How I Learned to Fly a Helicopter

All throughout the 80's I would visit the arcade at a nearby mall when my mom would take us there to go shopping. During one of those visits a new game had appeared: Thunder Blade. This was a groundbreaking video game experience for me. Before Thunder Blade I always held the assumption that if I was piloting an airplane or helicopter, I would need to push the flight stick forward to go up, and pull it back to go down. Thunder Blade, and every flight game I've played since, was exactly the opposite. Pushing the stick forward made it go down, and pulling it back made it go up.

Having my beliefs about flying radically changed by Thunder Blade made, I felt like I had just unlocked the secret to flying. I was certain that because I now had this knowledge in my head that I could fly a real life helicopter without issue.

The cumulation of this new belief was a while later while on the playground during recess. Some of my friends were talking about helicopters, and I very matter-of-factually told them I knew how to fly one. I don't think that they believed me.

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