Tim_A

No, a condition lever only has three settings - high, low and cutoff. It isn't continuously variable like the mixture lever in a piston plane. Turbines work completely differently to piston engines, and the only real commonality between the levers is that the fully aft position is the fuel cutoff position, and they have a red knob on the end. Sometimes the 'high idle' and 'low idle' positions are called 'flight idle' and 'ground idle', although I think that is mostly a military thing.

I wouldn't be surprised to see that on Top Gear, with Jeremy Clarkson at the wheel...

Don't chop the throttle in the Caravan -- it'll drop like a rock (unless that's what you want of course). As with all turbines, changes in power take time to come online, so you have to think much further ahead of the aeroplane than in a piston aircraft. It's not hard to get a stable descent at 80kts; it just takes practice. Slow down before you start your final descent -- it's much harder to slow down while you are descending. Also, as John said, pay attention to the C of G, particularly if you have a full load. AH's loading regime is none too clever in that respect and can easily put you ou

Yet another plane that's already been done. Have Carenado run out of original ideas?

The pink is a little bright -- tone it down a bit and you have the classic WWII dawn/dusk camo colour.. .

Ok, should be fine

Ok, back to Westport, and this time we're heading South down the coast to Greymouth. The season has changed to Autumn, and we're flying the Carenado Bo… A postcard from Greymouth:

When's it due? If I can do it next week then no prob.

Much of the problem with X-Plane is that Austin Meyer's idea of UI ergonomics does not mesh well with anyone else's or established metrics. The rest of the problem is that they release incomplete betas and call them a completed product. And then release a string of updates. So any review you do will be a snapshot of a work in progress, whether you do it this month, next, or wait till the Autumn. Now, if you install *any* new sim expecting to be blown away, you'll be sorely disappointed. They all have flaws and shortcomings; they're just different. Oh, and I will not hear a word against Miss

You should be aware though that although the Twotter is a STOL aircraft (I was flying it in an out of 250m strips in Antarctica), AH declares it to have a ludicrously long runway requirement of 1000m, which kinda defeats the point of it.

Ob Hill and Surrounds Last few odds and sods. Took a truck up to the top of Ob Hill to look t the view, and then had a poke around Williams Field...

0xc0000005 is a memory access violation. Could be a corrupt registry key... have you tried a registry cleaner?

There should be a law against lawyers.

If FSX needs DNF, it can only be 2.0 -- it predates anything later. But a lot of addons definitely do need DNF in one flavour or another -- AH uses 2.0, Orbx use 3.5, Plan-G uses 4.0... And don't make the mistake of thinking that if you install 4.0, you'll be good for the others: If it needs 2.0, it needs 2.0, regardless of what other versions you also have installed.

X-Aviation is bringing Duggy the DC3 to X-Plane. See the link for details: http://forums.x-pilot.com/index.php/topic/2927-official-in-sim-previews-february-2nd-2012/

Oops. It was late! Figures adjusted for "inflation"...

This is a crop of just the sign board, with no resizing.

Very rough back of a f.a.g. packet... Hawaii is about 6400 square miles. Knock off 4000 for the Big Island (cos it's free), gives 2435 square miles. Divide into 1600, works out at 1.52 square miles per point, or 0.657 points per square mile. Now let's scale that up. The UK is roughly 94,000 square miles. So that's 61,758 points, or £524.95 The US is 3,794,083 square miles. That's 2,492,712 points, or £21,188.00 That's expensive real estate!

What's "1600 Microsoft Points" in English?

Yes. If you follow the link at the end of the post, there's a lot more detail

Impressions of McMurdo The American McMurdo base is the largest in Antarctica, with up to 1200 residents in the Summer. It's served by three separate airfields (which it shares with New Zealand's Scott Base), although these come and go with the seasons, according to the state of the sea ice. Power for both bases comes largely from three Kiwi-owned wind turbines. Observation Hill (aka "Ob Hill") is on the right. The Wind turbines belong to New Zealand's Scott Base, which is just beyond the hill. It's late season, and the ice breaker has arrived, clearing a sea channel. The Ice Runway is

Ok, so I was slightly economical with the truth in that last post. While Casey doesn't have an airstrip, there is one relatively close by. Wilkins Aerodrome is about 40 miles South, up on the Upper Peterson Glacier. There's a track that goes from one to the other. It has mile markers made out of oil cans, and if you are so inclined and have an appropriate vehicle, you can drive it. I flew out there in the helicopter (well, me in a helicopter, you'd hardly call it flying. Let's just say I went, and somebody else paid the repair bill..), and drove back down to Casey. One interesting thing is tha

Impressions of Casey Casey is the big Australian base in Antarctica. Roughly speaking, it's on the East coast (ok, if you want to be pedantic and say that the coast of Antarctica is all 'North', then it's on the right in the conventional orientation of the map. Okay? It's the bit that's closest to Australia.) It doesn't have an airstrip, but there are two helipads and a ship dock. Read more about Casey here: http://www.antarctic.../stations/casey

An interesting story about the first picture (this comes from the Antarctica X manual). Both the man and the bird (a skua) are based on a real person/bird. The bird migrates every year to Rothera from Majorca, and has befriended the man, who is also responsible for setting lights on the oil drums in the event of a night landing..

Impressions of Rothera: