John_Cillis

I used to be a little devil in the old simulator multiplayer sessions I hosted, since I could set the weather. If things got a little boring or the pilots were just trolling or goofing around, I would set the winds in the sessions to 100knots and watch their aircraft go tumbling like tumbleweeds. They did not know what the heck was going on, until I told them about the joke. When I was a business systems instructor doing training at a Holiday Inn in Springfield IL, most of my students were in their 40's and 50's, about four or five women. There was one guy, younger than me, and like most of us here (because of our simming knowledge) a computer whiz. My older students learned at a much slower pace than he did, and he would intimidate the women by saying "Come on, I want to get out of here, this is easy, hurry up". As part of my job, at the end of each class module, I had to give a quiz to document for my employer and our client on site that I was teaching the students well. So I decided to play a practical joke, like my wind joke above, on the know-it-all student (who did know a lot). I got together with the women and told them beforehand what I was going to do, because they had complained to my client, his boss, so I told his boss how I would handle it and his boss, more evil than I was and a good buddy, even today 25 years later, gave me the green light to go forward with my evil plan. The women finished their test in a lickety split time, because I gave them questions they could answer easily: ~How do you check in a guest ~How do you change a room status ~How do you clear a folio (the guest account) And about seven more questions To the student who knew everything my questions were as follows: ~How many bytes of memory does it take to hold a reservation in the queue ~How should the food and beverage interface be enabled after night audit ~How often should one defragment the system for improved performance And I added a few questions he could answer So the women aced the test and watched him struggle, and he literally started sweating, rubbing his forehead, as the women leered at him. After I tormented the poor guy for what seemed like an eternity to him, I asked him if he was OK, everyone else had finished the test. He responded "You never covered this in the course". I responded "But you said you knew everything already" The women bust out laughing as he blushed, then he laughed with us, saying I pranked him good. He became arguably the best mentor on their hotel team after that, gently coaching the women and other employees who struggled. I was single at the time and in the period of six months that followed, I found my fiance and got married, the girls there were crushing on me but a bit too young for my tastes, so they assumed I was not straight. I was invited to come back to the hotel to install their new credit card interface after I married, they picked me up in a limo at the airport, my boss was jealous because he came onsite, a really cool guy who gave me three months paid time off for my honeymoon, he was not straight, go figure, which is why he was so cool, just his attitude and people skills, his name was Roger Custin. When I checked in at the hotel (we always stayed on site with our clients, if they had an occupancy permit), I saw the girls whispering to each other, they recognized me, and I blushed because they were still being flirty with me. I said "what are you whispering about" and they said "You really got married, you were a flaming bachelor, how did that happen?" Because I traveled so much, my ex worked for an airline, like I eventually worked for American Airlines until I retired early.... Sorry I hijacked the thread, when I see a good question, I like to see threads staying alive... JC

Nice pics of the airline I used to work for! John

The Iconic LSA, the Flight Design CT, which is faster than a 172 and has more interior room up front, arguably the fastest, most efficient LSA ever made, even faster than the Allegro 2000 I took my Light Sport Lessons in. VSkylabs is up front when it comes to Ultralights and Microlights and experimental aircraft. The Flight Design aircraft is a certified, not kit built aircraft with a Rotax four stroke engine up front, quite smooth in the air, most of my flight hours have been spent with Rotax two and four stroke engines, but also some Continental engines. John

It is true to note this, but most pilots, if not all, have had to go thru the rigors of military training, and/or being checked for proficiency very often, which takes a special breed of man and woman (and having worked for American on their crew scheduling software upgrade it applies to all crew on board). Pilots are and crew are the captains and royalty of their ship, and the last to leave their post, which I consider indeed heroic since they are saving lives before them, whereas some "heroes" just want to attract fame or prove to their pax they can get them home "on time" without taking the due diligence of calculating the risks. Especially in those rare instances pilot incompetence or crew mismanagement, which was proven in the Tenerife disaster or in other pilot caused disasters where an unhinged pilot has brought an aircraft down, they are not heroes, which is obvious, but may be victims of the pressure brought to bear on flight crew or flight staff--which happened in the instance where a former and fired gate agent passenger brought down a BAE 146 over California some years ago, an early and forgotten precursor of 9/11 which also proves that foreign crews are not the only ones that cause intentional harm to passengers. Al Haynes was also in heroic in denying he was one, because he contributed the lives saved to teamwork, regretted those lives lost, and also took the flak as the FAA was in the case of TWA 800 for discovering a serious flaw in a flawed airliner. I still believe the conspiracy theories which arose by TWA 800 were driven by Stakeholders in Boeing, as were the theories blaming the flight crew for the two recent 737 crashes abroad, claiming they would not happen on our soil. A MD jackscrew crash proved that mechanical issues can happen, in the same aircraft I had flown eight years earlier with my two nephews from SFO to Socal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Airlines_Flight_261 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Southwest_Airlines_Flight_1771

The route is so special, because it overflies the Grand Canyon and Sedona, Arizona's answer to the Napa Valley, and I can say that since I was raised there too, but born in Chicago, I came from the land of Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, Baraq Obama, and those of us who have fled Illinois know why... There is "No noise, in Illinois", the s is sadly silent, cause some mock our accent, lol. That's why I am a huge fan of the band Chicago, and Styx, because between the two of them, they created the River Styx which we are allowed to cross when we fly over the mighty Mo... That's why I love the name Lindburgh chose for his Transatlantic aircraft, the "Spirit of St. Louis" he was not afraid to mix religion and flying because when you fly, you need an angel on your wing to walk away from the landing.... LOL That is why I took up and gave up real flying, I only fly with a CFI when I fly for real, in case I get a heart attack or something, he can at least save the equipment, tongue in cheek.... JC

The aircraft is a free add-on for AeroflyFS2, the ducted fan Edgley Optica, meant to be a fixed wing substitute for a helicopter with its superior and big views out its windows, you can see straight down when flying in it, almost like an ultralight. John

They were my Magic Carpet many times, to Japan and Guam and back, and to Minneapolis where I worked for a couple of clients, one there and one where I had to drive up to in Siren Wisconsin. I remember the big mall there and laughed because there were several Radio Shacks there. We were almost hit by a Tornado there while eating at a McDonald's with my employee, so I sped out of there back to the hotel I was staying at when the hail started as the clouds above turned green, I could hear the train like roar of the Tornado in the distance as the sirens were wailing--saved my colleague's life and he was quite happy. My client did, in the jargon of the hospitality industry "a push" because they could not get their occupancy permit, meaning we could not stay there to give them live support on their new network, but decided to hold us hostage there, since they would have had to pay for our return. So we went to the mall several times, and to the outdoor amusement park nearby which we enjoyed because it was not very crowded. My client was happy, but my boss was not he wanted us to teach the client but we had already taught the client what they needed to know and they paid for us to have a mini vacation while they waited in the jargon of IT implementation to "Go Live" so we could provide support. Me and my colleagues would work 12 hour shifts, since I was lead it was my choice whether to take the graveyard shift which my colleagues hated, or the day shift. My bosses would get upset if I chose graveyard but I felt it was very important, since night audit is the most important part of a hotel's daily accounting cycle. But sometimes I chose the day shift because graveyard messes with your sleep, which can be awful, as Alaskan's know with the 24 hour sun, it can force you into drug use to cope, which is the wrong approach. John

I got into Light Sport, and Trike flying about 14 years ago, give or take. I took lessons in both, lessons are a must and my student license is still valid. Of the two, I prefer Trikes even though for some pilots having nothing beneath your feet can be daunting, I never had a problem with it, being a coaster freak even close to 60. The only problem with aircraft ownership in the metro area where I live is storage, Hanger rents are higher than my apartment rent, plus for light sport you have the cost of annuals, and for trikes, the cost of transport since you really need a trailer and SUV with the power to tow it. My solution, I rent and just have a CFI give me a brush up lesson when I have the urge to fly, it keeps my muscle memory good because simming can cause issues with that, as my first CFI warned me, since we simmers like to look at gadgets and fly by FMS or IFR. One reason I fly Aerofly FS2 more now is it is more of a "hands on" sim than my other two sims, and gives me the desert flight experience I seek, since I live in the pristine Sonoran desert, when I am not snorin' in bed, lol, because if I do that my female roommate, a cat named Rosie my ex suggested I get, wakes me up because she cannot sleep. Like Lindburgh, if I fly too much I get vivid visions that are a distraction, and like Lindburgh, periodically I walk away from a good landing, since any landing you walk away from is good, and crash after my hours of simming since it is my #1 hobby in retirement, as flying in real life is. John

Great shots, I miss the Western commercials "Three feet for your two legs, the oooooonly way to fly"

More shots, from SLC into Arizona - my favorite commercial route John

Some various shots.... John

With background music, vectors to approach flown via FMS John

Indeed, responsible for the "Miracle on the Prairie"

This is a simulation of a similarly themed coaster, but I have added some effects at the beginning, do not know the name of the original author but it shows computer simulation and the sense of speed and flight at its best...

One form of aviation is stunt aviation, however the opportunity for the feelings and sensations of stunt aviation are hard to come by.... I have only been upside down in an aircraft once, and the pilot who did it for me did something quite illegal, over Napa he was flying a friend and I since we helped him prep an aircraft he was reconditioning for flight, a Cessna 182. At approx the intersection of highway 29 and first street, 1000 feet above Embassy Suites as it was known back then, in the 80's, he said "Here we go" and he performed a perfect, weightless zero g roll. I loved it, a former good friend of mine hated it and even though he was a non pilot he read the pilot the riot book for performing a stunt like that in a Cessna--but really he was just not one who liked weightlessness, he used to joke "Why jump out of a perfectly good airplane" and having had an uncle in the 101st airborne division, I just gritted my teeth. However I have followed his advice, I have jumped off the Stratosphere Tower in 2013, but it was a controlled descent from 1000 feet high and did not reach terminal velocity. That video is on Youtube if you search "Cactus521 Stratosphere" Here I am posting a form of an enjoyment of the sensation of flight, a simulated ride with some faint background music by the guitarist of the 70's-80's rock band, Craig Chaquico, whose music can also be heard near the wine bar at California Adventure, in Anaheim. Craig gave us a free listen of his music when I was up at a concert in Scottsdale, way north of the Scottsdale airport, called the Boulders, I was so stunned that a guitarist that ranks up there with Eric Clapton but whose name is relatively unknown since his solo career is smooth jazz. Anyway, Enjoy the flight, of the first vertical loop steel coaster ever made, which has a 5G peak... John

Have you run Windows Update recently? Have you the latest Nvidia drivers? Windows update recently blew away my Nvidia driver and my screen dropped to a 720p resolution rather than 1080p, the highest supported. So I uninstalled my GeForce video driver, which was an old driver Windows update somehow used to overwrite my current driver, then I reinstalled GeForce Experience--Problem solved. If that does not work, take a gander at Direct X, might be time to clean its cache, use google and google will tell you how to do that, I do not want to explain for brevity since I want to get back to simming, lol...

Thank goodness you did not pass out after getting the rating, study and exams are tough at any age. But I will have tears in my Beer thinking about the joy you must have now, tears of joy, lol.... I bet the relief was worth the trials and tribulations! John

I had a Radian powered Glider, a wonderful aircraft which could be powered up to 500 ft AGL, then I could thermal it up to 2000 ft AGL by simply watching where the hawks over our park were thermaling. However it developed a weird problem, the radio, which was a modern multi frequency radio, would get interference even though the mfr claimed they were interference proof. I mounted a cheap video camera to my glider, was able to record two flights but on the third, the glider, upon reaching apogee, quit responding to radio input and crashed straight into the ground, destroying the nose and camera and it almost hit a car passing by. I mournfully took the wreckage home and posted about it. The glider mfr sent me a free replacement glider, bless their hearts, but I could not find a place to fly it far enough away from Luke AFB, which I feel was the reason my first glider crashed. Even though we were out of their safety zone, they could still jam RC aircraft, since their F16's would sometimes overfly our community, even though they were not supposed to. I used to fly kites in the same park I flew my park glider in (but with a 25knot landing speed, and no speed brakes, it took a soccer field's length to land it), and I had a kite with an eight foot wingspan I'd put a camera on and loft it to 1000 feet. I still have pictures from my Kitecam, it was a Canon camera and the lens was just right for me to loop the safety strap around the face of the camera, tie it to my kite's keel, and send it aloft. I was admired on the kite photography boards for using the camera that way. I installed a hack to the camera's code which would allow it to snap a picture every few seconds at a pre programmed shutter speed and aperture, I found the hack online and installed it on the camera's SD card. Because I had no way to remotely trigger the shutter, the camera just snapped pics until it ran out of memory, usually about the time I hauled the kite in anyway. The kite had an incredibly strong pull--I used 250# test line on it and if it was too windy, it could life me off my feet, and that almost happened on a day when the winds were mild at ground level, but once it got to altitude it hit big time winds. If I could get any RC aircraft right now, it would be a powered trike since I have flown trikes in real life, they are slow and safe.

I like X-Plane 11, P3DV4, and AeroflyFS2 in that order, but I still like them all, because my add-on aircraft generally do not overlap in those sims, except for the Duchess which I have both in X-Plane 11 and Aerofly FS2, I like the entry level T-Tail twin piston aircraft, I have the Seminole for P3DV4. What I like the most about X-Plane 11 is the way it records your flights without asking, seamlessly and in the background, and if you have a good flight where you have a greaser landing, like I almost always do when simming, you can save it at your whim. P3D has a record/playback feature which you can save, but their recordings are more stuttery, they do not capture state data well. Finally, Aerofly FS2 records about the last 45 minutes of flight, but there is no way to save the recording other than video capture. That is why I like the sims in the order I do, and per your suggestion, off to X-Plane 11! JC

I have just added an Orbiter 2016 video, so you can see the difference between it and Go For Launch Mercury. Go For Launch Mercury gives a more realistic feeling of being in a tin can going to orbit, whereas Orbiter 2016 has sharper land textures for the earth, and many free add-ons. My crew dragon video for instance uses several free add-ons for Orbiter 2016, and I like the Crew Dragon especially because it has an autopilot that can take you into orbit. John

Please enjoy this video with Music, which uses the wonderful Orbiter 2016 Space Simulation program. The Crew Dragon is a free add-on for the sim, I substituted the free sound Add-On with background music from Richard Elliott, who I have seen in concert at the Desert Sky amphitheater in Arizona where I live. I have virtually all of his music, much of it out of print now. I first heard these songs when a colleague and I swapped tapes (remember cassette tapes?) when we were flying to Venezuela together via JFK from SFO, then onto Caracas from JFK via the wonderful Avensa airlines, then on Avensa from Caracas to Margarita. She gave me Richard Elliott to listen to, I gave her Michael Mcdonald which is funny, she met Richard Elliott and I met Michael's and his bandmates family in 1995 after seeing him in several concerts, that was the last concert I ever saw him in. Michael's music I always listen to when I fly, except when I am Pilot In Command on those rare occasions I am in the air with a CFI since I do not like to pilot an aircraft alone--I cannot speak fast enough to handle radio comms so I hire a CFI to fly with me. My colleague and I swear the Venezuela biz trip was the best vacation we ever had--our client would dismiss us after we'd only work four hours, then we'd go to lunch, go swimming in the Margarita Concorde's wonderful beach, then he'd drive us around the Island. One evening he took us to an empty amusement park on the Island and the three of us, "The Unholy Trinity", lol, had the time of our lives. I was very sad to leave my client, but I have stayed in contact with both my colleague, and my client, now CIO of a hotel chain in the Caribbean, ever since. I have even survived four flyovers of the Bermuda triangle, on that biz trip and on another to Puerto Rico. I was abducted by aliens during the trip from our pax aircraft, but they did not perform experiments on me, they were just curious who we were since I had visited Devil's Tower in the 60's when I was a boy, but my parents saved me from a Close Encounter of the Fourth Kind back then, lol Warning--this video is 15 minutes, it covers takeoff from Florida to an overflight of the eastern seaboard with views of Long Island, Boston, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Hudson Bay in the end. I last overflew Hudson Bay on the way home on a non-stop British Airways flight from London to Phoenix, in June of 2017. http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/ John

And do not forget Orbiter 2016--you will have to get the Sound module as a separate download but it is worth the effort! It is the most realistic space sim out there with stellar (pardon the pun) graphics, and free to download and use. http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/ John

It is from the "Go for launch Mercury" Space Sim

I should mention, the video editor I use is the Windows 10 built in Photos app. I like it because when I screen capture a video the file is way too large for posting on Youtube. It also allows for the adding of a Title Card, and Custom background music if music is not already playing as part of your video. I try to record videos with music using Media Player in the background so I can control the volume, for space sims especially, the music adds mood and angst, lol.... John

Flying over the SF Bay and Pt. Reyes in the C90 in AeroflyFS2, for those who do not see the tag or item prefix. I use the tool in this link to convert my Xplane11 PNG's and Aerofly FS2 BMP's to jpg. I find they are easier to place on Imgur and load faster here in the screenshots forum. It is a fast and efficient offline image converter which I highly recommend for those of us who post images here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/bulkimageconver/ John