Hello guys, I love to spam (in a good way of course) a product that I think is done well and one that I know others will enjoy. I have done this with PMDG countless times and trust me when I say, this is not the only forum that I tend to boast about certain products. Lately as some of you may have read, I've been doing a lot of lighter aircraft flying, and I don't mean light like a Carenado C-182RGII light, or something on the heavier side of the JS-41, but rather I nice happy medium between the two.The RealAir Duke B60. It's a lot of fun to fly, and lately since I've been working a new career in FSPassengers from the ground up, I have been putting in tons of hours in the Duke (I'm still saving money for the JS41 :(). There are several things I enjoy about the Duke, one is the airfile allowing belly landings in water or ground. If you do one on the ground you will leave scrapes all along your path. The sound! Like PMDG, the sounds are real and very well modeled in stereo. Of course it isn't 1/100th as complex but couple it with the RXP430 or 530 (530 is what I have) and you have lots to have fun with. If you taxi with the door open it will slam shut once you reach a certain speed. It will spiral realistically if you happen to dip your wing during a stall. There are a lot of great things modeled and the 3D gauges sweet! Not many companies take the time to make other developers products ready available for their own, such as PMDG's JS41 and the RXP WX500 weather radar (captain sims works as well). But they did make the RXP530/430 (or both) readily usable in their awesome VC. The ability to turn on gauge lighting separate to the cockpit lighting for those dusk/night flights is something I expect in an aircraft now and the back lighting in the Duke is superb!There are many great things about the Duke, too many to list, but if you enjoy smaller aircraft as much as I do and think you'll actually use it and not just wanting to enter and win a contest, then please enter.What's the contest about? Well, this is the PMDG forum so I want to see your best screenshot you can come up with including any of the PMDG fleet. NOT to be posted here please. I'm not allowed to start those type of threads and it hurts overall AVSIM bandwidth. The last contest I held, I felt a bit left out since I didn't get to vote. This contest is different and I want to keep it "short, sweet, and hard to beat". Email me your screenshot at my spam mail Email me here (only called spam-mail because it is an email I use strictly for forum stuffs, not that you will ever get spam from me :(). Friday at precisely 7:PM I will pick the 3 top screenshots and post the pictures here myself with no names to who they're from of course. It will be a simple poll and the community will chose the winner in 48hrs. Contest will end at 7:00PM this coming Sunday the 24th of October 2010 and the winner will instantly receive their prize. The RealAir Duke B60.Rules:

• Any resolution you want, since they will be sent to me. I will keep them at that resolution for the clickable thumbnail should yours make the final cut.
• Must be a PMDG aircraft - Any type - FSX or FS9, doesn't matter (although the prize only works in FSX).
• My paints not allowed haha(sorry, I want to remain a neutral judge :().
• No touched up or Photoshoped images. The image you preset should show off your addons or tweaks, or just your imagination. Other people may not have PS or PS skills so this should be kept to the simple contest it's meant to be, thanks.
• Not a rule but I recommend using your own junk email like myself. As I said you will never get any spam from me, but should my email get hit with crap that we all see, I really don't want this contest to have negative repercussions for the entrants.
• Must be in by Friday at 7:PM (Eastern Standard Time), no exceptions.
• Only one entry per person, no changing your mind so please be sure it's what you want.
• Anyone can enter. I can care less if you're a developer of this product or another, AVSIM staff or a community member. In the long run we're all part of the community and that's who this is for, the community. This is another reason I will not be posting who's picture it is until the winner is decided.
  • On that note, of course if somehow someone leaks this information, then the picture will be disqualified, so be careful who you tell.
  • If you win and want to give the prize to another, then by all means do so, just let me know when you send in your screenshot please.

  [*]Once again, send your screenshot here

*As always, I will not be allowed to enter my own contest so no worries (besides my screenshots are mediocre at best anyway).This is being paid for by myself and as always I make nothing from the developer or am tied to them in any way, shape or form. Just like I said above, I like it, it made a good impression on me, and I feel it would provide a lot of fun for most of you.Food for thought. I enjoy little things like this and I think it brings some fun for us all. I want to have another contest (much bigger) down the road. The contest will be on tutorials. Everyone here has a strength I believe and some people take for granted their own knowledge. The next contest I have in mind will be for tutorials of anything aviation. It can be about start-up procedures for your favorite product, how to tweak FS(X), SID/STAR, Route Planning, Using TOPCAT, Bumpmaps for liveries, ATC procedures,,, the "Sky's the limit". It isn't going to happen anytime soon, so there's time to think about what you might want to do. Personally I prefer text over video and it would be something you want to make available to the new Tutorial system here on AVSIM, but for that, I won't be at least the only judge and like all my contests the community will always be involved in the final decision. So look through the pages of the new tutorial system and see what may be lacking and get some ideas for what you want to do. The best thing about tutorials, is there are no losers and it will be something many will benefit from far after the contest is over and you might even find that the real reward is how you help another simmer :)(Future prizes include: FS2Crew, Radar Contact (hopefully 5), NGX again, or 777, who knows, maybe even a 747? :)One last quick mention. Please do not use the above email address to ask questions about issues you may have. Post them in the appropriate forum. I get lots of PM's and emails to 3 different email addresses on a daily basis and even though I have answered in the past, it does no one any good when they cannot share in the issue and the possible resolution, thanks.Well, let's go gentlemen,,, start your sim, load you weather, enable your ENBHDR plugin and get some great shots!!!!!!!*Note this is just for the Duke B60 and not including the RXP530/430.

Very happy to see so many already sending in their pix. I adjusted the rules above so check. All I added was to state that using outside programs like PS is not allowed to enhance your photo. I like the idea of that actually, but think overall fairness to others not PS savvy or the ones that don't have it (the majority of people most likely do not).Anyway, the turn out so far has been great and some pretty imaginative shots. Some people might think they need to have a great rig with tons of add on scenery, not true at all, just use your imagination :) I look forward to posting the shots from others Friday night.*Lastly, I hate to even post this, but do not try to submit multiple screenshots please. There are very simple ways to see if the same individual is sending them from various email addresses they might have. Most people would not do that I know, but it has already been attempted haha. Please value the honor system, at least out of respect for the other contestants, thanks and keep them coming!

Hey Dan, I must admit that I don't understand the point of the contest, other than what you have already stated.You personally are going to buy the winner a copy of the Duke from RealAir? Or do you work for them and are going to award a free copy?If it's the first one, that your are going to buy someone a copy, then I guess I don't understand why? Especially since you stated that you personally are saving money for the JS41, which would lead me to believe that if you are "saving" money to buy the JS41, then why would you buy a Duke for the winner of a screen shot contest?Maybe I missed something due to the fact that I dont sleep much, but I don't see why you would sponsor a contest with your own money to purchase the reward, unless of course your a very charitable fellow, then I must applaud you for the kindness.Please advise because I am about as curious to this as I was the turkey on your chin.Thanks,Sean Campbell

Dan means he's saving money in FS Passengers for the J41. :-)

Maybe I missed something Thanks,Sean Campbell

Yep you misread, but like you, perhaps it is possible that due to my own lack of sleep possibly made my post too wordy and hard to understand?Anywho, when I stated buying the JS41, I meant for my company in FSPassengers haha. I already own and love it. In FSP it's about $5,000,000.00 and am now around 3 mil, give or take a few hundred thousand.I see you have lots of posts but perhaps your new to this forum? I enjoy holding contests and not too long ago held one here for best livery contest. As for the purchase, yes it is out of my pocket but again, I already have all of the PMDG's in my hangar and just like to encourage things like this is all. Also I mentioned that in no way do I work for anyone, nor do I develope or sell my own product of any kind. Due to rules and some just ethical ones may keep developers themselves from holding such contests and is one thing I like about not being a mod, a dev, or having ties with any companies. Since I don't represent anyone, I have a little more leeway in what I can and cannot do :)Also, I love readin AVSIM reviews more than any others on FS products, but normally look at what the average user has to say about a product and their support more than anything and am of course, just an average user myself.Edit: Thanks Sander for helping clarify, we must have been typing at the same time. :(

Yep you misread, but like you, perhaps it is possible that due to my own lack of sleep possibly made my post too wordy and hard to understand?Anywho, when I stated buying the JS41, I meant for my company in FSPassengers haha. I already own and love it. In FSP it's about $5,000,000.00 and am now around 3 mil, give or take a few hundred thousand.I see you have lots of posts but perhaps your new to this forum? I enjoy holding contests and not too long ago held one here for best livery contest. As for the purchase, yes it is out of my pocket but again, I already have all of the PMDG's in my hangar and just like to encourage things like this is all.Edit: Thanks Sander for helping clarify, we must have been typing at the same time. :(

Wow, That is some serious damned dedication there, congratulations!Not much people like you exist in all my honesty.

I see you have lots of posts but perhaps your new to this forum? I enjoy holding contests and not too long ago held one here for best livery contest. As for the purchase, yes it is out of my pocket but again, I already have all of the PMDG's in my hangar and just like to encourage things like this is all.

Thanks for the clarification Dan.I wouldn't say that I am exactly new to the Avsim forums or the PMDG section within since I have been here since '03. However after switching to FSX and not owning any PMDG products for FSX until about 6 months ago when I got the JS41 and more recently the 747, I admit that I hadn't spent much time in the PMDG section, except to see if there was news on the NGX. I used to spend more time in this part of the forum back when I was on FS9 and had the PMDG 737, but no so much until a few months ago. I guess that explains why I never saw your last contests or if I did see the topic I just skipped over it since I am not one to ever enter contests, except for a lottery ticket once in a while, lol.On top of that I think I was just as equally surprised to see that your sponsoring a screen shot contest with your own funds. I guess in this day and age I am surprised when I see someone do something like that since it's out of the norm, especially given the economy.Anyways good luck with your screen shot contest and whatever contests you run in the future. I'm sure someone will be really happy to win the Duke since its a great a/c.Regards

Just a friendly reminder, less than 23:38:37 to send in your entry!

Hello again, I feel as though I need to clarify something that more than one person appears to have misread. I stated that there shouldn't be any photo editing to a screenshot after it was finished. I also mentioned at one point to turn on your EMBHDR pluggin and get to work etc... Using any means in the sim is 100% fine. So addons and plugins are totally acceptable and should be used if you want to in the sim to get your screenshot, just no editing after the fact.One reason I chose "Screenshots" for this contest was because it is 1st of all, easy for everyone to participate and some felt left out from the painters only contest. Another reason was because some screenshots might take advantage of different addons like DBS Walk and follow, or the newer EZCA (EZDOK). None of these are needed to hit V and send in a screenshot but the thought of others seeing something they think is a cool angle etc, and getting some discussion on how they did it can be a plus.Lastly, I know I wrote the EMBHDR plugin correctly in my post because I have gotten several emails asking what it is. The way it works is you take two files and drop them into your FS root folder and that's it. Once in the sim you can enable it or disable it using SHIFT+F12. Basically it adds a cool bloom effect and some like it, some don't. Me personally I love it, but it seems the more complex the addon, the easier it can and will cause FSX to crash. You can read about that,,, here.My point isn't to go indepth about it here and you can read up on it if you wish, but figured I would explain since so many have asked.You can download it here (the original, but I made one change to try and make it more stable, where you will need to enable it once in the sim with Shift+F12). It will also always default off if you Alt+Enter, or access a menu. There are many changes people have done to the ini file for different effects and I listed 3 here.To be as fair as I can be; I know I said there are no substite screenshots allowed. Well, now I guess there are since this may be late news to some and don't want people that have already submitted their screenshot to feel left out or cheated in any way. So, if you have already sent in a screenshot and want to send in 1 substitution, (you do not have to) please just reference your screen name here and I will make the change.

If only the PMDG 737 was out (I still dont own any PMDG)-I would enter, but good luck to everyone!

Just did a flight into LAX with some of that beautiful LA smog and the haze lit up by a California sunset, took some great screencaps of me on approach where you can make out the outlines of downtown LA through the smog, but alas I realized, I was flying the Level D 767, and your contest requires the use of a PMDG aircraft.

This is really awesome Dan - thanks for doing this (again). The Duke is a great plane, I fly it all the time with the RXP 430W. Whoever wins this, you MUST get the RXP GPS, it's a massive improvement over the one that comes with the plane.

Your very welcome Ryan, I didn't know you already owned the Duke and was hoping you were going to enter haha. I agree on the GPS 100%. It's pretty amazing when I can watch training videos made for the Real 430/530 and follow along exactly in the sim. Plus the terrain alert page is cool but one thing I love is seeing all the street names, names of ponds, lakes etc... again, just like the real deal.

I'd think my official affiliation with PMDG would already disqualify me from any contests run here lol...

I have some old pictures of the PMDG planes. This is going to be ultra hard for me as I have tons of great unedited pmdg screen shots. My best screenshots are actually when FSX glitches, or seems to. I have some shots that kind of look like REX sunsets but I didn't have REX at the time. I am gonna send in a few pictures, aside from my entry, just for you viewing pleasure dan; not for an entry.Dan, I will send in an entry but I already own the duke so if I win, I would like 2nd place to take the prize.