Name: Hal Bryan

Call Sign: Hal9000

Blog: http://halbryan.spaces.live.com

Current Job: Flight Simulator Community Evangelist

Background with Flight/Train Sim Team:

I started using Flight Simulator with version 1.0 in 1981, when I was a 13-year-old aviation punk, living on a private airstrip with a runway literally in the back yard. I came to work for the team as a contract test engineer on Combat Flight Simulator 1.0, in the summer of 1998, and was hired full time that fall. After 8 years of testing, I had the chance to carve out a role for myself that focused full time on engaging with the community, and it's been a fantastic move.

I'm currently a private-licensed, instrument-rated pilot, and I've never used my high-altitude endorsement. Antique airplanes are my first love, and, even though I'm a gadget-geek in the rest of my life, when it comes to flying, I consider something like an electrical system to be both "new" and "fangled."

Pre FS/TS History/work:

My first Microsoft-related job was doing phone support for Windows 95. I still do a great deal of tech support, but only for people to whom I am related. After product support, I moved into testing, doing something on Windows 98 involving real-mode network clients that I still don't understand.

Prior to Microsft, I worked, in no particular order, as a communications specialist, an emergency medical technician, a mailman, a security guard, a day-care teacher, a technology consultant, a first-aid and CPR instructor, and police officer.

Favorite thing to do in FSX or TrainSim:

While I use FSX to "pre-fly" real world flights and practice instrument work, I'm an explorer at heart, and love to lose myself in virtual flight for the sake of flying - sight-seeing, aerobatics, nailing a landing that I can force people to watch over and over in Instant Replay, etc. I also love scouring the web for add-ons - there's simply no such thing as too many aircraft in FS.

Random fact about yourself:

I'm a notary public, which means a lot less in the US than it would in, say, France.