StratuxThe Great Vectorini: a free aviation fortune-teller for pilots
Every pilot knows the feeling of staring at a TAF and wondering what the sky is really planning. The Great Vectorini has an answer. He's an animatronic carnival seer in a leather flying helmet, a white silk scarf and a mustache of regrettable ambition, and he sees your flight path. Mostly the crosswinds.
He's the newest game in the Stratux Arcade, and he's free. It runs in your browser on a phone, tablet or laptop, with no sign-up and nothing to install.
Who is Vectorini?
Picture a 1950s carnival arcade cabinet with a striped marquee, chasing bulbs, red velvet curtains and a glass booth. Inside sits Vectorini, goggles pushed up on his helmet, hands hovering over his crystal ball. The ball is an attitude indicator, sky blue over brown, and it glows.
When nobody is playing, he breathes, blinks, glances around and mutters. He's waiting for a coin.
How a reading works
- Insert a Hobbs quarter. Tap the coin slot or the red button, or press Space.
- Pick a question. Your checkride, the weather, your airplane, your love life, your wallet, your career, or Surprise Me. That's seven in all, and the keys 1 to 7 work too.
- Watch the reading. The lights dim, Vectorini's eyes glow and the crystal ball briefly turns into a traffic display, because the spirits are squawking.
- Collect your card. A printed ticket slides out of the slot.
Then you can share the card, ask again or open your album.
The cards and the rarities
Each card holds a fortune, a nugget of pilot wisdom, three lucky numbers (a squawk code, a runway and a frequency), a serial number and a rarity stamp. There are 244 fortunes and 165 wisdom lines in the machine.
- Common cards are the everyday stock. There are 198 of them.
- Rare cards get a gold border. There are 31.
- Legendary cards get a holographic shimmer. There are 15, and about one reading in forty turns one up.
What he actually says
Here's a taste, one from each of a few questions.
Checkride: "Your CFI will pretend to be relaxed. Their left eye will twitch. Offer them a mint. They have earned it."
Weather: "ATIS says wind variable at five. The windsock says it begs to differ."
Airplane: "The windshield will be clean for four seconds after takeoff. Then, a bug. Respect the bug. It had plans."
Love life: "Your passenger will ask a deep question on short final. Say, 'Sterile cockpit, darling. Ask me on the ramp.'"
Career: "The call from the airline will come while you're in the grocery store, holding a pineapple. Say yes. Then buy the pineapple."
And a legendary one from the wallet shelf: "I see a full tank, a paid-up hangar and a zero-dollar repair bill. Enjoy it. Frame the receipt. It is the rarest bird in aviation."
Each card also carries a nugget of wisdom, like "Check the weather like it owes you money." or "Takeoffs are optional. Landings are mandatory."
Why come back tomorrow
Your first reading each day is Today's Official Forecast. It's the same card for every player that day, so you can compare notes with your flying buddies. Later readings are random, and the machine avoids repeats until it has used up the pool for that question.
Every card you earn goes into your album, which lives in your browser. It shows how many fortunes you've collected for each question, and how many are common, rare or legendary. There are 244 cards to find, and the legendaries are the hard ones. A streak counter on the cabinet tracks how many days in a row you've visited.
A note on the jokes
The fortunes tease pilot habits: the checkride jitters, the airplane budget and the $100 hamburger. The punchline always lands on the safe side. The wisdom lines are the serious part. They're plain, sound pilot habits like aviate, navigate, communicate, and always have an out.
Still, they're reminders, not training. Nothing in a fortune-teller replaces your instructor, the regulations or a real weather briefing.
Share your card
Hit Share on any card. On a phone, it opens your share sheet with a picture of the card and a line of text. On a computer, it saves the picture and copies the text for you to paste. Post your legendary. Brag a little.
Play it
If you like what the crystal ball does with traffic, it's a wink at how ADS-B really works. You can read how ADS-B works and see the real thing on your own screen. More games are waiting in the Stratux Arcade.