kdittyr

Very sorry to hear this. Thanks for the work you have done and the countless hours of enjoyment and learning you have provided. Rest well.

Put in my vote on massdrop. I hope this goes through :)

I hear ya, and agree whole-heartidly. You never know if yours will suck or be awesome until you build it, though :) If it blows you have learned one of the following: 1. Enough to try again (hopefully better this time). 2. That your time is better spent saving the money to buy a solution. Neither one is any better than the other, just depends on the person.

I imagine anyone with the drive to fly simulators (especially study sims), has a great amount of attention to detail, plenty of patience and usually a fair amount of brainpower. That is the perfect combo for anyone wanting to take it to the next level. You could also look here for inspiration: Mike's Flight Deck I bought the first book (very interesting book) and am looking forward to the follow-up.

try craigs list... or even try making your own. You can always buy a cheap joystick and canabalize it to be used with homemade pedals. It might now look good on the first try, but you might find that you enjoy the homegrown method and make a better second version. DIY Rudder Pedals Homemade metal rudder pedals Rudder pedals with toebrakes How To -- Make Your Own Rudder Pedals Just a thought.

Darn, I didn't realize that we couldn't use different resolutions. Well, there goes that idea for now. I still want to pick one up, they are pretty cool looking.

Alright, so last night I finally got to fly Black Shark for the first time. I spent most of my time just watching the training videos, but I took about an hour to fly the chopper around from one base to another so I could familiarize myself with the handling and all of that. I was amazed with the ease at which the chopper handles, I found it very easy to fly and place where I wanted to. I know that will change once I start utilizing the weapons systems at the same time (hopefully tomorrow night). Has anyone seen Nano Vision's tiny usb powered screens? They are relatively in-expensive at $129, but the resolution is only 800 x 480. I thought it might be perfect to pick up two of them use one for the ABRIS (turned vertically) and one for the targeting screen (horizontally). You can check them out here: mimo-710 Is anyone using these, yet?

online activation. I don't believe there is a disk check.

Yeah, I thought about using this type of thing to create better pans for movie editing. Sometimes the jerky camera moves that people put in aren't the greatest looking things. Good links, thanks

Man, oh man, since initiating the download I am getting popups galore. Please for your own safety don't download from that lame host. I suggest you upload to rapidshare or something like that. I look forward to finishing the download and then watching it.

It is pretty simple to get the url out of the javascript code by either comparing it to other links or just clicking on it and then copying the code that comes up with the new window (ie the video player). Thank you Dutch60 for posting their javascript otherwise I wouldn't have been able to find it). Here you go: [Training Apache Pilots]

Interesting to note that in the Fox News article (posted by: Sleek) they said that the crew flying it was a reserve crew. I wonder if they climbed into a hot plane after much of the check might have been done. I hadn't read about the engine fire, in that case they may have shut down the engine and dumped most of their fuel. Yeah, the engine tumbled forward of te airplane next to the firetruck)... I, too, find it hard to believe that the crew could've missed that (fuel, that is), but you never know.

More like, the investigation has barely started... I am not condemning the crew at all. I was just passing on what my father thought. I wouldn't be surprised if it were something totally different. Still interesting...

anyone know the glide ratio of the c5? I cannot imagine that a loaded galaxy has a great one. I wonder if it would have been worse if it made it to the runway, they probably would have done damage to the plane AND the runway. Maybe not. Pretty sad. Kind of reminds me of the C130 over in the Iraq that was landing at night at an airfield and the crew was never told that they needed to shoot long because of the thirty to fifty foot gap where they cut out the concrete out of the runway. Guess where they ended up... Pretty lame and thankfully nobody died there either, but it could have easily been avoided. Here are a few pics from that accident, my Dad was a navigator for C130's for much of my early life (I'm 31 now). Seeing things like this while he was still flying used to really scare me, it all seemed to real. He and I both feel very attached to this plane as it was an integral part of our lives for nearly 18 years. His only words for these pictures were that they broke his heart mostly becaues it would've been so easy to let them know what was up... I've been in situations where things get overlooked, but thankfully they didn't risk anyones life. Good question...

Hehe, that is pretty funny.

My Dad emailed me with the news about this C-5 crash in Deleware a little earlier. He was the Chief of Safety for our airbase in Germany (Rhein Main) and as part of his job had to know and learn alot about plane crashes for investigative reasons. He is pretty certain that they forgot to fuel up the plane and it took off without much fuel, then once airborn realized that they were on fumes and tried to come around for an emergency landing... well they hit short of the runway. His reason for that notion is the lack of fire, or smoke of any kind. Luckily all of the 17 people aboard are alive. You can see how close they were to making the runway... If you would like to read the small story you can see it here: CNN or watch the video (not of the accident) here: CNN Video I would have hated to have been the crew on this one...

Has anyone checked out this site? http://www.f22fighter.com/movies.htm it has some pretty cool stuff on there, obviously about the fa22, from movies to wallpapers and such. If you have some time check it out. be advised that the videos are REALLY small, for whatever reason. anyway, at least it has some info that I didn't know. Sorry about helping in the 'jacking of the thread, I'll try to get it back on track.

Yes, and that is why I don't think that the US will do it. If anyone, it would be a UN thing... hopefully. I agree that Israel will probably spearhead it as they have their "street cred" on the line. I say that because Iran's president keeps picking on them and trying to push thier buttons. Anyway, while I love the hell out of military vehicles and systems I do hope that peace prevails and I can just play with those things in video games.

You live in Florida? I live in Orlando and I can attest to the boom (or both of them actually) For those who don't know there are two booms: one from the nose, and one from the leading edge of the wing. I have been shaken awake many times. Actually in the middle of the day once I thought a car hit my house, I'm not kidding. Anyway, I can't wait for the next Daytona Fly-in, I have never been and want to so badly that I can taste it (won't describe it, though).

I agree, I know that stealth works (from data only), I know how stealth works and I am happy that it does work. I like the commercial for the US Air Force that showed F-22 screaming across the sky and it touts the stealth capability of the plane to allow a cross section the size of a small bird-- "that's one mean bird". Pretty amusing. There is a great book out there that provides a great insight into stealth technology and skunkworks tech: Skunk Works : A Personal Memoir of My Years of Lockheed I read that and both learned alot and enjoyed the heck out of it. Definately worth the read. Also, I forgot to mention: Just because something isn't stealthy doesn't make it less deadly. Look at the B52, that thing has a RCS of darn train and I would love for someone to tell me that it isn't lethal.

Well, this is an odd topic to argue because most of it is based on speculation on both sides. Many, many people have stated that the second the first shot is fired all planning is out the window. This is true in many ways, as I am sure you can all imagine. The misconception of stealth technology is that it ALWAYS works and the plane is COMPLETELY invisible... well, that is not true. I am sure that there have been great gains in stealth technology allowing more and more scenarios to lend themselves to using stealth than were available when the F-117 and B-2 first went into service. For stealth to work optimally, the conditions must be right but that doesn't mean that the mission will be scrubbed if they aren't. I remember when the French announced that they had tracked an F-117 in the first Gulf War, yet they would not provide any shred of evidence. Well, one could look at that from two different angles: 1. They are full of it and have no evidence, what-so-ever. 2. They had great evidence and the US came in and shut them up, gathered the data and created new ways to combat France's find. Unfortunately, at some point in the future an F-22 will get shot down, period. Much the same as the F-117 some years ago. There is such a thing as the "golden bb" and it will find it's mark, though I hate to admit it. I find it pretty dumb to tout real world untested systems as the "Titanic" of the skies... when we all know the results of the Titanic of the seas, though it sure was something great on paper. As the son of a US Strategic Air Command planner (retired, now) I have a living thesaurus of information at hand who is more than happy to let me in on the unclassified stats of systems and vehicles. I grew up living around and loving the US military systems, and still do. I prefer the sleek lines our planes, yet I admire those of other countries as well. I know that the F-22 is a huge step in the right direction, and Reticuli is correct that this is the last front line fighter that will be manned. Hell, they are planning on using robots as front line Marines... that is crazy. Let's not forget that we (those of us in the US) are currently in two wars: Afghanistan, and Iraq. While we could probably sustain a smaller scale action on another front, you cannot plan for that and expect your results to go as planned. I forsee Isreal making the step against Iran in March-ish, and I too see it being just like the Osiraq attack. I also believe that this attack will have the full backing of the U.N. as they seem to be posturing themselves inline with that idea. Getting back on topic, this will never be a clear argument because most people have made up their minds already. It is much like the classic Mac -vs- PC argument. You can spout stats for days, but nobody really cares about them because they are really just waiting for you to stop talking so that they can spout off their own stats... much like I have done. In reality there is a ton of technology out there that will help in conventional wars: Believe me when I say that there will be more wars with conventional starts than just the wars on terror. With countries like N.Korea and China (who needs a full fledged war to manage their HUGE population). But when it comes down to it every bit of tech is as dangerous as it was designed when implimented in the way it was designed be-it in conventional or guerilla warfare. Sorry to bore you with useless info that really isn't on topic, but I had to get some of that out.

cool, sounds like a fun weekend. I have an internet connection at home, but pretty much play offline only (as far as FC goes). Not that you asked for my input but I, too, have an X-52 and I think that the only thing left for you to get is trackIR. I am not kidding when I say that it is WAY worth the money. I bought a trackIR pro3 with vector expansion and have noticed an incredible amount of improvement and game enjoyment. I know that they are expensive, but I think that they are worth the money. Wow, now I sound like a salesman... sorry.

Just wanted to say CONGRATS on the write up in Computer Pilot Magazine VIEW THE COVER I picked it up at the bookstore today and thought it was great.

EECH is Enemy Engaged Comanche Hokum

What does this do to your overhead? I mean does the sim take a framerate hit when you do this? Otherwise, sounds great. I take it that this is the fix for pop ups?