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The wonderful Duke, a classic pressurized twin, soaring high over the Colorado Rockies. My FSEarthtiles photo scenery can be added to P3DV4.4 from Avsim's library in eight downloads... John

Legendary FSX aircraft, I have seen the L39 Albatross in a few air shows, it always puts on a great display of aerobatic flying and is a beautiful trainer to look at when taxiing by. These shots taken over the North Bay out of Napa County airport, my encounters with the L39 were in Arizona. John

A nice ride, the Citation Mustang, flying over California. I call the cumulus "the cleanup crew", it was actually my brother David's name for cumulus after one of Northern California's rainstorms.... John

Love this route, due to the variation in scenery...

Always loved this "bus with wings" since I flew on it back in 1990 out of O'Hare to Springfield IL and back a couple weeks later. I flew on the 330 going down to Springfield and the nicer looking Short 360 going back to O'Hare. I loved the picture windows view and flying around 8-10,000 feet. I remember the sunlight shining in and the nice warmth it provided, then we descended below the same cloud deck we took off under from O'Hare on our way into Springfield. I took a couple more business trips to Springfield in '94 and '95 and had a funny time with the girls at the front desk, who flirted with me on my first trip to that client in '94 but then heard by their boss that I had been married by my second visit in '95. When I arrived at the front desk they were whispering to each other and I asked them why to which they exclaimed "You are MARRIED now, our boss told us". They were great sports about it and still flirted with me. While I was there I was prepping for a systems class I was going to teach them when I was leaving for a break, only to find out the electronic lock to my training room had frozen and I got locked inside, and there was no end to the teasing as I was trying to get out to use the...uh...facilities. So as a joke, their boss got a plexiglass frame and somehow got a stuffed Garfield the Cat put inside with the quote on the outside of the plexiglass in pressed on letters "To John, who was locked in training room 320...." 25 years later I still have my Plexiglass "award" they gave me. Also when I taught, I would give out quizzes to my students to see what they retained from my classes and to see what they needed refreshers on. One of my classes had some older women who struggled with computers, but one younger guy who knew computers and even thought he knew them better than I did. He made the women nervous by bragging how easy it was to him, much to the anger of me, his instructor. So when it was time to hand out the quizzes, I tricked him with the knowing approval of the older ladies, in on my joke. I gave them quizzes I knew they would ace and I gave him a "special" quiz. They finished up in less than five minutes while he, to his growing frustration, could not even get past the first question. Among the questions I wrote: How many bytes of memory does the application use? What computer language is it coded in? What is the network protocol called? What is the type of cabling used? How many modules are there within the application After he struggled for about ten minutes, growing more and more visibly frustrated as the other students tried to stifle their laughter, I finally asked him "Are you OK, is there something wrong?" To which he said "You did not cover any of this!" I said "but you told all of us you knew the system so well and you shamed my other students", then they broke out laughing when he finally accused them of being in on my personal lesson for him. It worked, whenever the other students struggled, he was first to help them, but I suspect he was the one who sabotaged the lock in my training room later that week, to get even, and I knew I deserved it. Oh, the stories my air and business travel I have had to remember for the past 30 years, the fun of being an aviation nut was having a career as a sky warrior.... Now onto my pics....

Since I had the DA40, and DA42 when the DA62 was recommended I wondered why I should buy it. But my add-ons are my best form of entertainment, they are part of my monthly and yearly entertainment budget and because I have a grown child, even on a modest fixed disability income I can afford them, enjoy them, and give back my surplus money back to those that develop these products, and I believe Carenado/Alabeo comes from an area of the world that needs more economic votes. They may not be perfect, but maybe one out of the dozens of aircraft I added to FSX and then P3D I did not like, I believe it was simply the C152 because I like the rarer Tomahawk better, so it was thru no fault of their own. They have really progressed in the flight dynamics and systems field, maybe not all out by other vendors but their aircraft are rock solid stable and display the wonder and transition of aviation from the past to the present day. And I am not just stuck on them as vendors, many vendors have given us great product and I dare say even Ariane in the old old days kept interest in simming alive, which is what these vendors accomplish. Sims that support add-ons, third party, are all winners in my book, I have just two, Xplane11 and P3DV4.4 and I have moved from being a hobbyist to student prep again, hoping to resume my lessons next year when I have fully (hopefully) recovered from my recent accident and diabetes scare, less recent that dates back to October 2017. My diabetes saved my potential as a pilot, because I knew that fitness was and is the only answer to beating it. I changed to a bird's diet, l weigh much less than the 170 pound standard pilot though that is my target weight being tall as I am, I only weigh less because I lost some twenty pounds since my accident a week ago from a loss of appetite, which is natural while the pain medicines they gave me recedes from my system. Wanna know the best pain medicine I have taken? Resuming a greater interest in this hobby, and sharing it with others, and letting others share it with me. Even a recently unknown woman found me thru these forums and we've been corresponding, maybe I will no longer have to be single, but out of privacy for her I will not mention her name. Remember what we write here, what we share here, reflects on us here. Even I have been warned by the mods to cool it sometimes, and sometimes I have just wanted to quit these forums because of losing the temper we all lose sometimes. But then I realize those challenges were more to deal with my own personal challenges than those who I perceived writing or responding to my threads in the wrong way. I vouch for moderated forums because certain ones, who I shall not name, have PM'd me on the side and said "John, we're freezing your access for a bit, you are not yourself".... And I accept their angelic presence and offer of a time out, because they know all of us so well, see our love of this hobby, see us sharing, men and women, young men and young women, and so on. I was a mod here but I just do not compare to the one's here today, who keep our gathering place alive, the first "Facebook" I can remember. And I must warn that employers see us here, and get a perspective on us, although as an employer I forbade myself to stalk someone on the web--if I found them acceptable in an interview, face to face, it was enough for me and I have only interviewed maybe a dozen people in my life and sometimes not as a future supervisor but just as a best practices peer that the employee might need. I was honored to be asked that because I do not like judging people, but I must have done something right because I have friends and acquaintances, but no enemies other than the indirect ones that make war on my country, but my country makes war on theirs too, it is just part of world history and I hold no grudge if they dislike me because of that. That is why I love our forums, because we know full well some members here come from countries or cultures that our adversaries, and vise versa, and we learn from each other because our common bonds are greater than our differences we find...... End of back story, just like to keep pics and prose here together to make a screenshot post more interesting. Johnny boy!

Full flight gate to gate CS757 with Flightbeam KPDX (on sale at the moment)

My last payware purchase (possibly) this month, the Carenado Beech 1900 which rounds out my commuter airline lineup for P3D until the Emb 120 is released. I have taken many flights on the 1900, including many short flights of less than 50 miles, such as between LAX and Oxnard once. I always liked the leather seats and the single line of seats on each side,guaranteeing a window and aisle both. Longest 1900 flight I took, with a series of stops, was between Ohare and Michigan in '94. My most interesting flight was going into Philly from Binghamton New York, when we had a heavy crosswind and the crab angle was so large I could see the runway from my pax window on final. Was nearly blown over by the wind when I got off the aircraft in Philly.... John

I made the photo scenery, my Colorado scenery here in Avsim's library if you can endure eight separate downloads for FSX or P3D4.4 (can't vouch for other versions of P3D since I never had 'em) I thought I had lost the Duke, it was not found when I tried to start this flight earlier, but a visit to the Legacy page allowed me to reinstall it. It is my favorite Piston twin followed by the Cessna 421 and Cessna 310, and finally the newer Diamond DA62 and DA42. My fav piston twin tprops are the Cessna Conquest and RealAir tprop conversion, but I do not fly them often, I like the turboprop niche (and I forgot to include the workhorse B200), but I usually like piston twins for some reason given their fuel efficiency and flight missions they use. My dream is still that someone, whether Carenado, Alabeo for P3DV4.4/FSX or someone for Xplane11 creates a P210 Cessna, predecessor to the handful of other pressurized singles and still found on the tarmac today. Either that or a pressurized 337, I had one once by another vendor but it crashed too much and did not look like the real bird inside or out that much. I just love the pressurized piston GA aircraft and their ability to get the average GA pilot there faster without moving to jets, which cost up to three times as much or tprops costing twice as much. If I change from Light Sport to GA now that I will probably have a substantial accident settlement given the extent and permanence of my injuries, I will want to work up to an IFR, pressurized piston twin pilot knowing I can still pass the medical as my vision has improved in my older age for reasons that confound my doctors, since they can see no cause even with the extensive CAT scans I recently had this week from my accident. They pumped so much contrast into me I know they were looking for something but it is hiding because they could not find anything internally wrong in my body or brain, just a lot of external damage in my lymph system and soft tissues. One can still fly with those challenges as many older GA pilots in Light Sport have shown me. I do not get seizures, I have the heart of an OX which saved my life when my blood pressure fell during the aftermath of being run over this week. That was their chief concern, getting my blood pressure back up, and I have not felt close to passing out in several days, just a background pain like the big bang's background radiation. Maybe I needed a car to run me over to get an aviation class physical done at this time in my life--as long as they do not ask me for another colonoscopy, even though they knock you out, if you have reached that age you will know it is the prep for one that I am talking about, lol. I had an early one in my 40's after a scare with cancer and have not wanted to go there since. Other than my accident I treat my body like any good simmer would--if it ain't broke, don't fix it! Enough backstory, it is late and I just wanted to close my day with a visit to the forum that cheers my aching spirits the most these days. After I post I will scan and respond to the other great hobbyists here who kick our hobby up another notch with their visual and verbal points of view.... Cactus521

I love Carenado's Shorts aircraft, I have flown on this aircraft and what I loved the most were the wide windows, letting the light in, when I flew it between OHare and Springfield IL and back way back in 1990. The Shorts has also seen service in California, out of Santa Rosa's airport. I decided to fly a nice route, out of South Lake Tahoe to SFO. Rarely does it happen, I had AI on approach on the runway to my right into SFO, you can see it in one of these screenshots, I love SFO's dual approaches and in real life I often saw aircraft to my right or left coming in on approach to 28L or 28R. I feel SFO has one of the most breathtaking approaches, since in normal wind conditions one comes in over the bay and touches down on land at the last moment, quite exciting. The most exciting takeoff for me is still the Santa Ana/John Wayne takeoff to the west, where they cut the throttles at 1000 feet AGL for noise abatement, which creates a feeling of weightlessness that most pilots out of there warn you about. My daughter learned to love it as we frequently used that airport for trips into Disneyland. And they improved Disney access from Santa Ana with HOV lanes that our taxis would use, getting us there in minutes without regard to traffic from Santa Ana. Now LAX has a similar freeway connection into the Buena Park/Santa Ana area, which was used in the movie Speed before its completion. I drove it into Compton once to drop a friend off in the 'hood, literally, with my two nephews aboard back in 1990. I had been working in Bakersfield and she came to visit me and my colleague and asked if I could take her from there to Compton. I put my foot in my mouth, I said "What is your destination, I hope it is not Compton" to which she smugly replied it was. Saw no evidence of crime whatsoever while I was there and got to see the famous Watts towers. LOL, I was made an honorary gang member in my 50's via a patient I met in the hospital, who was in my ward getting treated for some ailment. We would go outside on breaks and given my Latin heritage, we just became good friends and he was a gang member thru and thru. I did not judge him because he did me no harm, and I was sick and needed a friend and so was he. Enough backstory, I write them in case the pics are boring! John

I would have never gotten MSE except for HLJames recommendation, it works perfectly with my homespun FSEarthtiles Colorado and Wyoming scenery.... Love the Carenado Shorts, never thought I'd find one and it brings back memories of my two Shorts flights from Ohare to Springfield IL and back in 1990..... I was in heaven with the picture window view that the Shorts has, plus I had an aisle and window seat to myself both ways... I flew from Tahoe today into SFO--note the jet just ahead of me on short final to 28R. It did a go around, probably waved off due to runway incursion. John

There is something majestic about taking off from SFO to LAX, two big urban areas, but completely different vibes, with LA being the center of show business and SF (Courtesy the old bands like Jefferson Starship, Pablo Cruise, The Doobie Brothers, Journey, and Norton Buffalo) was the center of classic rock. I used to live in the Napa Valley, north of SFO, and when I was traveling on my vacations or working as a road warrior, I flew in and out of that airport about 100 times. Then I moved to Phoenix, still a road warrior, and have flown Phoenix almost as much, but not quite. No other airports compare in my activity in them, although there are scattered airports in Europe I have flown into over the decades, with London, Frankfurt and Vienna getting the most attention. I tripped thru Japan just once, lovely Narita, on my way to and from Guam. So more or less my arc around the world was circumnavigation, but I did not travel south of the equator, but came close in Venezuela and Guam. I love flying because it can take you to exotic destinations, out of your universe, and into another. It is a joy to be immersed in new customs, new religions, and new politics. If I had the money I would visit North Korea in honor of my father who fought there, so there might be no more war some day. Then aviation and space travel can be used for what it is meant for--bringing our world and universe, at least our solar system and those them Martians together. 🙂 John

Over my home area where I enjoy flying the most, I found a sound fix for the L39 in an old forum thread so now I have the 64 bit sounds installed for the L39, adds to the fun of it... John

LoL....the names of some fixes can really crack you up. 🤣 Who doesn't like a little toe jam right after departure? Just outta Eagle County (KEGE), on my way to Seattle. Flanking shot of my CJ2 and some beautiful mountains. (Changed the color of the default N68FF because it's the company CFO's favorite) 😉

Over my home spun photoreal scenery of Colorado, available in the File Lib here for FSX and P3D. All files have to be downloaded and installed per my instructions, with the bgl's being unzipped to the scenery folder and nothing in the texture folder. This will keep the sim (FSX at least) from "hunting" for bitmaps, an old bug we found in as users and in beta tests from way back when, in the days before FS9 when we were developing our landclass proggies like my landclass assistant. John

P3D V4.4 really bumped up the PR scenery in this one...

Since my GTN 750 ain't updated for P3d v4.4, I had to settle for a G1000 equipped bird. What a bummer. 😀 I'm really liking what I see in v 4.4. More pics to come... Jose

Flying up the Sacramento Valley, with views of Lake Berryessa, Clear Lake, Mt. Lassen, the Black Buttes, and Mt. Shasta. This is your Captain speaking.... Cactus521

Been my fav bizjet for P3DV4.4 since Carenado made it available, I love the autopilot which uses pitch to set cruise climb for a fast climb into the flight levels..... Took these shots after takeoff for SFO, bound for LAX John

Giving homage to my hometown Phoenix football team by flying over where I used to live. I edited the .cfg file to double the scenery draw distance so the Bay Area buildings would be in view during the entire flight from Napa to San Jose, as in real life, with no real penalty in performance. I changed the distance default of 64000 to 128000 as suggested by another member after the latest P3d 4.4 update. I like it, it makes flying much more realistic in terms of VFR landmarks to help locate airports when flying by dead reckoning, which is how Light Sport students like myself and ultralight pilots have to fly, John

In 1992 I remember one real life trip, I helped raise my nephews, my brother was on temp work disability from an accident when they were young. I decided I'd take my two nephews, Joey and Bobby, on their first airline flight to Socal, so I could take them to Disneyland. But I did not like telling them in advance knowing they would get too excited, since I had taken them before, and I knew they would not rest well before the trip. So I just told them we were going to spend the day in Frisco, I was living with my parents at the time and my brother dropped them off there, secretly putting the suitcase he had packed for them in my station wagon and burying it under some blankets. I left for San Francisco and my nephews were mildly excited at the surprise that day, since they thought I was just going to stay with them and have fun with them on my Packard Bell PC Flight Simulator, which they liked to watch. When I crossed the Bay Bridge (fondly remembering one section we crossed was built in Napa where we left from, to replace the section that fell in the 1989 earthquake which me and my nephews felt during the World Series), I pretended to be stressed by traffic (actually I did not have to pretend, traffic was always dicey exiting into Frisco) and told my nephews we'd have to go to the airport to park, and take the bus back up, since it seemed like there might not be any downtown parking (which did happen during the workweek many times). When we got to the airport parking, the first airport parking lot I came upon where my Dad and I always parked when we took our separate business trips, I asked my oldest nephew, age 12, sitting up front to open the glove compartment (my other nephew was 10). I asked him to pull out an envelope I'd left there and open it saying I had tickets for the muni or something like that. He opened the envelope and stared at it, and said, "No Uncle John, these are airline tickets--wait OUR NAMES ARE ON THEM!" I pulled off one of my many famous vacation surprises, which I also applied to my daughter some twenty years later when it was her turn to drive or fly to Disney. We flew Alaska Airlines in the bulkhead row they gave us, which was just exquisite like first class for me with its legroom. We had the same row flying home a few days later. I love aviation and moreover, I love surprising children with aviation as a means of getting somewhere they dream of going. By the time my daughter was thirteen I had taken her on about ten airline trips, one international, several to Orlando and Socal, and one to Hawaii for her thirteenth birthday, with her last trip with me in 2013, by that time she was outgrowing Disneyworld and it became our last trip, and we surprised her with Universal Studios. My daughter is at Northern Arizona University now, like me she wants to follow in my footsteps and be a world traveler, however her interest is in the US Government's Foreign Service which I know she will achieve given my own and my family's strong background in government service in our careers, my ex wife included. I plan on flying her either to Orlando or Socal again when Disney's Star Wars land opens, or maybe I will surprise her and take her somewhere else--maybe across the pond, she wants to see London and I can swing us some Britrail passes for ten days there or so..... Hmmmm John

The Columban Cri Cri from ATS, a very unique twin engine ultralight.... John