Some random FS9 freeware planes, part 2

Here's a couple more interesting freeware offerings that I have recently tried. First, there is this really nice Grumman Ag-Cat, by Marcel du Plessis. This one has a lot to offer--a fun, unusual plane, offering a stunning virtual cockpit and a chance to work on a new skill. As I've said once or twice around here, I haven't had much time lately for simming; but if I did, I might try perfecting my cropdusting (or "top dressing") skills with this plane. On my test flight I did try zipping down into various fields and pulling up right before the trees, but I think it would take a lot of practice to get those tight turnarounds down.


Here's a couple of VC shots. Crisp, clean, convincing textures on the panel, and nice views all around. The plane handles nicely--quick and agile, but not too skittish. I was caught off guard a couple of times by the high power-on stall speed (OK, so I made a few craters), so I think it would pay to spend some time practicing maneuvers a few thousand feet up before heading to the farm.
My only slight gripe about this plane is that there is no pilot visible in the spot view, so it looks a little weird from the outside. It is possible there is a keystroke which will populate the plane (I only skimmed the documentation), if there is I would say this one is just about perfect.

Now for something a little different, the Demoiselle V2.0 created by Marcel & Marco Di Foggi. The real Demoiselle was built by Alberto Santos-Dumont. (Go ahead and look at the Wikipedia link, and you'll see these guys have modeled the hat very accurately!) This is one of the best early aircraft I've seen. I especially like to watch the wheels from the virtual "cockpit", as you can see them stop spinning after takeoff, the rev up on touchdown. It helps you appreciate the courage of those daring young men, when you see they had so little between them and terra firma.
The biggest weakness of this plane is how unconvincing is the human figure (apart from the excellent hat). Of course, this is an inherant weakness of FS graphics and no fault of the developers. But this kind of plane makes the contrast pretty jarring.
It is nice to see there is still a lot of newer stuff out there for FS9. I have not tried these in FSX, so I cannot comment on whether they would work well there.

Some random FS9 freeware planes part 1

For Father's day I decided to give my father a few new planes. He's an avid simmer, but doesn't have internet access. So I went to one of the popular sites and picked out a few of the most recent additions for FS9. A side benefit of this is that I had an excuse to take these out for a checkride. I am technically still on hiatus, as I really have no time for flightsimming these days. However, in the spirit of Summer I am letting myself have a few hours of fun.

Now, I've been out of the loop for a little while, so I don't know how new these really are-- they may be old news for most. Anyway, here's a couple for this post.


Here is a nice Tomahawk model by Adrian Fernandez Gomez (see http://alcala-sim.com.ar/). If you're a GA fanatic like me, you will like this alternative to the usual Cessnas. I can't get over how tiny the wings look from inside, as if you have a couple of rulers sticking out of the fuselage.

I enjoyed flying this one quite a bit. It looks great on the outside, and I enjoy the visibility from the cockpit. The VC is usable, but not perfect. The textures are pretty coarse, and there are some gaps, as you can see in the image below.

There's another major issue with this model, in that there is something mysterious going on with the landing gear. If you accidentally hit the retract gear button on your joystick, you will hear the sound of retracting landing gear. This is a fixed gear plane, of course. More surprisingly, if you have raised the fixed gear, you will get a belly landing.
I'm not sure if this is by design (simulate gear failure?), or if the sound and config files were simply borrowed from a plane with retractible gear, but it is curious. There's a nice documentation pdf included.

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For a big chunky bipe you can't beat this Anatov AN2, by Vladimir A. Zhyhulskiy.This is a new update to a model which I believe has been around for a while. I have to admit I didn't even know what an AN2 was until I found one among the FlightGear add-ons. I love flying it in FlightGear, so I am glad to find a version for for MSFS.
This is a well-done model of a unique craft, and will probably become one of my favorites (if I ever have time to fly, that is)
The VC is fairly detailed. Zoom in, and you'll see the original Russian instruments (tip strips are in English!). There is good documentation for this one as well. In looking at the documentation this morning I realized there are some nifty exterior animations such as cargo loading, which I have not had a chance to fly. However, those sorts of things are really novelties--the important thing is that this one is nice for hand flying, and fascinating to look at in spot view.
Finally, it has a pretty decent cabin. I like to replay the flight and go back in the cabin and watch from the passenger's view. Not sure how comfortable those seats are, though!

Celebrating 100 posts

Ok, I admit I am dashing out a post mainly to push this blog past the 100-post mark. I don't have much new to say in this post, except to give quick mention to a couple of nice freeware FSX craft that I recently (i.e. last night) tried out.

First, there is the Waterman Aerobile or ArrowBile (are they the same plane? I can't figure it out) which is available from rarewings.com They also have the Taylor car plane, but that one is not free. The Waterman is a pretty nice visual model, however it is not clear to me how you control the rudders in the real plane. While your normal rudder controls will make the model's rudders turn, there are no visible rudder controls in the model, and there is not an automatic linkage with the steering wheel (as in an Ercoupe). It would have been really neat if they had provided a version in car configuration, but hey, don't look a gift horse...
Next, we have a very nice Pietenpol Air Camper "Pete" by Robert Kerr. This is clearly a labor of love, as Robert is modeling the plane completed by his father in the 80's. Bill Lyons had a nice Pietenpol model for FS2002 or maybe FS2004, but this one is FSX-native and is much more detailed. The detail does have a slight impact on framerates, but the hit is manageable, at least on my system. I wish I could say more about how this one flies, but I only had time to do one circuit. I did a bit of wobbling on the landing, but I think that is accurate given what looks to be a high center of gravity. I believe the Lyon's model was similarly touchy on the ground.

So, on to the second 100 posts!

Dabbling again

I still don't have time for flightsimming, but I'm feeling the pull again quite strongly. So, I've been dipping my toes in the water here and there. Mostly I've been doing short flights (10 to 15 minutes) in the early morning while I have breakfast; I have time enough to do that now that the heat and the early sunrise make it easier to get out of bed.

Of course, any dedicated flightsimmer knows that to do it right, you need to carve out some fairly large chunks of time. The real satisfaction comes from doing longer flights and/or flying by the book. Just tooling around randomly is usually as unsatisfying as mindless channel surfing.



Being in this unsettled state, I have succumbed a bit to download-itis. Even if you don't have time to fly much, you can still download and install stuff while you are getting other work done. It's a way of doing the hobby without the necessity of sitting at the computer for any length of time!

The scenery in the first three screen shots are from the Snow Dog Tours series for FSX by "MoCat" (head over to The Old Hangar for details). This is a fun package which adds a lot of scenery goodies to dozens of airports, fields, and seaplane bases. This particular package covers Juneau, which readers of this blog know is one of my favorite places to fly. This is not as comprehensive as the Glacier Bay V2 package for FS9, but still very impressive considering it is , as far as I can tell, the work of one man.


Finally, here's a couple of nifty Polish inter-war taildraggers, recently released as freeware. These are native FSX planes, nicely done and fun to fly. I apologize for not giving names of either the planes or the teams responsible--I'm not at home now so I can't look them up right now. If you can't find them in the usual places, add a comment or send me a note and I will look it up when I get a chance.

Holy Foliage, Batman!

OK, ok, I haven't posted in a while, and the truth is I haven't flown in a long time either. But Sitemeter is telling me I still get a fair number of visitors each week, so I thought I'd pass along this little tidbit.

Did you know there is a company whose main business is creating simulated trees for computer games? I came across this while browsing around, and their stuff looks really neat. Given how far graphics technology and MSFS has come in the last 10 years, I wouldn't be suprised to see something like this in a flight simulator some time in the next 10 years. Check out the web site, and don't miss the videos. There' s a really nice one showing trees bending under the downwash of a helicopter.

FG batch files -- a Dummy to Dummy guide

Just a quick note here. I had an earlier post on '"saving" favorite flights in FlightGear by creating batch files. However, I didn't understand how to get over a simple batch file issue, so I came up with a kludge. I am embarassed by that now, since the way I am doing it now is so much simpler. I already listed this on the FG forum, after being set straight by another poster on the forum. I offer it here for the benefit anyone else who is running windows and is not fluent in DOS.

1. Create flight of choice in FG wizard
2. Copy the command line text from the wizard into notepad
3. Use backspace or delete to remove all the line returns
4. replace all "Program Files" with "Progra~1"
5. Save with .bat extension, e.g. myflight.bat
6. Now you just double click on file to launch the flight. This will bypass FG wizard and start up fgfs.exe right away.

I also like to put the line "pause" at the end of the batch script, so that it leaves the window open. This way you can see any error messages.

FlightGear 1.0 mini review

Here's a few quick observations about the new official 1.0 release of FlightGear. If you're new to FlightGear you may wan't to read my review of version 0.9.10 here. This review is written for poor slobs like me who are totally dependant on the FG developer community for executable install packages--a large portion of the FG user base has been enjoying these improvements for some time. You can find a nice summary of the changes since 0.9.10 here.

1. First off, the visual experience isn't much different than version 0.9.10. There are some changes mentioned in the link above, but frankly I don't notice anything dramatic.
   
2. There are new views, for example a flyby view which is very nice. A major usability enhancement is an option in the View menu to select which views are included when you cycle through the views.
   
3. There is also a dynamic cockpit view now. This is intended to mimic intentional eye movements, rather than the head latency effect used in Active Camera and FSX. For example, if you step on the right rudder while taxiing, the view shift to the right, because thats where you want to go, presumably. But this becomes a problem if you are trying to stay on the centerline on takeoff, because you want to keep your eyes on the center. I fly with this turned off, but I'm hoping someone will write an alternative head movement component, because I don't like the bolted-to-the-airframe feeling you get without any head movement.
   
4. There are some nice additions to the default hangar, including a couple of Beavers (float and wheeled) and a pretty nice Camel. Best of all, tho, is that now all of the additional aircraft availabe on the FG website will work. I had tried some of these addons with version 0.9.10, but a lot of them didn't cooperate with that version.
5. The FG wizard (fgrun.exe) now has an option for scenarios. This makes it easy to set up situations such as carrier operations with the plane starting out on the deck. Also, one can set up glider towing with an AI cub, and aerial refueling from a tanker flying above KSFO. A couple of these scenarios are featured in the screenshots below.
   
6. FG now recognizes both my rudder pedals and my joystick at the same time! Version 0.9.10 didn't recognize my rudder pedals automatically, though it is possible I could have tweaked and/or hacked a solution.
7. Multiplayer chat is now available.
8. The tutorials are really neat. When you run one of these, it gives you text instructions at the top of the screen, then the viewpoint automatically shifts to the appropriate area of the cockpit, and the relevant control is circled. This is a great example of how the FG developers are not just copying other simulators, but coming up with new ways it can be used. A screenshot from one is below.
   
9. A note to MS FSX bashers: Progress comes at a price! Just as the new features of FSX packs a performance hit, so does upgrading from FG 0.9.10 to 1.0. Well, maybe not as bad. What I am seeing is that flight loadup takes at least twice the time it did in version 0.9.10. However, in flight performance is not nearly as badly affected. Except for my next point.
   
10. Alas, I seem to have lost the hardware lottery on this. My rig, which ran 0.9.0 quite well, and even manages FSX adequately, has terrible stuttering problems with FG 1.0. I see the stutters mostly during taxi and takeoff, where sometimes everything stops for more than a second at a time. Once aloft, things are not too bad. Overall, framerates are in the mid twenties and above. The conventionaly wisdom is that ATI cards such as mine do not handle OpenGL as well as Nvidia cards. There may yet be a tweak to reduce these stutterings, but for now they seriously cramp my style.

All in all, a very nice package, and an amazing one considering it's free. Although its a few years behind Microsoft in the visual department, it boasts many features that are state of the art, for example the tutorials, and the ability to have curved runways. If you haven't tried FG yet, now is a good time. Get it here.

On to the screenshots.
Here's a shot approaching the refueling tanker (never did quite connect tho).

A sample shot from a tutorial (how to start the Spitfire, I think)

My first successful carrier landing in 1.0.
OK, I admit it. The shot above was not my first sucessful landing--this one was :-)
However, I did land the Seahawk on the first attempt, honest! And with the baby in my lap at the time!

Being towed by the AI cub. You can also be towed by someone in multiplayer mode. The towing action feels pretty realistic, and you will break the cable if you don't follow well enough. You can't actually see the cable though.

FlightGear 1.0. released!

OK, I haven't posted in a long while. The truth is, I haven't flightsimmed in weeks now. It's not just the guitar thing--I've been sick as well with a nasty head cold.

However, I do read up on my favorite flightsim sites, and I was delighted to see that FlightGear has finally release version 1.0.0. I downloaded it tonight and it looks really nice. Go try it out! I might get around to a mine-review here, but don't hold your breath. You're better off just trying it for yourself.

Flightsim in my pocket

OK, so I lied. Here I am posting just days after I said I would be on hiatus. However, this is an unusual occasion as I am away from home (and the guitar) for a week, on a business trip. Of course, one of the benefits of this trip is that I got to fly for the first time in a few years. The experience was glorious, and I am really looking forward to the trip home.

But the main topic of this post running FlightGear from a thumb drive. This is a really neat thing you can do with FlightGear, and I've been meaning to post about for a long time, but somehow never got around to it. The truth is, you can easily get the entire FG base package, about 500MB, on a 1 Gig thumb drive. And then you can run FG off the drive without installing anything on the computer. These drives are really cheap nowadays: I got my 2 GB drive for less than $20. Of course, if you want to add more scenery areas, that will quickly take up a lot more space. Another option, with slightly less cool factor, would be to burn a CD. But then you couldn't fit it in your pocket.

The beauty of this is that you can fly FG on any eligible computer without installing it. This is especially valuable to me, since my employer keeps very tight controls on their computers and won't let the common folk install anything without going through IT. However, with the flightsim on the thumb drive, I can fly on my laptop any time I want to. This has been especially nice this week. Being away from home, I finally have my evenings all to myself, and no guitar to tempt me, so I've taken a bit of those evenings to enjoy some flying time again. The photo above shows FG running on my work laptop, from the thumb drive on the right side of the laptop, attached to my keychain.

My parting shot is a nice evening cloud effect that I never saw before in FG, until this evening's flight. I think it's awfully nice, and a fitting image if this is really my last post (for a while, at least).

Hangar time

If you've been following this blog recently you may have wondered why I haven't written lately. Actually, you're if you're a regular reader more likely to know why, since the writing has been on the wall pretty much, in my last few posts. The truth is, my renewed interest in guitar playing has sucked up just about all of my meager supply of free time and I have hardly flown at all for weeks now.

I have actually set out a few times recently to have a little flying time, but have ended up hitting Control-C after 5 minutes or so. I'm not sure exactly why I feel so "unhooked" on flightimming. I think the fact that the hobby has a rival has made me much more sensitive to using my time as productively as possible. And flightsimming definitely demands a dedicated chunk of time to do it right. Right now, I find it's hard to justify spending even 30 minutes on a flight, when I have a to-do list as long as my arm for the guitar. Thirty minutes of scales could do me a lot of good.

It's not that the stuff doesn't interest me anymore. I still check in on the forums, and I've been following with great interest the news about FSX SP2 (see here for example). I will download that patch when it becomes available, though I won't be staying up late to do so this time. And of course I still love aviation, and still look skyward just about every time I hear something piston powered going over my house. Just the other day I was lucky enough to catch a good look at this beauty at low altitude right over my house!

So, a little shy of 100 posts, I feel I need to put this blog on indefinite suspension. I can't promise to post on any regular basis. I can't promise I won't post either, so if you've found any of this blog to be diverting, then check back every month or so. I've you've been a regular visitor, please add a comment or drop me a note. My site meter tells me I get a certain amount of traffic every week, but I still wonder whether they are real people or spam-bots. I'm sure I'll get back to flighsimming regularly, I just don't know when. I've enjoyed writing this blog, and I hope some of you have enjoyed reading it.

Google Earth flight simulator

By now the word is well out there that Google Earth has an Easter Egg flight simulator. It's even mentioned in Wikipedia. I've played with this a bit, and I think its worth having, but only because it is worth having Google Earth. It is fun, but you are not likely to get much actual flying enjoyment from it.

It made perfect sense to implement this feature, as they already had most of the ingredients: the imagery, a method to map the imagery to contours, and a way to manipulate the view so that you can it all from any perspective. All they had to come up with was a way to dynamically move through this world, with a motion that mimicked the behavior of an airplane. The result is fairly primitive flight simulator that feels like an arcade game. It's buggy too-- I can't give any better evaluation of the flight dynamics because when I fly it keeps resetting the throttle. However, there is a smidgen of realism. You can make it can stall, and it is smart enough to register a crash if you attempt to land on water.

There is no cockpit beyond a HUD, and there is no outside view, which is not surprising because that would take a major development effort. I would be very happy if they at least added the usual preset views that you could use with the number pad or hat switch. As it is, you can't see your house unless you are flying right at it. There is a way to pan the view (Alt+ arrow keys, or Ctrl+ arrow keys for slow and fast panning, respecively) but this is not easy to use in flight. As a result, landings are hard to set up.

There are 3D buildings for some major cities, which are not on by default but can be activated using the layers options. I find they really slow down the performance, and as you can see many are unpainted.

So you can have a bit of fun flying over your own house, flying to work, or zooming through the Grand Canyon. All in the daytime, in a single (mixed-up) season, and without weather. Beyond that there's not too much to do. But this is exciting because this is that clearly this is the future of flightsimming. Surely live streaming imagery will be in MSFS eventually. (I know there is a project to do this in FSX now, but someday this will be the way it is out of the box.) Maybe Flight Gear will beat them to it.

Feeding the hobby

Again, apologies to flightsimmers who come to this blog hoping for lots of flightsim info, because I have another installment in the Generic Hobby Blog. All I can say is that one of the motivations for starting this blog was to write about the experience of having an engrossing hobby, as much as to write about the hobby itself.

I notice, as I get deeper into my return to serious classical guitar playing how many of the same psychological dynamics come into play. And today, I want to discuss what I think of as "feeding the hobby". By this, I mean the sense of obligation to contribute something to the hobby on a regular basis. In flightsimming, this manifests itself as the need to throw more addons, and sometimes hardware, at the sim. For music, this can mean finding more sheet music, buying accessories, CDs, or the ultimate: upgrading the instrument itself.

Yesterday, I went to Staples and bought a new binder to hold my sheet music. I have a number of binders already, but this is to be my main binder that will hold my daily practice music. I didn't skimp and get the cheapest model, but got a deluxe version with D rings, a rubberized spine, a new and improved ring opening and closing mechanism. Then I got tab dividers and some of those post-it flag thingies for marking groups of music. The reason I mention all of this is that I noticed how it felt good, and I realized once again that I was feeding the hobby.

If this description might strike some as sinister, as if the hobby has become some kind of idol, demanding regular sacrifices. However, I think the explanation is more benign. This is a form of compensation: I'm not able to spend as much time on music as I would like, so I buy stuff for it, or find more public domain music online to print out. It is a kind of vicarious enjoyment of the hobby.

Do you feel the need to feed the hobby?

Oh, I haven't posted a screen shot here in a while, so here's a quick one to show you that I still get a little flying in, now and then. This is on final approach into KPVD, with the marvelous Flight Scenery addon scenery. I personally know all of these stores and restaurants, as I've driven my car this way often.

The website-driven life

If you will indulge me one more time I'd like to discuss a topic which is only tangentally related to flightsimming, and is really more about hobbies/obsessions in general. As I find myself getting deeper and deeper into music again, the more I realize that much of it is driven by things that have been made available on the web. And this is very similar to how the whole flightsim experience started. I am sure that my experience is not unique.

It goes like this. You have your hobby. Maybe it's something new, or maybe something you've been doing for years. One day you go to your favorite search engine to answer some question regarding this hobby, and in the process you find not just the answer, but one or more interesting web sites. Over the following days and weeks you find that there is an incredible amount of wisdom, not to mention free stuff to download, and suddenly you find yourself committed to the hobby like never before.

If you're reading this page most likely you know about some of the better flightsimming sites. So, you know how something you read about in one of the forums can send you racing to the download page. Or, you read a thread about something you'd never really given much thought to, for example scenery design, and to your surprise you feel yourself being drawn into a new area of the hobby. Your to-do list gets longer and longer.

The site that's really gotten me going with music, classical guitar in particular, is called delcamp.net. See the forums here. After spending some time reading these forums, I'm excited about new practice ideas, new music to check out, et cetera. Also, there's lots of sheet music to download and print out for free, the ultimate guitar "add on".

I think this is a curious phenomenon. Contrast this to the way life was only a decade ago. If you had a hobby, chances are your sources were very limited. Information was either very local or very centralized. You may have been dependent upon your local teacher, club, or hobby shop. Or perhaps a certain magazine or catalog defined the universe of what was available to enhance your hobby. Now, we are not limited by geography or institutional authority. An amateur musician or flightsimmer can get helpful advice from another amateur on the other side of the planet, within hours of raising the question.

Gotta go print out some more music...

It's all about time (it always is)

I think I should clarify what I was saying in the last post. After a rather enjoyable flying session last night, it became clear to me that it wasn't so much that flightsimming is losing its luster, but rather that it is now facing more fierce competition with regards to me free-time choices. If days suddenly got twice as long, I could happily spend hours a day flightsimming. It's still a lot of fun.

However, with life as it is, time spent flightsimming is time NOT spent on music, or reading, or sleeping. And right now music has gone up a few notches in priority. This is a good thing.

Last night being Flying Night, and having pretty much finished my recent music project, which was adaptating a couple of of Mozart piano sonata movements for two guitars, I decided to take another stab at the flightsim. I went to my favorite place (Alaska)with the now seemingly low-maintenance FS9, and had a very nice time. First, I tooled around Atlin a bit in the Cessna 150. Then I switched to the Aero Commander and flew from Atlin to Skagway, following the path shown below. This was a thrilling scenic route; it was especially fun descending through the valley into Skagway. I will surely fly the route again, in different times and seasons, perhaps try the reverse direction. . I got some nice screenshots along the way, but refrained from adding them to this post, since I've had too many similar pictures here already.

Throttling back

Believe it or not, I've done very little flying lately, even though I have had the usual trickle supply of free time. Another hobby has started to demand more time. This is my first love, music. I am a classical guitarist, and have played at varying levels of intensity for more than 25 years. Having kids cut way into practice time, and for quite a while I hardly played at all. Recently, though, I've started playing duets with a couple of different folks and that has re-lit the spark.

Part of the "problem" is that I have found a number of different ways to use the computer for this other hobby. This has opened up whole new avenues. For example, I have been dabbling a bit using an open-source music typesetting program called Lilypond. An example of the work I've been doing is in the screenshot below. This is a movement from a Mozart piano sonata that I am adapting for guitar duet.

Lilypond is a fantastic product, and if any of my readers share my interest in music you may want to check it out. The learning curve is a bit steep, but a great help is available in a plug-in for the open source text editor jEdit (it's called lilypond tools). Then there's Audacity, an open-source multi-track recording software...



But this is a flightsim blog, so I will cut the digression there. The thing of interest here is that I have actually found myself with a block of free time, the simulator up and running, and yet a little voice in my head is saying "wouldn't you rather finish working on that score?". So, control-C, Yes, and I'm off working on the other hobby. Can you believe this actually happened during the flight in which I captured that beautiful image below?



Of course, this is how normal people live. But its a little disturbing for the flightsim fanatic. The magic is gone! Well, yes and no. I'm sure I'll keep simming, and I'm sure I will develop new fascinations with various parts of the simming hobby, but for now it's going to get a bit less time from me. Keep checking back here, because I will try to update at least once a week, and you never know when something will draw me back in full throttle.

Autogen City

Here's a quick tip: If you want to get a good look at cityscapes, but don't have a system that can handle New York, Seattle, Tokyo, etc, then why not try a second or third tier city? The pictures here are from Worcester, MA. It looks like there are not any custom buildings here, just autogen. I get low but manageable framerates with this autogen, totally flyable compared to Seattle.
I was very pleased and somewhat surprised by the quality of the textures. I've flow a bit in urban areas, but usually the big cities, but this is the first time I've tried a city like this, flying low and slow, taking time to notice the details. For example, the roofs have a nice 3D shape now, and what's more, they are landable!

Having fun again

Fun has been eluding me lately on my Flying Nights. Flying Night is my weekly dedicated night to fly, occurring each Wednesday when my wife works an evening shift. Lately, these nights have been less than satisfying. I think this is due to too much tweaking and twiddling, combined with the pressure to wring the most out of this all too limited window of time.

So, last night I decided to keep my ambitions modest, and spend the evening in good ol' Glacier Bay (FS9). I decided to do some plane hopping, which can be dangerous in the sense that you don't allow enough time in any one plane for a sense immersion to develop. However, this time it paid off, probably because I was sticking to old favorites.

The first leg of the journey was from Hoonah into Juneau in the freeware Cessna 150. I didn't get any pictures, but it was a nice relaxing and uneventful trip. I had some time to play with the VOR and ADF. These were not necessary since, as usual, I was flying by pilotage, but it made me realize I should use those things more often--you never know when you might get lost or confused if you are just using the chart and looking out the window. The long approach into Juneau Int'l was magical.

In Juneau, I hopped over to the classic Beech 18 by Shupe and co. I really should spend more time in this one--its so gorgeous to watch. I think I'm finally getting the hang of taxiing this one. It's a bit difficult without a steerable tail wheel. The trick is to dance on the toe brakes. Differential throttles would help a lot, but I don't have those.
From Juneau, I flew the Beech to Gustavus. En route the real-world weather started to get more interesting. I had to reduce altitude to stay out of the clouds. I finally figured out the ADF on this one, which helped a lot, since there is a transmitter at the airport. This model has lovely vintage radio controls which take a little time to figure out (unfortunately they are not visible in the screenshot below). I made a nice landing in spite of having not flown this one in quite a while. My approach was a little sloppy though- I underestimated the drag of the lowered gear and had to pour on the power to get back on a good glide slope.
In Gustavus, I switched over to the Long Island Classics Aeronca (sorry, model number escapes me right now). This is the more powerful model, which is rated for light aerobatics. I find it to be a real blast doing loops and rolls in this old ragwing. I also practiced stalls a bit, yet another thing I should be doing more often.

I tried to emulate something I saw on an old video about Duane Cole. He would end his routine by cutting the engine and doing the final part 'dead stick' (this was before Bob Hoover). I cut the engine at 3000 feet, but could only manage one loop and one roll before I ran out of altitude. I did make it to the runway, though!

So go dust off some of your old favorites and take 'em for a spin. Happy flying!

FlightGear multiplayer and moving map

First, in reference to the doldrums mentioned at the end of my last post, I'd like to say once again that my remedy of flying the pattern really helps me get back into the groove. I can't recommend highly enough the benefits of pattern flying, particularly when your base airport is on the small side or presents some other challenge. There are few things as satisfying as honing a skill over the long term.

One thing I've been doing a fair bit in the last few months, but have not yet blogged about , is multiplayer flying in FlightGear. I know people have been flying multiplayer in MS Flight Simulator for years, and perhaps some day I'll give it a try. However, multiplayer mode is really easy to set up in FlightGear. See this article in the FlightGear Wiki for instructions.

When you fly multiplayer in FlightGear you fly with the entire world of online FlightGear users. An additional really cool feature is the live map that shows who's online, where they are (their plane, that is), and what they're flying. You can see whose flying right now, without signing up or logging in or anything, by checking out the online server. If you click that link you will see KSFO (San Francisco), which is the default FG airport, and anyone who's flying at the moment. You should at least see "mpdummy" who is not some self-effacing individual, but rather a test connection to show that the server is running properly. If you happen to see "marlboro", that's me!

A fun thing I like to do when I have a few spare minutes is to check the server, see if anyone's flying, and then starting up FG and trying to fly formation, or at least buzz the other planes. I hear there is a way to message other pilots, but that requires a newer version of FG than I have (i.e. the kind you have to build yourself).

The server map can also be used to track your flying. It can be configured so that your plane is always centered on the map. you can zoom in and out, and display road names and such, just as with any Google Map application. It's easy to switch back and forth using the Alt-Tab combination. Unlike MSFS which tends to go into a sulk if you try task switching, you can switch in and out of FG very quickly.

Last night I decided to do a comparison between where I was in the FG world and where the server would show me. The results are below. I think that's pretty amazing.