PhantomTweak

I am participating in the Round The World Race. VERY interesting way to keep FS of any sort interesting! Pat☺

And I thank you both for your service!! Have great flights, all! Pat☺

Sounds like Officers in the Military. Pat☺

I find that the more things make sense, the less it turns out I understand them D Pat☺

We had a mustanger in AIMD Avionics in Yuma for a While. A Capt. Cooper. I was phone watch one day at lunch time when a call came in for a MAJ. Cooper. It dawned on me pretty quick, but it took him a minute to get it. All of Avionics had been waiting for this day, as Capt. Cooper was THE best officer we'd ever met, bar none, but because he was a Mustang, and didn't like to play the politics, it took a long time. I was happy that I was the one that was able to give him the good news. He even had been keeping a pair of Oak Leaves in his desk drawer for who knows how long. Looked great when he came out of his office with them on. He gave me his old, worn Capt's bars as a reward. I still have them, along with all the rank insignia I was gven for qualing people expert on the Range when I was a coach. The word spread like wildfire too. The phones were burning up. No cell phones back then... And yes, we called a lot of them Zero's :D Pat☺

Anyone who spent any time in the service knew "goobers" like them. Always someone, usually in a position of authority of some sort, who were just making a show of being "in command". They really just wanted to look good, like they thought the movies made Officers and such look. A starched, pressed, tailored flight suit, special paint job on their helmet, probably done by an auto shop out in town, Corfram Boots... "The very picture of the modern Major General", as the saying goes :D Never spoke to enlisted, just spoke AT them. We were just faceless drones there to make them look like John Wayne... Ah well, no more of that garbage for me! Pat☺

Now you can see why I don't trust autoinstallers. Pat☺

I'll be dogged! They STILL use that plane?? That's the plane I learned in back in '74. Took me a week of Dual time, and a week of solo time to get my cert. BFD to a kid turned 14 the day he started instruction. I didn't even know how to drive. I tell you this, though. Those were other days. MY Instructor, old enough to be my grandfather, almost, carried a yard stick with him in the rear cockpit. He never yelled, or even chastized me, but if I messed up, that yardstick would smack me in the back of the head. Amazing strength of impact for such limited space. Soon as I could though, I transitioned to the 1-26. No instructor, no yardstick :D I loved soaring the cliffs east of Calistoga. Almost always had great ridgelift. And when it was a good day, the hawks that lived in them would come out, soar with me, play a game of "chase-me". I learned how to do more aerobatics from them... No high-G stuff, just...fun! They cheated though. When THEY got tired or bored, they would just land on a cliff-side. I had to go back to the gliderport. Sorry. Your post about the 2-33 just brought back some great memories! Pat☺

You need to turn the Crash Sensitivity down to about 50%. THAT way it will detect real crashes, but not consider a carrier landing a crash. May I ask which plane you're flying? If it's the FSXBA Hornet, when you put the gear and flaps down in the break, you should set the trim +8.1°, as displayed on hte HUD. Little numbers below the VS box over on the right hand side. It only shows for 5 seconds, unless you are changing it, so pay attention! :D And make sure to use the AOA indicator, and your airspeed should be about 135 (at 33000lbs aircraft weight), with about a 700FPM sink. If you set the HUD Control panel switchology right, you will have ILS needles for the carrier, presuming you put the proper frequency in the ILS or TCN setting of the bird's radios. The Nimitz, from Javier is 111.00 (47X). If it's not the Nimitz, try 112.00, 113.00 etc (see the pattern? :) ) until you see it on the HUD. The steering arrow will pop up, and the ship's BRC will be in the NAV1 Heading Select display window, on the HUD Control Panel. If you have the ILS selected, the needles will pop up when you are within 5° of the landing course. Remember that the deck is about 8° off the ship's BRC, so aim for the "crotch" if the boat is moving, then straighten up at the "in-close", just before the "burble". Hope all that helps a little :D If those are the static boats, with their own ILS or TACAN or whatever, there is one off Newport Or., and other is off of Pensacola Fl. Remember that the static ships are a scenery object, not like the moving carriers in AICarriers. And yes, I believe they are in the Airports selection screen, and in the GPS. I would have to look at them again, it's been a while! :D IIRC, you could see them both easily from about 500'MSL over either airport. Does that help at all? Pat☺

Huhuh?? wha..??? GAH!! COFFEE!!!! [/slurp!] Ahem...where was I? Ahhh yes. For SE you need the latest version of AICairriers.NET, not the older, originally written, AiCarriers.exe. AiCarriers.NET (which is how the author, a Mr. Orion Lau, prefers it to be written to differentiate the two, the capitalized NET part...) is readily available over on the FS Dream Team forums, or just do a Google for it and there are a number of places you can DL the zip file. I can probably find a link for you if you want it. Once I wake up... EDIT: Found it. Follow THIS LINK. There is also a link to .NET Framework v4, which it requires, in the same post that contains the AICarriers.NET download. Very simple, just DL and install it with it's included installer. Although i mistrust autoinstallers, personally, this one actually works properly. You can install AICarriers anywhere you like, as long as the EXE.xml file has the correct path to where it is. Most of the FSX carrier downloads include config files so they can be included in AICarriers.NET, and show up in the menu in the game. Just place them in the conf.d folder in the AICarriers main folder. Mr. Brian, I believe, pretty much covered the EXE.XML file situation. AICarriers.NET comes with an example EXE.xml file entry in the zipfile, so all you need to do is cut-n-paste it into your EXE.xml file. Mr. Orion (which is his FSDT forum user name) also wrote a dandy little program called vLSO. It makes an AI LSO on whatever carrier you're landing on. They will talk you down, and, as LSO's are prone to doing, be very strict about your grade for the pass. IMO, and this is just me, they are nit-picking, arrogant, jerks. In other words, he truely captured the essence of the LSO. Yeah, I've known a few... SO: AICarriers.NET, and vLSLO, and you've got a truly realistic carrier landing experience. To make it even better, make sure that once you've placed the carrier (Or task force, if you prefer) on the ocean where you want it, tell it to go FORWARD, on the AIShips menu in the Sim. This will make the carrier move forward at 25Kts, but this can be edited in the aicarriers.cfg file, should you desire. If you want the icing on the cake, once you have the carrier's BRC (place the boat then check the HUD control panel Nav1 Drectional dial's indicator window. It will display the carrier's BRC, if you are utilizing the HUD from Mr. Rusev) go to you Weather settings, and set the winds to about 15-20 kts on the BRC. This will give you THE most realistic experienc possible, since most planes require a specific WOD (Wind Over the Deck) value to land. When you place the boat, it's BRC will be the course the plane was on when you placed it. You can tell the boat to turn to port or starbord by 10° or 90°, should you desire. For THE very best carrier bird available for FSX today, bar none, also DL and install the latest (v15.6) F/A-18C package from "Jimi" Hendricks. It's also available on the forums, IN THIS THREAD RESPONSE in his thread. Mr. Orion also helped programming the instruments and FCS, which is as close as the Sim can come to the real-world Hornet's FCS. So far. Not even payware is better.It's HUD is the one I referenced earlier, icluded in the package as the default HUD (with a few (dozen)) improvements. Jimi, Orion, and a number of other very nice individuals were instrumental in developing the Hornet included in the FSX Acceleration package. Jimi is the XO of the FSDT FSX Blue Angels demo team. Great guys, and amazingly good Hornet drivers. Of course, some of the team ARE real-world Hornet pilots, sooo... If you want, and you should, there are a few vLSO compatible sceneries, for doing FCLPs, as the Navy does. No pilot flies to the boat until they have, literally, a few hundred FCLP bounces. They are all shown on Orion's vLSO website, along with vLSO, naturally, which may be found by clicking his signature in the forums. Finally, if you want it, I have the address of a PDF download of the real F/A-18C's NATOPS manual, which is what Jimi and Orion are using for reference materiel. A TON of useful info for Hornet drivers, oddly enough :D The real world one's are expected to be intimately familiar with it, and to have several portions memorized. Does all this answer your questions? As usual, ask me the time, I tell ya how to build a clock... :p Now, I have a brain-cramp. TOO much blood in my coffee system! Pat☺

As we used to say: College education to break 'em, high-school education to fix 'em! Sounds like he's definately in the "break 'em" category :D I am glad he was OK, but I do sincerely hope to heck he didn't run into my Ex, nor 3 of my 4 kids who live there! Although one is in prison for a long time to come... One daughter turned out as a decent human...Former Marine, time in Iraq, all the goodies. Anywho, you have some great ideas! I need to work on those...AFTER this year's RTWR, of course. Have fun, whatever it is you do in the Sim! Pat☺

Ahhhh, how I miss the wonderful DOS days. I was never an Apple user, so I can't comment on it, but in my mind, Windows is STILL an absurd memory vampire for people who can't figure out DOS. I mean, seriously, it's not THAT hard. But for some of the denser officer types we had to work with, I had to place stick-on letters across the space bar. Just three little letters. A_N_Y. Otherwise they were lost trying to find the ANY key. And this is afteer I wrote batch files to do 99.9% of the work for them. All they had to do was hit any key to continue... By the same token, these were the guys that liked to gripe control panels for the AC not working in the ON FULL FORCE position... I miss DOS... Pat☺

Another one I've heard: Like balancing a spinning plate, on a broom, held atop a basketball, while standing on a beachball. From what I've been able to learn in the sim world, that's a fair description. But I'll tell ya this, the first time you manage to get one to cooperate a little bit, it's a great feeling of accomplishment. I think the reason hovering close to the ground is so tough, besides the usual physics explanations of ground effect, rotor wash, etc etc, is the old saw: Helicopters are so ugly the Earth repels them. Maybe it's the whole trying to balance between keeping the bird down low, and fighting the Earth-Hate effect, as I call it :D I know, I know, no "motion" felt in you butt makes a big difference, just like in a real fixed wing bird, but still... Have great flights, whatever you do, all, and whatever kind of bird one chooses! Even "a large collection of parts, flying in loose formation"! :D Pat☺

I think I've seen a few chopper control set ups over on Hovercontrol. Collectives, rudder pedals, and cyclics. And sets, like a collective/cyclic set, you buy your own pedals, like from CH or Saitek. That sort of thing. They can be a bit expensive, but I believe they DO exist. Pop on over to HC and take a look around. I think the Forums might be the best chance... Pat☺

You mean something like this here?? I believe it's what you were looking for :D Hope that helps a little bit... Pat☺

Good thing the H-46 has such a great payload capability! All those charts...:D ATC's are a lot friendlier if part of that payload includes a bottle of good single malt scotch or three... Pat☺

Like a dream :D Me, I have mine over on (ready??) D:\temp\Steam\Steamapps\common\FSX. Does that answer your question? Add-ons I put in place like D:\temp\FS Add-Ons and D:\Temp\FSX Add-ON Scenery. And so on. Does that answer your question? Pat☺

I am on Steam, and have no trouble starting that particular add-on at all. Just flew it today, cold-n-dark>start/warmup>flight>shut-down. Worked great for me...:confused: Pat☺

My pleasure :D Pat☺

If it works in SE, as mentioned above by theyorks, then it works in Accel. SE is Gold, with Accel, all together, so it works in SE, it works in Accel, see? Si :D Pat☺

I imagine with a pretty strong headwind it's just barely possible. Too bad commercial/private jets don't come with tail hooks... Pat☺

That works, as long as they don't have an Aerostat. There was talk a while back of putting one on, but I don't know what, if anything, ever came of it. I know we had a couple down in the Bahamas, and there was one in Kuwait, until it got invaded. I don't know if they ever put one back up... Anyway, with an Aerostat up, I don't care how low you go, it can "see" you. I know we could "see" targets going real low-n-slow off San Diego. I am using "see" in the Radar sense... Lately, to keep it interesting, I am flying the incredible F/A-18C from over on the FSDT website. Incredible bird, the FCS and flight characteristics come as close as FSX is capable of being, and that's according to a couple of experienced real-world Naval Aviators. Or Nasal Radiators if you prefer :D It's just friggen awesome! High up over Puget Sound, heading for Whidbey... [ATTACH=CONFIG]183134[/ATTACH] a little lower, down in the Grand Canyon... [ATTACH=CONFIG]183135[/ATTACH] Have great flights to all, whatever you do! Pat☺

In general, the common wisdom is to set you FS resolution to the same as your desktop. I always do, and it seems to work fine for me! Pat☺

Personally, I've had FS9 since it came out. I loved it then, when I was running it on a P2-400 I had Dell built just for it (for about $5,000.00, as i recall). I've been transferring it from PC to PC as I upgraded, with my wife's Dell 7400 one of the best, till the HD crashed. I stuck it on my brand new Dell (yeah yeah, but they've done good by me. My wife was deep in the 7200 scandal they had, so this 1750 laptop was pretty much free, and it travels. The 7400 weighs in at a bit over 70 LBS! :D ) and it's been happily zipping along ever since. Eventually, I discovered the world of add-ons a couple years ago, whether scenery, or aircraft, or whatever, as well as the forums, and it really took off. No pun intended. I picked up FSX-SE, when it was the incredibly high price of $5.00, just to see what all the FSX fuss was over. I never did, so I still FS9 mostly. I did kinda go add-on crazy for FSX when I first got it, but it got kinda old pretty fast. Besides, this poor old laptop can't handle much in the way of add-ons anyway. Not for FSX-SE at least, altho I've never had it crash on me, I must admit. Of late, I must also admit, I've been kinda focused on this FSXBA Hornet project I'm sort-of helping out on, a little. We're making pretty long strides, too, I have to admit, and the thing is treat to fly. As near as I can tell, having studied assiduously the NATOPS, the flight characteristics, as well as hardware realism, is getting pretty darn good. I'm still trying to figure out some maneuvers, but I can land 8 times of 10 (3/10 on a carrier). For me, It's a lot of fun. I was too stupid (read foolish. Plenty brain-smart) to go to college on my parent's dime to go the officer route and fly myself, sadly, so this is the best I can do, now. So, I do! Anyway, other than that, I'm FS9 all the way, including a Hornet on it from Team FS KBT, and Dino's famous F-14D, which I love. Both slightly (ahem) modified, of course. For me, this sim is an ongoing learning experience, and I love every second of it. The details of making a decent Panel.cfg, not always very "true to reality", the "Hey, it worked!" of an aircraft.cfg, or the "so THAT'S what that does!" of an .air file, are always a bit of a thrill. So, short answer, I guess, is FS9, 85%, FSX-SE, 15%. Pat☺

You think YOU'RE happy I'm still out here.... :D I remember delivering every Green Stamp I got to my mother to paste in her books, not to mention the drawer full of books, just waiting for us to go to the Green Stamp Redemption Center. "Pat, go to the store and get us X, Y, and Z. And don't forget the Green Stamps!" All it seemed I heard after I got my liscence. Even before, once I got my 5 speed and started zooming all over, come to think... And the fantastic fountain down at Woolworths. And no, Macy's never told Gimball's! hehehehe. :p The faster the tech moves, it seems like the less it costs, for which I am certainly grateful. I think it won't be long before implantable computers are the way to go, with VR direct to the optic centers, and radio-simulated telepathy... Scary, aint it? And I will probably still be using both FS9 and FSX-SE :D :D :D Pat☺