Rupert

Hey Scatterbrain. That's a great couple of shots! What scenery? Where? I know with all your royals, dukes, etc, over there in Blighty you have some pretty nice "puddles in people's back yards-" However I don't recognize those puddles.

Excellent Post Sir! Thanks so much! I'll certainly try some of your suggestions. Michael

No, he had an industrial engineer's degree from Michigan. I guess thermostats were below his level of expertise.

Pat, Once I got called to the the plant managers office because he was really hot, literally. He really wanted to know why his office A/C unit wasn't cooling down as fast as he thought it should. He said I'VE GOT IT ON 60!!! WHY DOESN'T IT ******* COOL FASTER!!?? At risk of losing my job for laughing in his face, I explained his office thermostat was only an on/off switch & not an accelerator. He couldn't grasp that it didn't matter where he set the thermostat, once the unit kicked in it'd only cool at one rate till it reached the temperature selected.:rolleyes:

I started out with Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy & similar games with my Apple 2E which I updated with a 64K math processors so I had 128K of ram. The games always started out "You are in a dark room." Then I would have to input "turn on a light." etc.etc. I have to admit gaming has come a long way since then. However the latest and greatest version of Microsoft Office isn't a whole lot better than the word processor, spreadsheet, & data base programs that ran on "Appleworks" on 128K. I used to score Marathons and minis with the database and give everyone, regardless of class, their results within a very few minutes after the last entrant in that class finished the race. I didn't have a scanner but the timer operators wrote down the bib numbers as they finished. It worked. After bar code scanners became available I wrote a data base program for all the books in our local library plus all the users of the library. We had automated check-in and check-out plus post cards for overdue notices using scanners, a 20 megabyte not gigabyte hard drive, & 128K of ram. Of course we didn't have all those wonderful icons to click on. You had to push "Open-Apple P" to print, "Open-Apple S" to save. etc. But you didn't spend half your life finding the right page "window" to do what you wanted to do, you just used the function keys like we also used with Word Perfect.

Actually it's a lot like being a one armed paper hanger with a foot stuck in the glue bucket. And don't even think about adjusting your sunglasses or picking your nose!! But hey, if it were easy the jet jockeys would be trying to do it too! Like I've said before, you don't truly control a chopper, you point it in the direction you hope it will run! And for hover, you curse, stomp, & pet it. If you do all those things in the correct order, it'll usually hang close to where you hope it will. Unless the wind changes of course! Straight and level flight in a chopper? Hell any fixed wing jockey can do that, once it's going fast enough to cancel out the torque of the main rotor.

Yes that's a pretty accurate description of a hover! And no, I haven't seen even a slightly accurate simulation of that activity to date. For one thing 90% of flying a chopper is letting it move and not over correcting. Think riding through soft sand on a motorcycle. What do you do, you loosen up on the handlebars and knees to let it move. In a chopper you do the same thing. That's exactly why I don't play with choppers in sims. They don't move.

That's great! I've been in and out of there several times but never noticed there was a Peanuts based meaning to the waypoint designations.

Busy afternoon today! I've been "storm chasing" that huge storm that's traveling from South Texas into New Hampshire via Kentucky, etc. It's already dropped over 2.2" of rain here. This looks like it's not going anywhere far for at least another 24 hours. Heavy winds from the south and the north have it locked into a pretty set path.

Just did another one of fun things I like to try. The weather at Magdelena Ridge Observatory was 41* with winds out of 350* 44 steady gusting to 58! So of course I had to try landings at Magdelena Muncipal (N-29) in the default King Air. I also did a couple of flybys at 33 59N 107 11W where the observatory is. Of course it's all Restricted but I didn't get called in on it. I never found the observatory. But then I don't know if there is even any buy ware scenery to cover this area.

[quote=PhantomTweak;1956418 ATC's are a lot friendlier if part of that payload includes a bottle of good single malt scotch or three... Pat☺ Yes, and so are the crew!!

Scatterbrainkid, thanks so much for your index!! I've had a great time perusing it and being reminded of situations I've not flown in a while. And others I didn't even know existed.:cool:

Just perusing this old post as a friend of mine likes to say "Reminds me of the time!" or my case "times!" We navigated at low altitude by compass & road maps,in the mid 1960's BGPS!! When I flew H-46 choppers cross country from Pa. to So.Cal., it was long Before GPS had even been dreamed of. We were thrilled when we could follow a major highway going to and from where we needed to go! We said "ifr", or "I follow roads," so as not to be confused with flying in IFR conditions. A satchel full of VFR Supplements & AAA Road maps were the best friends we had. With a mandatory hard ceiling of 1,000' AGL on non-certified aircraft we often were too low to receive VORTAC or even dependable ADF signals from AM radio stations. Tx, Ok, Ar, etc. are pretty huge states when navigating with a compass and a AAA map! And they're all hugely filled with Restricted Areas! ATC isn't at all friendly when a delivery flight of two or three choppers wanders into them either!! I still really enjoy flying with no GPS or VORTAC! It always reminds me of the times I did it for real! BTW: It's still a good way to keep your mind and reflexes sharp, like not using autopilot.

You might get out handled. But I'll bet you don't often get outrun!

Tried that myself this afternoon, same plane. Used real world weather and there was a pretty heavy overcast at about 4,000'. Right about the time I was going to wave off and go around Mountain Air popped out in vivid sunshine. As I was already setting up to go around, I was coming in a little hot. RW I'd have done the go around, simming what the heck! Got it down and kept it on the tarmac but it was close! :cool: Then I got brave and tried it with the default Lear 45. Didn't work out so well! Realized we weren't going to get stopped too late and slow to take back off. Turbojet lag crashed us!! :o

All's well that ends well! But yes feedback as to what works and what doesn't is invaluable to others with similar issues. GLAD IT WORKED OUT!!

Drogue chute?:rolleyes: Sounds as though you're using your ?device? like a Nintendo Wii controller. Does it have a control for spoilers or reverse thrust? Reverse thrust along with brakes would be my guess. Or maybe upwind into a hurricane. If the headwind is strong enough, you can fly backwards. I've nearly done it & wasn't at all happy about it either!

Does your drive play or work with other DVDs? Do other discs chatter too? I agree with mabe,Be careful with your FSX Discs! They are now almost unobtanium!

Yes, that's fun. Want to up it a notch? Try dead reckoning navigation without GPS! In the '60s we'd have likely cut off a few body parts to get a functional GPS! Except of course, we'd have never believed such a thing could ever exist!! Charts, Compass, Vortac, & ADF get whole new meanings without the GPS crutch. If you get tired of that game and want to kick up another notch, fly lower so the Vortac signal is lost too.

Powered hubs work! They also allow the several items plugged in to charge their batteries even with the computer turned off.

That sounds cool! I'll put it into my To Do List! Thanks!

I really like the Jackson Hole software too. It's neat to see some ski trails I've skied on.

AROUND THE WORLD BY PRIVATE JET! We've been Smithsonian members for years. Mainly because we enjoy their magazine. However on occasion they come up with a mailer called WORLDWIDE TOURS AND CRUISES. It's a brochure for super high priced travel with their instructors. This year I see one tour I hadn't remembered from before, AROUND THE WORLD BY PRIVATE JET. These trips start at $76,950 for the Classic and $79,950 of Islands Around the World. Per person. Since that's at least $70,000 or more a year than we generally spend per person for personal travel, I've come up with a cheaper substitute. I'm "flying" each leg of the trip and doing sight seeing trips in each area. Each of their trips is 24 days. But I expect I'll complete mine in about a week each +/-. And hopefully won't suffer too much jet lag. The Smithsonian group have a 757 configured for 78 guests plus their staff. While I'm making due with a Lear 45. But it's pretty interesting "flying" to where they are flying, then going on Wikipedia and Google Map to see what they are seeing. The Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania is the most interesting site I've visited so far. The Smithsonian figures anyone who can afford to spend $80G apiece and be away for 24 or more days has already seen the obvious places like Paris, Rome, & Tokyo. So they're flying into places, some of which I haven't even heard of before. VERY INTERESTING!

Hey Rosita Come Quick!! They're giving away Green Stamps with Tequila!!

Hey Phantom! Good to see you're still out there! I agree about the cost thing! It's amazing how fast prices have come down. I can now build a damn nice computer for not a lot more than a good GPU used to cost. And monitors! It seem they are giving them away for Green Stamps! I'm the curious type. I'm always tweaking. Some days you're the windshield, some days you're the bug! Either way, I know most of my problems were/are self induced! I'm not a fan of Microsoft by any means. But I've never tried to blame them for my mistakes.