TomPenDragon

Boeing's building slides now?

With regards to the Home Airport, I'm kind of with JGF on this one - if you give me a choice of Meigs or Bust, I probably won't choose Meigs. I like the idea of rotating it. And I like the idea of flying to each other's home airports - throw a wild happening, trash their pad, then split (if those under 60 need a translation, let me know). Who wants to host first? I also like the idea of taking currently unused airports that are active in the legacy sims, such as Meigs and Tempelhof, "refurbishing" them, and taking them for Club airports.

We short-timers keep you in our thoughts every day. We're glad to hear you're both okay despite the knee problems; hopefully, those will ease somewhat with time.

We all fly differently. I'm a serial flier, and I'll always depart from the airport that I tied down last, whether or not I post a story about it. Others set up flights from and to whatever airport catches their fancy that morning, or as part of a new Challenge. So, however you want to do it is fine with me, and though I would not presume to speak for anyone else here, is probably fine with everyone else, too. When I was doing teambuilding and process engineering, oftentimes the most valuable person to the effort was the new guy - If he'd talk, he'd show everyone else where the problems and opportunities that those who had been there longer could no longer see (the phenomenon is commonly called, "Shop Blindness"). So, let me ask you directly, Alan: You've read the responses to this thead so far. What are we missing?

Yeah, sorry for that. Thanks for calling it to mind. I'll try to be more aware in the future. Tom

Well, I guess the whole idea of a home field just went ti... (don't want to get into any more trouble than I already am).

Wow - Congratulations, you two!! And Happy Birthday to you both! How's Molly doing, Michael?

How can the Club best serve you? As a (sim) pilot? Keep sharpening my skills and flying to places I might not have considered visiting. As a creator (writer)? Providing a safe space to present my writings, developing characters for the novels, and most especially, reading all the great stuff that everyone else posts in whatever form they choose. As a person? This is a tough one to answer briefly. I think it all boils down to, a lot of us, or most, are in the most difficult time of life, when we have to deal with illnesses or the loss of those closest to us, our own infirmities, things left undone, etc. It's nice to go through that with friends. At the same time, I can look back with pride at the people (and dogs) who I've helped and the skills and knowledge that I've acquired, and it really feels good to put those to use helping people who've become important to me, whether through running events, conducting a meeting, PM's, etc. Events: Majors: General parameters (length, scoring, reporting, participation by routemakers)? Length: 2 - 4 weeks. Scoring: Cum.V., like we did with the GAAG (just because I like slipping a homonym of, "come," past the moderators). Free-flying should always be an option. Reporting: Times via PM to the Race Steward. PIREPS in public (having to search the PIREPS for the timings takes the enjoyment out of reading the reports, so that's why I think the timings should be reported separately). The Race Steward should report the progress of the race on a daily basis. Participation by Routemakers: Mandatory. He who proposes a route must both fly it and administer the event. Help in administering events (like I did for Alan N. for the GAAG) is on a voluntary basis. The Routemaker should be responsible for opening the thread(s) for the event, giving sufficient time for those flying to it to complete their treks, and closing it once the last person arrives back home (or gives consent to lock the thread). How many per year? 2. If both events reach the 4-week maximum I proposed above, that's 2 months out of 12 that we're running majors. Timing? One in winter, one in summer, depending on everyone's schedules. Minors: General parameters? Single-point fly-in's or informal challenges ("Hey Melo, wanna see who's fastest through the Cascades?"). We should allow a 2 - 7-day arrival window (a weekend to a week with friends, with consideration for Ben Franklin's wisdom: "Fish and house guests start to stink after 3 days"), with sufficient notice to allow everyone to get there from wherever they are in the world. As in the Majors, the Challenger should take responsibility for opening, curating, and closing the thread once everyone is back to their home airports or their chosen alternative destination. Frequency? No more than one per month, considering the fact that it might take people a week or more to get to the Challenge, and a similar amount of time to return. Branding and Publicity: [ Club Chachapoya ] as visual tag in all Club thread titles Note the spaces between the brackets and the words. Thread structure? One general FBO for between events. One for each Club meeting/decision-making process. One planning thread for the Majors. One event thread for each of the Minors. Two event threads for each of the Majors: FBO and Official How can we increase our popularity and membership roll? I know I said that we should draft our own responses instead of building off of others'. In my draft, this item is blank; I haven't a clue. But I would like to echo jgf's reply to this: Better a couple of people who enjoy flying together and telling tall tails about it, who all share equally in the work of the Club, and who exhibit the maturity to do all of this in our little social group, than 100 shmucks. How can we leverage our strengths to get flightsim.com to make accommodations for us? I'd rather work this out offsite via e-mail/phonecon with the appropriate parties. Club Bylaws, Duties, and Staff: A basic rules/conflict resolution/disciplinary process set? A repeat of my first post here, additions in red. Disagree without being disagreeable. Be slow to anger, quick to forgive, and leave pursuing grudges in the box in the attic with all the rest of the things from our childhoods. Express ourselves, perhaps even insistently when a point's very important to us, but put finding a liveable consensus over winning a point. Let's all get on the same side of the table here and come up with answers, rather than going round and round in pointless arguments. This is a single-level group. No one's opinion has any more validity than anyone else's here. Whatever else we've been in the past, here we're all just fellow fliers, trying to have fun together. Whatever skills and knowledge that we've acquired throughout our lives only matter to the degree that we lay them on the table and use them to help our brothers-in-wings here. Leadership is a service here, not a position of privilege, and shall be undertaken only with the intent of improving our fellow fliers' enjoyment of the group. When something offends us, let's take 5 or even wait a day or two and make our response a considered Action, rather than a brute Reaction. As I used to tell my clients, "The one who unconsciously Reacts rather than consciously Acts. loses." Save Reacting for when you're on final into KCGX, past decision height, and that nice, 30-knot headwind suddenly drops to 0. We all have different skill and knowledge sets. Never ridicule a question, just because it seems too basic. Let's put ourselves in the other person's shoes, lace them up, and go for a nice, long walk. A lot of us are prideful people. Many of us have done a lot over our lifetimes. When we find ourselves with a group of other similarly-accomplished individuals, who are all talking about something we don't understand, we tend to not ask the million-and-one questions we have because we don't want to seem dumb. When we finally do screw up the courage to ask something, the worst thing that can happen is that someone laughs at us for it. All that does is confirm our feelings of inadequacy. When will we ask them another question? Never. When will we feel safe and confident around that someone or enjoy spending time with them? After we ask another question and receive a decent, honest response from them. English is the language for our interactions. We all have different levels of it. Even those of us who are native English speakers have vast national/regional/cultural differences in how we express ourselves. Let's not assume that a question or comment is understood by all - in fact, a more valid assumption is that at least one person here will not understand what we've said in the way that we intended it to come out. Ask. Clarify. Above all, let's be patient with each other. I would like us to get to the point that we can discuss everything, even religion, politics, and which sim version is better (okay, maybe just religion and politics), by presenting our ideas for our readers to make up their own minds. Let's debate, not argue. However, when something offends us, we should wait until we can reply with a simple, "That offends me," and perhaps an explanation if we think the offense might have been made out of ignorance. The proper thing for the offender to do, then, is to apologize (even if we think that we were in the right), let it drop, and continue on. Should this not suffice (in order of escalation): Work it out via PM. Get the Club Commodore involved in the PM's. Take it public for a "hearing" to determine fault and remedial actions. If the above does not yield results, or if an offense is particularly egregious, it is time for a removal "hearing". The votes of a simple majority of Club members will be required for expulsion. Examples of egregious offenses: Ridicule of another member, bullying. Racism, ethno-nationalism, religious bigotry. Intellectual property theft within the group. Falsifying timing reports in an honors system race, or any other form of cheating. Failure to fulfill obligations without a reasonable explanation. Violating the confidentiality of a PM interaction. Abuse of authority. Any proposal for a route, Challenge, Fly-In, or any other activity that will require Club members to take action, is a commitment on the part of the proposer to both participate in the activity and to administer it. In other words, if it's your baby, you change the diapers. You may enlist help from other Club members, but this is strictly voluntary. What needs to be done? Following is a likely incomplete list of roles within the Club. Members may occupy one or more roles at a given time. Club Commodore: Curates the interactions on the non-event-related forums. Gets involved in dispute resolution when needed. Calls meetings as needed. Prepares/backstops other Commodores and Race Stewards. Routemaker: Develops the routes used in the events, proposes them to the group in the appropriate forum. If a route is accepted, has whole control over the route: Types of aircraft. Timing system. Other rules. Staffing. Becomes the Race Steward. Race Steward: Opens/closes the event thread(s). Curates the event thread(s). Ultimate authority in disputes. Timing&Scoring Official: Receives and records PM'd timing reports. Reports the results of the race on a daily basis. Advisor: Offers subject-area knowledge and support on aspects of aviation or other Club-related issues to one or more members of the group, Flier. Who's going to do it throughout 2024 (primaries and alternates)? The Commodore should be an elected position and a variable-length term.

Thanks, MAD1!! I did a copy link/paste into the post, but it picked up the specific comment that I had been working on at the time. Sorry!

Great stuff, Dick! Next?

Thanks, Kit! Next?

By all means! Nothing is set in stone. If there is an issue that is not on the questionnaire, please raise it, and if someone does not wish to follow the questionnaire format, feel free to have your say however you wish.

Thanks, PhrogPhlyer! May I ask two additional things of the group? Please keep this thread strictly meeting-related, and post everything else in Meigs or Bust. What would everyone feel about using their real first names here (first names only)?

I was a budding novelist in my teens and 20's. Now, I'm merely ripe. You had it in the beginning - mine is one large, serialized novel, with characters who flow in and out with each event, much in the way that those old-time, dime store novels used to be. If you have time, start with the Bendix; if not, let me know and I'll catch you up.

We all have different ways of telling stories, Alan, and all (or at least all that don't violate the site's rules) are welcome here! Some of us tell our stories with words, some with pictures, some even with poetry. Feel like experimenting, workshopping some concepts and ideas? Bring them here. And if you want some bedtime reading, or maybe a good summer novel, try reading the stories from the Bendix, the Route 66, and the GAAG.

Announcement: The official Meeting thread is now open: https://www.flightsim.com/forums/topic/60205-club-chachapoya-2024-annual-meeting-01-04-april-meigs/?do=findComment&comment=314339

Announcement: The official Meeting thread is now open: https://www.flightsim.com/forums/topic/60205-club-chachapoya-2024-annual-meeting-01-04-april-meigs/?do=findComment&comment=314339

Hello and welcome, my esteemed friends, to our Club's Annual meeting for 2024, and the inauguration of our new Home Airport, Merril C. Meigs, KCGX. To those who have been flying with us since the beginning and those who have joined us along the way for one or more of our Challenges, it's great to see you all again! To those who are flying with us for the first time and who are showing us the wonders of MSFS2020, welcome! Last Fall, ViperPilot2 had the wild idea of doing a flying event for some of the older sims. A few people decided to take him up on it. That became the Bendix Challenge. Some wove elaborate fictional narratives about their sim flights. And the weirdest thing happened: After spending October flying one event, we wanted to do another, which became the Route 66 Challenge, which saw us all spending Thanksgiving together on a California beach. And what did we talk about between Thanksgiving and New Year's? Doing another Challenge, this one so big and convoluted, with three different routes, each with its own character and rules set, that participation at times felt like it fit the legal definition of insanity. In this time, we've told a lot of stories, running a gamut from murder mysteries to science fiction. We've told a lot of jokes. We've packed our logbooks with a lot of flying hours. And we've consistently had the most active threads on flightsim.com. We've also seen each other through illnesses, major surgeries, and health scares to our spouses. To repeat a comment I made early on: Sometimes it's more than just pushing pixels around screens. There are real people behind the screen names. And we're still here, and more people are flying events with us each time. So, to paraphrase Microsoft, Where Do We Want To Fly From Here? And, what will it take to get us there? That's the purpose of this meeting. Or to put it in business world terms, what are our goals for 2024 and what is the minimum structure necessary to facilitate their achievement? The fact that we've been flying together for six months now, doing it all by the seat of our pants, and we're still together is amazing. It's time now for a little more formality, so that we can all be together to do this again next year. To support this, we'll be using a four-phase process: Preliminary: A simple, broad questionnaire was posted on Friday, with the request to consider our answers in private. The purpose of this is twofold: To ensure that all responses are exclusively the yours and not built on someone else's, and to allow you to post your answers with a minimum of time and effort. This step is now complete. Individual Ideas: The second step is the posting of responses. Have your say about any of the questionnaire items that is important to you, and more importantly, consider what everyone else has to say before we start discussing it. This step begins now, and ends the earlier of all members having posted their responses to the questionnaire, or 12:00 CDT on Tuesday. Getting all responses in quickly will allow us more time for discussion. Discussion/Consensus Building: The third step starts when the second ends, and ends at end-of-day Wednesday, or earlier by agreement of the attendees. This one presents the logistical challenge of having to take place across the globe, while still finishing in a short amount of time. Individual Ideas will fall into one of three categories: Agreement: We've been flying together for a while and know each other's styles and capabilities, so all answers to a given question say much the same thing. These will boil down to simply formalizing what we're already doing. Easy! I Don't Agree, But I Can Live With It: Answers that differ sharply will need a negotiated solution. While the goal is to include everyone's ideas to their satisfaction, sometimes that will not prove possible. Consensus isn't about pleasing everyone, but rather about each of us conceding just enough to keep the others happy without our concessions becoming issues for us later on. Adamant Disagreement: Some things just cross a line. If you search your heart, are not just being petulant and trying to get your own way, and the move toward consensus is taking us somewhere that you are just unwilling to go, say so and we'll take a step back. What doesn't work for all of us doesn't work for any of us. Hopefully, these will be few and far between. These are the ones we most need to catch and resolve in the broadest, most imaginative sort of way, lest we start losing members. 2024 Club Bylaws Publication: The final step starts when the previous one ends. Ideally, we will have developed the text during the Discussion phase, and will only have to compile it into a cohesive document. From the moment of the document's publication, we will have 24 hours for edits and comment. Let me end this introduction with a preliminary Code of Conduct, to both govern this meeting and as my proposal for a more permanent Code: Disagree without being disagreeable. Be slow to anger, quick to forgive, and leave pursuing grudges in the box in the attic with all the rest of the things from our childhoods. Express ourselves, perhaps even insistently when a point's very important to us, but put finding a liveable consensus over winning a point. Let's all get on the same side of the table here and come up with answers, rather than going round and round in pointless arguments. This is a single-level group. No one's opinion has any more validity than anyone else's here. Whatever else we've been in the past, here we're all just fellow fliers, trying to have fun together. Whatever skills and knowledge that we've acquired throughout our lives only matter to the degree that we lay them on the table and use them to help our brothers-in-wings here. Leadership is a service here, not a position of privilege, and shall be undertaken only with the intent of improving our fellow fliers' enjoyment of the group. When something offends us, let's take 5 or even wait a day or two and make our response a considered Action, rather than a brute Reaction. As I used to tell my clients, "The one who unconsciously Reacts rather than consciously Acts. loses." Save Reacting for when you're on final into KCGX, past decision height, and that nice, 30-knot headwind suddenly drops to 0. We all have different skill and knowledge sets. Never ridicule a question, just because it seems too basic. Let's put ourselves in the other person's shoes, lace them up, and go for a nice, long walk. A lot of us are prideful people. Many of us have done a lot over our lifetimes. When we find ourselves with a group of other similarly-accomplished individuals, who are all talking about something we don't understand, we tend to not ask the million-and-one questions we have because we don't want to seem dumb. When we finally do screw up the courage to ask something, the worst thing that can happen is that someone laughs at us for it. All that does is confirm our feelings of inadequacy. When will we ask them another question? Never. When will we feel safe and confident around that someone or enjoy spending time with them? After we ask another question and receive a decent, honest response from them. English is the language for our interactions. We all have different levels of it. Even those of us who are native English speakers have vast national/regional/cultural differences in how we express ourselves. Let's not assume that a question or comment is understood by all - in fact, a more valid assumption is that at least one person here will not understand what we've said in the way that we intended it to come out. Ask. Clarify. Above all, let's be patient with each other. Any proposal for a route, Challenge, Fly-In, or any other activity that will require Club members to take action, is a commitment on the part of the proposer to both participate in the activity and to administer it. In other words, if it's your baby, you change the diapers. You may enlist help from other Club members, but this is strictly voluntary.

What a great topic sentence for a story. And yeah, such a sad reality. I don't know about you other retirees, but I've never been happier. My wife reminded me of something this morning: We passed our seven-year anniversary in our current house back in March. It seems like we just moved in. In a couple of weeks, she's going to notch another decade under her belt. This summer's going to be 40 years for us. Just yesterday...

“So you’re heading out?” Tom asked Jessica as they waited for their Seneca 7’s turbos to spin down. The pumps, the radios, and all lights except the ground strobes were off. They were on the ground at Aéroport Le Mans Arnage. It was a gorgeous Sunday afternoon, which was a welcome change from their departure airport. They had spent the weekend at the Mugello Circuit, watching the first of the 24H Series of sports car racing’s European challenges for 2024. Today’s 5 ½ hours of the split 12H race ended under a Code 60 because torrential rains made even the wet weather tires unsafe any faster, and the thundercells had followed them the 30 kilometers from the track to Aeroporto di Firenze. Tom had flown the Seneca from Arnage to Florence, so it would have been Jess’ turn to fly back anyway, but even if it hadn’t, she was the better wet weather pilot and he as a co-pilot let her focus on nothing else but flying the plane. The fact that the weather over Tuscany had been sucking in everything around it had given them the kind of headwinds that converted 172 knots on the ASI at 22,000 feet into 138 over the ground. Oh well, Jessica had been wanting to put some more time into her logbook, and she had gotten an extra hour over what they normally would have done from north-central Italy to the Loire Valley in France. And she still wanted to fly? All Tom wanted to do was to enjoy the Spring sunshine – but that wasn’t happening, either. “Come with me,” she said as she shut down number 2 first, trying to keep the engine hours between the two of them to within a tenth of an hour of each other. “I can’t,” he said, a note of sadness in his voice. They had lived apart for a couple of years, as her professional commitments had anchored her to Tulum and his search for a direction for the next part of his life had taken him practically everywhere but. He had finally made the decisions that he had been needing to make while he and his protege, Reymundo Paul Harrison, had participated in Club Chachapoya’s Route 66 Challenge. After having led her people through a period of tremendous growth, she had come to the realization that she was now holding them back, and was now transitioning into a background role for a while. “I promised the airport management that I’d go over their plans for the third weekend in June in person this afternoon. Do you have to go to The University?” “They need some attention. I’ve spent the past few years living at The Monastery in Tulum and we’ve spent the year-end holidays with the Academy in New York. The University feels left out. They’re the most independent of the three. Pass me the other chocks, please? There – all put to bed. I’m going to pop upstairs for a quick shower.” “That sounds like a good idea. All the rain did was to turn the track dust into a plaster.” He followed her upstairs and into the shower. Both The University and the airport brass could wait an hour or so. Tom finished their second shower first, and by the time that Jessica had finished making herself pretty, he had already made the bed and laid her flight suit and helmet on it. “You didn’t say whether you wanted to take the Piper or the Northrop,” he said as she came out of the dressing room. “You were right, the F-5. I want to make an entrance.” She slipped into the coverall. Even zipped up, she still looks good, Tom thought. He helped her through her preflight and then got her settled into the cockpit and strapped her in. They were switching planes for the next flights, so she had to adjust the seat and the pedals to fit her smaller frame. A stray murmur of complaint had Tom thinking, You should try going the other way, with your knees past your chin and the stick getting way too friendly with your nethers, until you get the seat pushed back. He watched her taxi to 20 and blast off into a near-vertical initial climb. Go ahead, Hon, Tom grinned, Get your ya-ya’s out. I wouldn’t want to be in the tower with a fresh cup of coffee when you show up. The house was achingly quiet when he went back inside. He grabbed his laptop and walked across the field to the airport offices. The meeting went long, as they got into the five- and ten-year plans for LFRM. Though it was not in his nature, he accepted the staff’s dinner invitation. It went long and got loud, which suited him perfectly. He was carrying a major buzz as he walked back to the house, and was ready to hit the sack. He had hibernated his computer at the end of the meeting, with the idea of doing some writing before bedtime, and took it out to shut it down properly as he got changed for bed. As soon as it was fully up, he closed the documents, and was just about to shut the PIM when he noticed a new mail from Club Chachapoya. He knew that he should wait until the morning to open it, but he clicked on it anyway. The Club’s having a fly-in. Okay, let’s see how it fits the endurance racing calendar, maybe Jessica and I can join the rest of the members for this one. Next week? Fine; the next race is the start of the Nürburgring Endurance Series on 06 April. Where? Oh. KCGX, Merrill C. Meigs. It’s to inaugurate the new Clubhouse, as we bought Meigs from Chicago to be the home of Club Chachapoya. And a mandatory Club meeting to plan the rest of 2024, 02-04 April, so we have the 5th to fly to Germany. Wide awake now, he called Jessica. His original idea had been to catch up with Jessica at The University and spend a few days there with her. As diplomatically as she could, Jess suggested that his presence there right now could be disruptive. She’d catch up with him in Chicago in time for the meeting. Both fell asleep waiting for the other to hang up. Tom woke up the next morning alone in the bed, with a dead cellphone. He sighed. He had gotten used to sleeping by himself while Jessica was in Tulum and he was elsewhere. The few months they had spent together only reinforced what he knew already: Sleeping with her was infinitely preferable to sleeping solo. He plugged his phone in to let it charge while he showered and got ready, went downstairs and put on a pot of coffee. He took his time to let the phone pick up at least enough juice for their morning phone call, and dressed in his flight suit. The airport team had invited him for breakfast, but he wasn’t in the mood. His heart ached. While not a cure, the best palliative he knew for an aching heart was the push of loud, powerful jet engines or the pull of a Merlin or two, in an airplane capable of pushing his brain down into his socks at a moment’s notice. Jessica called him while he was working out his flight plan to Chicago. She could meet him there Thursday or Friday, probably, and definitely by the start of the Club meeting. He told her that he wanted to get to Meigs as soon as he could to make sure that everything was set for the fly-in. When they were kids, neither could hang up on the other. A half-century later, they still couldn’t. After several attempts, both finally respected the count-of-three. Tom smiled as he put down the phone. Whatever happened to the world, she was the best part of his. He finished his flight plan and auto-filed it. He had been debating whether to land in Shannon, fill up, and fly direct to Gander; Jess had convinced him that his first instinct, to cross the Atlantic via Benbecula to Reykjavik to Narsarsuaq to Goose Bay, was best considering the headwinds at FL340. While they were in Italy, the Arnage ground crew had serviced and topped off their Freedom Fighters, so he would have been putting down in Ireland with a fairly full aircraft. The F-5A liked to be light when she landed. If he was lucky, he might make it to Greenland from LFRM; otherwise he could refuel in Iceland. He walked out into the chill of the morning. Even in the glow of pre-dawn, the F-5’s silvery skin gleamed. While the Tomcat was his favorite jet fighter, he had to admit that Jack Northrop’s company had come up with a beautiful aircraft. In a word, she looked like what a jet fighter should look like – like she was doing 400 knots standing still. Perhaps the F-104 fits that bill even more, he mused, but he wouldn’t want to try landing one on an unfamiliar, 3,900’ runway. At the start of his pre-flight, he put a ladder against the fuselage, climbed up, and opened the cockpit. Thankfully, Jessica had moved the seat and the pedals already. He completed his walk-around diligently. Tom trusted the Arnage ground crew. He had acquired the airport in the early ‘90’s, and it had taken a couple of years until they had found the right mix of people and had gotten them to form a team. After 30 years of working together, with very few crew departures and replacements, when you pull up to the pumps now, they handle fueling and servicing like a Le Mans pit stop. It had become their trademark. Still, like the old adage goes, “trust but verify.” Back home, he had a robotic stair truck that would have scuttled off to its parking spot after he boarded. He walked over to Arnage’s FBO and asked for help. One of the newer team members who was waiting for the day shift to arrive left his coffee on the staff lounge table and obliged. Lucas Grijalva, a Catalan, was one of those people who could put a smile on your face at your own funeral. How anyone could work a whole night shift and still be as pleasant as Luc was was a mystery to him. He settled into the cockpit and got the seat and pedals adjusted to his liking. You don’t get into an F-5A; you put it on – it feels much like a Spitfire in that sense, much more so than any other jet fighter or trainer. Flick on the battery; turn on the lights; set the brakes; push the fuel cutoff in; start an engine; lather/rinse/repeat; engage the generators; power up the instruments. Tom loved the Freedom Fighter’s simplicity. Having just about the best roll rate of anything in the skies only added to its charms. Just a nudge of the thrust levers got the wheels rolling across fragrant, dew-coated, well-trimmed grass. A hint of right rudder – so subtle that he needed to counterbalance the pressure of his left foot with his right – pointed the F-5’s rather prominent nose straight toward the taxiway on the other side of the runway. With the engines spinning a little faster than ground idle, he closed the cockpit and brought the packs online. 20 was the active, so he turned north at the intersection. The lights of the grandstands and pits were fully lit. He watched a Grand Caravan on final and glanced down at the clock. The commuter schedule didn’t start until after 07:00. Whoever was coming in on that charter flight was almost certainly going to the track. He could picture the pilot, busy getting his passengers to the ramp safely, simultaneously trying to figure out what type of aircraft, with its nav lights so close together and its tail strobe so far back, was taxiing to the active. A glint of gloaming reflects off of its sheet metal. Careful, Captain! That shade of green you’re turning clashes with your uniform. He worked through his final checks at a relaxed pace as the tower told the Caravan to take the closest taxiway. He was looking down, fiddling with the temperature controls to get his feet warm, when the tower told the Cessna to taxi to the gate. Some planes could be flown in hiking boots. The F-5’s rudder pedals were light and sensitive, so he was wearing a pair of racing shoes that he had paid way too much for at the Bugatti Circuit’s track store. They weren’t waterproof, and had soaked through during preflight. He looked up and over at a clear runway as his toes began to feel the blast of warm air that was directed at them. Showtime! He nudged the thrust levers forward ever so slightly – on pavement, the Freedom Fighter hardly needed any power to get going. One last look at the elevator trim – it was so important to the Northrop that they put the gauge at the top left of the panel. A big kick of the pedals now to swing the dart-nose down the centerline of 20, then a smooth but quick push of the thrust levers to the firewall – smooth but slow and, once the turbojets spin up and the ‘burners kick in, your hand and arm are too heavy to get the rest of the way to full power. Instinctively, he straightened his neck and back until his head cradled into the headrest. Slow, keep her straight, steer with your toes, perfectly lined up… And then comes a boot in the butt that just will not stop. Nose getting light around 110… Passing 120, ease off on the forward pressure with your right arm that you’ve needed to keep the elevator neutral and she pops off the ground almost violently. Gear up immediately; nose up, way, way up to keep the airspeed below 250 as you blast upward and bring the thrust back down to a non-insane level. Let the nose fall; keep the airspeed steady, and in another minute or so, she was just a calm, well-mannered airplane, flying straight and level at 235 knots. Tom brought her around and flew back toward the airport. The F-5A was behaving like a bizjet now. He realized that he was over the track, so he pulled a hard right at the end of the Ford Chicanes to fly the start-finish straight, and a quick breath later turned opposite the Dunlop Curve. He reminded himself that he had a long way to go that day, and fought hard to ignore his first instinct to make a pass under the half-tire-shaped bridge. Tom set up a relaxed cruise climb, and felt tension leave his body. Let’s see how far we can stretch the fuel, he thought. It was a lovely morning for flying, with smooth air and the Moon just setting. The sun came up as he reached the French coast. Low clouds skittered eastward as he crossed the Channel into the UK. She settled into a 34,000’, Mach 0.85 cruise. Tom felt invigorated. Three quarters of an hour later, he caught a glimpse of Scotland as the cloud deck briefly broke. Decision time: fuel’s good; plane’s perfect. Time to cross the north Atlantic. Decision time again, over Iceland. The plane’s still perfect, and the headwinds aren’t quite as strong as he had planned for. Still plenty of go-juice in the tanks. On, then, to Greenland. The clouds were hugging the mountaintops, as they had practically every time he had stopped in Narsarsuaq. Fuel was such that, when he was younger and dumber, he might have tried to make Goose Bay. He laughed at himself as he realized that he had reached the, “Why Chance It,” age. He dropped down into a familiar fjord and got his speed down. Just as he hung a right coming out of it, the air got lumpy. That got Tom’s attention. The short span, thick chord, minimal camber wings of the Freedom Fighter become a handful in turbulence, especially at the slow speeds needed to get the gear and the flaps down. Even set up for landing and coming in a little hot, he was rocking and rolling and the word, “Go-Around” was creeping back into his vocabulary. Thankfully, God stopped punching his plane with around a hundred feet to go, He flattened the wings, kicked out the crab, and greased it on just a little past the numbers. His fingers slipped on sweat inside of his gloves, and he suddenly realized that the cockpit temperature was way too high. Tom originally had planned to just fill the tanks and get back in the air as soon as he could. The Northrop vibrated a little more than usual while it was being filled, and he realized that it was his stomach grumbling. All he had had was coffee all morning. The fuel pump attendant waved him clear, and he taxied over to park. Time to visit an old friend...

We just took a 182Q up to Oshkosh for a fly-over (word is, they have a little fly-in there, too - sure it's not nearly as big or important than ours, though), then back to Meigs. If you're planning to come in today, Melo, the weather might be a little dodgy. We hit several patches of rain and low visibility, though KCGX itself was clear. The wind on final was 145 at 10 (FSRealWX), though the Midway METAR reports 320 at 13 - Bosss, you might be able to get down on the runway with these crosswinds, although if you go for a water landing, there's a rather nice marina between Meigs and Soldier Field. Safe flying, everybody, J&T

The weather's been less-than-nice all week. I ferried in a P-38L-N (visual model from Dave Copley's L; flight dynamics and power from his XP38N) this afternoon from New York - the best weather I've flown in all week. If you have pictures and maybe a story to share, the new thread is https://www.flightsim.com/forums/topic/60177-club-chachapoya-meigs-or-bust/?do=findComment&comment=314239 , [ Club Chachapoya ] Meigs Or Bust (Thanks, ScottishMike; sorry you had to do that).

Esteemed Fellow Fliers: Following is the agenda for next week's Club Meeting. Attendance may be either in person or via teleconference (you don't need to be at Meigs to participate). Please do not post any responses to the Questionnaire in any current thread - I will create a new one for the Meeting. Take the weekend to consider your answers. Please do not suggest any specific flight Challenges in your responses (that's the next step). I'll post a notification both here and in the Meigs Or Bust thread once the Meeting thread is open. Thanks, Tom Club Chachapoya 2024 Annual Meeting, Meigs, 01-04 April Agenda 01 - 02 April: Reception of Questionnaire Responses All Responses should be received prior to 12:00 CDT (Chicago time), 02 April. Responses should be received without discussion or reply. Let's let everyone have their say first, then talk about it. Late responses will be received, but might not get the discussion they deserve. 02 - 03 April: Discussion/Consensus Building Discussion of responses should not occur until after 12:00 CDT on 02 April. Let's try to take the Questionnaire in order. At this point in our journey together, we probably Agree with each other far more than we disagree. The first goal of the discussion is to identify and document these areas. The second goal is to find something that we can all live with for those places in which we disagree. (I hate to feel the need to say this) All discussion will be kept civil and productive. No response to the Questionnaire (made honestly and without the intention to provoke or ridicule) is any less valid than any other. Our primary goal here is Fellowship - to fly with other folks and tell each other stories about it, to challenge ourselves and each other to be better pilots and to help others to learn. What else do we all have in common except Flight Simming? So, let's: Disagree without being disagreeable. Be slow to anger, quick to forgive, and leave pursuing grudges in the box in the attic with all the rest of the things from our childhoods. Express ourselves, perhaps even insistently when a point's very important to us, but put finding a liveable consensus over winning a point. Let's all get on the same side of the table here and come up with answers, rather than going round and round in pointless arguments. When something offends us, let's take 5 or even wait a day or two and make our response a considered Action, rather than a brute Reaction. As I used to tell my clients, "The one who unconsciously Reacts rather than consciously Acts. loses." Save Reacting for when you're on final into KCGX, past decision height, and that nice, 30-knot headwind suddenly drops to 0. We all have different skill and knowledge sets. Never ridicule a question, just because it seems too basic. Let's put ourselves in the other person's shoes, lace them up, and go for a nice, long walk. A lot of us are prideful people. Many of us have done a lot over our lifetimes. When we find ourselves with a group of other similarly-accomplished individuals, who are all talking about something we don't understand, we tend to not ask the million-and-one questions we have because we don't want to seem dumb. When we finally do screw up the courage to ask something, the worst thing that can happen is that someone laughs at us for it. All that does is confirm our feelings of inadequacy. When will we ask them another question? Never. When will we feel safe and confident around that someone or enjoy spending time with them? After we ask another question and receive a decent, honest response from them. English is the language for our interactions. We all have different levels of it. Even those of us who are native English speakers have vast national/regional/cultural differences in how we express ourselves. Let's not assume that a question or comment is understood by all - in fact, a more valid assumption is that at least one person here will not understand what we've said in the way that we intended it to come out. Ask. Clarify. Above all, let's be patient with each other. 04 April: Publication of Results Ideally, the Results document will be largely written as a group during the Discussion portion of the meeting. Should I misread/misinterpret/mistype anything during the preparation of the final document, a brief discussion period will be allowed for corrections/rewordings only. If we all do our jobs during the Discussion portion of the agenda, nothing should come as a surprise to anyone. We are still a young Club; thus nothing decided during the meeting is set in stone, As we have so far, we will change and adapt as circumstances and experience dictate. The Questionnaire Please answer any of the questions on which you have strong feelings. You do not have to answer them all. Any answer that would require the rest of the members of the Club to take a particular action is a commitment on your part to carry out that action yourself, if adopted by the rest of us. How can the Club best serve you? As a (sim) pilot? As a creator (writer)? As a person? Events: Majors: General parameters (length, scoring, reporting, participation by routemakers)? How many per year? Timing? Minors: General parameters? Frequency? Branding and Publicity: [Club Chachapoya] as visual tag in all Club thread titles. Thread structure? How can we increase our popularity and membership roll? How can we leverage our strengths to get flightsim.com to make accommodations for us? Club Bylaws, Duties, and Staff: A basic rules/conflict resolution/disciplinary process set? What needs to be done? Who's going to do it throughout 2024 (primaries and alternates)?

As an end user, the only thing you can do is to copy the post body from the old thread, start the new one, paste the post body into the editor, and re-post. Note: this is a copy/paste operation, not the site's quote function. This should bring all of the pictures and text as formatted, if you select the whole post and nothing else.

No, sorry, I didn't realize that you've already started it.