I had some free time on Thursday afternoon after the summit was over, so a buddy named Justin Lamb drove to Seattle and graciously allowed me to hang out with him until it was time for me to leave Seattle. We started out with a quick jaunt over to Kerry Park in the Queen Anne district. I snapped this photo there...

While at Kerry Park, Justin had the grand idea of heading up to Everett to tour the Boeing Factory. So off we went!

No cameras or cell phones were allowed on the tour so I have no pictures to share of the inside, but it looks just like this. There were several 777's on the ramp that had just been painted and were testing engines. Next stop on the activities list was a visit to Kenmore Air at KBFI...

Justin has a few friends who fly for Kenmore Air (including Mike Lambert) who were kind enough to let us out onto the ramp. It began to rain heavily almost as soon as we walked out, but I was able to capture a brand-new 737 on departure.

We then dined at Duke's Chowder House in Alki before I had to get to SEATAC for my flight home. If you have a chance to eat at Duke's, the Cajun Chicken Corn Chowder in a Sourdough bread bowl is highly recommended! The trip ended very much on a high note and I'm looking forward to my next trip there!

This year's MVP Summit had FS MVPs spend not one but two full days with members of ACES Studios. The first thing that I noticed while walking into their new offices at Willows was all of the ample room available to them now. Each "cluster" had its own common area. Here is what I found in the Flight Sim team's common area.

Yep, nothing like a bit of Rock Band to make the day go by. While on the quick tour that Hal gave us on our first few moments in the studio, I picked up on a few other things...

I'm not disclosing where I found the Sarcasm poster, but I'm sure it is not all that hard to figure out. All along the walls all over the studio, there are images from FSX and Acceleration showing different objects and scenes. I was delighted when I found that the Eaglesoft FSX Twin Comanche was there!

On day one, we had the opportunity to speak with Brandon Seltz and Pat Cook. They are both on the design team for Flight Sim, so they used this opportunity to give us an overview of where the franchise is going. Though I cannot mention what was discussed, I can say that the future looks very bright. Here are Brandon and Pat.

Next up was a meeting with Todd Landstad on the ESP team. He gave us some very interesting mash-up demos between ESP and Microsoft Virtual Earth. For example, he set up a camera in ESP to mimic the behavior of the camera within VE, therefore you could pinpoint a location in VE and then show that exact location within ESP - all by using a relatively simple SimConnect utility that he coded in a matter of hours. Todd also mentioned that ESP is getting an entire section devoted to it on Microsoft's MSDN. Here are two images from that meeting.

Mike Lambert from Testing came to speak with us for a bit on how things have changed in that arena of the Studio, now that they are all in 4 distinct sections now: Core, Flight Sim, Train Sim, and ESP. He has remained on the Flight Sim team along with two others.

Dale "Snort" Snodgrass was in the studio working on a project and he wanted the MVPs to see what was going on. I had just finished flying when he wanted to pose with me for a photo op. Very cool!

The following are some other pictures from the visit. The first is all of the FS MVPs in front of Willows: Kwonseok Park (from Korea), Katy Pluta, myself & Nick Whittome. The others, well, speak for themselves. Thanks so much Hal & team for a great experience!

 I am here! Today marked the beginning of the Summit, with a great keynote by former MVP General Manager Sean O'Driscoll on Web 2.0. I briefly ran into Nick while shuffling about - I'll be catching up with him again on Wednesday. I'm taking lots of photos and I'll be sharing them when I get a chance. Tomorrow as well as Wednesday, I'll be spending time with Hal and the ACES team. I can't wait!

CNN has just posted the 10 busiest airports for 2007. I find it quite interesting that two of them, #1 ranked Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and #9 ranked Charlotte Douglas International Airport (which I am flying from tomorrow on my journey to Seattle) are both within a 2.5 hr. drive from where I live. :-)

Hal has just published a wonderful account of his brush with royalty ... Belgian royalty that is. It's a MUST READ!

There are a lot of things going on this week (and the next).

Sun-N-Fun
The "Oshkosh of the south" kicks off today in grand fashion. Garmin has already made some impressive announcements with regards to the new synthetic vision system in the G1000. Liberty Aerospace and Aspen Avionics have announced a partnership to include the new Evolution Pro PFD as standard equipment in the IFR trainer version of the XL-2. This is just the beginning. I expect to hear other major announcements as the event progresses.

Red Bull Air Race
The Red Bull Air Race kicks off the 2008 season this weekend in Abu Dhabi. Mike Mangold will be defending his 2007 championship in front of a crowd of thousands! This year also brings the event to the United States twice - a new venue in Detroit and a returning visit to San Diego. With newcomer Glen Dell from South Africa joining the group of 12 pilots, things are surely shaping up to be another great year of competition!

Master's Golf  Tournament
You may be asking what this has to do with aviation, but this time every year, three airports in the CSRA (that's the Central Savannah River Valley) swell with activity due to the Master's Golf Tournament. Thomson-McDuffie County (KHQU), Daniel Field (KDNL), and Augusta Bush Field (KAGS) all become quite active with everything from single-engine Cessnas to Gulfstreams. Augusta is about an hour drive from where I live. If I can find time before my trip to Seattle, I'd like to take my daughter to see the action.

Trip to Seattle for the MVP Summit
Speaking of that trip ... I leave on Sunday morning out of Charlotte (KCLT) for Seattle via Delta Airlines. I am from Greenwood, SC - closer proximity to Greenville/Spartanburg (KGSP) and about 2.5 hours away from Atlanta (KATL). So why fly out of Charlotte (also about 2.5 hours drive) and not Greenville/Spartanburg or Atlanta? I looked up fares from both of those fields, and was floored at the price difference! The flight out of KGSP was nearly $300 more than out of Charlotte! It is nearly $200 cheaper for me to fly from Charlotte to Atlanta, and then to Seattle than a direct flight (on the very same flight number no less) from Atlanta to Seattle. Delta is expending more fuel to get me to my destination and yet are charging me less. Does that sound like "green" activity to you? Just because the flight from Atlanta to Seattle is a direct flight, it is considered a "luxury" therefore fares are more. No wonder airlines are going under. Anyway, I'll be pretty busy next week. I hope to get a lot of great pictures to share once I return!

April is here. Along with (hopefully) warmer weather with Spring upon us, ACES Studio brings us a new feature - the FSInsider Newsletter!

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