polypoke

Joe Nall 2008

MVP Summit 2008: Extracurricular activities

MVP Summit 2008: ACES visit

Here at the Summit

US's top 10 busiest airports

Tale of a hat and a switch...

Busy week (or two)

FSInsider Newsletter

FSX Twin Comanche - how to change engine time

A little easier on the eyes

MVP Summit 2008 right around the corner

What's your command?

Apology to Steve Halpern & Flight1

TSInsider has some new updates

Oshkosh: The Spirit of Aviation

Beauty of FlightAware

Draw Call Monitor

I've been blogged!

AlacrityPC is available - get it now!

A new paradigm: Serious games and Microsoft ESP

Photo Album: FSX Twin Comanche

Photo Album: Twin Comanche Release Images

Photo Album: Twin Comanche VC Progress

Photo Album: AirVenture 2007 highlights

Photo Album: Cherry Point

Thu, 15 May 2008 02:45:57 GMT

Hot on the heels of Hal's article about his recent scale aircraft ventures, I too have experienced the excitement surrounding scale flight. This week is the annual event known as Joe Nall held at Triple Tree Aerodrome in Woodruff, SC. I would put this event in the class of Oshkosh for large scale remote controlled aircraft enthusiasts. It's just one of those events you have to experience - words nor pictures really tell the whole story. People come from all over the world to enjoy fellowship with their peers in this hobby. Here are a few pictures from today.

In the picture above, the gentleman in red is Quique Somenzini also known as the godfather of 3-D. He gave a stunning performance of his Pitts Python 100 (which is based from the Pitts Model 12), including a new maneuver where the top ailerons move in the opposite direction of the bottom ailerons, acting much like air brakes. From what I gathered from the announcer and the crowd's reaction, this flight characteristic for the Python has not been seen in public. Quique also brought along his scale version of the Turbine Toucan - and yes, it has a true turbine engine!

Pat Hartness, the owner of Triple Tree has a few vintage full scale aircraft on the field, including this very well maintained Stearman PT-17.

Finally, this is a beautiful scale Beaver that is made out of 100% Aluminum and was flown to Joe Nall in a huge crate from Germany. There are over 12,000 rivots and has real working lights! I did not get to see this bird fly, but she sure is impressive sitting still! If you have any interest in this type of flying, then Joe Nall is the place to be mid-May each year.

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 02:18:07 GMT

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!

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 01:35:02 GMT

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!

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 23:51:27 GMT

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!

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 03:47:42 GMT

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. :-)

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 09:45:15 GMT

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

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 01:58:48 GMT

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!

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 14:16:37 GMT

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Mon, 31 Mar 2008 02:17:11 GMT

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!

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 03:45:07 GMT

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.

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 02:52:33 GMT

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!

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 02:06:24 GMT

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!

SIM COMMANDS
Pause	P or BREAK
Full Screen Mode	ALT + ENTER
Menus (display/hide)	ALT
ATC Menu (display/hide)	` (ACCENT) or SCROLL LOCK
Kneeboard (display/hide)	SHIFT+F10
Sound (on/off)	Q
Exit Flight Simulator	CTRL+C
Exit Flight Simulator Immediately	CTRL+BREAK
Cycle Coordinates/Frame Rate	SHIFT+Z
End Flight	ESC

*CONTROL SURFACE COMMANDS*
Aileron Trim (left)	CTRL+Num Pad 4
Aileron Trim (right)	CTRL+Num Pad 6
Rudder Trim (left)	CTRL+ Num Pad 0
Rudder Trim (right)	CTRL+Num Pad ENTER
Flaps (retract fully)	F5
Flaps (retract incrementally)	F6
Flaps (extend incrementally)	F7
Flaps (extend fully)	F8
Extend/Retract Spoilers/Airbrakes	/ (FORWARD SLASH)

*ENGINE COMMANDS*
Engine Autostart	CTRL+E
Throttle (cut)	F1
Reverse Thrust (turboprops/jets)	F2 (press and hold)
Throttle (decrease)	F2 or Num Pad 3
Throttle (increase)	F3 or Num Pad 9
Throttle (full)	F4
Propeller (low RPM)	CTRL+F1
Propeller (decrease RPM)	CTRL+F2
Propeller (increase RPM)	CTRL+F3
Propeller (high RPM)	CTRL+F4
Mixture (idle cutoff)	CTRL+SHIFT+F1
Mixture (lean quickly)	CTRL+SHIFT+F2
Mixture (enrich)	CTRL+SHIFT+F3
Mixture (full rich)	CTRL+SHIFT+F4
Carb Heat/Engine Anti-ice ((on/off))	H
Magnetos (select)	M
Master Battery/Alternator (select)	SHIFT+M
Jet Starter (select)	J

*GENERAL COMMANDS*
Brake (set parking)	CTRL+. (PERIOD)
Brakes (apply/release)	. (PERIOD)
Landing Gear (extend/retract)	G
Cowl Flaps (open incrementally)	CTRL+SHIFT+V
Cowl Flaps (close incrementally)	CTRL+SHIFT+C
Doors (select)	SHIFT+E

*LIGHT COMMANDS*
Lights - all (on/off)	L
Strobe Lights (on/off)	O
Panel Lights (on/off)	SHIFT+L
Landing Lights (on/off)	CTRL+L

*VIEW COMMANDS*
2-D Cockpit (cycle panels)	W
View (next category)	S
View (previous category)	SHIFT+S
View (next view in category)	A
View (previous view in category)	SHIFT+A
View (previous view toggle)	CTRL+S
View (default zoom)	BACKSPACE
Look (snap)	Num Pad
Look (pan)	Hat switch or thumbstick
Look (reset to forward view)	SHIFT+Num Pad DEL
Look Using Mouse (on)	Hold SPACEBAR
Zoom In	= (EQUAL SIGN)
Zoom Out	- (HYPHEN)

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 15:40:19 GMT

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.

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 11:57:34 GMT

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!

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 14:14:13 GMT

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.

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 01:24:58 GMT

Have I mentioned lately how much I love FlightAware? Probably not, but I cannot think of a single "real aviation" site that makes my heart race more than FlightAware. One of the forum members at Eaglesoft's support forum posted this today and I just had to mirror it here...

This is the flight path of N750CX, a Citation X interesting enough being one that has the new eliptical winglets. Would this have been as impressive if flightaware did not exist? I think not!

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 17:05:46 GMT

Fellow FS MVP Arno Gerretsen has just released an essential new development tool for optimizing models for FSX - Drawcallmonitor! Check out his blog entry about it and you can obtain the program here. Good on ya, Mate!

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 16:21:44 GMT

It is funny thing how the internet works. I was browsing my statistics page the other day, and saw where someone had linked to my blog via a website that I had not heard of (at that moment) called blogged.com. Intrigued, I chose to follow the link and low-and-behold, there is a page with my blog listed! There are hundreds of thousands of blogs listed there in all sorts of categories. How mine #1) got listed on blogged.com and #2) ended up in the graphics section is beyond me. I guess I really don't fit in any single category very well and I do tend to have more graphical in-game renders on my posts than most, so I can't really argue too much.

In the left pane, I've got a "I've been blogged" icon that you can follow - there you can write a brief review of my blog. I've currently got a 7.6 rating by the editor - not where I'd like it to be, but I'll take it. What'll you say ... will you throw me a bone?

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 11:52:38 GMT

The sequel to FSAutoStart is finally here - AlacrityPC! Developed by Ken Salter for Win XP/Vista 32- & 64-bit, this utility shuts down any non-critical program while running a resource hungry application, such as our beloved FSX. When the user is done with the application, all of the switched off programs resume! Check out this AVSIM thread for more...

[EDIT] - After a few hours of tweaking this utility on my system, I'm seeing a tremendous improvement in performance of FSX. Be sure to keep the profile below "Realtime," as that will seriously affect sounds (as I found out very quickly). Thanks FSInsider visitors for stopping by! I invite you to check out my main page for more FS and TS related topics. All support issues for AlacrityPC should be directed here: http://support.alacritypc.com. Thanks!

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 04:25:13 GMT

For as long as I've been a developer for the Microsoft Flight Simulator franchise, I've often had a hard time getting people within the aviation community to take me seriously as someone who does what I do. The mere fact that the program installs on one's HDD in the Microsoft Games folder puts a strike against the notion of anyone really taking MS FS as a serious platform for simulating flight. Luckily, there are many people who have overlooked that and have utilized the FS platform as a sound tool to advance one's aviation proficiency. Bruce Williams has written a very successful book covering just that - Microsoft Flight Simulator as a Training Aid: A Guide for Pilots, Instructors, and Virtual Aviators.

Recently, there has been a whole new arena of games to emerge onto the market - Serious games. The most notable in my mind would be the very popular Nintendo DS game Brain Age. It has some entertainment value, yet has a benefit of exercising one's mind. There are now sites designed specifically around serious games like Serious Games Source and Seriousgames.org. Just recently was held the 2nd annual Serious Games Summit as a part of GDC in San Francisco. At that summit, Shawn Firminger, ACES studio manager, gave a presentation on Microsoft's new venture into serious games with ESP. He even boldly stated that the MS FS franchise has been a 25-year beta test for ESP. Pretty strong words!

I've considered the MS FS platform a serious game for many years. It's about time that Microsoft finally agreed with me and rebranded the package in this way. It only makes sense to try and attract organizations that want an effective aviation simulation-based technology using the core MS FS engine as the backbone. I mean ... 24,000+ airports, the entire world modeled, etc. It makes complete sense.

Interested in developing solutions for ESP? The core program and SDK are included in all MSDN subscriptions. There are some great resources available on the ESP website, including a great white paper on the ESP SDK. With Train Sim 2 on the horizon, I would expect that ESP would branch off into that direction well into the future. The skies (and tracks) are the limit!

Tue, 30 Oct 2007 21:31:57 GMT

FSX Twin Comanche

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 23:17:27 GMT

Twin Comanche Release Images

Wed, 19 Sep 2007 16:29:17 GMT

Twin Comanche VC Progress

VC night lighting work-in-progress

Close-up of Avionics

95% complete panel

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 14:43:14 GMT

AirVenture 2007 highlights

This is how I roll.

A rare bird - the Fury.

Dale "Snort" Snodgrass flying a P-51D in formation with an F-15E.

Nice Maule on approach to runway 9.

Short final into runway 9.

Early arrival to the show on Sunday.

The baddest NXT on the planet - Relentless.

Ron Hamilton & I at the FSX booth.

World's busiest tower during AirVenture.

Andy from AndysAirplanes.com visits the booth.

More Photos...

Classic 60s livery

Detailed landing gear

Copper and black - a nice combination

Full Panel

A bit of bank

From the rear seat

How are those engine gauges doing?

Pleasant evening glow - it doesn't get much better than this!

Wed, 09 May 2007 22:35:06 GMT

Cherry Point

Mike Goulian preparing to taxi.

Mike wowing the crowd of thousands.

Mike after the performance.

Mike Goulian, Christy, & Christy Lake

Mike Goulian and I.