ftldave

Camil's email is included, in the clear, in the readme.txt files of his models, so probably no need to make this public query, is there? Maybe better to ask in private, I would think, not put him on the spot. I enjoy his FSX models, too, but often have had to attempt tweaks on the engines' performance. And my kudos to him, too, for including 2D wide panels, a preference for many of us who soldier on with FSX.

Weren't we all supposed to have one by now?

It's always been my experience with gpu's like the GTX 970 that if the fan has stopped turning while the pc is running for a period of time - locked up, then the card is cooked and ruined, and won't be recoverable.

"Good Scenery upgrades" is subjective, depending on your interests. Big airports, small regional airports, scenery mesh, etc. What you consider good may differ than what other flightsimmers call "good". That depends on what are your interests, how and where you want to fly. One of the great things about FSX is the abundance of sceneries and add-ons. Payware stuff is certainly past its peak, some stuff going out of print, so to speak, but vendors still have many hundreds of FSX sceneries, planes, utilities for sale. One of the best FSX free scenery references is here: FSX & Prepar3D Sceneries

Have you tested different aircraft, checked that the problem isn't specific to your favorite plane, is consistently touchy? I've had to adjust certain models to improve handling in the past via aircraft.cfg settings, problem was the plane, not my Logitech gear. Easy to check.

I just did the survey and it can now be completed without any email submission. The login option is to "track your progress", I guess if you wanted to leave before done and then return to finish. No fishy I could see, looked OK. But the survey is somewhat flawed, overlooks freight-only and military VAs (like MAX Freight and AMC Virtual-Air Mobility Command, my all-time favorite VAs). Virtual airlines are not only imaginary passenger airline simulations. Sure, "trash haulers" and virtual air force, navy aviation, etc., are niche segments of the flightsim VA hobby, but actually are of great interest to veterans (and geezers) like myself.

The Soviets had many strange designs on the drawing boards similar to the gigantic Stratolaunch back when they were trying to get their Buran space shuttle program in operation, concepts from the way-ahead-of-its-time Myashishchev Design Bureau. But never had the tech or money to execute such programs. What might have been ...

Lovely pic and now a hallowed memory of aviation history. Not to speak ill of an honored aircraft but taxing the AN-225 was, well, not a labor of love. SAC pilots used to talk about taxing the big B-36 as "driving a barn". I found the AN-225 to be the same, tough doing ... but worth it for the unique sim flying experience, in FSX. I recall how unhurried it was to start slowing after retarding the throttles, just keeps moving on with all that mass. What a giant.

“It’s going to be like the Aeroflot of old – operating Russian equipment that require a much larger spares inventory.” MC-21s, Sukhoi Superjet SSJ-New and Tupolev Tu-214s to replace Airbus and Boeing planes as Russia's biggest airline plans its uncertain future. Like in Cold War times, Russia's airlines may need more spare parts, more maintenance, and burn more fuel with their Russian-built aircraft- if, if they can get the new planes built. https://www.flightglobal.com/fleets/why-order-for-russian-jets-will-turn-aeroflot-into-a-replica-of-its-former-self/150202.article I often flew on Aeroflot planes when traveling to Armenia in years past, once on a speedy TU-154 that was quite an experience. The 3 Kuznetsov engines made a delightful whistle unlike other jets. The pilot told me we reached Mach .88 on the Moscow-to-Yerevan route, and the ride was smooth as glass flying over the Caucasus. Surprising but true - Aeroflot always had the very best food service of any of the airlines that I knew. Not kidding, the food served was wonderful. Worst thing was the Russian airports, like Moscow's Sheremyetevo airport: "The upside down ashtray", we called it.

For the sake of testing, you could create a bootable USB thumb drive, say Ubuntu Linux. Insert it in your problem USB port and see if you can boot from it or not, see if it functions as it should when running something other than that copy of Windows. If it fails to boot from the problematic USB port, try booting the thumb drive from one of the other ports, too. In the past I've had to remove all the USB controllers from Windows and let them reinstall after a reboot when things went haywire on some older Dell pc's, sometimes that set things right again.

I was at De Gaulle airport making a connection, 1999, when a stately woman's voice came over the public address to say: "Attention. Concorde now departing." I joined many others at the windows to watch the beautiful plane zoom down the runway The French have class, no one can deny that. The next year, of course, tragedy struck down the Concorde at that same airport. What with so many environmental concerns and the disappointing trends of modern business economics, I doubt we'll see commercial SST travel again in my children's children's lifetimes. But then, I'm old enough to remember how disappointing it was when Boeing's SST was cancelled ... and Apollo was cancelled ... and my flying car wasn't coming ... nor were family vacations to the moon ... nor my personal jet pack ... etc. Concept pictures, press releases, and venture capital don't an SST airplane make. As for quantum computing, isn't one of the least mentioned unsolved problems the task of programming them - creating the programmers tools and creating new programmer paradigms necessary to make use of them beyond just experimental testing and Von Neumann-type computers? A long way to go, I've heard tell, no matter how impressive they look in the pics. Antigravity? The Chinese are working on handwavium now? Wow. Impressive! What would Einstein have said about that? From the Wiki: handwavium - Any hypothetical but unobtainable material with desirable engineering properties.

I've found 7 to 10 days of high power air blast does the trick just fine after liquid spills. Like I said, patience is the key. And just how much rice does it take to dry tower pc, I wonder? Honest question 'cause I've tried that technique! Cell phones, yes. OK, I'm sure you're talking about pulling the mother board, disassembling the whole shebang and buying a 50-pound bag of rice, right?

It's the "as long as it dries properly" part that's make or break, i.e. putting it in front of a big fan for a week. I expect when the OP says he tried to clean it, he didn't wait long enough before turning it back on and ...

I'm curious, what crucial patches for what sims are you referring to? FSX is my main sim and I've not had to search for anything essential for my rig during my last rebuild. Nothing that couldn't be readily found online, nothing crucial gone - not yet anyway. What have you found to be missing on the great vast Internets of flight sim things?

The awkward "zooming" and constant "camera flying" always caused me more problems than delight with VCs. And I do feel somewhat guilty as I always disable VCs on the aircraft I use, apologies to all those who put so much work into them. But, my preference. As for TrackIR and similar tech - I have a teenage son, and I won't submit myself to the ridicule and humiliation of wearing gear like that on my head when I flightsim. :p

For newbies, beginners, I don't think so. For "student" sim pilots who are starting to master the basic skills, gotten past the "newbie" stage, yes - maybe after some weeks, maybe a few months of disciplined effort and self training. Some VAs even have a basic skills test or quiz before allowing membership, others are "just for fun" and let you join right up, but you are generally expected to know basics of navigation and airmanship, not just be "starting to learn". Being able to make take offs, reach destinations, land your aircraft "sometimes" is hardly good enough even for a make believe virtual airline, isn't it?

If you've got such a substantial investment in FSX add-ons, why not get FSX-Steam, not lose use of all those additional packages. Yes, some will need tinkering to install properly on the Steam edition but surely that would be the better path than to pitch the lot, nothing against MSFS (except for its sell-now-fix-later business model).

At the time of my original post, it was certainly political. Germany was in deep for cheap Russian gas\oil, very dependent, and is going to be hard pressed to get away from it now. But that was in January. Things are changing since then. We've seen the like before. I remember when US military planes skirted Euro airspace on the way to strike Libya, when Kaddafi was in power there.

Firefox did go through a bunch of wrecking updates lately. I know printing functions were greatly affected on the Windows version - users getting spot color when print was set for black-and-white, critical-spaced margins going awry, nonsense like that. Caused much havoc at my place of work because Firefox was the preferred browser for printing web invoices and such. And there were other non-printing related problems. I think Mozilla has sorted out most of the damage by now, haven't they?

When I served in the 1970s, the rail-car simulators were long gone. I often escorted tours that came to visit the 22nd Bomb Wing at March AFB, and the B-52 and KC-135 simulators were many times included, when not in use for training. The extremely air-conditioned-chilled buildings were a pleasant relief from the often brutal summer heat there in southern California, after walking about on the tarmac. And youngsters were thrilled at the chance to sit in the mock cockpits and hold the big yokes.

If I had to put something on my head ever time I ran my sim, my teenage son would laugh me out of the house. I don't need that humiliation ... get enough all ready. Most dads do. :p

Tribalism, and the excitement over what is new. And the hope that many have that the latest good looking sim may grow the hobby, I suppose. Maybe best to direct comments\criticism about mods to the site owner, Nels, and not here as posts. Just the opposite over at trainsim.com, I've always thought that inaction, neglect, by the mods there caused some real damage to that site, and it still shows.

Not a warning, just a quote from an op-ed, an opinion. PC Magazine has been a source of IT industry news for decades and is well respected. Much of its content is free online. The trend in the gaming industry (and yes, MSFS is considered a game in the retail industry, no matter what we say here) of titles being put on sale with many bugs, sometimes critical flaws, has been increasing over the years.