content_pasteMiGMan and Flying Singer flew in Algeria and Greece, practicing station keeping and formation skills while talking about the state of flight sims.
content_pasteI attempt to simulate gun kills on Flying Singer, with mixed results.Mixed in the sense that my aircraft parts mixed with the terrain. And not just one time...
content_paste"One of the cool things about Microsoft Flight Simulator is the ability to do multiplayer flights with other players over the internet. I have done quite a few of these, most often group flights where we explore some interesting part of the world while we talk about flying or other things, over Discord or Skype. I've also done flights with my Australian friend Pete (a.k.a. "MiGMan"), often testing out routes in his ongoing MiGMan's World Tour (MMWT) Series. This is an enjoyable social aspect of flight simulation, where airplane nerds can talk with other airplane nerds about airplanes as they pretend to fly them!"
MiGMan’s World Tour - Lucerne Switzerland | Frankenstein and the Valkyries mission
content_pasteI've been exploring many cool areas in Africa and Europe with the help of a new series of flight plans for Microsoft Flight Simulator: MiGMan's World Tour. They include a large number of locations with illustrated guides to help you decide where to fly next. The flights are fairly short (depending on the aircraft you choose) with an emphasis on the scenic and the unusual in the huge, detailed world of MSFS.
This video is a series of screen captures from two flights around Lake Lucerne, Switzerland, from MIGMAN'S FLIGHT SIM MUSEUM - EUROPE VISUAL VOL.4. I first flew the plan in the "wrong" order with 'Live Weather' at fairly high altitude - lots of snow and frozen lakes. Then I flew it again in the published way point order, at low level, with 'cloudy horizon' weather in late fall. I was using Bijan's Four Seasons addon as well as addons for powerlines and lifts (ski lifts and cable cars are everywhere in Switzerland). You can see those (and avoid them) flying down low.
Switzerland is beautiful and these flights show that well. But there are hundreds of less famously beautiful places all around Europe and Africa, and this series has surprised me many times with unexpected wonders.
content_pasteRecently I did some flying in Wales with my friend "MiGMan." We tried out a new "low and slow" airplane on his flight plan from Cardiff (EGFF) and then went back to our usual Italian jet trainers, this time with a new custom paint job.
content_pasteThe Great State of Maine Air Show 1997 was held on July 19th and 20th at Brunswick Naval Air Station, Brunswick, Maine, USA. It was a great day for an air show, with blue skies and plenty of warm sunshine.
content_pasteA wonderful oral history based on hundreds of interviews with WW2 airmen. A good companion to to B-17 Flying Fortress: The Mighty Eighth and a great read
content_pasteSherman ""Tank"" Baldwin, the author of Ironclaw, completed his 2-1/2 years of Navy pilot training in December 1990, just prior to the start of Desert Storm. He reported to the USS Midway as a nugget pilot of the EA-6B Prowler.
content_pasteThis 2003 book is a sort of "oral history" of the BoB, little on the strategy/politics and hardware, mostly personal stories based on conversations, old letters, diaries, etc. of the fighter boys themselves. Plenty of flying and action, but focused on the personal stuff.
content_pasteFlight of Passage is the story of a flight across America by two brothers in July 1966. The flight is really the heart of it, a funny, inspiring, and occasionally hair-raising adventure story.
content_pasteIn typically Clancy fashion, Carrier is full of details on every aspect of aircraft carriers, from the process of building one, to the organization of the battle group (CVBG) to the aircraft and weapons themselves.
content_pasteCharles H. Cook flew a B-24D named "Cookie" with the 90th Bombardment Group in the southwest Pacific in 1942-1943. At that time, Allied forces were greatly outnumbered, and Japanese invasion of New Guinea and Australia was a very real threat. Bruce Irving has interviewed Charlie Cook and composed this valuable record of his aviation career. The entire article is also available for free download.
content_pasteThe B-24 was heavily utilized in the North African and Mediterranean theaters by the USAAF's Fifteenth Air Force, with operations over the Ploesti oilfields in Rumania being some of the most famous missions undertaken by the big American 'heavy' in World War II.
content_pasteI have always enjoyed reading military novels and techno-thrillers, especially those in which air combat figures heavily. I also enjoy building and flying missions for combat flight sims. A few years back I decided to combine these interests and build some missions based on scenes from a few of my favorite military action novels.
content_pasteAlthough the text and photos are great, it's the "diagrammatic paintings" that are the heart of this book. They clearly illustrate many of the great battles and aircraft match-ups from WW1 to the Gulf War (showing the set-up and maneuvers in an easily understood format). Very educational and nicely written as well.
content_pasteWhat impresses me about the Wrights is the combination of inventiveness and persistence that they applied to solving the problems of powered flight. They were pioneers in wind tunnel testing, flight control design, and many other challenging disciplines. They also taught themselves to fly, of course, and then became the first flight instructors. They were too stubborn to give up!
content_pasteGandt (a former A-6 pilot) follows one class of advanced jet students as they learn the intricacies of flying and fighting in the F/A-18 Hornet. Good stuff.
content_pasteI love air shows. As an aviation freak, air shows really get me excited, from the static displays to the aerobatics performers to the military demonstration teams. Every summer I go to at least one major show. I take pictures, and some of them are pretty good, but I can never quite capture the excitement of being there. Probably nothing can really do this, but I recently got a book and a DVD that come pretty close.
content_pasteHere's a shot of me in the Yellow Peril and also a cockpit shot of the approach to Riverside (CA) airport. This was on my first (20 min) Stearman ride at an airshow.
content_pasteI no longer get the "your PC sucks" message on startup and I'm getting 39-59 FPS with moderate but not totally ugly settings based on a few quick tests.
content_pasteI just tried flying into and out of that same canyon in MSFS2020 in a couple of different planes. It's really cool and the lighting effects are amazing.
content_pasteAfter a frustrating MSFS2020 session early this morning with the Cessna 172S and the Garmin G1000 auto pilot and unflyable frame rates (15-24 FPS), I decided to change a few things and go back to basics with the C152.
content_pasteThis song by Bill Callahan wasn’t on Apple Music a few years ago when I first found it. But here it is now. Low-key words about the wonder of flight.
content_pasteOver the weekend I did a lot of MSFS2020 flights in several areas including around Stockholm where I took my first and only hot air balloon flight on May 31, 2014.
content_pasteI joined a glider day at Sterling with WAPA in fall 2007 (Worcester Area Pilots Association) and that I had taken a ton of pictures that day, on the ground and in the air.
content_pasteI found a 2015 journal entry where I wrote about a planned movie of Flight of Passage. | This morning I decided to do some testing of the VFR Flight of Passage re-creation idea in MSFS using the Savage Cub.
content_pasteI still get these notices when Trump is taking one of his frequent golfing weekends in Bedminster, NJ. It doesn’t affect my sim flying though.
content_pasteFirst thing I installed MSFS, natch, and did a quick test flight in Innsbruck. I only had 10 minutes so I didn't look at everything but it seems to have defaulted to High settings for everything and I got 58-60 FPS in the mountains with nice detail.
content_pasteI’m making plans to try the Flight of Passage flight in MSFS 2020 now that I’ve got good graphics and can capture video etc. While searching for info on one of these I found an AOPA article about a couple who bought the Bucks’ old Cub, restored it again, and flew the route in 2014!
content_pasteSomething about the lighting and rendering in this sim just blows my mind -- although European Air War is very "painterly" (as you said in the museum, like flying in a Robert Taylor painting), Microsoft Combat Flight Sim 2 is approaching photo-realism.
content_pasteCheck Six, a novel that combines realistic information about aircraft carrier and F/A-18 operations, exciting air combat, and a suspenseful story line.
content_pasteOrbiter is a amazing free 3D Space Simulator written by Dr. Martin Schweiger, Ph.D. Orbiter contains accurate math and orbital physics, and has an extensive community support base.
content_pasteSo I spent a good 90 minutes orbiting the earth for the views in the ISS (usually at 10-100x time warp) while listening to some classical theme music. So far I've been pretty literal - Strauss's Blue Danube - Holst's Planets - Mozart's Jupiter Symphony -- all seem suitable for space. I also have the Ravel Daphne and Chloe (suite), very nice moon mood music.
content_pasteOctober Sky (1999) is the true story of Homer Hickam, a young boy growing up in a West Virginia coal-mining town in the 1950's. Homer eventually became an engineer for NASA, working with the astronauts in the Space Shuttle program. A very inspiring movie!
content_pasteIf you fly Falcon 4.0 or other F-16 sims, this book is recommended reading - it can help you to learn real F-16 tactics (it's THAT detailed - avionics and weapon information, altitudes, air speeds - but it's not purely a combat diary, it is also not a bad read).
content_pasteIt succeeds as a flying book, as a biography of a woman who was ahead of her time, and as a fascinating slice of pre-war and war-era American life.
content_pasteSubtitled "Flying the A-10 (and F-15E) in the Gulf War", these books are based on many interviews with the pilots. They present a detailed picture of what it was like to fly these airplanes in combat over Kuwait and Iraq. Many of the missions are described in great detail - wonderful stuff for sim pilots and other air combat aficionados.
content_pasteThis is a fantastic book I read in 2015. Mark is an American who ended up flying 747’s for British Airways (now 777). He’s also an excellent writer.
content_paste"Flying Singer:
"" I have always enjoyed reading military novels and techno-thrillers, especially those in which air combat figures heavily. I also enjoy building and flying missions for combat flight sims. A few years back I decided to combine these interests and build some missions based on scenes from a few of my favorite military action novels.
At the time (1996), I was flying mainly in Jane's ATF with the NATO Fighters expansion disc. It contained a good mix of flyable aircraft, terrain areas, and ground objects as well as a pretty decent mission builder. Since then, all of the aircraft in ATF/NATO Fighters (and more) have been released in Jane's Fighters Anthology (JFA). I have recently tested these missions in JFA, and they still work. So read the books -- fly the books -- have fun. If you build missions for other sims based on these books, please let me know."""
content_pasteI still felt that some of my landing problems are controls related so I went looking. This guy is long winded but the gist is to find flight_model.cfg (I think) for your aircraft. Save a backup copy then edit elevator_effectiveness from 1 to maybe 0.1 and similar for pitch and rudder. Fast forward to find this part of vid. Then set the sensitivity to 0.0 so all are back to linear with no dead zone (for me). With my stick, this makes it feel and act much more realistic to me in the XCUB and C152.
content_paste"Other screen caps by me, FlyingSinger,
with standard Orbiter 2005 installation, plus high-resolution ""level 9"" earth textures, well worth installing (free of course, all Orbiter stuff is, amazingly, free).
content_paste(dates on page look old but tutorials work with 2005 version, worth installing from two zip files, probably the best intro to the basics, conversational style, starts on Mars, less gravity and atmosphere to deal with than earth - print it out and go find Phobos!)
content_pasteThis Introductory Tutorial manual is a colorful picture book about humans going to Mars, how they might realistically go about this, and where this might lead in the future.
content_pasteThis Introductory Tutorial manual is a colorful picture book about humans going to Mars, how they might realistically go about this, and where this might lead in the future.
content_pasteA colorful picture book about humans going to Mars, how they might realistically go about this, and where this might lead in the future.
The missions were simulated with specially developed add-ons in the freeware Orbiter space flight simulator, and most of the graphics are screen captures from Orbiter, though some are real photos from NASA. Intended for ages 10 to adult, the book includes an appendix with details for each page, including information on the add-ons used in Orbiter to create the images.
content_pasteI think Orbiter should really be flown in a dark room up close to a big monitor. It's like looking out the window of the Shuttle, with Bach, Strauss, and Ravel cycling in the background.
content_paste"Here are some Apollo 14 pics from a tutorial on recreating Apollo missions.
The craft is a few years old now but still cool (the look is still much the same - I downloaded a lot of the Apollo stuff but have not tried any yet, as I'm still trying to achieve the orbit I want and maneuver with thrusters).
The addon people for this thing are maniacs, and the Forum is the one of the most multinational I have ever seen -- 12 year old kids in India to retired USAF guys in Colorado to all sorts of people around Europe, some Australia, etc.
content_paste"Orbiter (available from www.orbitersim.com) is a freeware space flight simulator for the PC that is fun, powerful, realistic, expandable, and educational. The download page directs you to several "mirror" sites that actually host the program zip files. "
Sectional charts for the USA. Great to have displayed in your home cockpit!
content_pasteHave you seen this site? It’s US charts only and I don’t think it’s set up for flight planning per se, but it’s great to have a zoomable sectional chart right on my iPad or PC for general orientation and planning. I used to buy these things on paper for my region and others like when I flew in California. The density and clarity of information on these charts is a work of aviation art!'
Bushtalk Radio Landmarks: 5800+ POIs for MSFS and LittleNavMap
content_paste" It is so cool to combine my love of geography, of learning new things, AND flying into one cool enhancement. I've added 43 POI's so far and learned about places I now hope to visit IRL once that becomes a thing again. One source of POI and flight ideas for me is the Bing wallpaper app on Windows 10. It puts up a photo of some place in the world, and if looks like it would be cool from the air, I fly there and make a POI. I've also revisited the s universities I've attended and places I visited as a child. Very nostalgic and amazing that MSFS is detailed enough to support this sort of thing. Now that I no longer fly as a pilot OR passenger (someday...), this is a great way to explore this amazing world." - Flying Singer
content_pasteA couple bought the Bucks’ old Cub, restored it again, and flew the route in 2014!. This zoom event remembering the trip in June 2020 with Rinker Buck as a special guest.