at what point will you say enough is enough?

[britfrog 180]

Hardly a week goes by without some new and tempting piece of scenery or new aircraft is released, how is this affecting your simming? I used to fly around 4 main regions, australia, nw us, and europe and also the caribbean. However as ftx and others are releasing more and more scenery (NZ) i am starting to have to make a concious decision of what theatre i want to fly in, rather than just buy whatever comes out willy nilly. Whilst I fly 75% of the time in tubeliners i dont get a kick out of setting up a flight and walking away for an hour or two, so for me flights of up to 90 minutes are what I go for. So now I am having to have a hard look at reducing the areas available to me, and stick to perhaps 1 or two regions.

my other consideration is hard drive size, my fsx is now around 300gb in size and i am rapidly running out of room, do i want to go through all that hell of installing a new hard drive , operating system, and then spend 3 days re-installing all that i have back on the new hard drive? or do i take a hard look at where i want to fly and reduce the regions so that I wont need in the short term to change the hard drive.

Are there others out there with the same problem?

[ddavid 149]

1. Join a VA - like DC Airways - and choose shorter flights over areas that you enjoy;

2. Spend some time flight planning;

3. Stick to nav aids during flight and don't use AP/GPS

4. Get someone to bring you a hot drink/bar of chocolate/peanuts (my favourite) - sit back and enjoy the flight...

Cheers - Dai.

[Sabre 28]

I tend to be restricted more by cash than hard drive space

I fly GA aircraft, warbirds and the slow stuff like the DC2 and DC3 not much into tubes so I'm never tempted by the latest incarnation of 7something I've also become more discerning about aircraft and tend to stick to quality rather than quantity so utilise the likes of A2A Simulations, Carenado, etc. With aircraft I've become more sensible over time given I have a limited amount of flying time - you can after all only fly one at a time

I must admit though I'm very selective about scenery and have restricted myself to the Orbx North America/Canada area and back on home territory I have all of the Horizon Photo scenery as I love to be able to pick out places I know and have visited in real life. I've managed to restrain myself from buying the Orbx Australia scenery but I'm very tempted by their latest New Zealand package. I guess in terms of scenery I fly somewhere I know well and other places I probably will never visit in real life

[M31 0]

Good questions Britfrog.

Like you I used to have a really bloated FSX install with scenery I hardly looked at after the initial novelty of a new purchase, lately I've been much more discerning and have decided to concentrate just now on building up the UK/GB to be as comprehensive and detailed as I can, have all the Gen X volumes so far including the the two South Ireland ones, Treescapes, Scotflight and various airports of interest and of course suitable light aircraft for the type of flying I like to do, also intend to install all my West Germany photo scenery again too soon as its a place close to my heart having lived there for three years.

I'll still go for add ons of particular interest like Aerosoft's Antarctica X I recently bought, but I'm much more selective now.

I'm interested to hear that Orbx plan to do UK scenery for FSX in the future, I guess I'll need a second FSX install on my second PC for this, though I know you can currently switch area's with the Australian scenery.

I guess with the news that MS Flight was not what we hoped it would be is good news of sorts too, this way we know any future FSX add on will still last for years and we can buy with confidence knowing that a new platform will not make it obsolete as happened with the switch from FS9 to FSX.

EDIT: Having thought about it a bit more, perhaps I'll start looking at any future FSX add-ons for Prepar3D support too (or at least a cheap upgrade path) as this is the only real alternative to what I have with FSX that could tempt me when Prepar3D v 2.0 is released and hopefully with a more friendly price tag for a user license.

I realise many FSX add-ons will work without too much fuss with the current version of Prepar3D though ... I really must check out the current version soon, keep meaning to.

[Tim_A 997]

I've been very selective for the last year or more, mainly for financial reasons. FSX has its own 1TB drive, so space isn't an issue (FS9, XPX and Flight share another 1TB drive). I would never put FS-anything on an OS-drive (well, except for my development laptop, but that's only for testing purposes, not serious simming)

If you're thinking about another drive for FSX, don't forget that under NTFS, you can mount a hard drive inside a folder on another drive, so you can copy your FSX install onto another drive and still have it in the same place as far as the OS is concerned. Means no pulling your hair out with reinstalls and other nastinesses.

[M31 0]

I'll be glad when the prices of the larger mechanical HD's start coming down to pre Thailand flood levels again

Just been looking at my two main PC's storage drives ... and I could use more bulk storage, you cant back up enough IMHO and I don't entirely trust optical media for my future back up needs (nothing is permanent) I've lost data that I thought was safe on old CD'rs and even DVD'rs too before that became corrupt somehow.

For me, I've got my Music, personal pictures vids ETC, FS downloads backed up on three separate hard drives on three separate computers here and I religiously maintain that, but even that's not perfect, if there is a fire or theft its all gone, so you need off site back ups too I guess

My thinking is, if one HD fails with all that identical data its time to get one more again and never be less than 2 HD's with that important data.

But I digress, sorry.

[britfrog 180]

tim-a we need to talk a bit whilst i have built my own p.c's for over 20 years i would like to get a handle on how to accomplish this.

M31 i take it you spent time in germany at Hm services?

I also keep my fsim on a separate drive from my pics and vids etc

I also saw that ftx is coming into the UK, I am in 2 minds about this as i know gary summons and flew him around popham so he could get some good air to ground pics and whilst he does a good job he is getting overtaken by what ftx can produce. perhaps they will lay off the major airports and leave them to him while they do their thing with the smaller stuff, whatever i hate to see some big corp come in and stamp all over your hard work so feel for Gary.

[Tim_A 997]

It's dead easy - in Disk Management, change the drive letter for your new drive, but instead of giving it a new letter, browse to a folder location. Note: The folder you assign it to MUST be empty.

Here's a tutorial: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/11253-mount-drives-partitions-folder.html

[M31 0]

M31 i take it you spent time in germany at Hm services?

Yep, sort of ... it was my late Dad who was in the RAF and in his 21 year tour we lived at many RAF bases both in the UK and abroad for about 3 years each, in Germany my Dad was based at RAF Wildenrath that were flying the GR1 Harriers at the time but we lived off base in the German town of Geilenkirchen for about a year before getting accomodation at the nearby military base of Geilenkirchen ... was age 13 to 16 then and went to a shool called Kent in Hostert that was an ex military hospital for all the military brats ... hated that school but loved my teenage years in Germany.

[britfrog 180]

It's dead easy - in Disk Management, change the drive letter for your new drive, but instead of giving it a new letter, browse to a folder location. Note: The folder you assign it to MUST be empty.

Here's a tutorial: http://www.sevenforu...ons-folder.html

Thanks for the info muchley appreciated it seems a good solution.

[britfrog 180]

M31 i take it you spent time in germany at Hm services?

Yep, sort of ... it was my late Dad who was in the RAF and in his 21 year tour we lived at many RAF bases both in the UK and abroad for about 3 years each, in Germany my Dad was based at RAF Wildenrath that were flying the GR1 Harriers at the time but we lived off base in the German town of Geilenkirchen for about a year before getting accomodation at the nearby military base of Geilenkirchen ... was age 13 to 16 then and went to a shool called Kent in Hostert that was an ex military hospital for all the military brats ... hated that school but loved my teenage years in Germany.

I had a similar upbringing my dad was a battle of britain pilot who did 2 full tours and was lucky at the end of the war to be seconded to BOAC all my formative years were spent in the Bahamas which were simply idyllic this year many of my school friends are coming to france to celebrate my 60th from places like australia , the US and the bahamas, i think it will be a lost fortnight!!!

[hurricanemk1c 195]

Personally, I'll either buy things that look great, I've been to/on or things that catch my eye. For example, I saw a Belgian F-16 at Fairford, so downloaded one of them from FlightSim.com, but I also have (somewhere!) scenery for Ramstein AFB in Germany, as there is a heavy metal band called Rammstein that I listen to.

BTW, how is GenX Ireland Colin?

[mutley 4,498]

Britfrog,

That's a fascinating childhood you've had in my eyes but I guess not having a permanent base had it's drawbacks too.

You must have made some very special friends to have them travel from all corners of the globe to celebrate your 60th.

If you don't mind me asking, when is your birthday?

Cheers,

Joe

[M31 0]

M31 i take it you spent time in germany at Hm services?

Yep, sort of ... it was my late Dad who was in the RAF and in his 21 year tour we lived at many RAF bases both in the UK and abroad for about 3 years each, in Germany my Dad was based at RAF Wildenrath that were flying the GR1 Harriers at the time but we lived off base in the German town of Geilenkirchen for about a year before getting accomodation at the nearby military base of Geilenkirchen ... was age 13 to 16 then and went to a shool called Kent in Hostert that was an ex military hospital for all the military brats ... hated that school but loved my teenage years in Germany.

I had a similar upbringing my dad was a battle of britain pilot who did 2 full tours and was lucky at the end of the war to be seconded to BOAC all my formative years were spent in the Bahamas which were simply idyllic this year many of my school friends are coming to france to celebrate my 60th from places like australia , the US and the bahamas, i think it will be a lost fortnight!!!

I hope you have a great birthday, you must be very proud of your Dad ... we lived for three years in Cyprus as part of his RAF tour for a more warmer climate, Dad was based at RAK Akrotiri and we lived in nearby Limasoll with a Greek landlord and another RAF family ... I was about 7 to 9 years old then but remember most of it very well, we were good friends with the local landlord Dmitri and my parents loved it ... the beaches there were fantastic and if I had enough money to retire there I'd do it in a heartbeat or at least buy a holiday home there. I've always thought its one thing visiting a country for a 2 week holiday or whatever, but living there for three years really gives you a taste for life there and the true culture of the people ... as I recall, we flew out to Cyprus on a Comet and I'm glad to have flown in such an iconic Aircraft ... especially as my Dad ended his RAF career with the Nimrods.

Joe you raise a good question towards Brit about a childhood existence moving around all the time ... I did that too and my take was, it was very disruptive ... I was always making new friends for sure, but I was losing them too, it would not be so bad if the friends you made from the previous tour moved with you, but we rarely saw each other again and also we were all on different cycles, so even though I could be at one base for three years, friends I'd meet might be just finishing their tour or half way through it ... also it definitely disrupted my education, you could go from one school to another and the flow of education rarely took up the pace, they were either ahead or behind you ... I was never an academic though, my skills were always practical ones that cant really be tought in school and working in construction in my later life I came into my own and did much better than most in this area.

As I recall some friends at Geilenkirchen were put to boarding school in the UK while their parents enjoyed the high life abroad with us, during school holidays they would join us and go back again ... I recall one family we helped get their kids to stay after a second holiday ... we actually hid the kids away as protests towards their parents who wanted them sent back to the UK and boarding school ... it was a big Enid Blyton secret seven and famous five style prank of the day ... but it worked, the kids stayed and went to the BFPO school at Kent school in Germany with the rest of us.

For sure when we eventually settled down here in NE Scotland again at RAF Kinloss as my Dads last posting and made the logical step to living in Elgin as the next big town ... it took some time for me to integrate with the locals (I was still about 16 to 17 then) many were clannish and would not take you on, but eventually I made good friends here and I was accepted ... I'm happy here now (I've feather'd my nest well) and would find it hard to want to move again, even to a Mediterranean paradise like Cyprus where I've lived before

[M31 0]

BTW, how is GenX Ireland Colin?

Not had too much time to fly there lately, but I bought the two South Ireland Gen X volumes with Cork airport too and did a quick fly from there (airports in both volumes too) to make sure they worked and also do a defrag because I don't have these on SSD's, but it looked quite nice, perhaps as not in your face as good as the latest South Scotland volume? perhaps the photography resolution was not the same? but definitely a big improvement over standard FSX scenery and add ons that seem to have been ignored in this area ... I hope we get a North Ireland one too in time.

Are you from Ireland Hurricane ?

[hurricanemk1c 195]

Well, I live here Colin, in a town called Portlaoise. If you fly from Dublin city and follow a railway line, following the double track from Portarlington, you should find me there. (Approx 50 miles from Dublin). There's a big railway yard nearby

Would love to see a shot of here!

[M31 0]

I'll take a flight down there soon and post some screenshots for you

I've a soft spot for Dublin, went to a mates stag do there once

[hurricanemk1c 195]

Flown into there many times at stupid o'clock (I used to live in the UK, near Derby)!

[M31 0]

Derby, been there many times too, probably en route to Donington Park for the old GP 500 Motorcycle meetings on my Bike and once to see the Monstors of Rock at Donington 1988 it was, Iron Maiden headlined ... I once did John O Groats to Lands End on a Motorcycle ... great times

[britfrog 180]

Britfrog,

That's a fascinating childhood you've had in my eyes but I guess not having a permanent base had it's drawbacks too.

You must have made some very special friends to have them travel from all corners of the globe to celebrate your 60th.

If you don't mind me asking, when is your birthday?

Cheers,

Joe

sorry for the late answer , no moving around was part of life we knew nothing different so it was "normal" my wife was the same she lived in pakistan, india, singapore and indonesia, her dad worked for avery scales.

my birthday is july10th and yes my freinds are true friends we spent 3 hours gassing away on skype the other day and it is as if we have never been apart, when we are together we are back in our teens mentally, it is only the mirror that reminds us otherwise.

for their 50th we went to fort lauderdale in january my wife went into work asked for an extra day off work on monday, her boss asked what for, oh we are going to a party--- must be some kind of a party if you need two days to get over it--- yeah but it is in Fla, Florida !!! are you crazy?----

6 months later in july my wife went back to her boss and said can i have a day off on monday--the boss says dont tell me you are going to a party--- yep its my husbands 50th so we did it all again except this time my friends could not get the time to come over here so they paid for us to go there----

those are friends !!!!

[britfrog 180]

M31 i take it you spent time in germany at Hm services?

Yep, sort of ... it was my late Dad who was in the RAF and in his 21 year tour we lived at many RAF bases both in the UK and abroad for about 3 years each, in Germany my Dad was based at RAF Wildenrath that were flying the GR1 Harriers at the time but we lived off base in the German town of Geilenkirchen for about a year before getting accomodation at the nearby military base of Geilenkirchen ... was age 13 to 16 then and went to a shool called Kent in Hostert that was an ex military hospital for all the military brats ... hated that school but loved my teenage years in Germany.

I had a similar upbringing my dad was a battle of britain pilot who did 2 full tours and was lucky at the end of the war to be seconded to BOAC all my formative years were spent in the Bahamas which were simply idyllic this year many of my school friends are coming to france to celebrate my 60th from places like australia , the US and the bahamas, i think it will be a lost fortnight!!!

I hope you have a great birthday, you must be very proud of your Dad ... we lived for three years in Cyprus as part of his RAF tour for a more warmer climate, Dad was based at RAK Akrotiri and we lived in nearby Limasoll with a Greek landlord and another RAF family ... I was about 7 to 9 years old then but remember most of it very well, we were good friends with the local landlord Dmitri and my parents loved it ... the beaches there were fantastic and if I had enough money to retire there I'd do it in a heartbeat or at least buy a holiday home there. I've always thought its one thing visiting a country for a 2 week holiday or whatever, but living there for three years really gives you a taste for life there and the true culture of the people ... as I recall, we flew out to Cyprus on a Comet and I'm glad to have flown in such an iconic Aircraft ... especially as my Dad ended his RAF career with the Nimrods.

Joe you raise a good question towards Brit about a childhood existence moving around all the time ... I did that too and my take was, it was very disruptive ... I was always making new friends for sure, but I was losing them too, it would not be so bad if the friends you made from the previous tour moved with you, but we rarely saw each other again and also we were all on different cycles, so even though I could be at one base for three years, friends I'd meet might be just finishing their tour or half way through it ... also it definitely disrupted my education, you could go from one school to another and the flow of education rarely took up the pace, they were either ahead or behind you ... I was never an academic though, my skills were always practical ones that cant really be tought in school and working in construction in my later life I came into my own and did much better than most in this area.

As I recall some friends at Geilenkirchen were put to boarding school in the UK while their parents enjoyed the high life abroad with us, during school holidays they would join us and go back again ... I recall one family we helped get their kids to stay after a second holiday ... we actually hid the kids away as protests towards their parents who wanted them sent back to the UK and boarding school ... it was a big Enid Blyton secret seven and famous five style prank of the day ... but it worked, the kids stayed and went to the BFPO school at Kent school in Germany with the rest of us.

For sure when we eventually settled down here in NE Scotland again at RAF Kinloss as my Dads last posting and made the logical step to living in Elgin as the next big town ... it took some time for me to integrate with the locals (I was still about 16 to 17 then) many were clannish and would not take you on, but eventually I made good friends here and I was accepted ... I'm happy here now (I've feather'd my nest well) and would find it hard to want to move again, even to a Mediterranean paradise like Cyprus where I've lived before

yeah, i guess i am proud of my dad, never really thought about it till he was gone, and dad would never have liked hero worship he binned all his medals as he was just doing his job as he saw it ( he was working in the stresses and strains dept at the bristol a/c factory just before war broke out) , he is celebrated on the battle of britain memorial on the thames as well as on the one at capel le ferne he was lucky he flew with no 1 squadron (in france before dunkirk) 242 squadron (with douglas Bader) and 615 squadron at kenley, before being shipped abroad to train new pilots in south africa he then came back and did another tour of the med on beaufighters and mosquito's . after the war he was lucky to be seconded into boac direct from the raf.

we lived apart i left home with 200 dollars and a rucksack on my back and a free ticket to the uk when i was 20, i had a cpl/ir and bugger all else

i fly to cyprus now from time to time and you can buy very nice houses there for very sensible money at least half of uk prices, the only problem being if the turks and greeks have another set to, but yes a lovely place.

who knows maybe you will be like me and one day decide that you want a better quality of life, that is what made me move to France.

I , like you, and probably for the same reasons was never an academic my teachers all said i was wasting their time especially my maths teacher whom i loathed with a passion, he was ex indian army kept his handkerchief up his sleeve, it gave me such satisfaction to see his livid face when i arrived at school for our gce results to find out that i had passed maths, he could not understand how i had done it, i simply said that his lessons were a watse of time while the gce's were important ,boy did he blow up!!

makes me laugh now.

sorry if this thread went off track a bit, we should have a social thread where these things can be discussed,

[britfrog 180]

Derby, been there many times too, probably en route to Donington Park for the old GP 500 Motorcycle meetings on my Bike and once to see the Monstors of Rock at Donington 1988 it was, Iron Maiden headlined ... I once did John O Groats to Lands End on a Motorcycle ... great times

thats a trip I have always wanted to do on a bike , i have been to scotland on an rd350 with my wife before we were married, with a tent across the handlebars, it pissed down all week, i have never been so wet, the crowning glory was being told by some tourists that urquart castle was amazing so we were staying at fort william, rode the bike to the perishing castle in the rain only to find it was a ruin with no shelter at all, to top it off nessie didnt even show her head.

however where i live know has the best biking roads in the world , no contest, if you want to see a video i will send it to you can you imagine 311 miles of twisty road where the longest straight is 500 yards long? imagine the scottish border to london without a staright long enough to be called that.

if there are any other bikers here that would like to know about this road i can also send an article that I wrote for several bike mags which was published in the uk and the US.

[M31 0]

Derby, been there many times too, probably en route to Donington Park for the old GP 500 Motorcycle meetings on my Bike and once to see the Monstors of Rock at Donington 1988 it was, Iron Maiden headlined ... I once did John O Groats to Lands End on a Motorcycle ... great times

thats a trip I have always wanted to do on a bike , i have been to scotland on an rd350 with my wife before we were married, with a tent across the handlebars, it pissed down all week, i have never been so wet, the crowning glory was being told by some tourists that urquart castle was amazing so we were staying at fort william, rode the bike to the perishing castle in the rain only to find it was a ruin with no shelter at all, to top it off nessie didnt even show her head.

however where i live know has the best biking roads in the world , no contest, if you want to see a video i will send it to you can you imagine 311 miles of twisty road where the longest straight is 500 yards long? imagine the scottish border to london without a staright long enough to be called that.

if there are any other bikers here that would like to know about this road i can also send an article that I wrote for several bike mags which was published in the uk and the US.

Sidetracking again, but yeah ... Motorcycles have been a big passion in my life, all my life ... I find it hard to resist talking about this other passion of mine ... I cant ride anymore due to my Ankylosing Spondylitis, but in my late teens to late 20's ... right up until about 30 I think it was ... Motorcycling was my very existence and all I lived for ... that and Rock music too ... a wee bit of wild Woman and hard living and song too.

Amazing days, during that time I'd done the Bike runs I wanted to do ... the John O Groats to Lands End run was on a Suzuki GS1000E with my Girlfriend of the time in about 1982 who moaned at me solid (it was her idea too) until we made it to near Lands End at a place called Newquay and good weather at last. I couldn't go much further and found a good camp-site with outdoor pool and settled for a day before making the final short leg to Lands End ... it had been a hard rain ride down since the Midlands and tempers were high!

Lots of my friends rode the 250 and 350 LC's (Elsies as we called them) I used to ride the bigger four stroke Jap bikes and had many, but those Elsie RD 350's were sure fun to ride.

A lot of my friends and myself got involved in the early Scottish Motorcycle racing scene and our first visit to Knockhill in Fife was pivitol in making us want to go down there again from NE Scotland ... it was all about racing what you had in the late 70's early 80's at Knockhill ... but later my friend Les Thompson went on to be Scottish 600cc champ for two years running with a bit of sponsorship ... I could get some fast laps around the circuit, but never consistent enough to go racing my self, but even practising against Les on local roads here ... and I always had better machinery, you could see he was naturally quick, so we let him have his head and he did well.

I was running lots of big bore Jap Superbikes in those days ... I bought one of the first GSXR 750's, rode it for a year, knew there was something going on with my Spine and gave up Biking and put my heart and soul into my work at the oil yard .... about 12 years later I bought my last Bike a brand new Suzuki 1200 Bandit S... I knew I had fairly advanced AS then and wanted one last bite of the Motorcycle Cherry I was 39 I think ... Looking back I've often wondered if it was a wise move? I owned the bike for two years and only did 3000 miles on it and it cost about 7 grand to do it... compared to the 15000 miles i I did each year in my prime ... But I don't regret it, I sold the Bike and the biking gear at a big loss as I gradually accepted Ankylosing Spondylitis..

Anyway, some of my experience at the Scotland race track of Knockhill has been helpful in Flight Sim... I nagged and nagged Scotflight and Ian to include the track as a scenery some time back, citing an actual experience of Mick Grant (the then Biking hero) landing his personal Cessna on the short straight there ... I later liaised with Derek Butcher The current owner of Knockhill) and Scot-flight as an intermediate for this scenery ... I never knew, but it later transpired Mick Grant had a young teenager called Jamie Whitham on that flight into and out of Knockhill.

We now do have a very detailed Knockhill circuit in Scotflight ... And I'm Chuffed about that

Hurri ... I've not forgotten your request of screen shots of S Ireland and Portlaoise ... I'll post soon

PS: Gotta love Rammstiens new show!

.

[hurricanemk1c 195]

Flake messed up in Birmingham in Feb - quite funny! About 1.25

We did have at one point a music thread in a general section - not sure where it went to!

[M31 0]

Good recovery though ... once he was prompted I did post in one or two music type threads here ... that's another big passion in my life