polypoke

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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Your privacy is important! The FSInsider newsletter subscriptions are handled by MSN Newsletters. Read the Microsoft Online Privacy Statement.

Though the real aircraft has had a substantial overhaul, there is still quite a bit of hours on the Twin Comanche's engines. Unfortunately, the engines are set to zero by default in the FSX version. Want to change that? Here's how...

First, you need to make sure you are able to see hidden folders. That's pretty easy to do. Simply go to My Computer, select Tools, then Folder Options.... Next select the View tab, and look for a radio button that says "Show hidden files and folders" and select it. Now press the Apply button and you're all set.

Okay, so you can see all folders on your computer. Now navigate to the following path: "C:\Documents and Settings\{your logon here}\Application Data\Microsoft\FSX\SimObjects\Eaglesoft Twin Comanche 1.5". The {your logon here} is usually the name you use to sign on to Windows.

The only file you'll find there is the state.cfg file which defines the engine times for each engine. Here's the values that I'm using which are pretty close to what Roy's got on the real N204WT:

[engine.0]
accumulated_time=427.1
[engine.1]
accumulated_time=429.6

Engine.0 represents the left engine, and engine.1 is the right engine.

Have fun!

While doing some sleuthing on some HTML code, I managed to figure out how to get line spacing working. It's actually CSS code that I didn't realize worked on Spaces (until I tried it). I used Time Magazine for a template. I've converted a few of my most recent blog entries and I'll be sure to utilize this from here on out.

Next month, I'm headed to Seattle for my second MVP Summit. I am excited about this year's format versus last year. The time I spent with ACES team members last year was quite limited due to how the whole event was organized. All Games for Windows MVPs were grouped together, which didn't quite work IMHO. Those who are more in to MMOG's and casual type games are not too interested in Simulation, and vice versa. This year, the Game for Windows MVPs who are specialized ACES Studio's products are being split off from the main G4W group, getting 2 full days with Hal and the ACES team! Like last year, I'll be sure to document the visit to the new studios at Willows complete with pictures - at least those that I'll be able to share publicly.

Hopefully as a result of this trip, I'll consider myself not only a Flight Sim MVP, but an all-encompasing ACES MVP. I intend to get very familiar with what's going on with Train Sim 2 and ESP while I am there. Who'll be there?  Brian Gefrich will be in attendance. Brian and are going to be roomates. New this year, MS offered an extra night's stay on their dime and $100 to spend in the MS Company Store for sharing rooms with other attendees. This will be the first time I've met Brian face-to-face and I'm looking forward to getting to know him better. That wild and crazy 'nakedMVP' Nick Whittome will also be there and I'll get to meet him for the first time in person as well. To ACES and fellow MVPs, I'll see you in a few weeks!

Often when I encounter new users to the MS FS franchise, I am asked how I know so many of the key combinations or keyboard shortcuts. The answer I give is practice and consistency from our friends at MS. Fortunately, many of the core key commands have been the same throughout the many versions, with a few new combinations added with each new version to take advantage of new features. FSX has greatly increased that number, so I can see how overwhelming these key combinations can be to the novice. I thought that it would be a good idea to post some of my personal most utilized keyboard commands as a foundation to build. Once you become more familiar with these basic commands, I recommend pulling up the complete list of keyboard commands in the kneeboard during an active flight (SHIFT+F10) and start learning some more advanced commands. In a future post, I'll point out the newest commands FSX has brought to us. Have fun!

In my piracy post, I made mention of the Flight 1 wrapper in an inappropriate manner which to some was conveyed in a negative light. That was not my original intent and therefore I have removed all reference to it. I hope Steve Halpern and the rest of the Flight1 team accept my sincere apology. The point I was trying to convey was that it really doesn't matter what vehicle is used for e-commerce distribution - there are going to be pirates out there who will figure out a way to share illegally the content, and I stress the word content.

While a good portion of the TS Art Team is currently gathering research info in Europe, the folks back home have been steady with updates on the TSInsider website. You can meet the production team (though I know of at least 1 person they have overlooked). Check out a cool W-I-P video of the Horseshoe Curve Route (be sure to read the disclaimers). They also show a new European route - BLS Lötschbergbahn and some great renders of the rolling stock for that area. Be sure to bookmark TSInsider and check it often for more updates!

EAA has produced a very professional 17 minute video capturing some moments from EAA Airventure in recent years. Harrison Ford narrates the piece entitled Oshkosh: The Spirit of Aviation and explores what makes Oshkosh the Mecca for aviators and aviation enthusiasts alike year after year. Like many mention in the video, AirVenture is something that every aviation enthusiast should experience at least once in his/her life. You will find no greater collection of people sharing a common love for aviation than there. I've been fortunate enough to have attended 4 times (2001, 2003, 2006, & 2007), and I cannot put into words the awe I have experienced each of those years.