If you remember Mel and would like to post a story about him or what he may have contributed to your flight simming experience, please post them here.

I don't know if I have one particular story to tell about Mel, but I do remember that I was amazed, back in the day, to see a real pilot involved in flightsimming.I contribute getting my real wings to people like him. I've been a simmer first before starting to fly for real. My thoughts and prayers go out to his family, thank you for everything you've done for this community and for many other people you've touched in your life.Peterhttp://members.aol.com/pzsoulman/myhomepage/logo.gifGIGABYTE Light 3D Galaxy II Liquid CoolingENERMAX Galaxy EGA850EWL ATX 850W Power SupplyNVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX Intel MoboCore 2 Duo E6700 1066MHz FSB 4M shared L2 Cache LGA 775CORSAIR XMS2 2GB SDRAM DDR2 800GeForce 8800GTX 768MB 384-bit GDDR3 PCI ExpressSBlaster X-Fi XtremeMusic 7.12 x Western Digital Raptor 150GB 10000 RPM 16MB Cache SATA Raid01 Seagate Barracuda 320GB 7200RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/sWinXP Home SP2CH Yoke/Pedals

From my viewpoint Mel Ott almost single-handedly pioneered the home cockpit scene.Mel had a serious flying "jones" just like the rest of us. When his career as a real world 747 driver came to an end, he did everything he could to recreate his professional "office" in his home because he did not want to ever stop flying.I didn't know him but I was one of his secret admirers, now a public one. He will be missed.

Actually, Mel created his "home cockpit" in his hangar. I remember looking on in total awe as his project grew and his multiple screen, multiple PC system grew to be the envy of anyone who had ever had the twitch to create one of thier own. Mel's stories, experience and his willingness to share with one and all made him a stand out in our hobby. Here's a story we did some time ago:http://www.avsim.com/pages/0103/mellott/

His own hangar, hey? What else was in there? :)

A Curtiss Falcon. Do a search in the front page seach function on "mel ott" and you will see all news on Mel and an article on his Falcon. This is Mel in his baby:

http://www.avsim.com/pages/images/decsport.jpg

Mel really sparked the imagination in all of us. Our thoughts go out to his family.Thanks for the memories Mel.:-halo

Tom,I had no idea of the extent of his earlier influences on the FS scene. Many thanks.

I am greatly saddened by the news of Capt. Tarmack's passing.I'll never forget the time in Orlando, when Mike "Gunner" Thompson and I went to visit Mel flying his Model Airplanes. We ran out of gas on the way back to Jacksonville and Mel had a field day making jokes about our failure to check the gas gauge.Mel was truly a Class Act and will be missed by the FS community.My condolences to Mel's family and friends, and may his "Final Approach and Landing" be a great one!Pete S.

holy smokes that must have been a fun toy to play with! :) He should have sold simulator time to the local airfields for training purposes. I bet that rig compared favorably with many of the "real training sims" setups...sorry to hear of Mel's passing. There certainly seems to be alot of these sorts of sad announcments recently. I guess it makes sense though considering that the hobby of home flight-simming is approaching 3 decades of history now and the demographic is aging...:(

I'm 64 but you know what? Like Mel, we are all as young as we feel and behave.

Mel was 65 at his passing.

yeah, so true. I'm 41 and have no intention of putting my own toys away anytime soon. :) My grandfather passed away a few years ago in his mid-eighties. He was one of those guys who always remained interested in things. Back in the late seventies when the whole computer revolution was just beginning he was the first person I knew who owned a PC and he spent his retirement working with PCs right up until a few months before he passed. He wasn't a "gamer" per se, but it was on his PC back in the early eighties that I first started playing around with flightsims. I'd imagine Mel was alot like him...sad that he had to leave at such a young age.

A very talented airman, and he will be missed. Didn't he help PSS (Johan Dees) with their 747-400 FDE? Mel regarded the PSS 744 FDE very highly. I still use that FDE with all of my 744s ... it's that good!You can see his home cockpit layout here:http://ivibe.com/forum/showthread.php?t=147http://www.flightadventures.com/cgi-bin/dc...ID1&archive=yesCap'n Tarmack made me laugh a few years back. He mentioned the story about when he was a Pan Am 707 First Officer. He was on a check flight with an experienced Captain and a check pilot. Before the flight commenced, the captain and check pilot were arguing over how you control the airspeed of a plane. The Captain thought that you controlled airspeed via the engine thrust, whilst the check pilot insisted that the elevators controlled airspeed.... Anyway, they lined up on the runway, and the Captain started to rock the control column back and forth, aggressively. The forces were so great that Mel could feel the vibrations through the airframe!! The check pilot asked, "What are you doing?!", and the Captain answered, "I'm building up airspeed!". I think the captain won :-xxrotflmao.A fond memory for us to laugh at :)

If you would like to read some of Mel's postings on AVSIM, and to see how wonderful a contributor he was to our forums and the community, go to Search, Advanced Search and then do a search for "TARMACK" without the quotes and down select "AUTHOR". You will find a wealth of messages from Mel and will be entertained by some of his postings.