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Range Report

February 7th, 2013 · Personal

Care Tips You Should Never Ignore for Your Dog

Dog owners who take care and raise their pups as their own kids understand that these pets are worth every ounce of their love and care. Your dog loves you unconditionally, and in return, they expect you to love them too. Dogs cannot speak, and hence it becomes our duty to understand their needs and requirements. You need to monitor and analyze their physical and behavioral symptoms to see if they are feeling fine or not. However, by taking extra precautions and care, you can prevent your dog from falling ill.

Here are a few of the tips that will help to keep your dog happy and healthy. This is how what a tick looks like on a dog.

Schedule Routine Vet Appointments

Vet Checkup Walkin' Wheels

To take proper care of your dog, it is very important to take them to their vet for their routine check-up regularly. A routine check-up would help you in identifying any infection or disease at the initial stage itself. Besides sticking to the routine appointment schedule, if you see any symptoms like breathing difficulty, continuous vomiting, loss of appetite, extreme lethargy, etc. then it’s better to take your dog to the vet asap.

For pets dealing with mobility loss or other progressive medical conditions, regular checkups help your Vet stay up to date on your pet’s condition. Come prepared with notes on any changes in mobility, behavior or struggles that you’ve noticed in your pet.

Choose the Right Bed for Your Dog

When you have a dog at your house, you provide them a place of their own, where they can feel comfortable. We all know how much dogs love to sit on the couch, carpets, the owner’s bed, etc. But they need to have their own sleeping place. You can start this by getting a comfortable bed for them. Numerous sites offer a wide range of variety as far as dog beds or mattresses are concerned. If you are looking for quality, comfort, and affordability, look at some of the options. Choose a dog bed depending on your dog’s requirements.

For example: an arthritic pet require a cushioned bed that will support their aching joints.

Feed Your Pet a Healthy Diet

Your dog’s health depends a lot on their diet. Your dog’s diet should be rich in protein and carbohydrates. Lack of nutrients would create hurdles in the growth and development of your dog.

Numerous dog food brands are available in the market today. Each assuring that their dog food is nutritious. Selecting the right dog food is very important.

Besides this, from where you buy your dog food is also very crucial. It’s better to get food from a reliable site.  Quantity of food given to dogs is as important as the nutrient content. Size per meal depends on various factors like dog size, age, activity level, etc. It is advisable to consult a vet to understand your dog’s food requirement, number of meals/days, quantity/meal, etc. Also, try to avoid feeding your dog too many people’s food or treats. This might result in obesity and various other health issues in your dog.

Train Your Dog

Training of the dog is very important. Training is not only about teaching your dog how to sit or stand, or shake a hand, etc. it is much more than that. When we bring a pup in our house, it doesn’t know anything including, not to pee in the house, eat only from their utensil, not to snatch food from your kid’s hand, not to bark on family members, etc. Training the dog not only makes them obedient, but it also helps in keeping them active. Besides this, if your dog loves learning tricks, then training would prevent them from getting bored. Generally, a training session of 10-20 minutes/ twice a day is considered good enough.

Play With Your Dog Everyday

The dog is an animal species that love to entertain as well as entertained. Regular exercise is very important for keeping a dog healthy, happy, and active. When you play with your dog, it gives them a feeling of belonging, being loved, and cared. Playing with your dogs are good for their health. Keeping their weight down to avoid obesity, eliminate canine depression, heart diseases, etc. Playing also reduces unwanted barking and also strengthens the emotional bond with the owner. Every time you play with them, you can feel their excitement and happiness.

Socialize with the Other Pets

Different dog breeds have different tolerance levels for socialization. Some are comfortable in the company of other human beings and other pets, whereas some are a one-person dog. If your dog breed is comfortable in the company of other pets, then it’s better to start working on their socializing skills at an early stage. The early they start, the better it will be. You can start by introducing your pup to new smells, sounds, people, and sights.

Give Your Pet Lots of Outdoor Time

Just like humans, fresh air is very important for dogs also. Besides this, it allows them to familiarize themselves with their surroundings and marking their territory. It helps them to get rid of skin problems, increases their natural instinct of hunting, increases playfulness and reduces boredom and frustration.

Getting a dog is very easy, but it is their caring that needs more attention. When we bring a dog to our house, it becomes our responsibility to take care of them and their needs. However, by doing this, you will be able to build an unbreakable bond of love, trust, and loyalty.

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Range Report

January 19th, 2013 · Personal

Happy New Year! We tend to see the new year as an opportunity to make changes and pursue new goals. And often we accomplish these goals by doing small things, day in and day out, that add up over time.

Why not kick off the new year with our 31 Days of Wellness challenge?

Check out these easy tips — one for each day in January — you can put into practice right away. You’ll find topics like eating well, being more physically active, managing stress, and much more. Are you ready? Your healthiest year yet starts now!

 

  1. Don’t skip meals. When you go without food for longer than three or four hours, your blood sugar drops. This can lead to overeating and feeling too tired to be active. Instead, stick to a regular schedule of three healthy meals and two snacks each day.

 

  1. Take time to enjoy your meals. It takes about 20 minutes for your brain to know when your stomach is full. You can consume a lot of extra calories in 20 minutes, especially when you are eating fast! Try different ways to train yourself to eat slowly. Chew each mouthful 10 times. Put down your utensils between bites. If you’re with others, take breaks to focus on the conversation.

 

  1. Focus on the facts. The Nutrition Facts, that is. Don’t let healthy-sounding terms on food labels mislead you. Words like “whole-grain,” “multigrain,” “light,” and “fat-free” don’t tell the whole story. Check the Nutrition Facts label for serving size and calories per serving. Those are the facts, no matter what else the label says.

 

  1. Make your kitchen healthier. Your success with any goal depends on your commitment to making it easier. Your living environment plays a powerful role here. Today, look at your kitchen and see what changes you can make to encourage your new healthy habits.

 

  1. Floss your teeth. Flossing is an important oral hygiene practice because tooth decay and gum disease can develop when plaque builds up on teeth and along the gum line. If flossing isn’t already part of your routine, getting started today can make a big difference in your oral health. Check these phenq reviews.

 

  1. Practice optimism. Give yourself the gift of optimism today. Make a choice to notice and appreciate what you have rather than what you don’t. Remember that no matter what the situation, how you perceive it is up to you. See the opportunity instead of the problem; you and those around you will benefit.

 

  1. Eat a rainbow of vegetables today. The color of a vegetable is a clue to some of the nutrients inside. By eating a wide variety of colors, you will get a broad range of nutrients. A mix of color on your plate will make eating vegetables more appealing, too!

 

  1. Go off the beaten path. Try a new location or route for exercise. Walk around your neighborhood or at a museum, nature center, or zoo. Use a guest pass to try a gym. Take your bike to a local park. A change of scenery will add a little spice to your activity routine — and you just might make some new friends, too. This is how chillwell ac works.

 

  1. Wash your hands. Hand washing is one of the easiest steps we can take to protect ourselves from getting sick or spreading germs to others — and, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the most effective. Yet many of us don’t do it often enough. Why not start today?

 

  1. Try strength training. Strength training, also known as resistance training, is a great form of physical activity to add into a well-balanced exercise routine. Strength training can improve muscular strength, increase bone density, aid in weight management, improve posture and balance — and has many other health benefits.  

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Flight Log – Hit The Deck

January 12th, 2013 · Gaming

Took a new livery of the Bell 222B out from Lincoln Park (N07) this morning. I knew the weather was hanging low and hazy but decided to see how it went and just turn around and cancel the flight if I needed to. Gotta love the price of virtual AVGas – nothing! I started the flight with something new – a rolling takeoff. Since the 222B has wheels I can taxi around and also takeoff sort of like an airplane by building up speed on the ground instead of lifting off vertically. I’ve never tried this before and I really had no idea what I was doing – it was a spur of the moment idea. I just throttled up a bit to get rolling then slowly increased throttle until I felt the nose dip as the wheels came off the ground. Then I overcompensated backwards on the stick because I was afraid of plowing nose-first into the runway. So I oscillated a bit up and down and swung left and right as I tried to compensate for the torque effect of the main rotor now that the wheels weren’t holding me straight. It’s easier to do when you’re taking off vertically because you can gradually add rudder (counter-torque as helicopter pilots call it since there’s no rudder like on a plane) as you add throttle (collective, to use chopper speak) – if you do that on the ground though you nose-wheel steer off the runway, heh. I made it up and out okay, but I’m going to do some reading up on how to do a proper rolling takeoff (and landing) to see about doing it better next time I have the chance.

Once airborne I was climbing into clouds almost immediately. They were thin, so as I approached them I was through them, but the whole layer extended for several miles and so I had trouble navigating while only catching glimpses of the roadway below. Plus I’m supposed to be flying VFR and not even supposed to be in a cloud at all. Luckily the virtual FAA is in my pocket 😉 Still, I got as low as I could without generating any noise complaints from residents and followed my route into the city. I noticed I was off when I realized I was approaching north of Teterboro airport, which meant I had followed Route 80 instead of Route 46, but no big deal it’s not like I filed a flight plan. So I hit the Hudson River at the GWB rather than further south towards the Intrepid aircraft carrier. By this time I had switched on my pitot heat as I had noticed my airspeed indicator read 0kts. I also switched on my engine de-ice just for good measure since I was over the water now.

I thought my approach to Wall Street heliport (KJRB) was pretty sloppy, but it actually turned out alright. I had meant to go straight-in from the Hudson River side and ended up swinging over the pier onto the East River side before landing from the little bay formed by the platform. It still looked good when I replayed the landing, so hey – whatever! I hovered early and nudged over the platform for my landing but didn’t futz around and touched down soft as a feather – HTR reported a landing speed of 0.7 feet per second. Booyah! My passengers might still have thrown up during the flight but at least I didn’t compress any spines on landing. I was again not too happy with my attitude performance during flight. I was up and down, up and down, up and down. The VSI needle hardly ever sat still.

Next I hopped into the other livery I left sitting at Newark Liberty (KEWR) and decided to head up the Hudson to the Haverstraw heliport (H43). Weather was much nicer over Newark, but I knew it was still hazy with low clouds back over the city and northwards. I meant to turn on my pitot heat during startup but again had to switch it on in-flight, which isn’t easy mind you. I have to use the mouse stick on my throttle since letting go of the cyclic isn’t an option when flying a helicopter. Even grabbing the cyclic with my left hand and mousing with my right I’m still taking eyes off the horizon and not being able to feel inertia means the helicopter can go a ways out of proper attitude very quickly while I’m trying to hit a switch that’s moving out from under my cursor as the virtual cockpit pitches and rolls with the aircraft.

Anyway, I was up at 1200 feet approaching the city since that’s in the airway for aircraft just flying through the area but again the clouds closed in and I had to drop down to about 550 feet instead. Didn’t run into any traffic though, literally or figuratively, so all was good. Once past the city and over the GWB the skies seemed to be clearing so I started to climb again and leveled off at 1000 feet. Once I hit the Tappan Zee Bridge though I slammed into another low wall of cloud and was forced to drop all the way to the deck. Thankfully I could just stay over the river and only buzz boats, not houses, but I was still at times only 150 feet off the water, zooming along at 130kts. It was pretty cool! I was afraid that the clouds were going to keep getting lower and turn into fog and I would have to turn around since the only approach into Haverstraw is visual, but luckily the cloud bank let up a bit and I was able to climb to almost 300 feet and get my bearings, spotting the heliport and making my approach. I messed up a bit on the landing and drifted off the grass onto the hard surface where I landed. Technically you’re supposed to land on the grass and taxi over to the hard surface. But dammit those trees around the small landing field freak me out. I still remember the time it took me three separate attempts to land the 206B here because I kept crashing into the blasted trees. Makes for a nice challenge though. Despite my drift I still landed less than 1 foot per second.

I was pleased this time out with my attitude during the flight – the helicopter was much more stable and I was able to hold my altitude much better while climbing and descending when needed without lifting my passengers from their seats or crushing them into their seats. Turning was better too but I still need to get used to pushing my nose down more as I begin the turn – the 222B climbs a lot more aggressively in the turn than the 206B does. Practice makes better and since my landings are all so awesome, I’m going to start doing even longer flights in the 222B. Which is cool since that’s what it’s for anyways!

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Flight Log – Turbulence

January 9th, 2013 · Gaming

At last, I made time to climb back into the good old 172 and head out from Trenton-Robbinsville (N87) up north to Lincoln Park (N07). I’ve been planning to do this for over a month now, ever since I finally finished off Lincoln Park back at the end of November last year. Today wasn’t the best weather for flying, but I’ve done too much fair weather flying lately and it was time to mix things up a little bit. A high layer of cloud scud around 9-10 thousand feet provided a nice ceiling and I wasn’t planning on going up above 2.5-3 thousand feet anyways. The route I plotted had me zig-zagging a bit but I wanted to do some VOR navigation and steer clear of any controlled airspace as well.

Flight started off a bit rocky as I chose the wrong runway for takeoff and ended up departing with a tail crosswind. Not fun, but I managed to get off the ground okay. Then once airborne I climbed towards my 2500′ cruise altitude and forgot to back off the throttle and start leveling out at 2000′, so I went close to 3000′ instead and had to climb back down to find 2500′ then trim for level flight. Still, while I was fighting for proper altitude I did manage to stay fairly well on-track towards my first VOR, especially since I had to fight a 20kt cross-wind trying to push me east. So I offset my heading about 30° to keep tracking straight along the radial I was on.

Once I reached the first VOR I tracked out west a bit farther than planned to pass over the Round Valley Reservoir, which looks like a crater lake and is a pretty cool visual feature I like to fly over when I can. After that I turned north again to track towards my last VOR. Now I had the wind mostly to my back so I was up towards 125kts ground speed and really zipping along. I was just thinking to myself how smooth the ride had been so far when things started getting bumpy. And then shortly thereafter started getting extremely bumpy. I had just installed the new AccuFeel 2.0 release for this flight and I’m pretty sure I have this to thank for really getting my pulse pounding as I was shaken and rattled for a good 5 minutes. It felt way longer! Still, despite the fact that I probably would have been in danger of losing my lunch had I been able to feel G-forces, I had throttled back to 50% as soon as the chop got severe and managed to hold my altitude and course fairly well. By the time I hit smooth air again I was only around 2700′. I circled the turbulence section of the vertical trail analysis below (click to see it in the larger version)

Once past my last VOR it was time to switch over to visual navigation and looking out my right window I easily spotted Route 23 and confirmed it by checking the charts and noting it passed just north of a readily-identifiable water body (the Charlloteburg Reservoir). Following that I had my eye out for the airport and couldn’t see it until it popped into view as it was hidden behind the ridgeline I was flying over. I could have made a straight-in approach as Runway 19 was in use but heard some incoming traffic on the multicom and decided to fly a full pattern to give them time to land and clear out. Rounding out on final I finally started to feel the effects of the crosswind as I came down towards the runway. I tried holding her aligned but just kept getting blown off to the side and literally at the last moment (stall horns were sounding!) I threw open the throttles and started to climb out and go around, pulling up flaps almost too late as the wind was blowing me into the trees and I wasn’t climbing fast enough to get over them. So that was a bit hairy. Coming around again the crosswinds of course hadn’t abated but I did line up with a proper crab angle to help offset and although I still had trouble and landed with no flare rather hard I stayed on the runway. You can see below just how askew I was climbing out over the east side of the airport!

Next up I’m thinking a new livery for the Bell 222B and taking her from here all the way down to the city, as that’ll be the longest flight I’ve flown in it so far.

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Flight Log – NYC Chopperin 3

January 5th, 2013 · Gaming

Finally got around to finishing the flight I started last time I took to the air with the Bell 222B. That flight was interrupted after I landed at KJRA and the program crashed out on me. Because I had to reload back at KJRB, I decided to swing around the city and just head straight for KEWR as the sun was setting and I only wanted a short hop anyways. Since the last time I’ve flown I’ve taken the time to update the helicopter traffic with unique aircraft. Before this everything flying around was just a default Bell 206B with plain white textures. Now there are Bell 407s, Bell 222Bs, Bell 430s, Eurocopter AS350s and 355s, MD 500Ds, Augusta 109s, and more. All in various liveries, like the news choppers over the city are now in news liveries. This makes things look a lot nicer when at one of the heliports and seeing all kinds of aircraft arriving and departing.

Preflight and departure went off smoothly, although I was in the air and wondering about the sluggish handling when I realized I had forgot to enable the Helicopter Total Realism external program. After I loaded that up the helicopter felt more like the last few times I’ve flown it. I’m still getting used to how it handles in the air. I’m rising and falling a lot – my VSI needle is all over the place. Any passengers along for the ride would think they were on a roller coaster. I might try to tone down the stick sensitivity next time out and see if that helps.

Turning off the East River towards Central Park to transition to the Hudson I came literally within 50 feet or so of colliding with a Bell 430 flying out of the city – most likely towards La Guardia. Holy crap the thing flew straight in front of me a little lower in altitude. Yes, I did look left to check for traffic before making the turn and I saw a landing light pointed at me but it seemed much farther away than it actually was! Mid-air collisions happen in real life over NYC and it’s too bad the helicopter AI program doesn’t allow the choppers to sound off their locations or when they are within a set range of you. Communication is vital when flying around the NYC airspace and it’s a bummer I can’t simulate that properly. I do make sure to tune to the proper radio channels when over the Hudson and East Rivers but that’s pretty much it.

Approach and landing at KEWR was uneventful, although I did have to rush my landing since a Bell 430 was on approach for the pad as well. Even still, I hit the pad and did so at only 1 foot per second. I have to admit I’m really aces when it comes to landing this helicopter. HTR hasn’t reported a bad landing for me yet. I think my worst was around 3 f/s the very first time I went to land. Anything more than 4 f/s has the danger of damaging the landing gear.

There’s a flight in the C172 I’ve been putting off for a long while now and I hope to get to that next sometime soon.

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Range Report

December 26th, 2012 · Personal

Spent all day at the Rod & Gun range this past Sunday to get some serious time behind my new AR-15 I picked up last month. It is a Mossberg MMR Hunter – I know, when I saw it at the range while perusing their selection of assault rifles and they told me it was a Mossberg my first thought was “it doesn’t look like a shotgun…” But it did look like the perfect rifle for me. It has a 20″ barrel, which is 4″ longer than your standard assault rifle, which means better accuracy. It also has a single flat-top rail for mounting a scope, which was all the accessorizing I planned to do. And it was only $795.

Why an assault rifle? Well the AR15 platform is highly customizable. There are tons of weapon makers that have various stocks, triggers, barrels, etc. So while I’m firing .223/5.56 right now, I can get a whole new upper assembly (chamber and barrel) to fire cheaper .22 ammo for less than buying a whole new rifle. I can go in the other direction too, as they make even 50 caliber uppers!

Today at the range I brought with me 200 rounds of American Eagle 5.56 55 grain ammo, which I got up at Efinger for $100 in two 100 round packs. Ammo is getting really hard to find these days.

I started at 25 yards, which didn’t take too long to dial in. I used paper targets to track my shots and once I was hitting where I was aiming I dropped my sights to the ground where I had 6 clay pigeons lined up and blasted them all to oblivion. Here is my best target grouping from 25 yards:

At the next cease fire I took the target back to 50 yards with 6 clays but also left 6 clays at 25. I did the same thing with my rifle at 50 then used my P22 and P99 to take out the clays at 25 yards. With my P22 I was fairly accurate, but I still suck with my 9mm. I really need to take time to get that dialed in. The P22 took me about 4 clips to take out all six clays, which I didn’t think was too bad since there was a 10-14mph breeze coming over my right shoulder. Here’s my best target from 50 yards:

I finally pushed out to 100 yards next, which was the first time shooting this far with anything for me. Now the winds really started messing around with my shots. On my second box of ammo, I started taking the first few minutes of the firing session to dial in my sights on a paper target. Then at the 10min remaining call out I switched over to the P22 to take out clays at 25 yards. Then when they called out 2 minutes remaining I gave my self 10 rounds and those two minutes to take out the 6 clay pigeons at 100 yards. My best run was 4 out of 6, which I was pleased with. Here is my best 100 yard target:

You can see how my elevation was on but the wind was really messing me up. Also here’s a shot of the clays at 100 yards:

I love how I completely tore the center out of one and left it standing. I look forward to my next trip!

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Flight Log – NYC Chopperin 2

December 22nd, 2012 · Gaming

I recently decided to take advantage of a windfall in income to snap up some FSX add-ons, both scenery and aircraft. We’ll get to the scenery some other time as well as other aircraft because right now I’m just focusing on one, the CeraSim Bell 222B. I’ve had my eye out for a good-quality Bell 222, Bell 430 or Augusta AW109 for a while now – what can I say I loooove helicopters with retractable landing gear. Not only are they sleek and sexy-looking in flight but it’s cool to be able to taxi around on the ground like an airplane. the Cera 222 is really great, well detailed with cool animations and tight modeling. There was an issue with the idle release implementation while using my joystick axis to control the throttles but now that’s been solved it’s all good.

Despite the new aircraft, I didn’t want my skill with the Bell 206B to start fading and I also wanted to get a good feel for how differently the 222B flew compared to the 206B, so I took out the 206B first, starting at KJRB in Manhattan and flying Hudson River to Newark to Linden to get to KLDJ. Weather was mostly clear with light rain moving out of the area – the big thing was winds gusting up to 24kts so I did get bumped around a good deal. But no troubles at all on takeoff or landing.

Next it was back to KJRB to climb into the 222B. This is a dual-engine aircraft unlike the single-engine 206B – it can go faster and still fly if one engine goes out. It took me a while initially to get the hang of starting the 222B, but the checklist procedure is very fluid once I figured out where everything was in the cockpit and soon I had the engines spooled up and ready to go. My Manhattan traffic pack was active so I needed to watch out for incoming/outgoing helicopters before I could depart. I headed up the East River and obviously the first thing I noticed was the acceleration once I transitioned into forward flight, as well as the huge rate of climb at an angle and throttle setting that would have the 206B only inching upwards. I’m definitely going to have to develop a new feel for what is “level flight” in this helicopter. I say it in quotes because the nose is always dipped in level flight for choppers. The rudders were also extremely sensitive compared to the 206B but I think this may be something I need to tweak in the Helicopter Total Realism (HTR) add-on I’m using to enhance the flight dynamics.

I took the East River all the way north to the Triborough Bridge then swung around to head back south, taking a steep bank to see how the 222B handled in tight turns. About the same as the 206B, where I need to increase the pitch down as the blades bite deeper to prevent the aircraft from rising and my speed from falling. I approached and landed at 6N5 – one of the cool things about HTR is that it makes note of your landing and rates it depending on a variable in the helicopter’s flight profile of maximum feet per second descent rate, which means any faster and you’re at high risk of damaging your gear/skids. For the 222B it’s set at 4 ft/s and when I landed at 6N5 I was told it was a Good Landing at 1.2 ft/s. Nice! Although, I admit I did have to taxi back a little ways before departing to give myself more room from the elevated highway.

Once back in the air I took her back up the East River and then across Central Park to the Hudson and down to KJRA. I was a bit off on the approach and came really close to setting her down in the water about 150 feet off the landing area. The problem with turbine engines is they need to spool, so you don’t get instant response when adding power, especially when close to a hover. So it’s always a bit tense to be dropping towards the drink and forcing yourself to slowly add power so you don’t end up over-compensating and rising up again. But I managed to enter a hover a few dozen feet over the water and inch forward, though it was very wobbly and I almost ended up in an oscillating failure, where my drift corrections would keep getting larger and larger until the aircraft spins out and crashes. I honestly thought my first crash in the 222B was coming but I managed to keep cool and get her on the ground only slightly off the pad. I don’t know why but no landing report from HTR this time. I’m pretty sure it was only slightly harder of a landing than before though. The winds really bounced me around on landing this time, boy.

After spinning the aircraft around (ground taxi in a helicopter is so cool!) I figured next I would depart KJRA for KEWR so I could land at the helipad there on the taxiway and then enjoy taxiing over to a parking spot on the apron, but before I could lift off again the sim froze – which is rare but it happens. Drat. Decided to call it a day at that. Really enjoy the 222B and look forward to flying it some more!

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Geminids Report

December 14th, 2012 · Personal

While it wasn’t as cold out as it was earlier this year for my Quadrantids watch, it still felt like 27°F according to The Weather Channel. Luckily there was no wind really, so that helped. Still, it was bundles of clothes, blankets and a cup of piping hot chocolate (with some Bailey’s mint creme, mmm) that all worked to keep me toasty… for a while. I had two friends over tonight to watch with me and the show was forecast to be rather spectacular this year, but I had heard that before. Earlier showers this year, including the Orionids and the Persieds were both supposed to be pretty good and both were pretty meh from what I saw. Thankfully the Geminids did not disappoint. While the Perseids are the more popular shower thanks to being in the late summer, if you can brave the cold of near-winter to catch the Geminids you’re really in for a show. Within just under 1.5 hours our 3 pairs of eyes had spotted 70 meteors before my friends called it a night. Left with only a pair of eyes to scan the sky it was still only a few more minutes before I upped the count to 75 and took an hour break inside to warm up. Back out at around 1:50am I could tell the shower was peaking – there were definitely more meteors appearing and by 2:15am I was texting my friends who went home that I had reached 100. By the time I quit the field at around 2:45am the count was up to 126! That is a staggering amount of meteors for my area in a 3 hour time period. I’ve watched showers in the past for 3-4 hours and counted 20-30 total!

Most of the Geminids are low on the horizon, and most are very bright and long-lasting thanks to the Geminids being spawned from dense asteroid material rather than loose cometary material. It’s still up for debate what exactly caused the Geminids but scientists theorize an asteroid collision followed by Jupiter shifting the debris into our orbit. Whatever, the results are amazing. The majority of our sightings were bright and traveling a good distance across the sky for 2-3 seconds. While most looked like shooting stars a good amount were so near the horizon they appeared to be going down instead of across the sky – falling stars. Numbers 74, 94 and 105 in particular were stunners. #74 and #94 each left persistent trails in their wake and #105 actually exploded! It flashed into being brighter than Jupiter and only traveled the length of Orion’s arm before flashing out brilliantly instead of the slow fade you normally see.

Not only were the meteors raining down but the viewing conditions were highly optimal as well. A new moon meant the brightest object in the sky was only Jupiter, Gemini rises early and was already high up by 10pm and remaining at zenith through to the morning, and despite cloudy weather the past week and more cloudy weather starting the next day the heavens opened up on this night for perfectly clear skies. Vunderbar!!

There was supposedly a brand new shower originating from around Pisces but being on the opposite side of the sky we didn’t see any, nor were we really looking. But a friend of mine said she spotted some.

I’m extremely pleased to not only smash my previous record for single-night viewing but to also push my new record into the triple digits! I’m not sure if this record will be topped anytime soon, although there is a chance that in May of 2014 we could see another brand new shower appear with the capability of producing a meteor storm – yes a storm. Showers are regular events but storms consist of thousands of meteors per hour. The last great meteor storm was the 1833 Leonids Leonids, which produced 100,000 to 200,000 per hour. Nutty! In the meantime, we’ll have to hope 2013 brings some nice showers.

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Flight Log: A Jaunt

November 21st, 2012 · Gaming

Plan-G flight plan (right-click Save As)

Today I finally managed to get everything together for a flight. It’s been hard lately with so much work I’ve been doing between coaching, GameDev.net, MSE Airports and most recently airport design for FranceVFR. Not to mention occasional stunt jobs and pyrotechnical work. Another thing keeping me back was taking the time to update several things including the latest release of REX, the Essential+ with Overdrive, and a new version of GEX as well. I also added a new hardware item – I bought the latest iPad (my first iPad) at the start of this month and have been aching to try out my new RemoteFlight radio stack purchase. I was also going to connect Plan-G to FSX to check out its ability to track my flight.

 
the iPad at work

The flight itself was uneventful. I screwed up climbing out of KLDJ – although I maintained runway heading until 800′ as required for departures from Runway 27, I continued to climb up through 1500′, which put me above the floor of the NYC bravo airspace. Whoopsie, I was only supposed to climb to 1200′ – it was even in my flight plan! But besides that the rest of the flight was routine. I really didn’t get to use my iPad radio stack much since I only had to set the navigation stations before takeoff but even then it was handy. Can’t wait to use it with my helicopter setup – tuning radios on that is always a pain. I departed Linden at 3:56 and arrived at Trenton-Robbinsville (N87) at 4:32 – data which is unfortunately not saved when I close Plan-G after it is recorded during flight when connected to FSX. The connection between Plan-G and FSX worked well, although I still navigated by what I saw in the sim and my instruments rather than trying to get my airplane to line up with the black route line in Plan-G.

I’m waiting to see if any Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals come about this weekend to buy up some new FSX aircraft/scenery. I’m looking to get a new helicopter, as well as some new scenery up in Buffalo and Niagara Falls to fly to and spend some time exploring. Those are regardless of a sale. I’ll also snap up whatever else looks good.

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FSX Heli Traffic

October 17th, 2012 · Gaming


Manhattan Heli Traffic Information Page

I spent a week learning how to utilize the payware FSX add-on Heli Traffic 2009, which I felt was a bit pricey at first but now feel it was money well spent. Beyond figuring out how to use the add-on itself was the challenge of creating my own schedules for aircraft to fly. Rather than letting the add-on generate random traffic that would flit about directly from one pad to another I decided it was much better to have the aircraft follow real routes and flight rules. At first I used the in-game method of creating schedules which the manual leads you through – you slew the aircraft to a point in space and add a waypoint to the schedule through the add-on interface. This is great and easy for a single schedule, but how to keep track of where they are all going so you don’t have mid-air collisions? And not just with other aircraft but skyscrapers too.

So I looked at the Heli Traffic 2009 files that contained the schedule data and they are in XML format, which is very easy to edit by hand and very easy to decipher as well. Lat/lon coordinates in decimal format gave the location of the waypoint followed by the height in meters the aircraft should be above sea level (not ground level) when it reaches that point. Easy.

So first I used the SkyVector NYC helicopter sectional charts and right-clicked to add GPS waypoints to my flight plan along the routes I wanted the aircraft to fly. This gave me coordinates in degrees, minutes, seconds and I needed to convert that to decimal format. At first I tried looking up an online converter but they all wanted me to plug in the three values separately and not a simple copy/paste of the whole lat/lon pair. So I simply turned to Google Maps, which turned out to be better in the long run as it let me visually check multiple routes at a time. I pasted the degree, minute, second coordinates into the GMaps search box and it would give me the location in decimal format. By creating my own map, I was able to easily save the location to the map as a pin. Then I copied the decimal lat/lon and saved it in the pin’s description box and titled the pin with a waypoint number and height (in feet). Once I had all the waypoints in I drew a line connecting them.

Here are the three Google Maps I created with all the routes: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

If you open them all in the same window you should be able to overlay all three together as I can. Still, it was annoying to find that after a certain number of pins/lines GMaps would paginate the markers so only one page would render at a time, hence splitting them up into three separate maps so I could see them all at once. By creating waypoints near other waypoints it was easy to make sure one aircraft stayed above/beside another. Still it was hard to visualize in just 2D so next I loaded up Google Earth and imported the GMap KML files. That gave me the same as GMaps. I then had to hand-edit the KML files to add altitude data (in meters) to the lines, as the KML file was also an XML schema.

Once I had all the routes’ elevations plugged in (thank you Google for the conversions) I made a few tweaks in areas where I noticed lines intersecting, but surprisingly I managed to do a good job with just the GMaps plotting, though it was definitely harder within the city. Fortunately once I had the lines in Earth and the 3D buildings layer toggled I could use the mouse cursor to place it atop a building and get the height of the building to know the elevation needed to fly over it if needed.

Now it was finally back to the Heli Traffic files to create all the routes. This involved nothing but lots and lots of copying and pasting. First copy paste the general schedule layout, then add the proper number of waypoints, then copy in the coordinates for each and the height for each. I know from experience in programming how horribly easy it is to screw things up when you copy/paste so hopefully I didn’t make too many errors – although I caught myself a few times.

Now that I have a better idea of what’s involved with getting a whole bunch of schedules working together I’ll be looking at a way to automate more of this process of converting KML data to the XML format used by Heli Traffic.

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