Flight Sim Blog ala Paul (P-12C)

Flying in a Storch

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 06:48:30 GMT

I thought I would post a couple more videos of my exploits collecting aircraft data. On the same trip to Fantasy of Flight in Polk County Florida where we collected data on the Fokker D-VIII that I posted about awhile ago, we also collected audio and photos of the Fieseler Fi-156 Storch.

As a bonus, Kermit Weeks took me along for a ride in his Storch while he was demonstrating it's flying qualities to the museum guests.

The video below was shot while we were recording audio of the Storch.

Here is the video I shot from the backseat while Kermit flew a demo flight. This aircraft has amazing slow flight characteristics and short-field capabilities. Since I was filming and just enjoying the flight, I didn't get a chance to pretend to be the gunner, but the gun was there to pretend with had I wanted to.

I'll post some other videos I have kicking around sometime soon.

Are We Missing Airports?

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 15:41:56 GMT

We get our airport data from a well known data provider, but I know we are missing some airports, primarily outside of the United States.

We are looking into and making efforts to get a more complete set of airports in the eastern regions of the world where we don't have much data in FSX, but we don't yet know how that will pan out.

So that leads me to my question. Are we missing entire airports and/or seaplane bases where you live or fly?

I'm definitely not asking if we have bugs or errors in FSX airports. We know every airport isn't perfect and with so many in the product it is virtually impossible to make them perfect. In most cases the data defines the airport for us and if the data is incomplete or outright wrong, then it has more problems in the simulation.

So please don't send a list of airports that have an error, are missing a new runway, has the fuel in the wrong spot or any other current bug.

For airports that are missing, please tell us the name, ICAO, and location (Lat, Lon if possible or relative position to another airport or landmark if you don't know the lat lon). If you know of a good source of data such as an internet link or book, let us know that as well. We don't have heliports in FSX, but we hope to have them in the next version, so if you know of key heliports in your area that would be good to know too.

Just post a comment to this blog or use tell_fs@microsoft.com (if you choose the e-mail route I can't guarantee it won't be lost in the piles of e-mail we get everyday).

Thanks for you help on this. If we are able to get enough data, and have enough time, we will try to get these missing airports into the next version of the product!

New Acceleration Race Courses

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 00:13:36 GMT

As you may already know by now, there are three new free race courses to try out in FSX Acceleration. If you enjoy any of the screenshots below, you would probably enjoy it live on you PC. If you don't want to fly with other people, just start a LAN session (whether you are connected to a LAN or not) and fly it by yourself. No competition, no pressure, just a new challenge to test your skills and make you a better pilot! Don't forget to turn on the race map and mission pointer though so you don't get completely lost on the course.

When the office was relatively quiet during the holidays at the end of last year, Brandon and I decided to build some new courses for download later. So we built them and tested them over time and they are now available for you to fly. You can find them here at FSinsider.

I thought it would be fun to show some of the various racing shots we took during testing.

The four images here were taken when we first tried out the T6 course. The sequence shows me trying to catch Brandon after I went a little wide on the previous turn. I managed to catch-up and almost passed on the outside, but as you can see by the finish results, he beat me by a hair. We are flying the Alphasim T6 (before they updated it for FSX so if you pick it up, look for the update). There are some freeware T6's out there as well, but I don't know if they are FSX compliant or not.

The following shots we took a month or so ago and shot most of them from the various pylon cameras mounted around the course.

The shots below are from the Sport class course using the Glassair III from Australian Simulations. I can find a link for them anymore, and the version we were flying was for FS2004 and had opaque windows (which we fixed for us). There are other Sport Class options out there in the world of freeware and payware.

The alpine sailplane hoop course is a lot of fun. It helps to learn the course so that you can anticipate the turns and find the thermals, but the low level sailplane flying and strategic elements of deciding when to stay in a thermal and when to go to the next hoop are very cool. The second shot shows a near mid-air collision while circling in a thermal.

Just for a little interest, here are some shots from other races in FSX Acceleration that we took during development. When Brandon and I see these we remember the details about each race and talk about them like some kind of famous dogfight or something.

The row above shows the Greek cross country race, a night race at the UK Red Bull location in Longleat and then a shot of an early test over Istanbull. The night race tests were quite interesting and challenging (you can do it too by changing the time in the flight file)!

Below are some shots of the Minden sailplane course. This is another very cool real-world sailplane course, but it does take awhile to finish (about 30 minutes if you don't land out), especially if you fly conservatively.

The shots below show some of the other racing that can be found in FSX Acceleration. Of course racing P-51 Mustangs at Reno is well known, but how about racing the Mustang at the Secret Island used in the FSX mission Tokyo Executive? Or how about racing F-18s down Black Canyon in Colorado. We used special high-res dem for that one so you should at least check that out. Then there is the Hawaiian Hoop course where I made a special point to showcase just how "gamey" a race could get. I did it primarily because of the commentary some users were expressing before Acceleration was released out of fear we were ruining FS by making it into a game. Although most of the courses are rooted in reality, the Hawaiian hoop course definitely isn't! Sorry I don't have higher-res shots of those courses.

Lastly, I thought you might like to see a blooper shot of animals flying over Longleat. There is a drive-through safari park at Longleat and this is the result of a bug we had with simulated objects...

Looking for Mission Talent Again

Mon, 26 May 2008 15:55:06 GMT

With the advent of missions in FSX, the opportunity for a new cottage industry has started. Unfortunately it's quite difficult to create high quality missions by yourself as a hobbyist. The tools are difficult to use, it's hard to learn how to be a good actor and record voice over dialog, and it's difficult to build custom art objects to use in new missions. We have an advantage because we have experts to build this supporting material for the missions we make.

Thankfully Jim Keir built his FSX Mission Editor tool which lessens some of the burden building mission XML, and several hobbyists have gotten the hang of building missions resulting in several entertaining missions out there in the various libraries.

We used a couple of vendors for FSX Acceleration missions (Kevin Greene and Things to Come), and we will likely use vendors again for FS11. Vendors don't work on-site at Microsoft, but rather work wherever they are. Unless they are a viable company with business ID and tax records to prove it we can't setup contracts directly, but we do have the option of processing individuals though a vendor agency which takes care of settting up a contract and making sure the person gets paid and making sure we get what we need. The difficulty with the vendor agency is that they can only process US citizens.

The other way that we staff up for mission development is by using contingent staff (temporary work). These reources work on-site at Microsoft Aces and fulfill specific roles helping us get the product finished. We don't just bring in anyone for these roles, we only bring in very smart people that can demonstrate strong skills and knowledge. Some of them eventually work out for permanent positions (most don't as we don't often have permanent openings). We used two people in this capacity during FSX Acceleration development and one of them is now a permanent member of the team (Brandon).

If you are interested in building missions for us, have used the mission system and have built missions before (that we can see and tryout), then drop me a message (see the comment below about setting up your live account). I'll post something on the public boards as well so it's it's easier for you to respond that way, we can do that. Also, it would be very helpful if you have some experience with scripting languages. Check out this scripting language, as it would be VERY useful to learn it...

The Flight Sim Team isn't the only team that needs help though. The Trainsim team is also building missions which they call "activities." They really need someone that is familiar with the mission system and can hit the ground running. Although it would be very helpful to know something about train operations, such knowledge isn't as important as knowing how to build missions. You can learn about trains along the way. If you are interested in opportunities there, send a comment from the TSinsider site or drop a comment or message on Rick Selby's blog. If you send a message via his blog, be sure to setup your live account so that it allows messages to be received or you'll never hear back from him...

P-12C Engine Run Yesterday

Mon, 26 May 2008 15:12:58 GMT

After watching Scott Dixon win the Indianapolis 500 yesterday, we rolled out the P-12C for an engine run. After all of the issues and problems we had last time, my Dad installed a new and different fuel pump closer to the fuel valve, finished the wing tank and plumbed it in with new lines, ripped out all of the existing plumbing for the belly tank and rebuilt it for the new pump placement, and put in new wiring as well.

All of this work paid off as the engine started right up, and with regular blips of primer fuel I was able to keep it running until it was warmed up and able to sustain itself. The carb was dry, so it took awhile to get to the point where it would idle smoothly. There must have been bubbles in the fuel lines as periodically the engine would stop firing completely for about a half second then roar back to life again.

On the first run I couldn't get the RPM over about 1500 so we suspected the prop governor was mis-adjusted. Even so, pushing the throttle up to about half is a bit scary, and quite loud too.

Unfortunately we have a bit of an oil leak, so we have oil all over the firewall and accessories, and down the belly of the aircraft. All of the oil lines seem okay, and we suspect the alternator has a bad seal that is throwing oil all over. We also found out the right mag isnt' firing at all. Dad will be investigating those issues this week.

While investigating the oil leak, Dad adjusted the prop governor. That adjustment did the trick as the engine easily ran up to 2100 RPM at about 22 inches of manifold pressure but I was afraid to push it any farther than that. Althought the tail is firmly attached to the truck, and a safety rope is holding it as well, when the power goes up the tail lifts lightening the spring load on the tailwheel, and it's a bit disconcerting. It feels like I'm riding a cat arching it's back just before a cat fight. Honestly if it weren't attached to the truck I would be scared spitless to run up the power to full for a takeoff run!

The feeling in the cockpit is quite nice with the torque rocking the fuselage and the engine and prop pulses vibrating the airframe. The windscreen works quite good protecting me from the propblast as well. You do get a bit of exhaust in your face, but I'm guessing that when flying this will be lessened compared to the amount of clean air passing by.

I closed my eyes for a little while and visualized taking off and landing, rehearsing with the stick and rudder pedals, and in my head it's not scary at all...

It was awesome fun sitting in the cockpit for the run.

My uncle Roger shot some pictures and video, so when I get those I'll post some.

Thanks for Feedback!

Mon, 26 May 2008 14:50:28 GMT

Thankyou to everyone that made the effort to provide feedback regarding favorite FSX and FSX Acceleration missions. I was hoping to break the 100 mark and you easily pushed past that, especially when considering the feedback generated on various public forums as well.

We have finished our rough draft of what missions we will be building for FS11 and many of the ideas expressed have been incorporated into the list. Hopefully some of the ideas will make it past our Geopolitical review (where a special group at Microsoft reviews content for material that could potentially be objectionable to users in some of our markets. A couple of our ideas may be on the fringes of acceptable...

Now that we have a list, we are defining the art objects, AI objects, and scenery areas that we need to develop to support these missions. Of course the world of free flight will benefit from these efforts as well. With that planning taken care of, we can start building these missions out. It's this later part of the process where we will need some help... I'll make a separate post about our needs for mission builders.

Thank you again for your feedback!

Favorite Missions?

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 20:11:29 GMT

I'm sure you are aware that we aren't just sitting around wondering what to do with ourselves following the release of FSX Acceleration. We are planning, and planning, and oh yeah, doing some more planning...

Part of our planning efforts are focused on the missions we might want to make next time around. Although we have a pretty good idea of what missions we would like to create, I thought it would be worthwhile to hear from you, our users, what your favorite missions are in FSX and FSX Acceleration. Just as importantly, we are also interested in what types of missions you would like to see us create.

Please take a moment and add a comment below to tell us what your favorite missions are, and if you have the time, let us know what you would like to see us do.

Thanks for your help!

P-12C Engine Run

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 05:17:08 GMT

Last Saturday, we had beautiful weather and we decided it was a good day to bring the P-12 out into the sunshine, park it in the front lawn and start her up. The intention was to test the various systems in place on the fuselage. We know the engine will run because we've run it several times on the test stand, but we haven't done that with the systems we have now.

Brandon came out to the house for the event and to see the airpark, and he brought his camera. He took some nice shots and many of them are embedded here in this post, but they are duplicated with a few more in the P-12 photo album.

The brakes are installed in the aircraft, but the brake fluid hasn't been put in yet. Plus the tail feathers aren't on the fuselage yet, so there is no way to hold the tail down. To solve this my dad modified a trailer tongue receiver to bolt around the tailwheel and hooked onto the truck hitch. I wasn't completely comfortable solely relying on the hitch so I added a safety rope "just in case."

My dad pumped the pre-oiler lever to get some oil into the engine, then pulled the prop through a few revolutions to make sure we didn't have a hydraulic lock and that the oil was well circulated.

Now it was time for me to get into the cockpit and get ready to start this beast. The engine is started with compressed air which is injected into the cylinders in sequence pushing the pistons down one at a time and rotating the engine and prop. The engine hasn't been run for several years, so the carb is pretty much dry although the electric fuel boost pump should have the fuel readily available.

It's a bit of a squeeze to get my knees under the instrument panel and up to the rudder pedals, but it isn't too tough. Might be a bit harder with a warm jacket and a parachute though... Before starting we turn on the master switch to power the electrical systems, run the fuel boost pump, then hit the primer switch which allows fuel to flow directly into the intake system bypassing the carburetor. Then we let it sit for a little bit and turn the prop through again to circulate the fuel vapors. Once the vapor is well circulated, the engine should be ready to start.

Time to start... The cockpit is setup so that one hand is on the air control lever just behind the throttle and the right hand is on the mag switch. The mags aren't hot enough to supply enough power when the engine is turning slowly to spark the plugs, so my dad built a mag booster using an old VW distributor with all but one lobe ground off. The distributor is attached to an electric motor with spins the distributor and creates a continuous pulse of electricity from the coil directly into the mag. This in turn creates a pulse of energy strong enough to light up the plugs and ignite the fuel/air mix. To start the mag booster the key is turned to the start position after the air has turned the engine over through a few blades. Once the engine catches I can reach the primer switch with a free finger on my right hand and inject more fuel if necessary.

As you can see from the shots above, we did get combustion, but we needed more fuel to keep it going. I held the primer on, but the engine wouldn't catch. We pretty much used up the air in the on-board scuba tank, so my dad went to get the spare scuba tank full of our back-up air and topped off the on-board tank.

We burned through another tank full of air but still no start and no combustion at all for that matter. Now it was time to do some investigation.

While I sat in the cockpit thinking this might resolve quickly, dad and our friend Phil started looking for the cause of the fuel pump not delivering fuel to the engine. It obviously did initially as we had a little bit of combustion at first, but now we had nothing. Soon we went from checking out the mechanicals to checking out the electrical system. It was time for me to get out...

We took out the boost pump switch and tested that which of course worked fine. We messed with the fuses to see if they were okay, and they were fine, and we were starting to think that maybe the fuel pump just gave out. This would be a bummer as it is mounted partially in front of the oil tank and isn't particularly easy to get to. It was becoming obvious that we weren't going to get it fixed in the front yard, so we pushed her back into the hangar where it would be a bit easier to work on the problem.

As it turned out, the fuel pump works find when connected directly to 12 volts, but something about the wiring was the culprit. My dad rerouted the wiring and hooked it back up, and now we just wait for good weather again. It's not likely to happen this weekend considering it was snowing all afternoon and is expected to snow off an on most of the weekend. We may have to wait for summer at this rate!

Paul Vs Matt Reno Battle

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 16:54:55 GMT

In my last post I described the events at the Reno Championship Air Races last year and the virtual races we did in FSX Acceleration. Here are a couple of screen shots taken at the event showing the finish times for the race I was in as well as the race/lap time for Matt later in the week. BTW, these races were run with high realism, engine damage on, terrain crashing on, but aircraft to aircraft collisions off.

Susan took the photos below before and during our race (the same photos are in the Reno 2007 photo album).

Here is Matt (in the Voodoo hat below) getting psyched up for the race and a shot of me chatting with the Leeward family (owners of Cloud Dancer) before the race.

In the pictures below we can see Brandon racing on the far left next to the Six Cat team member (sorry I can't remember his name) and the other very fast racer in the blue shirt (I can't remember his name either). In the photo on the right Ryan Leeward is getting ready for the race.

The two screen shots below show the results of the race taken shortly after crossing the finish line. Brandon was disqualified early on so he watched the race on the cameras placed around the course which he said was just as fun as flying the race. Matt finished second in this race.

Below are screen shots from Matt's practice run the next day where he beat my best time. Great job Matt!

BTW, the top racers at the Reno event won some great prizes for their efforts!

Reno Air Races 2007

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 20:47:18 GMT

Well I'm a little late with my account of the races last year. However it was a very memorable year, so I can recount it pretty well.

I've created a new photo album with photos taken by Brandon Seltz and Susan Ashlock for you to check out. They are both excellent photographers so I hope you will take a look. There are pictures of aircraft as well as shots of the Flight Simulator X Acceleration displays and races.

This year was different for me because this was our launch event for Acceleration. Considering our focus on air racing, it seemed an appropriate venue for our debut. We had two display areas. One was in the public area near the control tower where the team ran multi-player races every hour (with a full field of eight racers) and another display in a hangar in the pits which was our VIP area.

The public area was always very crowded and the hourly races had crowds of people standing around watching the races. There were several die-hard air racing and aviation fans that would sign-up for the races well in advance and practice on their own between heats. Some of these guys were getting pretty cocky about how good they are, so we decided to plan a race pitting the best of these guys against Brandon and I, the designers of FSX Acceleration.

The build up to the race and the actual race were really amazing. The Six Cat T-6 team were in attendance to offer support and cheer on their racer, Ryan Leeward had his family (owners of Cloud Dancer) cheering him on, and of course I had my family there as well!

I felt very confident that I could beat all of my opponents, as I knew what their best times were (Mike was keeping track of them) which were slightly slower than my best time. But it's easy to make a mistake and cut a corner or even clip the ground when racing hard, so I had to be careful and aggressive at the same time.

The race went perfectly as I just barely nosed out Brandon in the race with Matt (the fastest of the challengers) in third. Most of the race we were bunched so closely together that Mike watching from the course cameras would see us as basically one aircraft. The race was a rush and one of the most memorable events of the week, and definitely the most entertaining. I know we took a screen shot of the results screen and if I can find it I'll add it to this post. Be sure to check out the pictures of the event in my Reno album.

Later on in a separate race, Matt did beat my best time and speed, and I have to bow down to his expertise as a pilot and a gamer.

The "real" races were amazing as well, in more than one way. They were amazingly upsetting with the tragic loss of several pilots in many aircraft accidents. I don't think there has ever been a year of racing that has had so many tragedies in one week. The FAA shut down the races completely on one day and it wasn't clear if the end of Reno Air Racing was upon us. The mood in the pits with the racing teams was very strange. The ex-military pilots that have been in combat were handling it in stride, but I know several of the civilian racers were pretty shaken up. Thankfully nobody on the ground was injured in any of the accidents. If someone in the crowd had been hurt, or any property or people in the neighborhoods around the course had been hurt, I don't think the races would have survived. As it turned out the FAA agreed to let the races continue, but as far as I know the future of Reno is still in question.

The best race that I was able to watch was the Unlimited Gold Final. The F8F Bearcat Rare Bear had just been rebuilt, and had been fighting gremlins all week, so nobody really thought they would be strong in the race, and the Sea Fury September Fury had been very strong all week and seemed invincible. Of course there was also the Super Sea Fury Dreadnought and the light and nimble Yak 11 Czechmate in the hunt as well.

The race started with Mike Brown in September Fury in the lead and from what I heard, he was up over 500 mph on the back stretch during the race (which is very fast, especially for a large Sea Fury). Bob Button in Voodoo was the only P-51 in the mix and he called a mayday on the pace lap and landed safely. It wasn't more than a couple of laps before John Penny in Rare Bear was passing him on the front stretch to the delight of thousands of screaming fans (including me). That was an amazing sight with a tight grouping of these aircraft flying all out. On one of the laps I held my breath as Czechmate got caught in the wake of the Sea Fury's and banked out of control on the front stretch. Sherman Smooth was able to regain control very quickly and pulled high on the course. I thought he was going to quit and pull off the course, but he rejoined the race after about a half a lap.

Mike kept September Fury right on the ass of John in Rare Bear lap after lap. Just as they were rounding the pylon onto the front stretch, the Bear's trailed some white smoke for just an instant, and you could hear the engine sound change. Immediately after that the Bear started streaming black smoke (Brandon got a great shot of the Bear trailing smoke). The crowd gasped and I'm sure everyone thought it was all over for Rare Bear. Soon the black smoke cleared and the Bear was back at it. All of this took about 4 seconds and apparently what happened is that some aerodynamic filler (bondo) broke off the cowling and was sucked into the wing root intake spit out of the engine. That was the white smoke. Then John powered back slightly to troubleshoot and I guess the black smoke was just the engine running very rich. That was a totally amazing sight! But the excitement wasn't over yet.

Mike in September Fury is a hard core competitor and he was still pushing hard. Unfortunately on the last lap he had to pull off the course in a mayday with his aircraft on fire. Steve Hinton in the T-33 pace plane was on him quick to assess the situation. Mike had to shut her down or risk loosing the aircraft and then he made a safe emergency landing. Apparently what happened is that a hole in the exhaust was blowing super hot gasses onto the inside of the engine cowl which scorched the paint off and lit some oil on fire. He was very lucky the fire was limited as this kind of event can be catastrophic. John in Rare Bear shot across the finish line as the winner with Matt Jackson in Dreadnought in second and Sherman Smoot flying Czechmate in third.

The mayday calls weren't over yet though. John's throttle was stuck and he couldn't power back to land. Steve in the T-33 formed up on him immediately and the crowd listened to the radio conversation between them on the PA. John decided to burn off most of what little fuel he had left and go for a deadstick emergency landing. Keep in mind that Rare Bear has no flaps, has clipped wings, and a prop that is too long to do a true wheel landing. It stalls at around 150 knots! Add to all of this that the wind was blowing pretty good so he had to perform this landing in a strong crosswind. He circled around for awhile, entered the traffic pattern, shut down that big old R3350 and put her down exactly where he planned to without incident. John Penny won the race and due to a penalty levied against Matt Jackson, Sherman Smooth placed second in the giant killer Czechmate.

This was by far the best unlimited air race I have ever seen with the race where Skip Holm smashed the course record in the P-51 Dago Red a close second.

I look forward to the 2008 races and I hope you can attend too!

Check out the forums on Warbird Aeropress and All Aviation Flightline Online for more stories about the 2007 races. There are also some cool photos and videos of air racing aircraft and warbirds at this air racing site.

Where is Spring?

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 18:34:08 GMT

Yesterday going to the office after a Flight Sim aircraft photo shoot (I put a teaser somewhere on this blog), we drove through blizzard conditions but it wasn't sticking.

After working out at the gym, by the time I got home last night it was starting to stick at my house and we had about an inch of snow. This morning we have about 6 inches of snow and it's still coming down! Here are a couple of shots of the hangar and part of my back yard.

We have been waiting for some nice weather so we could run the P-12 and check out all the systems, but this kind of weather isn't going to work out too well for that. It did get me out of starting the new horse shelter Samantha needs for her new horse though...

Building Missions Made Easy

Sun, 23 Mar 2008 17:04:42 GMT

By introducing missions in FSX, we created a new way to experience Flight Simulator and opened new markets for our product. Users that previously had no idea what to do in Flight Simulator now can explore hours and hours of flying lots of different aircraft all over the world (and find some surprises along the way). As a positive side effect these same users become much better sim pilots and learn what they can do on their own.

One of our goals with FSX was to seed the community with the desire and tools to build their own missions with the idea that users would be able to download a variety of community generated missions. Although we have built well over 100 missions using the tools that shipped in the FSX and FSX Acceleration SDK, we understand that the tools are hard to use, sometimes unreliable, and without any debugging built in, the designer can get stuck really easily.

Jim Keir is a brilliant developer that was active on the FSX beta and was very interested in the concept of missions way back then. Out of frustration that we couldn't support some of the things he wanted to do as a mission designer, combined with the realities of many bugs not getting fixed during the beta, he kind of disappeared from the scene for awhile. I noticed he wasn't active anymore so I sent him a personal inquiry and we started to correspond. I am very thankful Jim decided to get back into Flight Simulator and that he spent so much energy getting his mission editor created. I'm also glad he was able to work with Francois at FS Addon for distribution. Francois has created a first class publishing business and the combination seems to be working out well.

Brandon and I spent quite a bit of time looking at early versions of what Jim created and both of us are VERY impressed with what he has created. I honestly think that if I were using his tools, I could build at least 50% more missions in a given amount of time and do more creative things in those missions with higher quality in the end. Due to the realities of politics and big business, it appears Brandon and I won't be able to use his tools, but there is no reason why you can't!

If you have any interest in creating missions for FSX or FSX Acceleration, don't hesitate to check this tool out. If you are already creating missions, you would be a fool not to use these tools. The gains should be immediate if you tap into the power of debugging and especially if you use his free custom action extentions.

I have been remiss in taking so long to talk about this, and I appologize for that. You could have been using these tools a month ago. Hopefully you found out about it somewhere else first.

You can find the FSX Mission Editor here at FS Addon. You can try before you buy, so why not give it a try?

Current Again

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 02:37:11 GMT

I am very happy to say that I have completed my Bi-annual Flight Review (BFR) and I am once again legal to fly aircraft and carry passengers. Due to time and finance issues I had let this slip for several years and only flew in the right seat of other people's aircraft. Now I can be pilot in command again.

I completed my currency training at Northway Aviation at Paine Field (KPAE) in Everett Washington. I flew an analogue gauge Cessna 172R for some air work and landings, then their G1000 Cessna 172S on a cross-country flight down to Olympia (KOLM) and back. Last night I flew the G1000 Cessna 182 to get my high-performance endorsement, finish out the BFR with some IFR hood work, and qualify myself to rent from Northway when flying at night.

I was very impressed with the C-182 and what a big difference the extra 45 horsepower made in the takeoff run and climb when compared to the C-172. It feels much heavier, especially in the flare for landing, and when dropping flaps the nose pitches up significantly. I really had to work to keep from climbing in the pattern when dropping the flaps, and the control pressures were much stronger than in the C-172. The C-182 also drops like a rock when descending with full flaps and idle power at 65 knots. There is a lot of drag with the prop in low pitch/high RPM.

I'm really glad I spent the time and money in the C-182 as it will help me gain proficiency in general and to eventually fly the P-12C which has 285 horsepower in a lighter airframe. I also plan to fly with Will Allen in his Super Decathlon at Flip Side Aerobatics to get my taildragger skills back to where I want them and do some aerobatics training with him, then I hope to get checked out in a Pitts S2B with Steve Wolf at Wing Over Aerobatics in Creswell Oregon. If I can safely fly the Pitts, I should be able to fly the P-12C.

My instructor has been Milen Lazarov and he was a pleasure to fly with. Here we are standing next to the G1000 172S following the short cross-country. Thanks Milen!

Back in the Saddle

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 00:38:34 GMT

I am so excited to be back to real flying again! I've done some flying of some very interesting aircraft over the years, but I haven't been a current private pilot for quite a while. I've either been short on money or time for a variety of reasons, but as of today I've started flying again at Northway Aviation to get current. I flew with Milen, who also works at Microsoft and instructs at Northway part-time. I really enjoyed having him as an instructor as he was patient and very knowledgeable.

I chose Northway mostly because I know Milen and because they have the nicest aircraft around with very new Cessna 172S and 182S aircraft (some with the G1000). I figured I would rather rent a new aircraft than a training aircraft that has been beaten-up by student pilots for years! I think my family deserves the peace of mind that comes with good equipment and state-of-the-art avionics. I've been reading the POH for the 172S with the G1000 and noticing all of the features we don't support in Flight Simulator. Overall though I think we've done a good job with it though.

Today we just did airwork such as slow flight, steep turns, stalls and an engine out scenario. For the later we were near the strip I live at, so I obviously opted to land there, but I kind of botched it by approaching too high (I was too conservative). I would have made it with some turning maneuvers, but it could have been planned better. I suppose it's better to have excess altitude rather than not enough! After that we shot several landings back at Paine Field. I feel really good that my stick and rudder skills are still in-tact, and I probably owe that to using Flight Sim so much.

Next weekend we will take a short cross-country flight to Olympia to shake some of the cobwebs out of the brain when it comes to planning a cross-country. I haven't done that for at least 15 years. I'll have to practice the flight in FSX a few times to improve my odds of nailing it next weekend.

I meant to take a picture to go along with this but totally forgot in my excitement to be flying again. I'll try to do that next time.

Old Aviators and Old Planes

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 01:42:34 GMT

Occasionally I get chain letters via e-mail and sometimes they are interesting and most are just spam, but I received one recently with the same title as this post that I really enjoyed. Maybe you've already read it and it's old news, but then again, maybe not.

I tried to find out who the author is because I was genuinely moved by the story, but I wasn't able to find them. Considering they gave permission to send the story via e-mail to our pilot friends, I figure I can post it here without any negative repercussions. If the author reads this and disapproves I will happily remove it.

Reading it reminded me of the first time I stood by the runway when a P-51 Mustang took off and performed a fly-by, the first time I attended the Reno National Championship Air Races, and my first and only Mustang ride. All good memories and this story brought it all back for me. It's probably not an accurate account of what actually happened, but memories, especially childhood memories rarely are. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

"This is a good little story about a vivid memory of a P-51 and its pilot by a fellow who was 12 years old in Canada in 1967. You may
know a few others who would appreciate it.

It was noon on a Sunday as I recall, the day a Mustang P-51 was to take to the air. They said it had flown in during the night from some
U.S. airport, the pilot had been tired. I marveled at the size of the plane dwarfing the Pipers and Canucks tied down by her. It was much
larger than in the movies. She glistened in the sun like a bulwark of security from days gone by.

The pilot arrived by cab, paid the driver, and then stepped into the flight lounge. He was an older man; his wavy hair was gray and
tossed. Looked like it might have been combed, say, around the turn of the century.

His flight jacket was checked, creased and worn - it smelled old and genuine. Old Glory was prominently sewn to its shoulders. He
projected a quiet air of proficiency and pride devoid of arrogance. He filed a quick flight plan to Montreal (Expo-67, Air Show) then
walked across the tarmac.

After taking several minutes to perform his walk-around check the pilot returned to the flight lounge to ask if anyone would be
available to stand by with fire extinguishers while he "flashed the old bird up. Just to be safe."

Though only 12 at the time I was allowed to stand by with an extinguisher after brief instruction on its use -- "If you see a
fire, point, then pull this lever!" I later became a firefighter, but that's another story.

The air around the exhaust manifolds shimmered like a mirror from fuel fumes as the huge prop started to rotate. One manifold, then
another, and yet another barked — I stepped back with the others. In moments the Packard-built Merlin engine came to life with a
thunderous roar, blue flames knifed from her manifolds. I looked at the others' faces, there was no concern. I lowered the bell of my
extinguisher. One of the guys signaled to walk back to the lounge. We did.

Several minutes later we could hear the pilot doing his pre flight run-up. He'd taxied to the end of runway 19, out of sight. All went
quiet for several seconds; we raced from the lounge to the second story deck to see if we could catch a glimpse of the P-51 as she
started down the runway. We could not.

There we stood, eyes fixed to a spot half way down 19. Then a roar ripped across the field, much louder than before, like a furious hell
spawn set loose—something mighty this way was coming. "Listen to that thing!" said the controller. In seconds the Mustang burst into our line of sight.

Its tail was already off and it was moving faster than anything I'd ever seen by that point on 19. Two-thirds the way down 19 the Mustang was airborne with her gear going up. The prop tips were supersonic; we clasped our ears as the Mustang climbed hellish fast into the circuit to be eaten up by the dog-day haze.

We stood for a few moments in stunned silence trying to digest what we'd just seen. The radio controller rushed by me to the radio.
"Kingston tower calling Mustang?" He looked back to us as he waited for an acknowledgment.

The radio crackled, "Go ahead Kingston." "Roger Mustang. Kingston tower would like to advise the circuit is clear for a low level
pass." I stood in shock because the controller had, more or less, just asked the pilot to return for an impromptu air show!

The controller looked at us. "What?" He asked. "I can't let that guy go without asking. I couldn't forgive myself!"

The radio crackled once again, "Kingston, do I have permission for a low level pass, east to west, across the field?" "Roger Mustang, the
circuit is clear for an east to west pass." "Roger, Kingston, I'm coming out of 3000 feet, stand by."

We rushed back onto the second-story deck, eyes fixed toward the eastern haze. The sound was subtle at first, a high-pitched whine, a
muffled screech, a distant scream. Moments later the P-51 burst through the haze. Her airframe straining against positive Gs and
gravity, wing tips spilling contrails of condensed air, prop-tips again supersonic as the burnished bird blasted across the eastern
margin of the field shredding and tearing the air.

At about 400 mph and 150 yards from where we stood she passed with the old American pilot saluting.

Imagine. A salute! I felt like laughing, I felt like crying, she glistened, she screamed, the building shook, my heart pounded.

Then the old pilot pulled her up and rolled, and rolled, and rolled out of sight into the broken clouds and indelibly into my memory.

I've never wanted to be an American more than on that day. It was a time when many nations in the world looked to America as their big brother, a steady and even-handed beacon of security who navigated difficult political water with grace and style; not unlike the pilot
who'd just flown into my memory.

He was proud, not arrogant, humble, not a braggart, old and honest, projecting an aura of America at its best. That America will return
one day, I know it will.

Until that time, I'll just send off this story; call it a reciprocal salute, to the old American pilot who wove a memory for a young
Canadian that's lasted a lifetime."

Visit from Lotus

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 18:34:18 GMT

I've been very impressed with the quality and creativity in the various videos that have been created from Flight Simulator 2004 and now FSX. One of the best film makers and story tellers in this space is Lotus, who has created several amazing videos using techniques that not only require a great eye for videography but also great flying skills to actually get the shots. He flies with several friends that have been flying in multi-player for many years that can pull off the maneuvers to get the shots he's looking for.

Anyway, Lotus was in town and I invited him to tour our office, eat some lunch, and talk shop a little. He has worked in the game industry for several years and is now a professional photographer. His knowledge of the industry helped him understand the processes we go through to create Flight Simulator, and the challenges we face on a daily basis. He also shared some useful feedback about some of the problems he faces as a film maker using FSX that we can hopefully leverage to improve the sim going forward.

You would have to be living under a rock (or not visiting forums or searching youtube for FSX videos) to not know about Lotus' work. If that is the case with you, by all means check out what you have been missing by going here. The video forum on Flight Sim World is also a great place to see what other film makers are up to. You can find tips on making videos in FSX and if you want to give it a try, just ask the experts there.

Dale "Snort" Snodgrass prowling our halls

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 22:40:04 GMT

Dale is certainly a famous pilot in aviation circles being a Tomcat pilot with the most traps on a carrier, having flown a wide variety of aircraft from multiple eras, and for his amazing airshow routines flown in his F-86 Sabre.

He will be more famous to a much wider audience assuming ATG Reality TV show takes off (American Top Gun).

I don't want to talk about why Dale was in the office, but I have had the pleasure of meeting Dale as well as Sean "Pinball" Carroll in previous meetings and at Reno this past year. These guys have a lot of amazing stories to tell and it's great fun talking airplanes with them.

As an example of one of Dale's stories (although he can tell them much better than I can), he was commanding a carrier when one of his crew departed off the catapult in a Hornet. For whatever reason the pilot was having difficulty with pilot induced oscillations following the launch and ejected from the aircraft (if I remember right I think he had his hand on the control stick during the launch which pulled the stick back due to the G forces of the launch). Had the pilot simply let the fly-by-wire system take over by letting go of the stick, the aircraft would have assumed a 1 G attitude and recovered. But since that didn't happen, once he ejected, the aircraft was in such an attitude that in order for the fly-by-wire system to maintain 1 G, it entered into a shallow climb. As it so happened, the aircraft continued on it's own and flew a giant loop. Dale, being the smart and decisive guy that he is, ordered the crew to turn the boat because he knew the aircraft would loop all the way around and could hit the carrier. Good thing he did too because the aircraft did just that and impacted the ocean exactly where the carrier would have been if it hadn't changed course.

Anyway, check out the ATG websight, especially the pictures they have posted. There is an awesome series of shots of Dale buzzing a photographer in his F-86!

Dale was giving Brandon some flight lessons in the F/A-18 with Mike Singer looking on (above), and decided to take the controls himself to demonstrate some maneuvers. Brandon told me that Dale critiqued his landing on the carrier and only had a couple of very minor errors to note. Pretty cool to get first hand lessons from a Tomcat legend.

Fokker D-VIII Audio Session

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 07:10:56 GMT

The recent release of the fantastic freeware Fokker Dr.I Triplane from the neoqb team inspired me to write this up about my experience with a Fokker D-VIII. I have downloaded the Dr.I and I think it's fantastic (and there are several repaints available already as well)! Check it out - you won't regret it.

A few years ago, when I was still the "Aircraft PM," we went to Florida for the second time to work at Fantasy of Flight collecting photo and audio reference source material for several aircraft. Based purely on my own memory (and reference to their website), the aircraft we went to photograph were the: P-51C Mustang, B-26 Marauder, B-25 Mitchell, B-17 Flying Fortress, B-24 Liberator, L-4 Grasshopper, Fi-156 Storch, and the Avro Lancaster. I'll write a separate blog post about some of these aircraft later and post some sample photos if I can find the images I'm looking for...

While there we also shot images of any aircraft that might be interesting to someday create for Flight Sim or some other product. As a result we shot detailed images of a Grumman Ag Cat, Antonov An-2, Grumman Duck, Lockheed Constellation, Grumman F3F Flying Barrel, F4U-4 Corsair, Gee Bee Z, Bachem Ba 349 Natter Viper, Bucker Jungmann, Short Sunderland MK5, Supermarine Spitfire MK16, Thomas Morse Scout, Fokker DR1 Replica, and the subject of this post, the Fokker D-VIII replica.

Not all of the collection of aircraft are operational at any one time, so not all could be run while we were there, but we recorded several aircraft including the P-51C, Grumman Ag Cat, Antonov An-2, and the Fokker D-VIII. Each aircraft audio session took several hours and it was too hot in the afternoon to do much, so we captured audio of one aircraft a day.

The D-VIII is the only rotory engine aircraft I have personally heard operate and it was amazing. It was running a Gnome 9N engine with 160 HP which is not the correct engine for the aircraft (should be the Oberusal Rotary with 110 HP), but it sounded awesome just the same. See this link for info on the aircraft in question and a photo of the cockpit. Some might confuse a rotary engine with a Wankle engine as used in some Mazda cars and trucks. The rotary in WW1 aircraft are unique in that the entire engine rotates and the prop is firmly attached to the engine and turns with it. These early aircraft weren't very fast and keeping the engine cool was a problem, so they invented the idea to have the engine spin and provide it's own air cooling action. The invention worked good but there were some downsides as well (see below).

It took some serious effort by the restoration crew and chief mechanic just to get the aircraft started. There is no throttle and I'm not even sure there is a mixture control either. What it does have is a fuel shutoff, mag switches, ignition timing lever (advance or retard the spark), and a four position switch to control how many of the cylinders receive an ignition spark. This later control provides rudimentary power control as the engine puts out less power when fewer cylinders are firing. Some of the earlier rotary engines didn't have 4 positions, but only had one, on and off... When the engine is running on fewer than all cylinders the non-firing cylinders are spewing raw fuel and castor oil out the bottom of the cowling (which is why it's open). It's quite a fire hazard and the castor oil is an excellent stool softener which explains why WWI aviators had loose bowels. When I took photos, the amount of oil on the underside of the aircraft, on the landing gear spreader bar "wing" and in the fuselage behind the engine made for interesting imagery. It was thick and very sticky.

What took awhile was finding the magic combination of spark advance to get the engine to fire and they had never started it on their own (Kermit usually started it up when he would perform flying displays). So it was a long process of turning the engine through a few times, turning the mags on, calling back and forth to each other to make sure the mag switches were where they are supposed to be, hand propping, then starting all over again.

Once the engine fired, it took a few tries to get it where it would stay running, but eventually it ran really well and for as long as we wanted to record. It's a fascinating sound and it's very different sounding at different engine settings. At the lowest power setting where only one cylinder is firing it has a very putt-putt like sound and the rest of the sound is all mechanical (gears, prop, etc). Clicking the switch to the second and third positions with three and five cylinders firing, it sounds rough and the distinctive "multiple chainsaws running" sound starts to manifest. In position four with all cylinders running all out (remember that at each position whatever cylinders are firing are running at full throttle), it sounds like an angry swarm of bees running on chainsaw engines! It was absolutely awesome.

Running up the engine for recordings.

To keep it running at the lower settings, they would have to "blip" the power on periodically to clear the oil away from the plugs, and the entire aircraft would rock back and forth from the enormous torque of the spinning engine and large prop. These things are beasts to handle on the ground and with all that torque, small control surfaces, and slow airspeeds make precision maneuvers interesting to say the least.

Later in the day Kermit made a demonstration flight in D-VIII to a crowd of museum attendees. He is quite a showman and really interacts with the crowd before making his demo flights. This time it fired right up on the first pull and he taxied very carefully out to the end of his very long grass strip (he lands WWII bombers on it) blipping the engine periodically to help make turns and keep the engine cleared. He flipped the switch to the fourth setting lighting up all the cylinders and away he went. The takeoff run was pretty short and I looked to me like he had to concentrate quite a bit to keep it straight and he climbed out like crazy! He did several low passes and on one pass he shut the engine off and hooted and hollered as he passed in front of the crowd. Then he came around and did a nice landing and taxied back to crowd center. What a cool thing to watch. Check out the videos!

Kermit flying the D-VIII

Behind the Scenes Photos

Sat, 19 Jan 2008 01:14:23 GMT

I've posted a few photos of some behind the scenes material that I will add to periodically. Check out the Behind the Scenes album to see them.

The 747 and 737 sim shots were taken when we spent about 3 hours photographing them in detail for FSX. When Pete and Chris weren't busy taking care of the photography duties, Mike, Scott, and I were flying the sims. The 747 was actually pretty easy to fly and I landed just fine at Moses Lake. I asked if you could do aerobatics in the sim, so the instructor turned off the motion platform and I did a barrel roll in the 747. Quite fun... When it was Scott's turn to fly the 747 I conspired with the instructor to throw some nasty failures at him (Scott used to be a regional airline pilot). He did a pretty good job and managed to get it on the ground safely. I found the 777 to be the easiest to fly as I took off out of Boeing Field and landed somewhere else (I can't remember where). I was there until 3:00 AM and didn't want to leave.

The audio sessions for the Spirit of St Lewis NYP and the Ford Trimotor were at EAA headquarters in Oshkosh Wisconsin. The weather was cold but perfect for us as the fog kept the airport quiet. Although I didn't get to fly either of them, several team members did get stick time. I had only been on the aircraft team for a couple of weeks at that point, so I had no standing to get time in the pilot's seat.

The audio capture sessions for the Beaver were great as Kenmore Air really went out of their way to help us out. They are a really class act! We spent all day getting setup for the primary recording session then they took us flying for some general reference material. The photo session was a different day-long event.

The studio session to capture video for the Acceleration trailer was pretty grueling. It's frustrating to wait around for technical issues to be ironed out and then spend several hours flying precision formation around a Red Bull course for a couple of days. Of course this was all before SP1 was ready so we didn't have the performance gains to help us out. When a particular shot went really well, it made it worthwhile.

We have worked with the Fantasy of Flight in Polk City Florida on two occasions. The first was to get source material for the Lockheed Vega plus some additional source for the Trimotor, then we went on a second trip to collect source on many different aircraft for a product that was never announced, much less released. Some of you can probably guess which one that was... I'll write more about that another time. Let me tell you that Florida is really hot in the Summer! The shot of Pete working in the very cramped cockpit of the Vega has him sweating like he was in a sauna and the aircraft was inside a hangar and in the shade.

Between FS2004 and FSX, we have shot photos of at least six different Cessna Caravans, and captured audio on at least 2 of them (wheeled and amphib). Considering our Lead Aircraft Tester Mike flies the Caravan jump plane at Harvey Field and flies a Caravan for Kenmore now, he has a wealth of information about the aircraft. The Jump plane with the Red stripe which was our primary source aircraft for FSX, was tragically lost in an accident and all souls on board were killed. Thankfully Mike wasn't the pilot on that trip but he knew all of the people and it was a very difficult time for everyone.

There are a few shots in the office where we work as well. Pat is particularly good at Guitar Hero and Rock Band, and he doesn't hesitate to show us just how good he is. As a bit of trivia, the cards on the wall behind Pat are features we are evaluating for a yet to be announced title..., and no I won't tell you what the cards say or anything more about them.