Newsletter

Transcription

Newsletter

The GOSPORT - Ocala Flight Simulator Club - Newsletter
Volume 3
Edition 9
Pg.
1
September 2010
http://ocalaflightsimclub.weebly.com/
1929 Curtiss Robin
Story on page 11
****Our NEXT MEETING is Thursday September 2nd***
LANDMARK AVIATION
If you can see this photo..... thank your optician!
f you can read “Landmark” on the building, thank a teacher!
If you attend OFSC meetings at Landmark, thank the front desk!
TION
Newsletter Staff
Wayne Knowles - Left Seat
[email protected]
Steve Austin - Editor
[email protected]
John Allard - Writer
[email protected]
Carol Ayers - Photographer
George Million - OFSC Logo Design
Gur
u List
Guru
Wayne Knowles
[email protected]
“Guru Squad”
General Flight Sim questions; GPS; FS9; FSX; some
hardware /display; all with reference to XP.
Dave Jones
[email protected]
AI traffic; ATC; repainting aircraft; flying transport type
aircraft (B727, B737- 200,B757, B767, and D80);fooling
with various .cfg files to achieve particular results.
John Allard
[email protected]
General flight sim questions; FS9 and XP; IFR flight;
props & turbo props; Just Flight AirHauler; Just Flight
Traffic 2005; Radar Contact; FS Navigator; Airport
editors; aircraft.cfg and panel.cfg file issues; weight and
balance issues; panels; free airport diagrams to order.
Pg.
2
Table of Contents
Newsletter Staff...............................................…pg 2
Gurus…................................................................pg 2
Table of Contents.........................................……pg 2
OFSC Financial Report..................................….pg 2
From the Left Seat…...........................................pg 3
John’s Corner.....................................…pg 4 & 20-24
Breakfast Report…..............................................pg 5
Get Wells…...........................................................pg 5
August Dinner Report......................................…pg 6
AH Record Attempt – Update…..........................pg 6
New Members Report......................................…pg 7
Thank Yous & Attaboys…...................................pg 7
August Meeting Report…...................................pg 8
Outside the Envelope..................................…pg 9-10
Cover Story.....................................................….pg 11
AirHauler – Lease or Buy..........................…pg 12-14
Crossword Puzzle Solution...........................…pg 14
Veteran’s Honor Roll…......................................pg 15
Hot Links…....................................................pg 16-18
OFSC Workshop….............................................pg 19
Sunset Log….......................................................pg 24
Gosport Back Issues.......................................…pg 24
Friends of OFSC…..............................................pg 25
Crossword Clues…............................................pg 26
Crossword Puzzle...........................................…pg 27
New Ground Procedures...................................pg 28
Financial Report
by Gene Ayers
For the period ending Aug 31, 2010
Funds expended this period...................................None
Previous balance................................................$121.00
Amount received Aug 5, 2010..............................$15.00
Cash on hand.....................................................$136.00
Catch Gene at any meeting to review
·
Select FSX.exe
·
Right click on FSX.exe
·
Select “Set Affinity…”
Tips:
I do a lot of surfing on the net and checking out Computer Pilot
and PC Pilot for possible interesting tips that might be helpful.
Below are this months offerings.
Here is a site I found that should be of interest to everyone.
The author is Captain Mike Ray who has published in Computer
Pilot magazine. The site, www.utem.com , has a lot of good
information, some for sale and a very interesting “FREE”
download section. Give it a visit.
Grey Planes???
Pg.
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o
Now you should see a list of your processors
o
Select one, or more, but not all of them and
this will force FSX to only use the select
CPU(s).
·
Now select the “Performance Tab” in the Task
Manager
·
Un-Pause FSX and monitor the CPU activity
·
The CPU(s) assigned for FSX should display 95100% usage
·
The other CPU(s) should show various levels of
activity depending on what programs you have
running.
When running “Preview Direct X10” you could be
·
missing progressive taxi lines
·
Lower Frame Rates than usual
This may work on other systems but I haven’t tested them as
yet.
·
Odd screen behavior
Good Luck
·
Planes without textures
SALTs
To see if this corrects the conditions go to:
Settings/Display/Graphics and make sure “Preview Direct X10”
is NOT checked.
This could fix the problem. But, there are other things that
could cause some of the same problems.
FSX Hangs or PC Powers Down
System hangs or PC powers down without warning and always
at the wrong time (is there ever a right time?)
If you are running Windows 7 on a multi-core processor what
I have done that seems to fix the problem for me is:
Slow And Low Tours are flight plans (FP) for FS9 and FSX.
The original FPs, for the most part have been generated by
our associate member Andy Flightsim, who resides in England.
I have flown many of his FSX FPs and he has given me the
okay to share them with club members. The FS9 FPs are my
conversions of the originals. I have tested each FP and except
for differences in scenery I feel they are worth the time to enjoy
the beauty of our world. The flights are designed to be flown
with a slow airplane and to begin at a low altitude (about 700
feet above ground elevation of the departure airport.) You will
find yourself following the valleys and waterways of
mountainous areas and using your GPS to help you get to the
various waypoints. Turn up the wrong valley, or fail to climb
rapidly when deemed necessary, and you might just eat some
dirt.
If you are interested in joining in on these flights send me an
e-mail and I will send you the Flight Plan for your Operating
System… FS 9 or FSX.
·
Open Task Manager
·
Start FSX and when the “Splash” screen appears
press “P” to pause FSX
Until next month…
Click on Processes Tab
Wayne
·
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sure you’ll be surprised, as I was, to realize just
how customized and improved your FS
installation already is, as well as by how much
more is available. You may not be able to do
everything, but you can do darned near
anything.
John’s Corner
Oh, the Things You Can Do – 2… or Too!
by John Allard
Last month’s column explored a little of what
can be done in FS using airport editors. Upon
reflection, it occurred to me that is only one of
many, many things that can be modified,
replaced, tweaked, adjusted and improved in
FS – in either version – FS9 or FSX.
Deciding that might be worth pursuing for a
follow-on article, I set out to make a list,
browsing my software shelves, computer
desktop and hard drive for inspiration and
memory joggers. Before I was half-done I had
a list that exceeded what I expected to find.
Having done this, I’m struck again by the fact
that this Flight Sim world that we’ve chosen for
our hobby is almost infinitely expandable,
adjustable, customizable to be as we like it.
Rather than focus on a single facet of that, as I
did in the column article last month, I thought
I’d explore the whole depth and breadth of
what’s available to us – much of it free.
Taking it by topics I’ll try to provide a description
or some examples in each general area and
some idea of what they are capable of. As you
read through this, keep in mind your own
installation and take note of how many of these
kinds of things you already enjoy. I’m pretty
Airports – Depending upon which version of
FS you’re using, you have access to something
like 30,000 airports, a bit more in FSX, a few
thousand less in FS9. As delivered by Flight
Simulator they’re not too bad but are capable
of serious improvement too. Last month I
covered in some detail the kind of things that
can be done with the popular editors – ADE,
AFX and even the venerable AFCAD, if you’re
still in FS9.
Certainly there’s a lot more – there are hundreds
of payware and freeware airports available as
ready-built scenery add-ons, for instance.
Those are finished products that bring airports
up from the basic FS level to something more
unique and realistic. Additionally other tools can
be brought to bear to improve them. Those
improvements can be applied to either the stock
FS airports or even to the add-on ones if you
care to. Object placers, specialized packages
such as fence makers, lighting enhancements
and all manner of other things can be applied
as you wish.
There are all sorts of esoteric utilities available
to do specific things, for example, adding an
exclusion area to suppress autogen objects. If
FS puts a chicken restaurant or an 80 foot tree
too close to your favorite runway, adding a
strategically placed exclusion area makes it go
away for ever more.
Aircraft – This is certainly one of the broadest
areas of editability in FS. At the highest level,
just putting in some already developed aircraft
is probably the most fundamental way to
enhance Flight Simulator. There’s a whole
industry of developers making payware aircraft
Continued on page 20
Breakfast Report
by John Allard
OFSC managed to pull together a near standing-roomonly crowd of about seventeen hungry flight simmers at
Scrambles Café on the morning of August 12th. I believe
we went from record low attendance at the July breakfast
to a record high turnout at this one. It’s a lot like
predicting hurricanes – more accurately done in
hindsight.
Pg.
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folks seemed happy and grateful for our business and
took good care of us once we all found a seat. Things
must be tough in the restaurant business these days.
Carol Ayers managed to get all of us into just two photos,
bravely climbing a booth to get a top-down angle on all
the men’s high foreheads (except Richard Maher, who
seems to have his well covered still). Everyone appears
to be having a good time, and so it seemed to us at the
time.
The food and service were good and we pronounced it
another success. Our club is really quite good at this
breakfast thing. We either have a natural talent for it or
it’s just easier than it looks.
Get Well Wishes
by John Allard
Our number included new members Jim and Kay Keim
and the seldom-seen Jeff Abrams, just back from five
weeks of transition training to the Airbus A320 for UPS
(from DC-8s, which UPS has retired). Jeff had some
good tales about his job and the transition training. He
notes, for instance, that fourteen 4-hour simulator
sessions gives him over 50 hours time in the AC without
having yet been aboard it. Now that’s flight simulation.
I guess if you can’t be retired, Jeff has made a pretty
decent second choice, and some of us were a little
envious of his experiences.
The restaurant struggled mightily with seating us, despite
early warning. Like the Indians at Little Big Horn, OFSC
members just kept coming and coming. Each ad hoc
rearrangement of tables and chairs was rendered
obsolete by the next pair’s arrival. Some ended up gridlocked against the windows with no visible means of
egress, but we managed. Despite all that, the Scrambles
We sometimes don’t hear of these things until
after the fact, and maybe sometimes, not at
all. None the less, OFSC wishes to extend
get well wishes to friends who have had
medical adventures recently…
•
•
•
Joan Neal
Jim Dillman
Margie Jones
Best wishes for a speedy and event-free
recovery to all of you.
August Dinner
by John Allard
Stone Creek Grille hosted the OFSC for our August
dinner on the 26th. Counting noses in Carol’s photos
jibes with my on scene tally of fifteen, so that’s the
official number. It’s one of those rare months when
we had more at breakfast than at dinner, but fifteen
is still a respectable turnout for us.
Carmen Gerber turned up with good news about
her pending driver training. It seems all the legal
and paperwork hurdles have been negotiated and
only the actual course – the easy part in this case –
remains. New members Jim and Kay Keim joined
us – a fairly long trek for them from far-off Belleview.
Also, Matt and Marsha Olieman, who we haven’t
seen in a while, were with us. Matt always has his
fingers on the pulse of the FS world and can
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of manicotti disappearing quickly. Since Joan
Neal was not there, it would probably be better
that I not mention that Jack did not eat his
vegetables, unless you count the carrot cake.
Wayne and Lea reported egg production is on the
rise again after a slow summer and distributed
their wares in the parking lot after dinner. (I wonder
why we’ve never attracted the attention of law
enforcement during those exchanges.) Wayne
reports that he recently foiled the predations of a
snake on their property that had developed a taste
for eggs too, adding to the upturn in production.
No doubt the hens are in a more relaxed mood
over that turn of events as well.
Anyway, another great time is in the books. See
you all at the next one.
Update - AirHauler Record Attempt
by John Allard
be counted on for the latest news and good insight
into what it all means. Several of the regulars were
not there and we missed them, but trust they’ll be
along when next we meet. I still half-expect Dave
and Helen to walk in. Maybe they’ll surprise us one
of these times.
There haven’t been many establishments where
we’ve had both breakfast and dinner – The
Uptown Grill and Bob Evans are the only others
that come to mind, but the Stone Creek Grille
seems to be a very nice place and does well at
both meal times. After having our July breakfast
there, the ladies must have been pleased. They
lost no time in putting it on the dinner list too. I
don’t think anyone was disappointed. The fish
and chips were excellent and I saw nearby plates
Well, it didn’t quite happen as planned. AirHauler
developer Duncan “Slopey” Murray ran into some
unforeseen issues unrelated to AH and the entire event
has been postponed indefinitely.
You may recall from the article here last month that this
was to be an attempt to better the existing record for the
most simultaneous AH users in flight from the current 80
+ to… well, to something better. The 2-hour window,
initially set for August 20th, was to include a dedicated
web-host server for multiplayer flying for those who wished
to use that and also some door prizes for randomly chosen
participants.
Note that at this time, this is being characterized as an
indefinite postponement, not a cancellation. No new date
has been established pending resolution of those things
that interfered, but there will definitely be another attempt
– stay tuned.
New Members
by John Allard
We had a bumper crop of new blood join us at our August
meeting and it appears that they will be staying with us.
Jim and Kay Keim, who reside in the same development
as Bob and Betty Puttre, out Belleview way, visited our
August 5th meeting. They’ve jumped right in, having since
attended the breakfast at Scrambles on the 12th and the
dinner at Stone Creek Grille on the 26th.
Jim is an Air Force
veteran with 4-1/2
year’s service and is
retired from a career
with UPS, last at
Capital City Airport in
Lansing, Michigan.
He’s been a MSFS
user since FS5 or
before and is
experienced with tweaking downloaded aircraft to improve
them. We’re hoping to see and hear some of his tricks
and techniques.
Also showing his face for the first time at the August
meeting was Terry Bryson, who we’ve been corresponding
with via e-mail for a couple of months prior to that. Terry
is a GE service rep for medical imaging equipment in our
area and works some odd hours as a result. He is an
experienced flight simmer and also holds a Private Pilot
license, though is not an active RW flyer at present. Terry
is a USMC veteran.
We first got in touch with Terry
through Dree – Terry was a
customer of Dree’s KOCF
software and was the first to
report the recent ATIS radio
frequency problem.
Terry is experienced with the
gmax graphics program and
has done a number of steam
locomotives for a train simulator. He’s lost no time stepping
up to the plate with OFSC and has agreed to give us a
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gmax/locomotive demo at the September meeting. Gmax
is the preferred program for producing FS model files too,
so his experience with that has a definite FS connection.
That may prove useful for members with a hankering to
build their own FS aircraft from scratch.
We’re happy to extend a warm OFSC welcome to Kay
and Jim Keim and to Terry Bryson and hope to see them
regularly at our events.
Thank-Yous and Attaboys
by John Allard
Member Category:
Bob Puttre – for the demo of his new Augen
Reader at the August meeting.
George Million – for the Grumman Goose
Miami-Ft. Lauderdale tour at the August
Meeting.
Hank Jazwinski, Jim Dillman and Jeff
Abrams - for Hot Links submittals.
Non-Member Category
Joe “Mutley” Lawford – for figuring out and
fixing broken links in the newsletter postings at
Mutley’s Hangar.
Andre “Dree” Boot – for the suggesting
PdfMerge to solve our file fragmenting problem
with the Gosport – also used as a Hot Links
item.
--------------------------------NOTE: The newsletter staff has no wish to
slight anyone – ever. If you know of someone
who deserves mention here, please let Editor
Steve Austin or writer John Allard know. If
someone should have been mentioned and
wasn’t, please assume it was an honest
oversight and let us know so we can correct
the situation.
Pg.
8
August OFSC Meeting
by John Allard
Our August meeting was attended by fifteen
members and three visitors/prospective new
members.
The visitors were Jim and Kay Keim who are
neighbors of Bob and Betty Puttre, and Terry
Bryson. Jim and Terry introduced themselves
briefly and let us know a little bit about their
backgrounds. See elsewhere in this issue for a
more complete rundown of the new faces.
Gene Ayers reported on our treasury status –
see elsewhere in this issue for the details.
Bob Puttre displayed a
new toy he’d just
acquired
and
described how he
intends to use it. What
he demonstrated was
an Augen model EBA701
e-Reader,
essentially an MP3
player with additional
functions. It features a
7" color screen, a full
QWERTY keyboard
(aspirin-tablet keys)
and
is
wireless
capable.
As
purchased it comes
with 2 GB of on-board
storage which is
expandable to 8 GB.
Bob’s intent, mirroring
a developing trend in
real-world GA aviation,
is to use the hand-held
device in the “cockpit”
while flying, primarily
to display maps and charts, approach plates,
AC performance data and such. The reader
handles pdf files and other graphics and text
file formats; the requisite documents can be
loaded into the device from cable, wireless or
memory stick.
Bob was very tolerant, passing the gizmo
around with no obvious apprehension, letting
each of us examine it closely and push a few
buttons. Consulting on-line prices after the
meeting indicates that it can be had for less
than $100. We’re looking forward to hearing
more from Bob about how this interesting box
is working out for him in his flying.
John Allard reported closure on the issue of an
inoperable
ATIS
frequency in the KOCF
scenery. All FS9 and
FSX users should have
the fix installed. If you
still need help with this,
consult with John via email.
There was a brief
discussion of the
proposed workshop;
nothing definitive has
been settled.
It was reported that the
problems with keeping
the newsletter to a single
pdf file have been
resolved by bringing a
new (free) software tool
to bear. We don’t expect
to be publishing any
more fragmented issues
of the Gosport.
John Allard gave a short
demo of “Free Virtual
Keyboard”,
a
downloaded applet that
was the subject of an
article in the August Gosport. The application
pretty much describes itself by its name.
Outside the Envelope
Submitted by Hank Jazwinski
Traipsing around in that dismal gray area outside the envelope
has its consequences ...
Pg.
9
Cesarz intended to see what the CRJ200 could do. Four
seconds after takeoff at 9:21 PM, the two pilots did a “pitch
up” maneuver that pinned them in their seats with 1.8 g’s of
force and momentarily triggered an alert from the airplane’s
stall warning system. Minutes later, Rhodes and Cesarz again
yanked back on the control column, rocketing the plane upward
and generating over 2.3 g’s of force before they eased off the
flight controls.
The 410 Club
For three and a half minutes on the night of Oct. 14, 2004,
Capt. Jesse Rhodes and First Officer Peter Cesarz were on
top of the world. The two Pinnacle Airlines pilots had pushed
their twin-engine, 50-seat regional jet to its maximum altitude
and were now proud members of the “410 club,” an unofficial
society of Pinnacle airmen who’ve attained 41,000 ft. in a
Bombardier CRJ200.
For a description/picture see:
After briefly leveling off at 37,000 ft., the crew set the autopilot
to climb at 500 ft. per minute—more than twice the fastest
recommended rate—to the airplane’s maximum altitude of
41,000 ft. As the plane rose, it succumbed to the physics of
high-altitude flight: Thin atmosphere offers less lift and robs
the engine of air. Stuck in an aggressive climbing mode, Flight
3701’s speed began to drop. To maintain the rate of climb,
the autopilot angled the nose of the aircraft up, slowing it
further. By the time the aircraft reached 41,000 ft. and leveled
off, it was flying slowly, at 150 knots indicated airspeed, and
was perilously close to losing aerodynamic lift—or stalling.
www.crj.bombardier.com/CRJ/en/specifications.jsp?langId=en&crjId ...
Rhodes went to the galley to grab a cold Pepsi’s to celebrate.
He was barely settled back in the cockpit when the plane’s
radio crackled. “Are you a RJ [regional jet] 200?” inquired an
air traffic controller in Olathe, Kan. “I’ve never seen you guys
up at forty-one there.” “Yeah ... we don’t have any passengers
on board so we decided to have a little fun and come on up
here,” Rhodes replied. The fun was short-lived. Moments later,
both engines flamed out.
The fate of Flight 3701 is the subject of an intensive
investigation by the National Transportation Safety
Board (NTSB), which is expected to issue a final report on the
accident in the next few months. Until then, neither Pinnacle
Airlines, which operates connecting flights for Northwest
Airlines, nor Bombardier and General Electric, —the airplane
and engine manufacturers — can comment on the cause of
the accident. However, the pilots’ taped cockpit conversations
and preliminary hearings last June suggest a scenario involving
poor judgment, insufficient training and the complications
that can occur when a plane is pushed beyond its
capabilities.
Rhodes, 31, and Cesarz, 23, were on what pilots call a
deadhead, transferring an empty plane overnight from
Little Rock AR, to Minneapolis so it could be ready for a
morning flight. The Canadian-built CRJ200 is Pinnacle’s
workhorse, making short and midrange hops mostly in the
Midwest. From wheels-up, it was clear that Rhodes and
“This thing ain’t gonna [expletive] hold altitude,” Cesarz said.
“It can’t man,” Rhodes replied. We cruised/greased] up here
but it won’t stay.” The combination of high altitude and low
speed once again triggered the Bombardier’s stall warning
system. First, “stick shakers” rattled the control columns and
disengaged the autopilot to alert the crew of an imminent stall.
When the crew didn’t lower the plane’s nose to gain speed,
“stick pushers” forced the control columns forward. The flight
data recorder shows that Rhodes and Cesarz overrode the
stick pushers three times and forced the plane’s nose back
up. At 9:55 PM, as they pulled up for the last time, both engines
flamed out. “We don’t have any engines,” one of the pilots
said.
While the altimeter spun downward, the crew hurriedly
reviewed their options for restarting the engines. At that
altitude, there were six suitable airports within reach for a forced
landing. Despite the serious nature of their predicament, the
pilots did not notify air traffic control (ATC) of their situation or
request emergency landing clearance. First, they tried a
“windmill restart” by diving to increase airspeed. The maneuver
is intended to force air into the engine housing, spinning the
rotors and creating enough compression for ignition. The
procedure requires at least 300 knots of airspeed. But at
20,000 ft. and only 236 knots, the crew pulled up, and decided
instead to try a second option: Drop to 13,000 ft. and attempt
to relight the engines using the plane’s auxiliary power unit
(APU), which generates pneumatic pressure to spin the
engine’s core. Rhodes and Cesarz tried at least four times to
jumpstart the engines using the APU.
On each attempt the engine cores recorded no rotation.
At 10:03 PM, the crew radioed ATC that they had a single
engine failure. Five minutes later, at an altitude of
10,000 ft., and descending at 1500 ft. per minute,
Rhodes and Cesarz were running out of options for
restarting the engines. Finally, 12 minutes after the twin
flameout, they revealed to ATC that they had a double
engine failure. The plane’s landing choices were now
limited to two airports. With the runway lights of
Jefferson City airport in sight, but altitude slipping away,
Rhodes and Cesarz realized they were in big trouble.
“Dude, we’re not going to make this,” Rhodes said.
“We’re gonna hit houses, dude.” They crashed 2-1/2
miles shy of the runway—behind a row of houses. On
impact, the plane split apart, flipped over and caught
fire. Rhodes and Cesarz were killed. Miraculously, no
one on the ground was injured.
An area of contention during the NTSB hearings about
Flight 3701 has been whether a condition called ”core
lock” contributed to the fatal crash. Under normal
conditions, the rotating parts inside a General Electric
CF34-3B1 turbofan engine slip by each other in a finely
tuned choreography. However, when an engine is shut
down suddenly at high torque, high altitude, and it isn’t
restarted immediately, metal parts inside the engine
begin to cool and contract at different rates. In rare
cases, metal can contact metal and prevent the core
from rotating freely—core lock.
The Air Line Pilots Association suggests that core lock,
rather than pilot error, might have been the primary cause
of the accident. (YGTBSM!) But, a review of the flight
data recorder makes clear that the pilots made a series
of poor, and potentially fatal, decisions irrespective
of whether the engines experienced core lock.
The Bombardier has a 41,000-ft. service ceiling.
However, according to the climb profiles in the crew’s
flight manual, the maximum altitude for the 500-ft.-perminute climb the pilots set was only 38,700 ft., based
on the atmospheric conditions and the aircraft’s weight
that night. By operating outside the airplane’s
performance envelope, Rhodes and Cesarz subjected
the engines to tremendous stress. The flight data
recorder shows that soon after the crew ignored the
fourth stall warning, the core temperature of the right
engine reached 2200 degrees—almost 600 degrees
above redline. When investigators pulled apart the
right engine, they found that the ends of the highpressure turbine blades had liquefied, re-solidifying on
Pg.
10
the low-pressure blades behind them. This leads some
industry experts to question if the right engine ever could
have restarted. Whether the left engine locked up is
still being investigated. GE helped the NTSB
disassemble Flight 3701’s engines. Edward Orear, GE’s
former program manager for the CF34-3B1 engine,
testified to the NTSB that neither engine showed
evidence of core lock.
The data recorder shows that the pilots failed to follow
proper procedures for restarting a flamed-out engine
when they pulled out of their dive before reaching the
necessary speed to spin the core. Whether the
apparently undamaged left engine could have restarted
if they had windmilled correctly may never be known.
It’s also unresolved why the left engine didn’t restart
when the pilots used the APU. Since the crash, Pinnacle
has set a ceiling of 37,000 ft. for all CRJ200 flights. It
has also added detailed climb profiles to the pilots’ quick
reference guides. And the airline has modified its
simulator training program, incorporating dual engine
failure and stall recovery scenarios. Although Flight
3701 ended tragically, it illustrates how many safety
features protect commercial passengers crew misused
the auto-pilot, took the plane outside its envelope and
repeatedly overrode the safety system.
As one pilot said: “It’s an object lesson in how many
things you have to get wrong in order to crash
your plane.”
COVER STORY....
1929 Curtiss Robin – A Dream. Or Was It?
Saturdays were not for schoolwork, chores or cleaning
my room. The whole week is filled with what I had to do,
which really wasn’t much but it’s not really what I wanted
to be doing. Homework had to be done, trash had to be
taken out, I had to watch my little sister (ugh). Everywhere
I went she followed. Mom asked me to take her. Didn’t
have to but felt like I couldn’t say no. Saturday’s not too
far away. Then it was there. It’ Saturday!!
I got up early, hopped on my bike and started out. The
folks knew where I was headed. They didn’t worry. It was
1957. There was nothing to worry about…..well not like
today! I had a twenty minute ride to Flying Cloud Airport,
about two miles away from my house. I knew many people
at the airport. I’d been going there for a couple years
already and a nine year old boy hanging around an airport
seemed normal to me. Pilots cleaning and working on
their airplanes of every description, would welcome me
into their hanger, we talked, I helped and asked a lot of
questions. No one seemed to mind.
About 1958 I was at the west end of the airport on my
bike, leaning on a fence. I was watching two men, Norm
Sten, who owned the airplane and Arden Magnusen, his
good friend, who had rolled an airplane out of an old
dilapidated hangar. The airplane had no wings, just a
freshly painted orange fuselage.The wings were in the
hangar for another days work. One man crawled into the
cockpit, the other took his position in front of the airplane
under the propeller. “switch off??”, he yelled. “Switch off!!”,
came the yell in reply, from the cockpit. Long story, short
(which this is supposed to be…) they were propping this
bird. The bird was a 1929 Curtiss Robin nearing the end
of a complete restoration. This was the maiden firing of a
freshly overhauled OX-5 Tank engine. It took several pulls
through of the prop to get some fuel pulled into the
cylinders, then, “CONTACT??” “CONTACT!!”. About thirty
seconds of coughing and sputtering and shaking and
smoking! It began to slowly smooth out and was music to
their ears. The Robin was chocked and Norm got out of
the cockpit, Arden came around and some well deserved
back slapping was going on!
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11
After about 20 minutes of idling, the men shut it down. At
that point, I was noticed leaning on the fence watching all
this. One man came over closer and told me, “don’t just
sit there, come on in!” There was a gate nearby and I
didn’t need to be told twice!! I was introduced to Norm
and Arden. There began a 40 year relationship. Now, I
was 11 and Norm was 50-ish (gray hair anyway), Arden
about the same. Norm told me to hop in. Again, I didn’t
have to be told twice! As I was in that bit of heaven, they
busied themselves preparing to push the Robin back into
the hangar. Shortly, with my invaluable help, WE had her
all snug back in the hangar. The floor was dirt, smelled of
a combination of motor oil, rubber, fabric, dope, old
upholstery, old everything!! Wonderful!!
I didn’t see Arden too often after that but he kept an old
1922 Overland automobile nestled in Norms hangar under
the wing of the Curtiss Robin (after the Robin got her wings
back). The years proceeded (this is supposed to be a
short story…) with me pedaling to the airport almost every
Saturday. Being that Minnesota’s winters are pretty harsh,
I would only make it up there every other Saturday or so.
Norm was usually there, even in the winter, just doing
little projects around the hangar. He always had an extra
cheese sandwich with him for me, knowing I’d be there. I
have great memories of his steaming hot thermos full of
coffee in the freezing hangar. The hangar door was usually
frozen to the ground, plus it was way to cold to fly these
old airplanes with no heaters. But in the spring, summer
and fall, Norm took me up flying many times. On special
weekends he would invite me to fly with him to an airshow
or a breakfast fly-in off in Wisconsin or Iowa somewhere.
It was a dream……….or was it?
Steve Austin
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12
Once leased, the first of the monthly lease payments
comes due on the first of the month and on each
Lease or Buy
by: John Allard
In all but his first aircraft, which is an undeserved
gift from the AH gods, owned free and clear, the
user must choose to either lease or buy. The buy
option is pretty obvious and uncomplicated. You
want it – you give the man the money – he gives
you the airplane. It couldn’t be any more simple.
AH provides another way, however – leasing. For
all AC acquisitions after his initial start-up plane,
the user/owner will have to make that choice. In
getting horsed up for writing this piece I went back
and read a lot of the postings, both on the Just Flight/
AirHauler forum, where many of the users hang out,
but also in the private AH Tester’s forum. The latter
in particular was an interesting trip down memory
lane. I’d forgotten a lot of the details of that,
particularly how much discussion and deliberation
there was over the finer points of leasing and how it
would eventually be implemented in the software.
It was a good read and reminded me again how far
the app has come since the early beta days.
The rationale for leases was part of the
comprehensive plan for making it relatively quick
and easy for the user to graduate to heavy aircraft
if that’s where his desires lay. It was a design goal
to not force those who wanted to fly tube-liners to
fool around for months in bug smashers. Leasing
eased the way for AH entrepreneurs to acquire a
big aircraft without the necessity of accumulating
the full purchase price before adding it to his hangar.
It didn’t amount to an instant 747, but certainly
greased the wheels to roll more easily in that
direction.
The mechanics of leasing are fairly simple. If an
AC is to be leased in AH, an up-front lease deposit
must be paid. That is a fixed fraction of the purchase
price of the AC – an eighth. That amount, being
just a deposit, is always refunded to the user/owner
when the AC is either returned or purchased
outright, unless he defaults on a lease payment.
succeeding first-of-the-month thereafter. In the first
month, the amount of the lease payment is prorated from the lease date to the payment date.
Subsequent monthly payments are for a constant
1/18th of the AC purchase price, the contract being
based on an 18-month lease term.
The leasing alternative includes the option to buy
at any time, with the deposit returned and the
amount of all lease payments made applied against
the full purchase price. From that perspective,
strictly in money terms, buying and leasing are a
wash.
Leasing in AH really is an attractive option in most
cases, though is not without a few down sides.
Looking first at the benefits, the most obvious is
that the AC can be had and put to work earlier
and for less up-front money than if purchased.
That’s a fine old business practice in the real world
and it’s mostly how businesses run – even airlines
- - - it might even be safe to say especially air
lines. Revenue-generating assets are frequently
leased or alternatively purchased with borrowed
money, which is not so much different. This
permits said asset to be acquired sooner and put
to work generating income earlier than would
otherwise be possible. The revenue flows in and
some is used to service the debt or the lease
payments, hopefully with some left over to go to
the bottom line of the balance sheet. Waiting to
earn the money to buy the asset outright is
generally considered to be an exercise in lost
revenue opportunity.
Another leasing benefit in AirHauler is the ability
to let the leased AC go at any time, for any reason.
To describe a case where that may be desirable,
there is a limit in AH on how many insurance
claims may be made against a particular aircraft.
If your AI pilot isn’t Bob Hoover or Charles
Lindbergh he’s going to bend some tin once in a
while and the insurance policy you carry on each
AC (if you’re smart) insulates you from the worst
effects of that. At some number of claims,
however, (no, I’m not going to tell you how many
that is) the insurance company “blackballs” that
AC and refuses to insure it. If leased, you can
simply return the ill-treated beast and lease
another just like it. If you own it outright, you’re
faced with a set of several unattractive options.
Depending upon how long you’ll keep a specific
AC, leasing may confer another benefit, i.e. the
cost of ownership. If purchased an AC suffers a
Pg.
13
hefty depreciation right up front and can only be
sold for about half of what was paid for it. If leased
and returned, you’re out the lease payments made,
which sounds like a bad deal on the surface. Do
the math, however, and it’s plain that if an AC is
acquired and disposed of, nine months is the breakeven. If held for less than that, the depreciation
loss that would be suffered under the purchase
option exceeds the amount to be paid in eight or
fewer monthly lease payments. Obviously, if held
over nine months, the teeter-totter totters the other
way. Suffice to say that in a growing air-freight
company, nine months is an awfully long time to
operate the same kind of aircraft, so leasing
supports growth.
Not to ignore the dark side of leasing, there are a
few negatives. Leased AC contribute nothing to
the company Net Worth, one of several important
company statistics – they don’t really belong to
you. Missed lease payments, should you be
unable to meet them, are even worse. The AC is
gone and your lease deposit is forfeit, along with
the ability to generate any further revenue from
that AC. If you’re in a hole that may just cost you
your only way out.
To compound that, I’ve known some AH owneroperators who succumbed to the temptation to
grow too fast. With a whole fleet of leased trashhaulers and a stable to AI pilots to fly them on the
books, the first of the month can be a gutwrencher. Some lose everything in a downward
spiral from unsupportable growth, often fueled by
cheap leases. It IS possible to lose at AH and
that’s one very good way to do it.
Pg.
14
Inactivity is discouraged by various things in AirHauler. One inherent property of a leased AC is
that the lease payment is due whether you use it or not – whether it generates any revenue or
not. If purchased, you’ve paid in advance, so it’s a sunk cost. Inactivity costs you nothing further.
With a leased AC, however, there’s always pressure to use it at least enough to cover the lease
payment for the month or it’s an ongoing drag on your company bank account.
Another downside occurs when replacing aircraft, depending upon your preferences and
perspective. Selling an owned AC nets about half its purchase price. That represents ready
cash available to be put toward the next AC, whether it will be purchased or leased. Returning a
leased AC brings only the lease deposit, about an eighth of the sale value. That variance in the
amount of “salvage value” (in accounting terms), particularly early in the company growth cycle,
can make a difference in the timing and the choice of how far up the list of available AC that next
step can be. Using leased AC tends to support more frequent but smaller steps up the equipment
ladder. Purchased AC lead to holding them longer, but making a larger leap when replacement
time comes.
AirHauler is full of twists and turns, presenting the user with a constant stream of decisions to be
made, choices to be evaluated, stumbling blocks and pitfalls to be avoided. The leased aircraft
option is an example of one such feature – able to help you on your way or to trip you up. Some
swear by leasing; others will only purchase AC outright. Still others mix it up, with some of each.
There’s really no clearly right or wrong answer – figuring out these things is half the fun and true
AirHaulics wouldn’t want it any other way.
SOLUTION TO CROSSWORD
PUZZLE ON PG. 27
Pg.
15
Ocala Flight Sim Club
Veterans Honor Roll
Jim Dillman US Army………..................………………………………………………..……...........… 1943-1946 WW II
Jack Neal US Navy………………………...................………………………………….……...........… 1944-1946 WW II
Ken Smith USMC…………………………………….................…………..............……1945-1949 & 1950-1953 WW II
Dave Clark US Army Air Force……………………………………..................…………….................1945-1946 WW II
Bob Puttre USAF………………………………...................................………………………………………...........……..1948-1969
George Million US Navy…………………………………………..................………….........……....…………1951-1955
Wayne Knowles US Air Force…………………………………..................………………………...........……1951-1955
Gene Ayers US Navy...…………………………………...................………………………………........…….. 1954-1973
Charles Caravetta US Navy……………….................….....................…1955-1965; US Naval Reserve, 1981-1985
Bill West Royal Canadian Air Force
…....................................................................................1955-1957
Henry Jazwinski US Army…………………………………..................……………..........…….……………..1958-1964
Daniel (Skip) Tucker US Navy……………..................…………………………………...........….………….1959–1965
JP Tyson US National Guard………….................…………………………………………………….............1964-1971
Jim Keim USAF....................................................................................................................................... 1965-1970
Steve Austin US Navy……………………………………………..................………………………..........…..1966-1970
John Allard US Navy………………………………….................……………………………………..........….1966-1970
John McWatters US Army……..................………………………………………………………….…............1966-1968
Harold Reeg US Army………………………………………..................……………………………..........…..1967-1970
Matt Olieman US Army……………………………………..................………………………….…….........….1968-1971
David Jones US Air Force……………………........................................…1970-1973; Air National Guard, 1973-1976
Terry Bryson USMC....................................................................................................................................1976-1980
HATS OFF TO OUR VETERANS - We Salute You!
Pg.
16
Hot Links
by John Allard
This page is a repository for links to the interesting, the odd, the obscure, and sometimes, the useful aviation-related
things to be found on the internet. If you’ve discovered a gem, please submit it with a brief description by e-mail to
Steve Austin or John Allard.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Flight – by Microsoft
http://www.microsoft.com/games/flight/
No other link could lead the pack this month – it had to be this one. What you’ll see is a surprise 45-second teaser that
appeared a couple of weeks ago on the MS site, pretty much without any advance warning and with little else in the
way of information besides a two-paragraph statement serving notice that they’re working on something flight-related.
Marketing 101, methinks. I had hoped to make this the topic of one of the longer articles this month, but though the
web is abuzz with speculation and discussion, there’s nothing of substance to write about yet. Draw your own conclusions
about where this one might take us – and when.
-----------------------------------------------------------
F-22 Demo at Farnborough Air Show
http://www.militarytimes.com/multimedia/video/index_da.swf?fa=armytimes&wa=armytimes&wd=575&ht=324&cp=21772&bw=&state=vid&em=false&fn=/flv/20080714_rc_f22
This is a 7:18 narrated video of the F-22 Raptor demo flown at this summer’s Farnborough Air Show. It was done
under a fairly low cloud deck, which didn’t seem to hamper the show in any serious way. If you weren’t already
impressed by this airplane, this should do it. - Submitted by Hank Jazwinski
----------------------------------------------------------
PdfMerge – Freeware Utility for Merging PDF Files
http://www.snapfiles.com/reviews/pdfmerge/pdfmerge.html
This came our way by suggestion of Dree, our Dutch friend and programmer of the KOCF airport scenery. It’s a utility
program that lets you combine pdf files into a single pdf and includes the capability to select specific pages to include,
rather than an entire file. Dree threw the link our way in response to the issues with the fragmented Gosport of late. Its
usefulness, however, goes beyond that. If you think in terms of Bob Puttre’s quest for easy to access, in-cockpit charts
and approach plates, the possibilities become endless. It’s a good fit with the next link below, too. - Submitted by
Andre “Dree” Boot
-----------------------------------------------------------
Pg.
17
PDFKneeboard
http://code.google.com/p/fscode/wiki/PDFKneeboard
Quoted from the developer’s site, “View and interact with PDF files (e.g. charts, check-lists, etc.) right inside of MS
Flight Simulator. PDFKneeboard is packaged in two versions - one for FS9/2004 (pdfkneeboard##.zip) and one for
FSX SP2 (pdfkneeboard##X.zip)”.
This application adds a menu item under the “Module” pad of the FS Top-Line menu. It pops up a resizable, relocatable
window that can be dragged to the second monitor if desired. By virtue of being installed as a FS Module, it’s an
inherent part of FS and FS does not “lose focus” when you are using the PDFKneeboard window. Sub-menu choices
are Show; Hide; Load a File; Unload a File; Settings. There are keyboard shortcuts for each. This app is in addition
to – does not replace – the original MSFS Kneeboard. It displays the loaded pdf but permits each page to be rotated,
panned and zoomed independently of the others and it remembers the “state” of each page – if you scroll off one to
look at another, when you return it will be as you left it. I’ve used this and it works very well. I can’t detect any frame
rate hit in FS9.
----------------------------------------------------------Tutorial for Adding a Virtual Cockpit to Any FS Aircraft
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17996209
I found this link posted at Mutley’s Hangar. I’ve followed it and read the article, but have not attempted to use this. It
certainly looks plausible and seems to be on a reputable FS-related site. If you’ve got a favorite AC that has no VC
and you’d like one, this might be an easy way to have it your way. It might be just the thing for upgrading freeware AC
too – those often have no VC.
---------------------------------------------------------Oshkosh Videos
http://marcbrecy.perso.neuf.fr/Oshkosh.html
Yes, it’s that time of year again. Oshkosh has come and gone and the videos are out. This one is 5:08, set to music,
too much to even attempt describing – just watch if! The parade of DC-3s alone is worth it. – Submitted by Jeff Abrams
AND Jim Dillman.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcFOzE4K5NE
Another from Oshkosh – 5:48; different; just as good. Some of the video sequences are speeded up, I guess to pack
more in, but it’s all good. There’s a short sequence with an F-15 Eagle, an F-4 Phantom and TWO P-38s flying in
formation – where else can you see that?
--------------------------------------------------------
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NTSB to Recommend Installation of U.S. Senators on Every GA Aircraft
http://wineandexcrement.com/ntsb-to-recommend-installation-of-u-s-senators-on-every-ga-aircraft/2370/
This is a tongue-in-cheek article from a tongue-in-cheek website with a catchy URL. This article is a good read,
drawing for inspiration on the recent Alaska crash of a DHC-3T Beaver that killed former US Senator Ted Stevens and
others. Despite the dismal subject matter, you might find their analysis the funniest thing you’ll read today. If you like
it, click to their home page and there’s a lot more. Not much of it is aviation oriented, but you might still enjoy some of
them.
--------------------------------------------------------Bob Hoover - Nobody does it better...
http://www.wimp.com/pilottea/
This is an old and famous Bob Hoover clip – you’ve probably heard of it but may never have seen it. Bob was a lot
younger then. It only runs about 2-1/2 minutes. Don’t miss the glass of iced tea stunt. Classic Hoover!
--------------------------------------------------------RC/RW Mid-Air Collision
http://www.avweb.com/avwebflash/exclusivevids/Biplane_RemoteControlledAirplane_MidairCollision_203157-1.html
I’ll bet someone’s pilot certificate is at risk here, and probably not the guy flying the RC.
--------------------------------------------------------Karen’s Power Tools
http://www.karenware.com/
Karen Ware.com, with a free newsletter sign-up and a list of free, downloadable PC utilities. In all there are about thirty
applets for you to grab if you’re interested. I’m partial to the Directory Printer – something that DOS could do but
Windows forgot. This fixes it. – From Jim Dillman
---------------------------------------------------------
Pg.
19
OFSC Workshop
by John Allard
We had a very brief discussion at the July meeting concerning the possibility of another
OFSC Flight Sim Workshop. There seemed to be a consensus that this might be a
worthwhile thing to do and a good suggestion was made that doing it in the winter
months made the most sense. Beyond that not much of substance was discussed or
decided.
I agreed to solicit input here. You may recall that our first workshop was at Landmark
Aviation, on a Saturday, from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM. We had three stations; two basic
sessions, one in the morning and one in the afternoon; two intermediate sessions, one
in the morning and one in the afternoon; one advanced session, all day.
In the interest of keeping it simple I’m reducing this to a form. Print this page and fill it
out to bring to the meeting. Give it some thought before you come. If you can’t make
the meeting, give us your feedback via e-mail, before the meeting if possible.
Name ____________________________________________________
I am willing to be:
Student
Presenter
Both
Neither
(circle one)
Topics I would like to see presented: ________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
Topics I would be willing to present: _________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
I would be willing to man a FS Discussion table
Yes
No
(circle one)
List days of the week that are preferable to you to have a workshop
M
T
W
Th
F
Sa
Su
(Circle one)
What to do differently or better than last time: __________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
If more space is needed please include on seperate piece of paper and submit at the next
meeting or email to Wayne, John or Steve. This is intended to be fun and informative.
John's Corner (con't fm pg. 4)
as fast as we can buy them and a parallel group of
freeware developers who are just as prolific and in many
cases, just as good as the guys banging them out for the
software houses.
Many payware aircraft now come with “configuration
editors” of one sort or another. These are a means of
providing a user-friendly, front-end interface for adjusting
fuel, payload and certain other visible or aerodynamic
features of the aircraft. You don’t have to fly with full fuel
tanks and empty cargo bays if you don’t wish to. Most AC
are quite different beasts at the opposite ends of the CG
or weight range.
Once acquired and installed, the aircraft themselves are
highly customizable with or without additional software
tools. Repaints, i.e. different liveries, are common and a
whole series of software tools exist to permit the enduser to do that for himself in the event he can’t find what
he needs from the download sites. Several specialized
utilities exist for supporting repaint activities, e.g. DXTBmp,
which makes texture files in the various, sometimes
confusing compressed bitmap formats readily accessible
and editable.
Editing the aircraft.cfg file of an FS aircraft requires no
more than Notepad to effect but is a powerful window into
the soul of each aircraft. All manner of things can be
added, adjusted or otherwise affected there. It’s easy to
do and the SDK doc files (see below for a discussion of
the SDKs) provide detailed data on the what and the how
of it. Things as varied as the capacity of fuel tanks, the
steering angle of the nose gear or the sensitivity of the
autopilot are there, along with hundreds of other things
you might never have imagined you could fool with. You
CAN fool with them, and easily. This file is also where
new liveries are coupled up to the aircraft so they’ll display
as options when you’re choosing what you want to fly
today.
Each aircraft has an air file, i.e. a file with an “.air”
extension, which defines most of the aerodynamic
behavior of the aircraft. These are not in plain English
and are not able to be edited directly nor even read by
normal means. None the less, utilities exist that allow
Pg.
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these black-box files too to be examined and tweaked by
the end user.
Traffic – FS comes with traffic and a traffic engine that
makes them behave, at least superficially, as if they were
piloted by people – not necessarily very smart people,
but people none the less. It’s not bad as is, but this is an
area where the add-on creators have had a field day. Fullfledged, comprehensive payware traffic programs abound,
often providing literally thousands of aircraft and livery
combinations, thousands of enhanced airports to
accommodate them (mainly with upgraded parking) and
hundreds of thousands of lines of data in flight plan files
to make them appear where and when intended. These
packages are highly customizable, expandable and
editable, providing all sorts of tools for the user to manage
and view their traffic’s comings and goings.
In addition to those things, freeware packages for traffic
litter the download sites. They range from single AI aircraft
to packages consisting of various collections of AI aircraft,
flight plans, airport parking upgrades, editors, radars,
maps, explorers, viewers, random traffic generators and
more. Virtually all of it is free. Some other difficult to
categorize utilities exist too – HeliTraffic from Flight1, for
instance or AISmooth. The former somehow convinces
helicopters that they are helicopters – the latter makes AI
traffic play better together, if not completely conflict-free.
Panels – You don’t like the panel in one of your aircraft?
There’s a nifty gauge in one that you’d like to have in
another – or several others? An AC you like lacks
something important? No problem! By a technique called
“aliasing” an entire panel from one aircraft can be made
to appear in another and the transplanted panel will work
quite well. If you prefer less radical surgery, whether you
use a purchased panel editor or just bang away at the
panel.cfg file with Notepad, the instrument panels of FS
aircraft are amongst the most easily modified of the aircraft
components. Cloning an instrument found in one AC in
the panel of another is child’s play once you see it done a
time or two. You’ll wonder what held you back.
The 2D panels are easier, but the 3Ds can also be
tweaked. Individual instruments can be added, moved,
shrunk or expanded almost at will. They can be copied
from one AC and installed in another, or in many others.
FS instruments are more intelligent than we might think.
Simply adding one to the panel of a new AC is all that is
needed for it to “connect” and work, displaying the
appropriate information accurately – it’s like magic.
The download sites have all kinds of improved or different
versions of familiar panel gadgets or new things you didn’t
even know you needed. A couple of my favorites are the
SALS gauge and the Ice Gauge. SALS is a satellite-based
landing aid that puts a virtual localizer and 3-degree
glideslope display on your panel for use with any FS
runway. It doesn’t matter if it’s a grass strip with no
buildings at 8,000 feet MSL, five miles from the nearest
power line. The gauge gives you a set of indications that
create a virtual ILS, based on an entirely plausible GPSbased capability. The Ice Gauge is a deceptively simple
little window that stares darkly at you most of the time.
When things are just right (or more accurately, just wrong),
the words “Wing Ice” appear in blue. Vacillate long enough
and the text turns yellow, and later yet, red. In addition to
providing an icing warning indication, the gauge actually
enhances (read as “worsens”) the rather lame effects of
airframe icing in FS. Ignore the yellow at your peril. If
you see “Wing Ice” in red, you’ve probably waited too long
to save yourself and your airplane.
If you lack the room for what you would like to build in,
panel pop-ups may be easily added or added to. Those
are always 2D and are quite simple to work with.
Scenery – You’d have to be living on the moon to not
know that add-on scenery is a thriving and never-ending
source of new software titles. I can’t see that the
developers will ever run out of new things to sell us that
do a better job of displaying the surface of Old Mother
Earth in Flight Simulator. Hardly a day goes by that I
don’t see a new release for an airport, a city, a region,
country or continent. They slice and dice it every way you
can imagine and there seems to be no limit to what their
imagination can conceive. There’s a new airport package
just on the market that models a community around a
fictional European airport. It has a paved runway, a glider
strip with a launching winch, helipads and a water runway.
It has birds chirping and people arguing in the streets. It
also has a housing development attached where, for a
little more money, you can buy a plot and build a
customized house, complete with hangar and parking spot
Pg.
21
for your airplane. You can put up a sign identifying yourself
and other customers will see it in their copy of the scenery
via frequent downloaded updates. If it catches on, and it
looks like it is, I suspect there will be some of these set in
the US pretty soon.
Payware scenery add-ons proliferate ad infinitum, ad
nauseum, but there’s also a great deal of freeware scenery
available, much of it very good. I have a free FS9
enhancement of the Greystone/Jumbolair/17FL airport up
in nearby Anthony that’s not half bad. A certain actor and
his family live there and their unique and distinctive house
is modeled.
Underlying what you see in FS is the terrain mesh data
that provides the three-dimensional aspects of what we
see of the ground. That too is sold or given away (mostly
sold) on the web, making the mountains more
mountainous, the coastlines more irregular and the terrain
features generally more accurate, interesting and
believable. Typically packaged for large areas, e.g. whole
countries or continents, it’s fairly cheap and adds much to
the believability of what we see out the cockpit windows.
Just be sure you have plenty of hard disk space before
buying or installing any of these. They tend to be massive.
Looking at the broad topic of scenery, there are many
software tools available for self-improvement activities in
FS. Object placers, for instance allow the user to put
vehicles in the parking lots, air-stairs on the ramps and
horses in the fields of his FS world – along with much
more. Libraries of objects – buildings, ships, people, trees
and things of all sorts – exist for you to sprinkle where
you’d like to see them.
Specialized tools are available, optimized for working with
specific kinds of objects. I’m learning to use Fence Builder
Pro at the moment, a payware add-on that is dedicated to
placing linear objects in long, contiguous rows, or placing
non-linear objects in spaced non-contiguous rows, arrays
or matrices. It’s made for doing fences, hedges, walls,
barriers, pipelines, power lines, orchards or rows of flares
at a makeshift airport. It’s interesting how putting a simple
perimeter fence around an airport kicks up the realism.
Other similar software tools exist for adding specific things
such as vegetation, moving ships and boats, etc, to your
FS environment.
Design tools such as Gmax or FS Design Studio are at
the high end in complexity and capability. They are
relatively complex software packages that are intended
to create from scratch the 3D objects we see and use in
FS. They are capable of modeling most any object of any
size - scenery features such as buildings and bridges,
antenna towers and windsocks, or even the aircraft models
themselves. These are typically CAD-like packages that
permit the user to create a 3D wire-frame shape that is
then wrapped in bit-mapped texture files to provide the
placeable and even the flyable entities in FS.
Sound – Much like panels, sound files from one aircraft
may be aliased to another. The default FS aircraft sound
files are often aliased into add-on AC by the developers,
even in payware sometimes. It only takes a single line in
a configuration file and it’s a done deal. Add-on sound
packages are available as freeware and payware and any
AC that are provided with particularly good sound files
may be a source for aliasing that sound into similar aircraft
in your hangar. It’s easy to do and can make a big
difference in the realism of an otherwise middle-of-thetaxiway aircraft.
Navaids – These too can be added or edited in FS. The
electronic ones, ILS, NDB, Markers, etc, at airports or
nearby can be worked with the airport editors or with other
scenery editing tools. Even those intangible GPS fixes,
intersections and waypoints are entities that can be added
or adjusted in FS using software tools. If you’ve flown
with a current, real-world IAP or STAR lately, you may
have found references to fixes and intersections that your
FS doesn’t know about. It’s no problem – the tools to fix
the fixes exist and FS will accept them.
Weather – A number of environmental packages exist for
both versions of FS, mainly payware. Though real-world
weather is a built-in option in FS9 and FSX these packages
take it to a new level. Their stock in trade seems to be
primarily in the sky display graphics and they can provide
some jaw-dropping, spectacular vistas if you install one.
Some have named weather “themes” you can choose, I
guess to suit your mood. At the simplest level, they just
provide the weather as the on-line sources indicate, but
most are capable of a lot more. One I’m familiar with
randomly generates “thermals” in geographically and
environmentally plausible places to spill your virtual coffee
Pg.
22
or carry your FS sailplane to new heights. All sorts of
other environmental phenomenon not natively modeled
in FS or not modeled very well can be found in these
packages.
ATC – Another area where developers have taken what
FS provided and improved on it immensely is Air Traffic
Control. They don’t much affect the AI aircraft that you
see as traffic, but for you the flyer who wants more realistic
ATC interaction, particularly in the IFR flight environment,
these are the answer. There are only a few but those that
exist are reputed to be very good. I use one and wouldn’t
consider going back to the stock MS ATC. Besides the
more accurate and realistic interaction between you and
the controllers, they also typically provide improved
background radio traffic and additional controller and pilot
voice files to make things better.
MSFS SDKs – These are the Software Development Kits
for Flight Simulator, published by Microsoft almost hand
in hand with the original release of the commercial
products. They’re free – both versions – downloadable
from the MS site. They represent a gold mine of
information about FS, how it works and how to get inside
and tweak certain things. Though they contain a number
of utilities, much of the value lies simply in the
documentation files – Word documents that describe
things you may never have imagined about the FS inner
workings and the strings users may pull to make it behave
differently.
FSUIPC – I’ll be surprised if you don’t already have this
installed in your own FS, but you may not even be aware
of it. It’s so fundamental, important and unique that it
deserves a category of its own. FSUIPC is required to
make many other add-ons work. Many of them include it
in their disk or download package, installing it for you in
the course of installing themselves if they don’t find it
already there. This utility, written by FS software luminary
Pete Dowson at Scruffy Duck Software, is the cornerstone
of FS add-ons of all kinds. In simple terms, it provides a
software window that allows an external program to read
data from and send messages and commands to Flight
Simulator while it is running. It’s available in both freeware
and payware versions, though as users most of us only
need the freeware flavor. The developers pay the freight
for the rest of us, mostly, because they have to buy it if
they intend to distribute software that makes use of it. If
you want to check if you have it, click on the Modules pad
of the FS Top-Line menu. It will be immediately obvious if
it’s installed.
Controls/User Interface – Mostly, but not exclusively, in
the realm of hardware, this class of things is how we
physically interact with FS. At its most basic FS can be
used entirely with a mouse and keyboard, but it’s not very
realistic and not very satisfying. We all soon graduate to
a joystick at least, and there’s a lot more available. Yokes,
throttle quadrants, hardware displays, switch panels,
rudder pedals and the like have become fairly cheap and
fairly popular. Other things making inroads are softwarehardware combinations for voice recognition (VAC; VOX
ATC), head tracking (TrackIR) or true 3D display. Recent
and free software discoveries, for me at least, include the
virtual keyboard, the PDF Kneeboard and a utility to
truncate that annoying, blinking red and white “PARKING
BRAKE” banner to simply “PB” (or is that an instrument –
some of these overlap).
Context Enhancers – Missions, adventures and
specialized context software fit in this category. In my
mind this includes things like AirHauler and its predecessor
Cargo Pilot, Rescue Pilot, the recently released Airshow
Pilot, the Flight Deck series that provide carriers and carrier
ops in FS, adventure packs, difficult approach collections,
some charter, freight or passenger line simulators and
things of that nature. I got an e-mailed ad the other day
for a Civil Air Patrol search and rescue mission add-on
that fits right into this class of things.
FSX in particular has some built-in capability for userdefined missions and that’s really beginning to catch on.
Those things by and large provide a scenario or a set of
circumstances and objects within FS that give it a new
character and a new feel – and an objective. You’re no
longer just drilling holes in the sky – you’re pursing a goal
or trying to meet a specific directive. It’s a game-changing
thing. If not exactly mind-altering, its at leas a mind-set
altering experience when you encounter a really well-done
one.
Flight Planners – Often coupled with moving maps and
other in-flight navigation gizmos, there are quite a number
of these. They’re varied, but in general are very useful
Pg.
23
and are a great improvement over the native FS flight
planner and usually over the FS GPS as well.
Multi-Crew Utilities – Let’s face it, most large AC can’t
be flown realistically with a single pilot. There are some
things that attempt to put that right in FS and they fall into
two categories – those that allow you to share the flying
duties with a software entity and those which connect you
up with another real-world person. I know several exist
but don’t know all that much about them. None the less,
the bottom line is, you don’t have to struggle with doing it
all yourself if you don’t want to.
Multi-Flyer Utilities – These are related to the above but
in this case, connect you up visually and audibly with a
real person in another FS aircraft, presumably flying or
parked somewhere nearby.
While they might also have fit into the ATC category,
VATSIM and a couple of other similar services need to be
mentioned here. They provide on-line, real-time ATC from
a real person acting as air traffic controller to multiple,
simultaneous FS flyers. These are available on-line more
or less 24/7 and the supporting organizations and
individual real-person controllers work hard to provide
accurate, world-wide ATC, mimicking real-world
procedures as closely as practical.
Other – This category should indicate to you that this long
article is drawing to a close. Yes, I’m happy about that
too. This group is the repository for everything else –
those things that don’t fit neatly into any of the other
categories. They’re mostly utilities of one sort or another
– auto-savers, screen-shooters (for taking screenshots,
not for shooting down AI traffic, no matter how much they
may deserve it), flight recorders and all manner of other
things. There are utilities that improve how aircraft lights
or ground lights display. Another de-synchronizes all those
winking aircraft lights you see in the distance at night.
There are programmer tools such as de-compilers/
compilers, and one-of-a-kind utilities that defy description.
Trolling through the utilities section of the download sites
is a gee-whiz experience – you’ll find things you never
thought of and things to fix things you didn’t know could
be fixed and yet more things to fix things that you didn’t
realize were broken. The ingenuity of the developers
knows no bounds.
One special case that deserves special mention and which
can provide some serious enhancements to your FS world
is Google Earth. It has some capability to be connected
to FS, though I haven’t done this so am not too familiar
with the details. You can also use it as a reference source
for customizing airports or other scenery, making the virtual
closely resemble the actual. I have done that and it’s an
extraordinarily useful tool.
I must acknowledge that, lengthy as it is, this is not a
complete treatment of what we can do with and within
FS. I believe Flight Simulator is uniquely and almost
infinitely customizable, particularly when compared to any
other software game, product or genre of software
products. I can’t think of a software entity that comes
anywhere close to being as flexible and comprehensive
and as able to be customized as the MSFS environment.
It may cost a few hard-earned bucks but much of what is
available is free too. In the final analysis, there aren’t too
many limits and those that exist are being pushed back
every month by developers who take us where we couldn’t
go last month. They’re doing it with ready to use products
but also, more interestingly, with tools that let us put our
own imaginations to work. What a world.
Pg.
24
Sunset Log
Channing (Chan) Gerber
Founder O
FSC
OFSC
Gosport Back-Issues
by John Allard
Looking for a previous issue? They’re all available as PDF file
downloads from the Mutley’s Hangar forum site.
Go to…
http://forum.mutleyshangar.com/index.php
Scroll down to “The Ocala Flight Sim Club Forums.” Within that is a “Newsletter” section.
Separate threads exist in that section for each year, beginning with our first issue in June
2008. The threads contain the table of contents for each issue, so you may not have to
open each PDF to find what you’re looking for.
Pg.
25
CROSSWORD CLUES
ACROSS
1 - Designer of P-38, F-104, U-2, F-117,
SR-71
5 - Object of Weight and Balance
(abbrev.)
7 - Guys outside Landmark’s lobby (pl.)
10 - NE state (abbrev.)
11 - Made the cats
12 - Something you do with flaps and
gear
13 - Britten-Norman twin
17 - Large airline (abbrev.)
18 - Landmark is one
19 - Angle of attack exceeds limit
20 - After enroute
22 - Nav gauge (abbrev.)
25 - Sun ‘n Fun organizer
26 – Wheels
28 - Airport/Facilities Directory
(abbrev.)
30 - Not cloudy
33 - Seals cracks in runways
34 - 100LL by another name
36 - Where it all started (three words)
38 - Mid-West state (abbrev.)
39 - Departs vertically, arrives
horizontally
42 - Compass circle
43 – Us
45 - HMFIC (Military abbrev.)
47 - Opposite of 180
49 - Pushback vehicle
51 - Tail Section (pl.)
55 - Archie’s wife
57 - Large Marsupial (slang)
58 - Popular homebuilt engine
59 - “___ Brakes”
60 - DHC-6 (nickname)
61 - Idyllic, volcanic state (abbrev.)
62 - What leaks from radial engines
63 - Anglo/French speedster
DOWN
2 - Big guy in Landmark’s lobby
3 -Microsoft addiction
4 – Tall OFSC guy
6 - “_____ Circle”
8 - Navy’s bird farm
9 - What B-2 and F-117 share
14 - Kills lift
Pg.
26
15 - What RPM does with one mag off
16 - “____ Commander” – Bob Hoover’s
ride
17 - Putt-Putt’s branch
18- Last maneuver before touchdown
21 - “___-Flight”
23 - Embraiers are made here
24 - Blue Angel’s slowest AC (2 words,
nickname)
26 - Between the runways
27 - Flew Warhawks in China (abbrev.)
29 - Yellow trash hauler
31 - Commercial color scheme
32 - One up, one down (pl.)
35 - “____ Pilot”
36 - What NDBs are measured in
37 - High capacity disk
40 - Mother of Hercules
41 - Sometimes displayed by DME
44 - Numbers in your windscreen
46 – NMPH
48 - POV switch on joysticks
49 - SNJ, to the Army
50 - MUGM (nickname)
52 - Unpaved runway maintenance
53 - Unpleasant substance
54 - Spinning top in the panel
56 - Meaning of Up arrow on OBI
58 - Name of cord that opens chute
Solution is on Page 14
CROSSWORD PUZZLE
By John Allard
Solution is on Page 14
Pg.
27
New Ground Procedures
by John Allard
At the end of last month some new FAA rulemaking
took effect and things on the ground control
frequencies at controlled, multi-runway airports
changed forever more. It won’t affect Ocala much,
even though there are two runways; they don’t cross
and you don’t have to cross one to reach another.
Things won’t change in FS either, but this real world
change still seems noteworthy and interesting. I
think it’s educational and enlightening for us to have
some realization of the disparities between our flying
world and the real one. This introduces yet another
difference.
One of the FAA’s focus topics for the last several
years has been reducing runway incursions. US
aviation hasn’t had a stellar record with that in recent
times. There have been few if any actual collisions,
but plenty of events and near-misses. The potential
is there - sooner or later, if nothing is done,
something bad is going to happen. Coupling that
with the fact that the worst loss of life ever in a single
aviation accident was just such an event (Tenerife
– 1977), it’s not altogether surprising that things are
tightening up in this area.
What’s new is that there will no longer be any “Taxi
to Runway nn…” instructions issued if crossing a
runway is necessary. Each runway crossing will
require stopping and getting a new clearance from
ATC to cross and continue to the assigned takeoff
runway. In effect, every hold line is now a stop sign,
and the traffic cop is in the tower. Pilots may only
enter a runway if they been specifically 1) cleared
to cross it, 2) told to line up and wait (position and
hold is the former term for that) on that runway, or
3) cleared to take off from that runway. Absent
one of those, entering any runway for any reason is
now strictly verboten.
Pg.
28

Newsletter

Transcription

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