flybytes

Dear szcsonger, I did try to adapt a windsock design to fully animate one of my turbine models but the model seemed to fall apart, that was a few years ago - maybe I'll give it another go. I believe I have included every UK off-shore wind except for a large one in the Irish Sea which came on line just a few weeks ago, just cannot currently obtain the turbine coordinates for it. The coordinates for all the other off-shore wind farm were obtained from what I believe to be a government agency which freely produces Kingfisher charts for fishermen around the UK coastline. Find it her

Hi, everyone. Have finally got my act together and today uploaded FSX Power Project v5.0 to the Simviation web-site. Find it at : https://simviation.com/1/search?submit=1&keywords=ray+porter&x=21&y=11 Thanks for your kind responses about my health. One reason I appeared to have dropped out of the Mutley community is that since my health problems last year a list of things can trigger severe nausea - this includes viewing computer screens, fluorescent lighting, bright sunlight & even the contrasting black & white squares in a crossword puzzle. Anyway the

Have recently received a couple of members' e-mails wondering where I've got to... The freeware FSX Power Project is still being developed & hopefully improved. A new version should be released very soon, currently undergoing testing, possibly before the end of this year. Anyone interested in designing wind farms may find my three animated wind turbine models useful - two 3-bladed models (fast & slow rotation) and a 2-blade model. Each model may have its blade length set by adjusting scale & the hub height set by using a positive or negative alt

Have been fortunate to have had a tour of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California way back in 1973, when it was pioneering unmanned missions to the outer planets. There, I experienced what was said to be the darkest room ever, where a laser was projected onto the extremely black interior wall to replicate a bright star for assisting in the development of the unmanned crafts' celestial navigation abilities - no doubt why this is part-way that even now, has contributed to Juno being so accurately timed to within a second of a 5-year voyage. I must say how en

Flightstore in UK currently have limited stocks of CH flight yokes. Saitek products appear to be all out of stock. www.flightstore.co.uk Ray.

Currently watching the UK channel 4 tv 3-part programme 'Flying To The Ends of the Earth'. Incredible Nepal mountain scenery flying backdrop in this first episode. Worth a look. Ray.

This forum subject makes interesting reading over the 18-months since the Malaysian 777 went missing. Perhaps this piece of wreckage will at last put to rest the conspiracy theories expounded out there, if not explain the the what & where of the demise of the aircraft. Ray.

Alan, Agree, especially when those involved go before their time and leave behind a young family. Ray.

Alan, feel sure you do this, but as a reminder - make sure you regularly check your internet options to delete your browsing history & especially delete any cookies. This will make loading previously viewed web-sites a bit slower but well worth it to cut out the aggro of unwanted popups, although this will not have much effect on unwanted e-mails. Personally, I do not give out my e-mail i.d. (appreciate this is unavoidable when dealing with web retailers) to high street retailers, also never give my cell-phone number to commercial sources, also my landline phone number is ex-di

Chris, Have only said that I've not been able to find a retailer of Treescapes vol.7. If it's there I'll be eager to buy. Don't like to critice 'free' software & certainly not amateur freeware, but in my opinion Microft's Bing is an absolute pain to use. Cosmetically it looks nice, but as a serious mapping tool - where is it's lat/long function? Have used Bing on a few occasions & will look into the turbines you mentioned. Ray.

Chris, I've spent months trying to buy Treescapes for Genx volume 7. Flightstore has always been my first port of call, but despite their apparent relationship with the publisher (Playsims I believe), to no avail. Of course I've looked elsewhere - no luck! Perhaps you can steer me or I'm sure many other FSX simmers into a source of purchase? Your 2nd query I've looked into before about the 2 turbines at East MidlandS EGNX, but not found any positional or scale data - Google Earth (which has to be commended, but...) appear to have considerably cut back on their updates, so many of t

Chris B, FSXPP uses the default FSX pylon model, but like the cables, I did look into making my own custom model, but decided that any worthwhile improvement would require an unwelcome rise in the polygon count - not a good thing when hundreds of pylons may be in view at any time. Each version of the project has been as much about improving the look of the models, while reducing their polygon count (as my modelling skills improved) as of increasing the scenery content. As an example, when I was learning how to model an animated wind turbine I used a GMax tutorial which had a basic mode

Chris B, Pylons only. I did look into attaching lines, possibly using the extrusion tool, but as the pylons are at various distances apart, to do this many thousands of times (most distribution systems have 7 cables/pylon) would seem to take at least a human lifetime. X-Plane 10 pylons do have power cables, but suspect they have achieved this by inaccurately placing the pylons at equal distances apart, although I'm willing to stand corrected. The X-Plane cable diameters do look unreal - way too large - probably due to the fact that the diameter of a typical cable would be considera

Chris. have to agree with you, not least after I've spent hundreds, if not thousands of hours adding 3-D objects to GenX photo-scenery - I'd probably be slightly horrified If I knew exactly how many hours - but this is a hobby, & hobbies are meant to be fun, are they not? On the other hand, some of the screen-shots of OrbX submitted by fellow MH members do look impressive, if not strictly accurate - certainly a vast improvement on the FSX default scenery. The CAA, FAA & military users demand absolute positional & scale accuracy, whilst not usually too worried by cosmeti

It's been a long time since my last update to FSXPP (v4.2) - version 4.3 is much delayed due to family commitments (& tragedies), but I've uploaded the added extra electricity pylons & electrical sub-stations to the MH File Library on this site.. Many of you seem to be shifting towards OrbX scenery, but this file will provide approximately 46,000 pylons aligned to GenerationX volumes 1-8 - UK mainland photo-scenery. Will appreciate any feedback - positive or negative. Cheers, Ray.

Shame it isn't vol.8 as I have two boxed sets after misplacing one of the dvd's requiring a re-purchase of the complete set - & guess what? The missing dvd turned up just days later. After a look around sim retailers & e-bay it looks like vol.7 is already a collector's item. As far as car-boot/trunk sales go, when living in the US it seemed that garage sales were all the rage back then. Ray.

Hang(ar) on to your hat! Ray.

Brett & Graeme, Don't want to lose track of this posting, but the aroma of fish & chips in Whitby & Scarborough brings back memories... The USA is a bit of conundrum when it comes to seafood - the best fish & chips I ate there was in Ohio, a long way from any coast & in an establishment not pretending to be British 'fish & chips'. But by far the best sea-food pie I've ever eaten was in a restaurant in Cape Cod. Ray.

Graeme, Don't want to spoil your flight, but, as I have not taken the plunge to purchase ORBX - still prefer Horizon photo-real scenery - perhaps you will continue to post your excellent screen-shots of notable coastal views as you continue your journey. Ray.

Graeme, A man after my own heart - I love 'flying' around coastal areas - believe that scenery found in Yorkshire, Dorset, Devon & Cornwall is the most beautiful in the World. I've circumnavigated mainland UK many times. Try it in a supersonic jet if you are short on time! Which terrain scenery are you using? One of the 'how long is a piece of string?' questions asked, is the length of our coast - an elephant will find it much shorter than, say, a small creature. Ray,

March, Thanks for that. Have been involved with computing since the 1960's & still learning!

John M, This posting is becoming interesting, Never heard of ESET, but did dabble with Firefox. At the moment my initial reason for raising this issue appears to have been resolved. I'm a bit of the opinion that if 'it ain;t broke don't fix it' unfortunately in computing you have to stay at least one step ahead of the bad guys. Ray.

Martin, John M (despite being literally all at sea) has made some valid comments, do other programs in your pc exhibit similar problems? If so then as he suggests, your sound card is faulty or sound driver software has been corrupted. If you don't have a sound card, ie it's part of your mother board then things get a bit more tricky, but rather than replace your motherboard or whole computer, then you could install a sound card which is a relatively cheap option. My gut feeling is that your problem is a software/sound driver problem. Ray.

Martin, That's a strange problem, while I'm thinking about it, perhaps you can make sure that your PC is well away from that aircraft engine you are pictured sat in! Ray.

Mike, Suspect there is some truth in your posting. Have given MS IE another go this morning & it has been working flawlessly for a few hours. As it happens, the only manual changes to my PC since I last tried IE was to download Chrome & renew my subscription to Norton which expired at the weekend. Unlike my renewal last year, where I simply typed in a new product key & Norton gave me another 365 days, this time the new product key would not work & I eventually received a message that a completely new download of Norton was neccessary. After the download, the ins