replies the pilot, "I asked the guy in that building a simple question. The answer he gave me was 100 percent correct but absolutely useless, therefore that must be Microsoft's support office and from there the airport is just five miles away."