allardjd

Thanks. That helped a lot. John

Yes, I'm a Floridian now, approaching four years here after a lifetime in frigid Michigan. Best thing I ever did, except possibly convincing my wife that I was worth taking a chance on... There are wildfires in Florida every spring, but this has been a bad year, the worse since 1998. Scrub and low lying vegetation is the problem. The state has an ongoing program of controlled burns to try to keep it down, but budget shortages, tree huggers and the NIMBY folks (Not In My Back Yard) tend to limit it far below the level required. One in a hundred controlled

Please excuse my ignorance. That's not the same as plugging in to a 10/100 Ethernet connector I suspect....? I'm dealing with a nearly four year old laptop and don't have an awful lot of hardware expertise or recent experience. It's a 2.85 GHz P4, but is landlocked with 500 Mb of RAM (maxed out), a 40 Gb disc and a very archaic video card. On the plus side, it still runs business applications and everything else I use admirably, but just barely manages FS9. I often see frame rates in single digits, sometimes 1.0. It seems that if you're not in t

What's needed on the PC end to connect a Firewire external drive? John

A new player has appeared - a Lockheed P2 Neptune, with two big old radial engines and a pair of turbojets - two turning and two burning, as they say. Took a couple of pics with the wife's cell phone and they're lousy - too lousy to post. I should know better than to go by the airport without a camera. Will try to make my way there again tomorrow with a real camera and get some shots. The new arrival is in the same orange and white Aero Union livery as the Orions pictured in the original post. Anyone up for an aviation trivia question? Name some ai

Ahhh, Maggie Thatcher....now there's a real man! She's very well regarded on this side of the ocean, as is Tony Blair. Though I believe their domestic political leanings are quite different, both were perceived here to be capable and dependable allies of the US. One of my three heroes is Winston Churchill, but he's another story...in six volumes. John

Sorry, Fred, :poster_oops: ...too subtle for me. John

Martyn, Tip for flying in the Chicago area.... If there are so many runways you can't tell which is your's, it's O'Hare. If the runway's too short, it's Midway. If there's no runway, it's Meigs. :rofl John

Cab fare from O'Hare to Midway will be about a million bucks, and go via South Bend Indiana with a middle eastern cab driver who speaks 3.5 words of English, but with a bad accent. He will, however be fluent in the exchange rate of Pounds Sterling and Euros to US dollars, only microseconds behind any change in bank rates. The number of visas, drivers's licenses and green cards in his posession will be zero, except those that are forgeries, which he will gladly sell in any quantity you care to name. John

There are no hills like that near Midway. John

Nice aircraft, nice shots. I've always liked that plane. That flight brings back memories. Your destination is about 40 miles from where I lived and had my career (and learned to fly), before relocating to sunny Florida. John

Camera is a rather dated Sony Mavica, but is set to 640 X 480. It does have a 16X digital zoom, at the expense of quality. This is the model that can use either a memory stick or a 1.4MB floppy (really!!). It's old, but serviceable. It is capable of about 1.3 MP, but since I knew I'd be posting, set it down to a lower resolution. John

I thought some of you may be interested in seeing this. Though summer wildfires are an annual ordeal in the US, Florida doesn't get center stage too often. Mostly the fires are a major problem in the West. This year is an exception and Florida is having the worst year since 1998. Our summer rains don't usually begin until mid-June, so we have a month of the fire season remaining. Ocala airport has been pressed into service as a temporary tanker base for some of the aircraft fighting the wildfires rampant in Florida. There are something around 240 active f

Superb. I really enjoyed it. John

I would be interested, however have never done a multi-player session. Have joined VATSIM and have been reading up on it, but haven't downloaded Squawkbox or any other required software. If I'm understanding you correctly, this will not be done under Vatsim, correct? What do I need? If this is an impediment to anyone/everyone else enjoying this, I'll sit it out with no bruised feelings. John

Someone (Churchill?) once said that Britain and the US are two people separated by a common language.

Tell me more... I'm having similar symptoms and the PC seems warmer than I recall in the past. At times FS9 is just barely usable and I often have to "throttle back" on the traffic setting. Do you access the BIOS by interrupting the boot process? I know there's some hot-key info on a screen that shows up briefly during a cold boot, but have never had any reason to explore it. John

Very cool, Dave. I enjoyed it all. Sounds like a busy, busy day. John

Very well done, Dave. Though I don't have any first-hand experience with it, I remember reading an article that said taxiing real-world turboprops involves going in and out of beta range to control ground speed, saving wear and tear on the brakes. Anyway, that was a very entertaining posting. Going to look at the rest now. John

Fred, I enjoyed that a lot, though maybe not as much as you. Thanks for a great trip. I understand they will be beefing up the security at Juneau soon, as they're worried about a terrorist attack against the high-value dogsled factory and the nearby blubber works. As for the young lady flashing you, they don't mess with people up there who are hardy enough to disrobe in that weather, however briefly. Besides which, most everyone goes armed. After the famous Ididerod dogsled race was won by a woman two years running, there was a T-shirt makin

It looks very much like natural lighting to me. The sun is low at his 7 or 8 o'clock and the whole starboard side is in shadow. The top of the left wing is well lighted as it would be. The ground still has good lighting, though if there were any trees visible, they'd be casting long shadows. Looks great from this side of the ocean, Mut. I think you nailed it. :good I presume he got the guy who did this to him before setting out for home? John

Europeans heighten threat levels (Reuters: London, May 2, 2007, 0905 GMT) The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent terrorist threats and have raised their security level from "Miffed" to "Peeved." Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to "Irritated" or even "A Bit Cross." Londoners have not been "A Bit Cross" since the blitz began in 1940 and tea supplies all but ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorized from "Tiresome" to "A Bloody Nuisance." The last time the British issued "A Bloody Nuisance" warning level was

Well, it's obvious the Mut hasn't lost his touch. Is that a PC-12? John

Phil, Very nice shots. I note with interest the "barber poles" on the ramp at Warsaw. I'm sure no one has ever clipped a wingtip on one, or pushed back into one of them. :?: :!: :?: That looks like a really bad idea. Well, if you're going to run into Poles, I guess that's the most likely place. :mrhappy: John

That was very nice. You should have sold tickets! I'd have paid for that ride. John