MAD1

Chachapoya Chronicle. Aviation Report by Tim Bowlachili, Tuesday 21 May 2024. Dear reader, for those interested to know what happened to 'the Gaggle' of aviators, aka Club Chachapoya, they've decamped to an adventure to the Panama Canal. See https://www.flightsim.com/forums/topic/60506-club-chachapoya-flying-east-panama-canal

Chachapoya Chronicle, special Aviation Report by Tim Bowlachili, Tuesday 21 May 2024 STOP PRESS! 'They can run but they can't hide'. Your intrepid reporter has been alerted to a Panama Canal caper that appears to be happening. It appears that the same bunch of laggard aviators who descended (literally) on Meigs recently, have since May 13 gone into a huddle and are plotting to fly to the Panama Canal. It's unclear currently if the event has been conducted or is still in the planning stages. Bowlachilli will investigate and file an update in the near future. ('Bowlachilli always gets the scoop, even if it's the last scoop'!)

Yep PhrogPhlyer, would like to, but RW interference (dang!) plus busted sym means I'm an 'armchair observer' of all you guys and your exploits. However, to the annoyance of all, perhaps that nosy reporter Tim Bowlachilli (I've heard he's always got 'an ear to the ground' or should that be 'to the sky') might lob into this forum sometime, with a report.

So, this is everyone disappeared to. First time I've checked back at the top of the FS.com FS2004 site since the Chacapoya thingy. Glad to see all the posts from 'the gang'.

During our catastrophic flood here in Feb 2022, all the modern comms went down: electricity failed (or was turned off for safety reasons), the cell phone towers' batteries eventually went flat (nobody could get to them for days or over a week or even longer), so mobile (cell) phones went dead, which is what most people use nowadays (we still have a fixed copper wire network but few people are on it nowadays, and the company that owns it is encouraging everyone to go to cell). Since then, our community has started up our own Emergency Community Radio Network, using mainly UHF CB. Little communities in the valleys have formed up local chapters. This has all been coordinated by local hams. (I've been involved a bit with helping set up our local community chapter of that CB network.) Of course, none of this is likely to work in the next 'big one', but the community awareness is better than nothing, than ignorance. Now, the authorities and private comms companies have upgraded things and given assurances that they're better prepared', but there is much evidence that nothing much has changed in the two years since the catastrophe. So there is a lot of community mistrust in governments and private businesses when they say 'don't worry, we have all the most modern infrastructure', as all that modern infrastructure went down in 2022!

July 20 1969 (USA time), afternoon, all the high school went to the auditorium, on stage, a single, small screen CRT black and white TV. I was 14, my class was two-thirds back from the front, so not a great view. But I DID see Neil come down the ladder and step off. (By the way, that tv feed came from the Moon via the Parkes radio telescope, with I think it was Honeysuckle Creek, near Canberra as the NASA groundstation (USA stations were on other side of Earth, as Neil (as the commander, it was his call) elected to not sleep but 'go early' with the EVA (they were too hyped up to sleep, he and Buzz just wanted to get out there, which annoyed the US tv networks, as it was all planned for their prime time). The movie, 'The Dish' is about that event, whilst a slightly comedic happy story movie, the main events are correct, including the wind storm that had winds near the dish's operational limits. A lovely movie starring Sam Niell (who is a Kiwi, NZ). (The 'lost the spacecraft' part wasn't true.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dish

Rupert said "There are millions of interesting things going on in our world and in other worlds if people would just put their phones down and look around a few minutes every day!". Yes indeed, I fired up my old 1970s ham radio rig the other night (it went through the flood, haven't cleaned it out yet, but very dry, now 2 years later, receive on 3.5 and 7 Mhz works fine, but the LSB USB CW switch is dodgy, no USB), and wow, conditions were good, on 7 Mhz (40 meter band), lots of local Aussies, one had a CQ contact to NZ. So, inspired me to get to the 'rig' and get it working properly. I thought amateur radio had died a lot, even though there are active clubs including in my local area, but the Internet put paid to it. Not so, still very active groups, mostly old guys, but shock horror, now I'm an old guy! (My callsign was VK2MDO, back in the 1990s I had a number of good contacts around the world, including into Japan, and USA. I did spend 5 months I think it was living in Japan in 93 and was one of the few Westerners to obtain a Japanese callsign. Ah, the memories, I keep forgetting about all my exploits.

Clearly there's evolving two seperate event scenarios: helicopter, airship. Someday (not soon, I would like to participate but sim broken at the moment) we should organise (not me!) a helicopter-only event, and a separate airship-only event. Both would be fun.

Hi VP2, the European Space Agency (ESA) is a good site https://www.esa.int I just had a look at YouTube and the handover ceremony featuring Oleg. I couldn't find an English version for his channel, is there one? This vid has English subtitles, which is good (I actually like to hear people speaking in their own language, including Russian) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJ0vf0qfHfE

Thanks PhrogPhlyer for the links. I looked at a number of them the other night. Very interesting. On another note, as a space nut, and regular reader of NASA news, just watched a very good press conference with Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. Was a nice difference, it started with them arriving in their T38s and was outside on the tarmac. They were very informal, which was refreshing instead of just the 'suits' yakking away. Boeing Starliner first human test flight scheduled to go 6 May.

Just watched Part 1 and 2 of this very good series 'The Flying Carriers' about the airship era e.g. Acron.

Chachapoya Chronicle. Aviation news by your correspondent Tim Bowlachili. Tuesday 16 April 2024. There is interesting activity at and near Meigs Airport, Chicago. The Squitts Oats company's advertising commercial is in lock-down to public enquiries (including this loyal correspondent) but the 'scoop' is that the advert cast is in development mode. Celebrities - Monique and Dimitry, have leading roles of course. The setting is Scotland initially, then transposing to the French Riveria. Very classy. An aircraft is involved in one of the final scenes of the ad. Meanwhile, at Meigs, a beautiful, classic aircraft, the Beech 18, was seen to take off. It's part of the Squitts Oat entourage. (Bowlachili always gets the scoop, even if it's the last scoop!)

Thanks VP2 and Melo for your responses. I forgot to mention that yes, of course, there is (or was), as an accompaniment to Google Earth - Google Moon and Google Mars (something is still available, https://www.google.com/mars). That might be all that is needed. I dabbled (quick look see) with both back in the day (can't remember how many years ago). So (doh, another 'so'!) whether anything is 2024 'hip', 'on the money', 'best of breed' I don't know, and don't have the time or energy to explore any of that. But, as our little, local, community-of-interest, perhaps we could/should. Ah, some many fun things to do, I need another lifetime. But at 69 years next month, the clock is ticking, and 'it ain't gonna happen buddy'! Also, I have a little 16 foot trailer-sailer sailboat (Hartely 16) in the backyard, needing some TLC, and should get that out on our local river, 'gone sailin'! So (oh dear, yet another one), need to get outside and live real life in the sailboat before I waste yet more hours in the sim, in a extra-terrestrial sim. Oh dear, I need a few extra lifetimes!!!

Apologies (not really) for a 'left field' post, see thread 'Meigs or Bust' https://www.flightsim.com/forums/topic/60177-club-chachapoya-meigs-or-bust/?do=findComment&comment=314908

'The business case for non-human exploration of the solar system'. Community participation. Real Space virtual reality / sim / visualisation. Community engagement. A 'left field' comment/enquiry. Been a good weekend for me, weather is 'at the turn', being our Aussie Autumn, so those beautiful days that we get in Autumn and Spring, for us here in the subtropics, not too hot and humid (we've had an unusually wet summer, and our summers are always wet, being the subtropics and our natural environment is 'subtropical rainforest' (there's a clue 'rain forest', 'rain' get it?) Was able to finally get on top of the mowing, and some weeds, nature had taken over during the summer. Enjoyed 'sunset drinks' with my wife, sitting on the mown lawn, enjoying the kaleidescope of landscape - blue sky with cumulo clouds, setting sun, hills of green with black cattle and white cattle grazing, balmy weather, crescent moon appearing in the twilight etc etc. Pure bliss, especially given I got off my bum at the computer and got outside and did something, could enjoy the fruits of my labours. Anyhow, being a lifelong amateur astronomer and space nut (as a kid I followed all the Apollo Moon landings, at 14 years old saw Apollo 11's moonwalk on black and white TV). So, had a thought! (Always a dangerous thing!): 'The business case for non-human exploration of the solar system'. Community participation. Now, we all know (or should) that anywhere other than Earth is a shithole. Not hospitable to humans. The Moon, no, a vacuum, and the solar radiation will kill you. Mars? No, hardly any atmosphere, and also the solar radiation will kill you. Contrary to popular ignorance, people think that astronauts going to the Moon to live, or to Mars, with at least Mars having 'nice' pics as provided by NASA, at least it has a sky hue. The Moon is out. At Mars you can't take off your helmet and feel the breeze and smell the air. So, the only place that is pleasant is here, Earth. And, the cost and technical challenges of sending people to other worlds is astronomical (pun intended). But, with technology advancing greatly (including 'machine learning' ('artificial intelligence' is a misnomer, there isn't and never will be any such thing) but 'machine learning' is real and has been here for decades. So, the business case can be mounted very strongly that investment is best placed into having humans on Earth experiencing 'as real as it gets' (my, that sounds familiar!), a virtual reality experience of places outside Earth. Now, why am I posting this sermon here, well, over the third glass of red wine, on a halycon afternoon outdoors, and seeing the new Moon, got me thinking, 'What about community access to virtual reality of off-Earth places, who might be the communities who have experience of such things'? Well, I've never dabbled in space sim stuff, but am aware that such groups exist. But I do know about aviation sim worlds, this one. So (yes, I've put a lot of 'so's in this post), why couldn't we, the community, perhaps this FlightSim community, dabble into that world? After all, there is a phallanx of very experienced aviation simmers, and their sim environments can be very realistic, especially the latest software of Flight Simulator 2020 etc. So (final 'so') what might all this mean? Don't know. Has anyone in this fraternity dabbled with space stuff? Is there a way that we, humble citizens, might get access to data feeds, scenery, that is realistic, or based on real, that we could then input into our sim environments and explore the Moon and Mars? I know such setups exist, have seen them referenced on the NASA website and elsewhere. But have hardly ever delved into them, never got involved, just a cursory look see. Reference: just came across this article: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-well-never-live-in-space E.g. of an existing app https://eyes.nasa.gov/curiosity. This is very good, will explore it further. But, I'm not talking about what may exist currently, I'm talking about taking a quantum leap further. It's all possible technically. Your thoughts?