Sorry it's been awhile

Sorry it has been quite awhile since my last blog folks. Life has been kinda hectic, but that's life for ya. I've been still Flying though. I've got both FS2004 and FSX installed on my computer at the moment. Haven't been able to fly as often as I would like but at least it's there in case I get the urge to work on some traffic patterns or freshen up on tracking VOR's or doing some ILS approaches. I would like to start formation flying again. I used to have an old video on YouTube of myself and a few friends of mine flying formation but they took it down because of copyright bs because of the songs I had on it. So I'm looking to make another formation video soon. I'll try to keep you guys posted. Here is a video from YouTube that I found by guitargamery. I'm very envious, I wish I had a hellacious gaming rig like he has.

 

Sorry I didn't get around to talk about the freeware Cessna 150 I had found the other day, I was kinda busy. Maybe I can get around to it later on today. 

I wanted to share a video of a cool LSA aircraft that I have found on YouTube called the Renegade Falcon LS. Its a simple little plane with a great range of view. I hope one of the great modelers in the Flight Sim community will make this into a great add on. I'll keep my fingers cross.

Well I came across a really nice freeware Cessna 150 for FS2004 today made by François-Denis Guidée and Yves Franckart .  It is payware quality I think. You can see for yourself by going to http://www.fs-tutorials.com/en/down_planes.php and download and install it. I will warn you all now that it is an auto installer and the installer is in French I believe but if you have used installers before in the past then it should be a no brainer. If your not sure which button to push then my best advise to you is to Google translate it. It really isn't that hard to install I don't speak a lick of French and I got it to install the first time. I'll post more about the aircraft tomorrow. 

Here is a really cool video I came across while watching some youtube this morning! Enjoy! 

Happy belated New Years everyone. Sorry I havent posted lately, I have been kinda hooked on Battlefield 3 on the Playstation 3. Man what a game! Anyway Im still active with flight sim still just not as much. The burnout factor kicked in for me and I go through these phases where I get burned out on flight sim and take a break from it for a while. But Im slowly getting back into it. I just recently reinstalled FS2004 on my computer. So I have both FSX and FS9 installed. FS9 flies on my computer just wish it looked as good as FSX lol. 
I was on Simviation forums and found a group of people who just started a flight around the world in the cessna 172. It sounded interesting so i joined them this past Sunday for the first hop. It was a good time and great people. Our first hop as over 4 hours long! A long haul but still a good time none the less. If you are interested please check out their blog at http://roundtheworldcessna172.wordpress.com/ and join us next Saturday 9PM EST! Its a relaxed atmosphere and good stuff! Connection information and ect. are all on the blog site. I hope to see you all there! Blue Skies!

Hey everybody hope all is well! Well my buddies from VFR Prop Hops is tired of Microsoft's Gamespy multi-player and has decided to transition to a new multi-player server network called Virtual Air Traffic Multiplayer Experience . I have downloaded the software required and after a several minutes of trying to figure out what the heck I was supposed to do and several minutes of setting my router ports to accommodate the network I finally was able to log in. I honestly have mixed thoughts about it. First why dont they just use the same ports that Gamespy uses to make it easier? My first impression after seeing my first multi- player aircraft was that it is just like FSHost. I sat on the tarmac and saw another player sitting on the ground in a Cessna 172 with his nose straight in the ground. After a few minutes it straightened out and he was level again and taxing to the runway. Well while he was taxing to the runway I could see his aircraft moving in a circular motion while moving forward as if he was panning his view around. We had the same issues in the FSHost days. This makes formation flying impossible. So Im not sure if I will make the transition to VATME anytime soon. For me the latency sucks and I dont think I could deal with that. Yeah Gamespy has its flaws but I think i can deal with it. I wish VFR Prop Hops the best of luck with their transition. They are a bunch of great people. 
More to come later............

Its been a little over a week since my last post. Ive been a little busy but Im still around! : ) I have managed to scrounge up a few screen shots I took while flying this past week. As far as the sim goes, I have had really no problems such as the dreaded Fatal Error. Enjoy the pics!

Well this weekend went pretty well. I only had one fatal error the whole weekend. This was the scenario for which the fatal error occurred. I was in Gamespy Multiplayer and I kept changing display settings, just testing my settings and at the same time I was loading back into the session someone else in the multiplier had logged out and at that time is when my system had locked and a fatal error had occurred. Other than that issue all went well. No other errors! I spent this weekend flying with the guys on VFR Prop Hops flying through B.C. and through  Alaska. It was a pretty good turn out. I'll post picture later when I get time.

So Far....So good....

Happy Friday all!! Well as I stated in my previous post I just had to re install FSX for the 100 billionth time. My new method has worked in my favor so far as I have been able to fly for almost 8 hours with the guys at VFR Prop Hops without any hiccups * * *KNOCK ON  WOOD* * * Im even getting a little better frame rate as well. Shoot Im even running with clouds on and its at a pretty steady 19.9-20 FPS! This is big for my little system. More to come......

After about a week of dealing with Microsoft Flight Simulator X giving me fatal error messages I figure I would remove it from my hard drive.... once again... and try another route. I've been reading and doing my homework. I have found that Windows 7 64bit and FSX just don't get along, causing things to become unstable and crash for some as in my case here. But others have no issues with it what so ever. Some say to install Flight Sim on a completely separate hard drive altogether. Well for me this isn't going to work because I'm a broke s.o.b. and simply don't have the funding to add another hard drive to my computer so I took a different approach today. Instead of installing FSX to its typical default destination within the confines of my hard drive I made a new folder directly into my C: drive directory and promptly named it Microsoft Flight Simulator X. Some people have had great success installing it this way, for the computer doesn't have to dig so deep to find the software buying my processors a little more time to do other duties such as rendering autogen, textures, ect. ect. I also know from past experience that a little .dll file called uiautomationcore.dll could also be the culprit to my mysterious fatal error crashes. I believe that this isn't the case for me though as I have tried in the past with all the tips and tricks of fixing the uiautomationcore.dll  and has never worked for me so it must be something else.I have had all my drivers updated and so forth. It could possibly be the actual hardware itself or lack  there of. Im on a Acer Aspire desktop which has a 256mb integrated video card. Good thing is it has 4 gigs of DDR3 ram and a 3.2 quad core processor. Bad news is finding a video card that will fit into the tiny little computer casing plus not to mention finding a strong enough power supply that is also compact enough to fit into the little rig to power the video card. Then again the lack of funding comes into play so I gotta work with what I got. Honestly though with the proper application of tweaks to the fsx.cfg and some modifications to the textures and resizing the autogen I can run FSX at a decent 20-24fps locked. With most of my sliders cranked. Not to shabby I suppose considering the hardware Im working with. Hopefully moving the default destination of fsx to a subfolder just inside the C: drive, i.e. C\ Microsoft Flight Simulator X will prove to be effective for me. As I have learned over the almost 18 years  of working with flight simulator, the hard way I might add, is to never hold your breath when it comes to things like this. You can hope for the best but expect the worse. This especially holds true when it comes with dealing with FSX.... there is no miracle cure or quick/easy fix. If it aint one thing its another.
So Ive spent just about my entire day uninstalling FSX and then reinstalling it then added all my tweaks and such finally finished my last round of defragging with O&O defrag. I have had no time today to see if any of these thing has improved performance and rid me of that bloody freakin "fatal error". Only time and alot of patience will tell.
My apologies go out to the guys over at VFR Prop Hops I was looking forward to joining you guys today as you trekked across Cuba but as you can see I've been a little busy lol. Maybe Ill be able to join you guys this weekend, who knows?! Im hopefull!

Prop Hoppin

I spent a couple hours today hoppin around Australia with the guys over at VFR PROP HOPS I started out in the AA-5B Tiger I was harping about a few days ago but it was kinda hard for me to keep up with all the Cessna Caravans so I ended switching aircraft in the middle of the hops and jumped into the Cessna 310. I didn't get very many pics because I was too busy flyin but here are a few I did get. Enjoy!

               
                     *click on pictures to enlarge

orbx Lilydale AU freeware scenery

A little preview of  a freeware scenery I found on fullterrain.com of Lilydale AU. Its pretty good for the most part the ground textures are a little blurry for me but other then that its pretty good! It is really good on frames considering all the ai aircraft on the ground. Enjoy!

                                 *Click on the pictures to enlarge.

Tim "Piglet" Conrads AA-5B Tiger

was messing around tonight after a long day and took some pictures of Piglets AA-5B Tiger, enjoy! You can download this aircraft directly HERE from Simviation. Btw I still havent made my trek to VA and NC yet, Ive been waiting for the weather to clear so it will be VFR. Heres the flight plan!

*Click on pictures to enlarge.

Well I finally got Flight Simulator X re installed and did some flying yesterday with the guys over at EasternHops for their Cessna Sundays and boy was it some turn out. at least 40+ people showed up. It was a blast! Thanks for the good time guys I look forward to seeing you all again next Sunday! This week I have planned a little trip to my old stomping grounds from when I was in the Navy, NAS Oceana. Of course I'll be starting out at my home airport KPBK and working my way east. Then after visting Oceana Im going to take a trip down to Kill Devil Hills, the birthplace of aviation were the Wright Brothers took flight back in 1903 in the Wright Flyer I. My Flight Plan I will be doing this flight possibly this weekend. I will probably host my own session so look for me on GameSpy : Stumpys Free Flight

After about a week of continuous fatal error crashes within FSX I have made up my mind and totally uninstalled Flight Simulator and I am going to be re-install it being careful what add-ons I install. Wish me luck on my venture lol !

The past few weeks I've been kinda busy. During my spare time though I have spent flying on vfrprophops server on FSX gamespy. There I don't have to worry about some little 10 year old buzzing me with his Acceleration F/A-18 Hornet. Its a strictly propeller driven aircraft only server, so when I feel the need to fly props with other like minded people that's where I go. They are a pretty friendly bunch and best of all they don't just fly around the same airport aimlessly they actually do hops! To find out more information on VFR Prop Hops look HERE. Look for me in the session, StumpyUSN. Blue Skies!

Guess Whos Back.......

...This guy thats who!!!! Well it has been a long time my friends but I finally got a computer that will "run" Flight Sim X. You guys will be seeing some more post from me in the near future. Its been so long since Ive been able to play FSX and Ive been out of the loop when it comes to new downloads and updates for Flight Simulator, needless to say Ive got alot of catching up to do. I would like to say thanks to all my friends Ive met along the way in the flight sim community that have kept me in there prayers, thanks guys you are the best! More to come soon...... now to get caught up....... =)

Its been too long...

...since I have last blogged. I first and foremost want to apologize to all my friends out there in the flight sim community, sorry I haven't been around or been in contact much. To make a very long story short my world got flipped upside down last August when my ex-wife and I separated and I had no other choice but to leave my home in Oklahoma and move back to where my family is located in West Virginia. My flight simulator computer is now property of my ex so I will be out of commission until I can some how come up with the funds to buy another computer or find someone generous enough to donate a computer that will run FSX. The flight sim community is full of good people willing to help so hopefully I will be back soon.

I have been out of the loop when it comes to news in the
flight sim world but I did just find that my good buddy Vance from Flight Sim Nation and Sonic Solutions has been pretty busy since he quit his job and is now working for himself and has teamed up with some pretty big names in the flight sim world to bring you some kick ass sound packages. Here is some behind the scene footage. Congratulations Vance on the new websites and new job.... looks awesome my friend!

Happy Monday all, I hope you had a safe and wonderful weekend. Mine was quiet with both my wife and daughter gone to Dallas while I stayed home in OKC, was quite a nice little break indeed.

Not much to report on today because it was a pretty quiet weekend. Im surprised that since Oshkosh Air Venture was last week that there wasnt many Oshkosh themed servers up, maybe just 1 or 2 at the most. Maybe no one realized it, who knows?

This doesnt pertain to flight sim but it deals with aviation and deals with a Naval Aviator who was shot down over Iraq in his F/A-18 and turned up MIA.

Release Date: 8/2/2009 5:52:00 AM



From the Department of the Navy

WASHINGTON (NNS) -- The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) has positively identified remains recovered in Iraq as those of Capt. Michael Scott Speicher.

Speicher was shot down flying a combat mission in an F/A-18 Hornet over west-central Iraq Jan. 17, 1991 during Operation Desert Storm.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with Captain Speicher's family for the ultimate sacrifice he made for his country," said Ray Mabus, secretary of the Navy. "I am also extremely grateful to all those who have worked so tirelessly over the last 18 years to bring Captain Speicher home."

"Our Navy will never give up looking for a shipmate, regardless of how long or how difficult that search may be," said Adm. Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations.

"We owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to Captain Speicher and his family for the sacrifice they have made for our nation and the example of strength they have set for all of us."

Acting on information provided by an Iraqi citizen in early July, U.S. Marines stationed in Al Anbar Province went to a location in the desert which was believed to be the crash site of Speicher's jet. The Iraqi citizen stated he knew of two Iraqi citizens who recalled an American jet impacting the desert and the remains of the pilot being buried in the desert. One of these Iraqi citizens stated that they were present when Speicher was found dead at the crash site by Bedouins and his remains buried. The Iraqi citizens led U.S. Marines to the site who searched the area. Remains were recovered over several days during the past week and flown to Dover Air Force Base for scientific identification by the AFIP's Office of the Armed Forces Medical Examiner.

The recovered remains include bones and multiple skeletal fragments. Positive identification was made by comparing Speicher's dental records with the jawbone recovered at the site. The teeth are a match, both visually and radiographically.

While dental records have confirmed the remains to be those of Speicher, the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology DNA Lab in Rockville, Md., is running DNA tests on the remains recovered in Iraq and comparing them to DNA reference samples previously provided by family members. Results will take approximately 24 hours.

~Salute~ Welcome Home Captain. You are surely missed sir. God Bless you and thank you for your service and sacrafice.

Capt. Michael Scott Speicher

Carenado releases the Piper Seneca for FS2004. Speaking of the Carenado Seneca if you havent done so already make sure you head over to Carenados Updates page and make sure you have all the patches for the Seneca. This will help keep the aircraft from leaping off the ground. It is now a joy to fly! Enjoy!