Screenshots and footage from games and flight simulators have been mistaken for real-life imagery in the past, even by entities that should know better, like TV commentators and supposed experts, yet this time around, a Microsoft Flight Simulator screenshot managed to fool more people than it had any business to.
On June 1, X (formerly Twitter) account “RAF_Luton” shared a tweet with the image you can see above.
The post posed as a celebration of the beginning of Pride Month, portraying an “F22” from the “7175 Squadron” painted pink.
You can see it below.
The post has been seen a million times and has gone rather viral. While many users correctly identified it as a prank, many took it quite seriously, usually reacting with outrage.
“Disgraceful, an absolute disgrace. Vladimir Putin would laugh at you if you were worthy of his derision.”
“The pink communist jet. Nice!
Laughing stock doesn’t begin to describe the UK government’s actions in the last 10 years.”
“Is this really the best way to spend £80k, every 4 days?”
“Who is paying for this waste of money?”
Some almost got it, but ended up falling for it anyway.
“Is this serious? What a waste of money and pathetic virtue signalling”
The screenshot is indeed from Microsoft Flight Simulator, and more specifically was taken from a livery by user “Derpyair” available on Flightsim.to for the excellent F-35 Lightning II by Indiafoxtecho.
Derpyair is a very prolific livery designer who made, among others, an entire line of “Pink Menace” skins, of which this is one.
The fact that so many took the prank seriously is even funnier considering that there are a myriad of elements in the tweet that identify it as a fake, starting from the “flightsim.to” watermark on the image itself.
The aircraft is identified as an “F-22” but is indeed an F-35, and while both fighter jets have stealthy silhouettes, they look very different, so much so that the F-35 is nicknamed “Fat Amy” due to its chonkier design.
Of course, the Royal Air Force has no F-22s either, as the United States never exported the Raptor.
The X account is clearly identified as a “Parody/Satire Account,” and while it’s designed to resemble the official account of a Royal Air Force base, no RAF base exists in Luton, which is instead the home of London’s fourth international airport, mostly serving low-cost airlines.
The number of the squadron in the thousands is definitely unrealistic and, while there are a few airworthy English Electric Canberra jet bombers nowadays, they are in private hands and they certainly wouldn’t be used to take in-flight pictures of fighter jets, pink or otherwise.
Funnily, albeit this is more of a technicality, an F-35 would be pretty much the worst choice for a special paint, as its body is covered in a cutting-edge stealth coating, which most likely doesn’t come in pink.
This certainly goes to show how many nowadays react to imagery and headlines without giving them any more than a cursory look and without engaging in any sort of critical thinking.
Microsoft Flight Simulator is available for PC and Xbox Series X, and has recently been followed by its successor, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, for the same platforms.
If you’d like to read more (real) flight simulation news, you can find plenty in our latest roundup article from yesterday.
If you want to go further back, we have a handy overview video of the major flight simulation news in the past week. You can watch it below. As usual, leaving a like and a comment, and subscribing to our growing YouTube channel is extremely helpful.
