[Next weekend's Fly-in scenery downloads]

I should be there for the Saturday fly-in.

Right now my computer is being a ‘cranky camper’! It’s been giving me nothing but trouble and whoas for the past month or so. I’ve procrastinated (to the extreme) about taking it in for repairs because I’m in the midst of doing some important stuff and parting with it wouldn’t be ‘such sweet sorrow’.

And now for something completely different…

Last week while I was downtown I went to an ‘enlightened’ hotdog vendor’s cart.

I asked him to make me one with everything.

(Yes, I confess, the part above was plagiarized from GaryGB.)

Having just come from a bank machine, I only had $100 bills, so I handed him one as he handed me my beloved hotdog.

I then waited for my change.

After 5 minutes I asked him, ‘Where’s my change?’ and he replied,

‘Change only comes from within!’

Puppy (Missing 100 dollars in Seattle)

[Fly-in final leg pics]

The pic on your homepage is awesome Scottie! What a beautiful place!!

Do you live in Linlithgow?

I checked a map and if I’m reading it correctly, that should be Linlithgow Palace at the top of the picture?

Puppy

[VRS Superbug WINNER!]

My wife Bonnie randomly selected the winner of the VRS Superbug from a list of names that were placed into a plastic container. I shook them up, held them above her head and she pulled one slip of paper out… and here’s the winner.

MADAZ

Congratulations Brad!

Send me a PM with your full name and your e-mail address and once I get it, I’ll contact Jon at VRS and make the arrangements for you to get your key for the Superbug and a download link.

Thanks to everyone that took the time to attend some or all of the fly-ins. We had a great time flying together and getting a chance to virtually meet each other and shoot the breeze online.

Don’t forget that Scottie has a fly-in planned in May where he’s going to take us on a short tour of Scotland.

Puppy

[Fritz' daughter got married .....]

Congratulations Francois! I hope your daughter and her husband have a wonderful life together.

Puppy

[VRS Prize Winner… to be announced soon.]

Thanks Denis.

Here's the updated list. I'll do the prize drawing on Wednesday and announce the winner on Thursday. (Or late Wednesday night.)

AndyT (1)

Batfink (1)

BradS (4)

BTBurgy (0)

Catflyer (7)

Chaders (5)

CrazyPants (1)

Dobie (0)

GaryGB (0)

Joe B (8)

Madaz (6)

Scottie (9)

Skinny Puppy (0)

Smudger (8)

Socalpilot (6)

WillyB (3)

Puppy

[VRS Prize Winner… to be announced soon.]

No problem Andy. As long as you were there and gave it a good shot, I’ll count you in.

In case you’re not sure how it works. The numbers at the end of each of the guys’ names indicates how many times their name will be put into a hat (well a virtual hat anyway) and the more times a guy’s name is in there, the better his chances are of being selected.

The names (like mine) that have a zero after them are the organizers and we’re not in the draw since it wouldn’t be fair if one of the organizers should win the prize.

I’ll actually be putting all of the entries into a small box and I’ll get my wife to select the winner.

Once the winner is selected I’ll need a PM from the winner with his real name and e-mail address and then I’ll be contacting Jon at VRS to make the arrangements for the winner to get his free copy of the Superbug.

I have the Superbug (obviously) and it’s an absolutely awesome aircraft. The best I’ve ever seen for FS9, so the winner should be a happy camper since he’ll be getting such an excellent aircraft for free.

Puppy

AndyT(1)

Batfink (1)

BradS (4)

BTBurgy (0)

Catflyer (7)

Chaders (5)

CrazyPants (1)

Dobie (0)

GaryGB (0)

Joe B (7)

Madaz (6)

Scottie (8)

Skinny Puppy (0)

Smudger (7)

Socalpilot (6)

WillyB (2)

[VRS Prize Winner… to be announced soon.]

Hey guys,

First I must apologize for missing the last segment of the fly-in. I was unavoidably away for the day because of personal business and didn’t get back in time to fly with all of you.

However, I’d appreciate if those that were able to attend would add their names to this post so I can finalize the list for the VRS Superbug draw. Once I have all of your names I’ll make a random drawing and let the lucky winner know who he is in this post.

Here are the standings up to the 8th leg, I just need Sunday’s (9th leg) participants and the list will be complete and I can make the prize drawing.

Puppy

Batfink (1)

BradS (4)

BTBurgy (0)

Catflyer (7)

Chaders (5)

CrazyPants (1)

Dobie (0)

GaryGB (0)

Joe B (7)

Madaz (6)

Scottie (8)

Skinny Puppy (0)

Smudger (7)

Socalpilot (6)

WillyB (2)

[Scottish Fly-in]

Sounds great!

I'll be there for the Saturday flight.

Puppy

[Our kind of field.]

I was surprised to see where he was going. There’s no timer on the vid, but when the slider is here:

_____ !!!______

Closed to Public

I thought for sure he was going to fly to the left. I didn’t think (for even a second) that he was going to fly in-between the trees!

If I owned that strip I’d buy a saw.

Just wondering… I know diddly about little planes, what’s he flying?

Puppy

[FLY-IN LEG # 7 3/28/ 29/2008]

Here’s an up-to-date list of the 7th fly-in for the VRS Superbug draw.

Batfink (1)

BradS (4)

BTBurgy (0)

Catflyer (7)

Chaders (5)

CrazyPants (1)

Dobie (0)

GaryGB (0)

Joe B (7)

Madaz (6)

Scottie (7)

Skinny Puppy (0)

Smudger (7)

Socalpilot (6)

WillyB (2)

Puppy

[Fly-In Time Vote]

Well, going back in time is tricky, but yesterday Puppy worked out how to get Brad a year behind the times as shown here:

viewtopic.php?f=19&t=75613

Puppy

[UPDATE ON SUN. 3/29/09 FLY-IN TIME]

That’s correct Tim.

I’d assumed that once we were all coordinated on DST we’d move the start time back an hour to negate DST.

I’ll have to start at 18:00 Zulu (1PM local) otherwise it’ll be too late for me too.

Puppy

[FLY-IN LEG # 7 3/28/ 29/2008]

FLY-IN LEG # 7: 3/28/ & 3/29/2008

2008 ! :shock:

Good thing we at EFFC are masters of "Time Dilation" so we can conduct a Fly-in at ALL time zones... even prior ones! :P :lol:

See you this Sunday ( except... last year ) ! :mrgreen:

GaryGB

Good one Gary. You’ve presented a problem in time dilation that must be solved at any cost… under a dollar. :P

Having time on my hands, I did the time dilation math on my spunky scientific calculator. :mrgreen:

Since Brad is one year behind us, we’d have to advance one year for every day that he experiences.

Basically then, one day for Brad = one year for us.

A year has 365.2418721228132 days, (within reason, since it fluctuates) so Brad would have to travel at 99.9999962519194088% of the speed of light in order for Brad to move one day ahead for every year that we move ahead.

A quickie for anyone that doesn’t know what Gary is talking about.

When you increase your speed your time will slow down, that’s called time dilation. (That’s one way according to Special Relativity of making a clock run slower. The other way is by being in a gravitational field, (that’s done with General Relativity) but we’ll dispense with gravity and just use the effect of motion.)

So for Brad to experience one day while we experience an entire year passing us by, Brad has to move at a fairly large percentage of the speed of light.

This is a ‘real’ effect and it actually happens even when you’re flying in an aircraft. This has been done with an atomic clock that went for a ride in a plane. When the airborne clock was compared to an identical clock on the ground, the airborne one had run slower. Not by much of course, since the speed of an aircraft is tiny compared to C. (C= the symbol for light.)

Puppy (doing the math (and putting people to sleep) in Seattle)

[Update on Fly-In 6th leg on Sunday 3/22/09]

Here’s an up-to-date list of the 6th fly-in results for the VRS Superbug draw.

Batfink (1)

BradS (4)

BTBurgy (0)

Catflyer (6)

Chaders (5)

CrazyPants (1)

Dobie (0)

GaryGB (0)

Joe B (6)

Madaz (6)

Scottie (6)

Skinny Puppy (0)

Smudger (6)

Socalpilot (6)

WillyB (2)

Puppy

[Pre-6th Fly-in Leg… musings]

We had a small crowd, but still had an interesting flight.

Madaz had computer problems so we had to wait about an hour until he discovered why his FSHost wouldn’t work. It certainly wasn’t lost time though… we shot the breeze about almost everything under the sun.

Scottie gave me a quick course in some of Scotland’s history. Yes I could easily read all of it in a book, but nothing beats talking to someone first-hand about a subject and books don’t answer questions. Learning about other countries has always been an interest of mine.

And speaking of cultures, just last week my wife and I went to a Chinese-German restaurant for supper. The food was great, but an hour later we were both hungry for power.

It also looks like my favorite ‘little’ putt-putt AC (the Lionheart Epic) has taken off. We now have about 3-4 guys using it online.

Brad (BT) showed an interest in Quantum Mechanics and relativity. I not only told him briefly about it, I believe I also cured everyone’s insomnia at the same time too. Why waste money on sleeping pills when the exciting world of physics works just as well? Now be honest with yourselves here, can you honestly think of anyone you’d rather have at a wild no-holds-barred party other than a theoretical physicist? Thought not! They are the world’s true party animals.

GaryGB dropped in for a brief chat and to make sure that the kids were behaving themselves online. We were, so we all got an A+ on that front. (Is this really going anywhere Puppy or are you just randomly rambling on?)

I was using Active Sky Advanced (all of these product plugs, yet not a cent in sight) and the weather at CYSB was brutal! I literally couldn’t see 10 feet in front of me. When I got down to around 1,000 feet, I was able to see the ground, but was in the midst of a blinding snowstorm. I had to overfly the airport in order to get my bearings. Having done that, I made a perfect landing despite the limited visibility.

I also use Flight1’s FSDiscover (screenie Below.) And since my piloting skills don’t kick butt, it’s a bacon saver.

For the last leg on April 12th, GaryGB has a number of surprises planned, so be sure to attend that day even if you’ve been unable to get online as of yet. It should be quite the fly-in and from what GaryGB has already indicated to me, your skills will be tested to their limit. ‘nuff on that or I’ll spill the beans.

Tomorrow’s fly-in will start at 18:00 Zulu. I won’t be able to make it, but BT will keep track of everyone’s attendance for the VRS Superbug prize.

Puppy

[Smudger]

Okay, I saw the 1st link. It was interesting to see that Geoffrey Palmer is in the show. I’ve watched him on ‘As Time Goes By’ and he was a doctor in one episode of Fawlty Towers ‘The Kipper and the Corpse’. (He 1st appears at 1 minute 20 seconds.)

http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=wers&hl=en

My wife and I watch mostly British shows, sorry to the Yanks, your shows suck! My favorites (and I’ve bought them all on DVD) are:

Are You being Served

Are You being Served, Again? (Brits call it ‘Grace and Favour’.)

Poirot

Sherlock Holmes with Jeremy Brett

Horatio Hornblower

Fawlty Towers

Mr. Bean

We also like ‘My Family’, but I haven’t seen it on DVD yet, so we watch it on TV.

Puppy

[Smudger]

That was awesome! Those guys are totally funny! Typical Brit humour, off the wall.

1st link doesn’t work though. :shock:

I don’t understand what ‘smudger’ means though? Is that Brit slang for something? Or is that one of the characters’ names?

Puppy

[VRS Superbug results for the 5th fly-in leg]

Here are the results for the 5th fly-in leg.

Here are the latest standings for the VRS Superbug prize to be drawn shortly after the Apr. 12th fly-in.

Batfink (1)

BradS (4)

BTBurgy (0)

Catflyer (5)

Chaders (5)

CrazyPants (1)

Dobie (0)

GaryGB (0)

Joe B (5)

Madaz (5)

Scottie (5)

Skinny Puppy (0)

Smudger (5)

Socalpilot (5)

WillyB (1)

Puppy

[Fly-In Leg#5 Weekend of 3/14/09]

Actually we didn’t reach a consensus of opinion on what to do during the transition phase while we were waiting for Europe to move to DST.

viewtopic.php?f=19&t=75254

Nobody from North America (except Joel) indicated what times they’d prefer once we switched to DST.

Three of the European guys agreed to negate DST (once they were on DST) by starting at 18:00 Zulu.

Anyway, 19:00 Zulu is too late for me, so I’ll have to bow out of the fly-ins until Mar 29th when Europe moves to DST and we start at 18:00 Zulu.

Brad, Gary or Dobie, could you keep track of the guys that are online so I can keep a running tab for the VRS Superbug prize. Thanks...

@Madaz: I’ll still be online on Saturdays at 18:00 Zulu as usual, so I’ll see you next Saturday.

Puppy

[Fly-In Leg#5 Weekend of 3/14/09]

So far (fingers and toes crossed) I’ll be there on Saturday as well as Sunday Brad.

I’m having some computer problems and had to do a complete reinstall. Not quite as brutal as it sounds since I have Acronis True Image 2009. The only problem was my restore partition didn’t have FS9, just a basic FSX. I made the original one in haste and didn’t have everything installed. I figured at the time that a semi-backup was better than no backup.

I’ve fixed that now and made a new backup with both sims installed. In fact (being slightly paranoid) I made 2 backups, one is on my HD and the other one is on a HP pocket USB drive.

But it looks like my computer will be going back to the repair shop (for the 3rd time in 6 months) for more repairs. Thankfully it’s still under warranty, so it costs me nothing… but the time to take it there…wait for days on end, and bring it home again.

1MI9 Your going to love this one

Yeah, I took a peek at it. :shock: I didn’t have time to try a landing there with my Epic, but I’ll have to be close to stall speed, full flaps and practically drop it onto the runway and ram on the reverse prop. Not sure if I’ll be able to stop or not :?: It’ll be interesting to say the least. :mrgreen:

Puppy

[Today's fun]

Nice shots Joel. :wink:

Here are the results for the 4th fly-in leg.

As usual, we also flew the identical leg on Saturday with Madaz, and next Saturday, Madaz will be online again, so if possible, come and fly along with him even if you only have an hour to spare.

@Madaz - - Next Sat. (because of DST) I’ll be online at 18:00 Zulu instead of 19:00 Zulu.

Here are the latest standings for the VRS Superbug prize to be drawn shortly after the Apr. 12th fly-in.

Batfink (1)

BradS (4)

BTBurgy (0)

Catflyer (4)

Chaders (4)

CrazyPants (1)

Dobie (0)

GaryGB (0)

Joe B (4)

Madaz (4)

Scottie (4)

Skinny Puppy (0)

Smudger (4)

Socalpilot (4)

WillyB (1)

Puppy

[Fly-In 4th leg]

Here are a few pictures from today’s (Saturday) pre-fly-in.

From our conversations online today, it looks like we can look forward (in the near future) to a fly-in over some of the beautiful and rugged areas of Scotland courtesy of Scottie, and at a later date, Madaz is going to take all of us on a tour of Australia.

Puppy

[Groundhandling]

Thanks for the link for that Brad. :P

I’m afraid that I mislead you. I thought I’d paid about $16 CAD for the Epic, but it was actually 16 Euro. I thought I’d bought it from Lionheart’s site, but my receipt shows that I bought it from simMarket.

______________________________________________________________________

Dear Customer,

thank you for shopping at simMarket.com!

Order Date: Sunday 15 February, 2009

Products Ordered:

1 x LIONHEART - EPIC LT DYNASTY 1.6 (3079) = EUR 15.99 S/B $26 CAD

Delivery Method Direct Download

Sub-Total: EUR 15.99

included Tax: EUR 0.00

Total: EUR 15.99

______________________________________________________________________

I wrote S/B $26 CAD that was my note meaning 'it Should Be about $26 CAD. I guess I was thinking $16 rather than $26. :oops:

Anyway, regardless of the fact that it’s more than I’d thought, it’s certainly worth buying in my opinion. I’m having a blast with it and as far as little ‘putt-putt’ planes go, it’s now my favorite. And as you’ve seen online, it really doesn’t ‘putt-putt’ in the sky.

If you’re still interested it’s here:

http://secure.simmarket.com/lionheart-e-1.5.phtml

It’s a big download, it’s around 196MB and there’s a paintkit which is around 295MB and a ‘low-res’ texture pack which is 30MB. It also works in either FS9 or FSX. (I have it installed in both sims.) I don’t know how to paint, so I’ve never even opened the paintkit.zip file.

I don’t think you’ll be disappointed in it if you decide to buy it.

Puppy

[Fly-In-Route Leg 3]

Here are the results for the 3rd fly-in leg.

As usual, we also flew the identical leg on Saturday with Madaz.

WillyB joined us (I guess he thought we were coming apart) and a special thanks to him for adding all of the eye-candy to the airports.

Here are the latest standings for the Superbug prize to be drawn shortly after the Apr. 12th fly-in.

Batfink (1)

BradS (3)

BTBurgy (0)

Catflyer (3)

Chaders (3)

CrazyPants (1)

Dobie (0)

GaryGB (0)

Joe B (3)

Madaz (3)

Scotie (3)

Skinny Puppy (0)

Smudger (3)

Socalpilot (3)

WillyB (1)

NA30 (Behrens Airstrip) proved to be pretty tricky to locate. I arrived there 1st (with GaryGB on my tail) and had to overfly it twice to get my bearings. From the air it’s almost invisible. It has 2 grass/mud strips surrounded by trees, and lacking any lighting, it blends in with the surrounding terrain so well that even with a GPS, it’s brutally hard to find. The runways are fairly short and if I didn’t have a reverse prop, I doubt I’d have been able to stop.

I’ve added a few screenies. (Plus a couple of the cockpit of my Epic for BT since he’s thinking of getting it.)

A few thanks go to:

Thanks to Flight1’s UT-USA for making the awesome ground textures.

I’d flown the same route the previous day without UT-USA (since I was working on my terrain.cfg to get it ready for a beta test and had removed the entries for UT) and it was hard to believe that I was flying over the same area. UT-USA literally brings the scenery to life.

Thanks to Flight1’s FSDiscover for making the local landmarks/airports easy to find.

It’s a really handy app when you’re unfamiliar with ‘what’s what’. The yellow writing you see in my screenies are airports and the green writing (not shown) lists points of interest, in case you don’t happen to have the app.

Thanks to Active Sky Advanced for making such awesome weather available during the flight.

This was my 1st time using it online, plus you get a spiffy WX gauge in the cockpit.

Thanks to Lionheart for making the awesome Epic.

It’s now my favorite ‘little’ (although it kicks speed butt) plane.

And a special thanks to my mom and dad for making me.

Without them, I don’t think I’d have been around for this (or any) fly-in. Thankfully they took some time out from watching TV. :wink:

Puppy

[Fly-in Problem PLEASE READ!]

My understanding.. given it could be very incorrect.

was UTC/Zulu/GMT wasn't affected by Daylight savings changes.

That’s correct. GMT/UTC/Zulu isn’t affected by DST. That time is a universal reference point and remains fixed.

(Okay, the time does change technically. For example, ‘leap seconds’ are added to UTC, but that’s only for science people to worry about, as far as it being just a reference point for coordinating everyone in the world, it’s unchangeable and is always the same.)

Does this mean that when London kicks over to Daylight savings some 'Time fairy' comes in and shifts all my clocks with out me noticing a change I my daily routine?

No. You’re always +10 Zulu regardless of what the rest of the world does or doesn’t do.

The problem is though, when we (the countries that do observe DST), advance an hour that will leave you in the dust. That’s on the condition that you’re used to coming online at a specific LOCAL time (for you) to meet us. That won’t work once we start moving to DST.

if you all pick a time in Zulu, and I should be able to make it.

That will work perfectly. As long as you reference yourself to UTC and not to local time, you’ll be coordinated with us, but your LOCAL time coming online will change.

Here’s why.

Forget the rest of the world. You and a mate agree every Saturday to meet at a street corner at 10AM, wait for 1 minute for each of you to show up, and then walk to a pub for a number 5 at 11 AM. As long as both of your watches are coordinated, you’ll always meet at 10 AM and then arrive at the pub at 11 AM.

Now early one Saturday morning your mate moves his watch ahead an hour, so his watch shows 10 AM while your watch still shows 9 AM.

At 10 AM he walks to the corner, you’re still at home because your watch says it’s 9 AM.

He waits 1 minute, doesn’t see you and heads off to the pub.

When your watch shows 10 AM you go to the street corner, but he’s not there. His watch now reads 11 AM and he’s already at the pub while you’re waiting on the corner for him since your watch shows 10 AM.

Okay, now back to what’s going to happen.

This Saturday I’ll be meeting you at 1 PM my local time. That’s 5 AM Sunday your local time. That’s what we’ve been doing so far and it works fine. As you can see, we’re 16 hours apart.

Now when I switch to DST. My 1 PM local time will now be 4 AM Sunday your local time since we’ll be only 15 hours apart. Like your mate in the example above, I’ve moved my watch 1 hour ahead, so my 1 PM is really 12 NOON as long as we’re looking at meeting each other using local times.

The only way for me to still meet you at 5 AM your local time is for me to come online at 2 PM my local time.

That‘s the dilemma we’re facing in a nutshell. We all have to get together on this and figure out what time we all want to meet.

Puppy