allardjd

Very, VERY nice. You do travel in style, Mut. John

Had a fantastic experience with the Navy's toys today, and have some photos, though none in the simulator building. I want to write this up like a magazine article and do it right. Hope to post in a day or two. Where's the appropriate place, here or Real World Aviation? The photos are real world, of course; as it happens, none will be of the simulator, even though that's the feature topic. John

I just hope this won't spoil me on Microsoft. This is the high-tech stuff, and you know what they say. It's hard to get 'em back down on the farm after they've been to the big city. After this, I may have to re-enlist. Fortunately, my general distrust for helicopters will probably save me. I'm sure you've heard them all... Airplanes want to fly, helicopters just want to kill you. Helicopters can't fly, they're just so ugly they're repelled by the earth. A helicopter is a collection of aircraft parts flying in loose formation. Helicopters have no visible means of support. If you have

Oz?? Is that a reference to the land of Foster's in one quart cans? Never heard that one before. Must be a British thing, eh? Wow! That's quite a trek. Not exactly the express route is it? Sounds like fun though. John

This time it's just good news. I will be able to go to Mayport for the simulator session tomorrow. Will take the camera along and try to get some shots to post, but not sure the Navy is going to allow a camera. We'll see. :dance: John

OK, Smeagol, go for it. Looking forward to seeing Dubai. Normally I'd hold off for the specified 24 hours before making a decision, but I know you've been trying to get in a flight, so I'll "award" this one to you. When you've finished and posted, please allow 24 hours after you post before picking the next pilot. I'm afraid we're cutting Joe Ellwood in Australia, and maybe some others, out of the picture here. John.

Smeagol, Glad you liked it. I had hoped my attempts at humor might make up for the lack of artistic content. What aircraft are you proposing to fly? I certainly hope it has a radial engine, or two...or three or four. :-) Also, I'm in the US and don't know when it's 1600 where you are. Normally we're supposed to have a 24 hour period for others to "offer" flights, so everyone in the various time zones gets their shot. Having said that, it looks like you've been trying to get one in for a day or so. Please let me know what you propose. Dubai sounds interesting. You might see Michael

All right, boys and girls, welcome to our flight from Ioannis Kapodistrias, Greece (LGKR), and easy for you to say, to beautiful Incirlik Turkey, also known by the catchy name, LTAG. As you can see our accommodations will be world class and we'll be ready to board you as soon as the eight drums of hydraulic fluid are loaded. Pay no mind to the work gantry and the open cowlings. Any rumors that radial engines leak oil are simply scurrilous propaganda by our closest competitor, Air Bulgaria. #1 running, #2 cranking... Allowing traffic to pass before push-back. Some of our ramp neigh

OK, I'm on it... John

I can do LGRK-LTAG (Incirlik AB, Turkey) today/tonight. I have a new Fairchild C-123 K Provider I need to get some time in. It's a little over 800 miles and I'll do IFR, via airways, with real-world weather and 100% traffic. Expect the screenshots to be a little rough as I'm not all that experienced at switching views to take shots while on departure, etc. Let me know ASAP if you want me to go ahead with this. John

And to you! Have a good one. John

I have Traffic 2005 and the Military 1 PlusPak installed and am pretty pleased overall. The Repaint Assistant utility that comes with it is a great little tool for looking up liveries in the guess-the-airport competitions, but don't tell anyone.... John

Mut, I spent some time trying to ID the liveries of the AC in the background of your runway intersection shot. Two of them are fairly clear. One appears to be BMI, and I thought, "Aha, I'm on to something!" Then I looked them up on the web and it seems they fly just about everywhere. Curses, foiled again! There's one with a blue, white and red horizontal bar layout on the vertical stabilizer and I couldn't find anything to match that one, though my first thought on seeing it was Air France. I couldn't confirm that. It probably wouldn't have helped much anyway. Ther

Mut, I'll defer to someone else, please. I haven't anything but stock FS9 aircraft and I don't think that would provide much of a challenge for anyone. I'll stick to airports though might hazard a cockpit guess when I can. John

If Joe is right about it being a Russian helo, it might very well be a MI-24 Hind. The MI-24 does have the bowed windscreen rails like the one in the photo and most helos don't have "one up" cockpits like that. That's pretty much a feature of helo gunships and I think the Hind does have that cockpit layout. I didn't pick up on the fact that it was a helo until Joe mentioned it, but now that I look closely, you can see the collective. I was thinking it was a late 60s or 70s fighter. I haven't a clue who the developer might be. If this is indeed a Hind, someone else can be the winner when t

Joe, You are a piece of work!!! That was awesome. Obviously you have a fine stable of FS aircraft. I saw the Hornet at work with the Blue Angels at an airshow earlier this year. The aircraft and the folks who fly them are pretty amazing. It was amusing to listen to the announcer repeatedly refer to it as, "...the Boeing FA-18 Hornet." As I'm sure you know, they were actually designed and built by McDonnel-Douglas but Boeing has bought them out. It's a great aircraft, but I'm a little worried that the Navy is asking much of it. The A-6 Intruders are gone. The F-14 Tomcats are gone.

The Good News I bought a couple of raffle tickets from my brother last week. Here's some of the advertising poop.... "The Military Affinity Group is sponsoring a raffle that will award 3 lucky winners with cockpit time in a SH60B "Seahawk" Helicopter Simulator. This simulator is a full-motion simulator that gives the most realistic flight simulation that modern technology has to offer. The Army version of this helicopter is the more famous "Blackhawk". If you have worked in the CSX HQ for any amount of time, you have seen these helicopters (pictured below) fly up and down the St Johns Ri

Close enough. AYLA is not in FS9. The Lae field in that program is Nadzab, AYNZ, about 15 miles up the road from the city. I think it's the historic one, but wasn't aware of AYLA. Anyway, Lae is the place and there's only one field listed in FS9. As you know by now, this was the departure point for Amelia Earhart's last flight, attempting to reach Howland Island. The rest is history and mystery. Lae was used extensively by the Japanese until mid to late 1943, when they were...well, evicted. There's a photo in Wickopedia of wrecked A6M Zeros next to the runway. Unde

The aviation pioneer to whom I refer is one of those mentioned by Mut above.

Very nice, Dave. Top notch, in fact. John

More clues tomorrow, Mut. You guys are actually barking in the right forest, if not exactly at the right tree. John

Dave, The F-4 Phantom was quite a smudge pot too, at least the real thing was. Not sure if any of the programmers captured that or not. But then, when you're dropping naphalm, I guess the exhaust is small potatoes. John

Not all the Axis bases were in the home countries... John

I don't remember where I read this, and paraphrased it a little. I hope you like it.... Controller: "Piper 5AB, say altitude." Piper 5AB: "Altitude" Controller: "Piper 5AB, say airspeed." Piper 5AB: "Airspeed" Controller (after long pause): "Piper 5AB, say 'Cancel IFR' ." Piper 5AB: "5,000 ft, 140 knots"

Next clues... The city name has three letters; two are vowels. It's on an island, though a rather large one. Don't forget there were three Axis powers. John