View towards the launch pad, with the VAB to the right and cosplaying astronauts in the foreground. In the bottom-right is my friend Dustin
It was a tense several minutes, sitting in my friend Dustin’s 7-series BMW as we idled behind a long line of traffic on rt46 – still some 15 miles from our viewing location in Titusville and about 2 hours from launch time. “there’s no way this can be launch traffic” mutters Dustin as he pokes the nose out to try to get a view at what could be causing the hold up. I was begging the 2-bar E reception on my iPhone to load Maps with traffic faster so we could see the extent of the jam. The cars ahead of us inched forward a bit – a couple turn around. I’m not really starting to panic, but I can’t help having horrible thoughts of telling people I was a few miles away stuck in traffic trying to get into Titusville and missed the shuttle launch. Perhaps we should have left sooner? Hopefully this is just some accident? Dustin is telling me how dangerous this rather flat and straight road can be since people like to open up a lot along the stretch of narrow highway. I’m trying not to look at the time, so it seems like 30 minutes before the line of cars ahead of us starts to move at a steady pace. Dustin is vindicated, and I’m feeling quite relieved as we pick up speed towards our final destination. A mile or so down we pass a garbage truck on the opposite side, and a guy walking his motorcycle on our side of the road, but can’t figure out what held up traffic for so long.
A few minutes later we are in Titusville, capital city of the Florida Space Coast. The original plan is to head to a lesser-known location Dustin is familiar with south of the city, but driving through the city we see cars lined along the street and people making their way to the bridge spanning the water, leading to the Kennedy Space Center and rising a good 60 feet or more over the water’s surface. People living along the road were making a killing off selling parking spaces on their lawn, and after a brief discussion we decided to follow the masses. Parking and paying $10 for the privilege, we hoofed it roughly 1.5 miles to the causeway bridge, which was completely packed with people. The poor Sheriff and his posse of vehicles was trying to come over from the opposite side of the bridge as we were walking up with the crowd of people. “Everybody stop… just… stop moving. Stop.” Came the plea over the bullhorn as the vehicles crept across.
We halted on the top of the span, with a clear line of sight across the way to the Vehicle Assembly Building and the shuttle launch pad. About an hour remained until launch and we were both coaxing the low reception on our phones to cooperate so we could be notified as soon as possible to a launch scrub. Both of us knew that if it happened, we needed to get out of there as casually as possible to try to avoid alerting the other people clustered on that bridge if they didn’t know too. The causeway was abuzz with thousands of space enthusiasts, most decked out in some form of space-related apparel but some even had on orange and blue flight suits and were posing for photos like cosplay at a gaming convention. As we waited the clouds overhead very, very slowly drifted off to the northeast, and a clear patch of sky was developing to the southwest, but didn’t quite make it to the launch pad. The roar of jets filled the air and we looked up to see two F-15 Eagles on patrol several thousand feet overhead. A NASA Huey came buzzing low along the length of the bridge, a camera in its open door, and I climbed atop the road berm to wave. Have not yet found the footage – if there is any. A Coast Guard helicopter was also flying around the area and off in the distance you could see some more helicopters circling the launch pad.
A guy showed up in our area toting a portable radio tuned to NASA so we were able to hear the “go, no go” checks in the final minutes before countdown resumed. Dustin gives me the thumbs up with a wide grin as I stand atop my road berm on the backside of the bridge to see over the crowd and he stands listening by the radio – he’s a tall guy. It’s 11:20 – six minutes before launch – and you can feel the excitement building as people stop conversing here and there and begin to gaze across at the distant launch pad. 11:24 and almost all conversation has ceased – you can hear more radios updating the crowd. 11:25 and a hold is put in place at T-minus 31 seconds to confirm that the nose cap has indeed retracted fully out of the way. A few tense minutes of quiet buzzing conversation ensues as everyone waits for the radio to tell us all is well. 11:28 and the countdown is resumed. Silence reigns until the count reaches “10… 9… 8… 7… 6… 5…” the collective crowd countdown breaks into cheers as the puff of smoke beneath the launch pad signals main engine ignition. “WHOOOOO!!!” is the common cheer that goes up as the bright line of fire representing the shuttle at this distance lifts off the pad.
Up she goes!! Go baby go!!
Shoom! Into the clouds
I’ve watched a ton of launches on video, and one of the things you can appreciate while watching it “zoomed out” without a camera focused on it is how fast it shoots up. I mean, you know it’s going fast when you watch it on TV but to see the big picture and watch it zip up towards the clouds is a completely different experience. It passed through a thin cloud layer briefly before then vanishing with a small blaze of reflected light into the main cloud layer overhead 40 seconds after liftoff. It took about half that long for the low rumbling noise of the engines to begin washing across the bridge, bringing up another round of cheers. Then, a little over a minute later Atlantis was clear of enough atmosphere to throttle back up and a crackling rumble descended from the heavens that was even louder than the initial takeoff. Let’s all cheer one more time!! WHOOOOO!!!!!!!!
Yea baby. I was here!
The short-lived but awe-inspiring spectacle over, it was time for the mass exodus back over the bridge. Titusville is no stranger to launch crowds, even if this was the biggest ever, and had a well-planned exit strategy for people driving out of town. We reached Dustin’s car in about 20 minutes and pulled right out into the slow-but-steady traffic heading north to the major highways. Cutting down some backroads we were once again on rt46, Dustin’s “back door” road, and again moving at a slow but steady pace towards I-95. Once the majority of the traffic got onto the highway, we were cruising back to his house in Oviedo, arriving less than an hour after we left the launch viewing. Next up was watching the recorded launch footage from NASA TV on the big screen to see the ascent after the shuttle passed through the clouds.
The mass of people leaving the bridge after the launch
Huge amounts of people and a 30% no-go chance due to weather didn’t have my hopes very high for a successful attempt at both getting to see the launch and the launch actually happening, but we got in, got out and the launch went off perfectly. It’s an experience I’ll never forget and one I am glad I took the time to chase down (after missing on my first attempt last November when I tried to see STS-133 lift off). It’s sad that I’ll never get to experience it again now that the shuttle program is on the verge of being retired, but there is plenty of exciting things to look forward to in the future. Virgin Galactic, anyone? Keep your eyes on the private sector. NASA still has great plans for unmanned exploration but I agree it’s important we get humans back up there as soon as possible pushing the frontier forwards. Don’t stop wanting to be astronauts, kids! We’ll bee needing you again sooner than you think!
This weekend I was on a barge anchored out in the far north section of Barnegat Bay, off the shore of Mantoloking, to set up a display to commemorate the city’s 100th birthday. We based out of the yacht club there, and the managers were extremely friendly and looking forward to working with us on their first professional fireworks display – in years past for celebrations it’s always been just locals firing off stuff on the beach. I love being out on the water, so I was really looking forward to this show – also because it was my first barge show and the setting/logistics are obviously a bit different then a regular show out in a field. While the weather was largely clear and sunny like last year, the temperatures were nowhere near as high (barely hitting 85F) and a nice cool breeze on the water persisted all day. The yacht club had a boat to shuttle us to/from shore for bathroom breaks and they sent us out sandwiches from the catering truck serving their party for lunch and dinner.
Another first for me this show was getting to set up a set piece, which is the general term we use to describe anything that doesn’t fire out of a mortar and explode overhead. In this case it was a large “100th” made of sticky match that would flare up when lit so everyone ashore could see the lettering. Some assembly was required since it was about 30 feet wide and 15 feet tall and you obviously can’t fit that in one piece in the back of a packed truck! So after monkeying about on some scaffolding and a couple of strategically-placed zip ties it was all set to be wired up. Hurray for getting to climb around a bit 😛
We were set up ready to go with plenty of time before sunset, which we used to devour some more tasty sandwiches from shore. Around 9pm the shuttle boat arrived to take 4 of us ashore while the other 4 remained aboard to fire and handle any problems. I would like to fire a show someday, but on the other hand if you do that you can’t see it. I don’t think I’ve gotten my fill of watching fireworks yet to the point where I wouldn’t care to see them anymore, so I opted to go ashore. There we discovered that the caterers still had some lobster dinners left, and they hooked us up with full platters!! I hadn’t had lobster fresh from the shell in years so that was pretty awesome.
The show went off without a hitch and the fire marshal had us fire off one last shell afterwards that failed to go up initially. We hopped back on the shuttle and spent about 30 minutes tossing everything onto just one of the two barges, then got a ride to the opposite shore where we were parked to avoid the mass of traffic on the beach-side of the town when we left for the night. Grucci had us in a hotel a few miles down the road but I opted for the 30-min drive back home to enjoy my own bed and do a bit of work on the computer.
It was back the next morning at 9am to clean up and repack the truck. The barge was docked ashore and we tore that sucker down in about an hour and a half! The crew was great and everyone got along, we all had a fun time working together on this show – a couple were on the crew I worked with last year as well so it was good to see them again.
Good times in the life of a pyro, once again. I took a few pictures – you can find them in my Grucci album on Facebook. Til next time, fellow pyro junkies!
I was over at Rick’s house today to barbeque on his new deck, and we played some beanbag toss (officially know as Cornhole) in both singles and doubles. Besides winning every game I played in, there was one particularly epic game ending that must be recorded.
My teammate and I were ahead by a few points, enough that we had a chance of winning when my turn came around again. Stephanie from the opposite team tossed first and missed. I stepped up for my turn and dropped it straight into the hole. Three points! If it stood, it was enough to win the game. Pressure on, Steph tosses her second and it lands just short of the hole, but stays on the board for a point. My follow-up goes a bit long and slides off the back. Steph’s third toss is also a no-go and comes up short of the board. My third toss sails high, lands and drops straight into the hole for another 3 points. Victory sealed! The crowd goes wild! But wait… Steph still has one final beanbag. I bet she thought it was useless, but nonetheless she gave it a real try for her last toss. Amazingly, her beanbag landed atop the one already on the board and they both slid into the hole. I literally fell to my knees in amazement as this completely cancelled out the points from my two previous hole shots. Once she and her husband Mike were done with the high fives I gave her one myself, still in shock. But then I remembered I still had one more toss left. I looked at her and said “Steph, that was awesome. It almost makes me feel bad to do this.” I stepped up, tossed, and slid my final beanbag into the hole for the win.
Yes, I Babe Ruth’d that shit.
Props to my teammate Mattern, who canceled out every one of Mike’s hole shots and a couple of his board landings, keeping us alive long enough for me to seal the victory.
This past Saturday I finally took the time to overclock my i5 2500K CPU to 4.5GHz, which is an extra 1.2GHz past stock speed. I started off by trying the auto-overclock button that’s on my motherboard, but after rebooting the computer and entering Windows, things locked up almost immediately. So I turned to the trusty Google and dug up an article on bit-tech.net that had specific instructions for overclocking my CPU on my motherboard. Sweet! I plugged in the numbers and changed around the settings and booted back into Windows at 4.5GHz and experienced the same lock up problems. Finally I just set the base clock to 1000 and the multiplier to 45, keeping all the voltages at Auto settings but still enabling/disabling what they told me to in the article. (Except I had to ignore their suggestion in the article to set my SATA mode to ACHI, as that would cause Windows to BSOD and reset the computer while it was loading. I left it set to IDE). This ended up working, although I think leaving the voltages at Auto allowed the Intel SpeedStep tech to stay active even though I specifically disabled it in the EFI, because the TurboBoost desktop widget remained active and my core voltage/CPU speed according to CPU-Z was still varying – although under load (like when FSX is running) it stayed pinned at 4.5GHz.
I also tried pushing my graphic card memory and GPU speeds up a notch to their max but that caused FSX to crash. Oh well.
This all ended up taking me about 4 hours to finally configure correctly so by the time I was all set up ready to fly it was close to 6pm. No worries, though I figured I wouldn’t be able to complete my whole flight plan today. Here’s the plan, by the way. Since I didn’t plan this flight to depart at a certain time, I didn’t fill out any weather information. I gathered that info from ATIS reports while in the air and just did a forecast to make sure no storms were moving into the area later this evening.
The first leg started off at KBLM and saw me hopping back into the good ol’ 172 to put-put up the Hudson so I could check out the performance of the overclock around the very-tasking Manhattan X scenery with scenery set to Very Dense, water at 2x and ATC traffic running (no boat or vehicle traffic though). This was just like the last northern Hudson trip I took in the V35B so I copied and pasted that route info from the previous flight plan with some minor tweaks as I decided to just fly straight up to Sandy Hook Bay rather than fly out to the coast first and over the Hook itself. Going past Manhattan my frames still dropped to around 11-13 but the main noticeable improvement was the fact that ground textures loaded in time for me to fly over them and be crisp rather than still blurry. As low as I am in this area (1200′) this is nice to have now. Plus with ATC still running, before I was down into the 9-10FPS range and would have to disable it to fly around the area in a plane or heli. I forgot to run completely through my SFRA exit checklist and left my landing light on as I cruised towards my VOR waypoint. No real biggie making yourself more visible though 😛
I climbed to cruise altitude as planned once I passed the Tappan Zee Bridge and turned towards my VOR waypoint, which brought me to the Delaware River I could follow back south. I was paying close attention to the river features to keep track of my location on the charts so I wouldn’t overshoot NJ09 but then off in the distance I spotted the huge cooling stacks of a power plant that I knew was right by it and knew I wasn’t going to miss it. As I was turning to make for the stacks, I spotted a landing light shining right at me off to my 2 o’ clock and immediately banked hard left as another aircraft went zooming by what seemed less than half a mile off to my right. I don’t recall ever getting a traffic alert from ATC as I was tuned in for flight following. Go figure! More controllers sleeping on the job, no doubt. After finishing avoiding traffic and orienting myself towards the stacks, I tuned to KABE ATIS and got the winds, then flew over the field to double-check the sock and make sure the field was clear. Circled around in a right pattern for Runway 25 and put her down nice and gentle.
After a taxi back, I was airborne once again although I almost forgot to hold my nose wheel up as I accelerated so I came a bit too close to the trees at the other end of the runway on my climb out. This second leg was just long enough to satisfy my 60nm distance rule and was a simple VOR hop. I like approaching KBLM from the Robbinsville VOR as it sets you up perfectly for a downwind pattern entry to Runway 32. Tuning into the KBLM ATIS I found the winds were calm so I set up for a left Runway 32 pattern since that runway had the glideslope indicators. I heard another craft call approach for R32 from 8 miles out and decided to take a long downwind to slot in behind him. Then less than a minute later another aircraft called approach to KBLM from 7 miles out – to Runway 14!! Do the compass math, that’s the opposite end of Runway 32 – planes were landing at the same time on both ends of the runway! So I knew one of them would fly a missed approach and continued to fly out towards the coast to get behind the guy I heard call approach first. I spotted his lights and flew out past him then turned around towards the runway and announced my position. To my chagrin, I announced 8 miles out while the guy I originally heard call said he was 3 miles out – I had overshot him and slotted behind another aircraft. *le sigh*. I made a new rule – if I’m about to enter the pattern and someone calls more than 3 miles out, I go in for the landing – unless it’s a jet. Then I’ll give myself 5 miles. Anyhow, I dogged the craft I had slotted behind all the way down, landing just before he announced clear of the runway. I tried to scoot off quickly but another aircraft on approach for the opposite Runway 14 had to abort his landing. Ah well. I taxied back to my hangar and shut down.
I had arrived at 8:44 so by the time I was in the helicopter ready to head back down to N81 and pick up the V35B it was fully dark. I decided to head out anyways since the weather was still nice but after I got up I saw that the cloud cieling was too low for me to fly over the McGuire A-220 alert area, which meant I would have to take a much longer route along the coast and cut in over Atlantic City thanks to a restricted flight area between ACY airspace and the A-220 zone. I tried climbing up over the clouds but they were very tall – I got the chopper to around 11,000 feet before giving up and heading back down to land at KBLM. Funny thing is if I could have waited a little while to 10pm the alert area rules would have been suspended, but that was too late for me since I was pretty tired by then.
The next day, Sunday, I sat back down to continue the flight. I took off in the heli from KBLM with a cloud base higher than 12,000′ so there were no problems transitioning over the A-220 flight area. I cruised at 100kts all the way down with no major issues during the flight. Just tuned into McGuire Approach for flight following until I was below 2500′ descending to the airport when I switched over to the CTAF. I landed in the fuel area to top off the tanks, then decided to hover taxi over to a parking spot next to the hangar. Once again, the blasted hover taxi doomed me. I made it to the parking spot ok but as I was futzing around to land I mistakenly pulled back on the collective instead of forward to land and ended up overtorqueing the rotor and spinning myself out of control into the ground. BOOM!!! 🙁
I reloaded into the V35B since I that was my next leg anyways. I taxied over to the sock to decide which runway to take off from, then taxied down to Runway 3 and departed. I climbed to FL060 to fly over the Philly Bravo airspace on my route but as I opened the ATC window a way into my cruise to answer a traffic alert for my flight following I noticed the option to ask for a Bravo transition was listed, and that’s only there if you’re in Bravo airspace. I checked the charts and sure enough, Philly Class B extends up to 7000′ (FL070). What the hell was I on when I planned for FL060 to get over Bravo airspace? Eeesh. So I requested and received my Bravo clearance and continued on. Then on descent to N87 I dialed up KTTN ATIS for a weather report but afterwards pressed the wrong key and ended up asking for Class D transition clearance. So then I had to get it and cancel it so I could return to the N87 CTAF and announce my landing intentions – by this time I was only 3 miles away from the airport. Luckily no other traffic was in the air at the time and I flew my left pattern and landed on Runway 11.
Here was supposed to be the end of my flight, but it was still early in the evening and I was wanting more, so I taxied back to depart and headed back to KBLM, although I had originally planned to go to KLDJ. I flew via the Robbinsville VOR again and approached KBLM with calm winds and traffic still flowing in both ends of the runway. I decided to fly straight in to Runway 14 to beat out another aircraft on approach. After landing (the second time today without a nasty scraping noise, I might add) I was taxiing off to my hangar and almost ran into a learjet taxiing to Runway 14. I had to slew my craft out of the way to avoid a crash. I had thought they were taking off Runway 32 but apparently not! I made it back the rest of the way to the hangar avoiding some more traffic but doing so without slewing my craft.
Finally I hopped back into the Bell (different livery) and choppered up to Manhattan via the GSP and then Route Verrazano to land at KJRB. After an uneventful landing there I flew over the city north to Central Park then out over the Hudson to approach and land at KJRA. My first attempt seemed good – descended to a hover almost right over the pad but then spent 2-3 minutes futzing around and finally hauling back on the cyclic to circle around and try again amidst much obscenities. Second time though I nailed the landing. I thought for sure that first time I was crashing into a fence or lightpole – damn it was ugly. Just when you think you have the hang of this damn chopper… anywhoo, I departed KJRA and flew Route Hudson south to Route Newark and then Route Linden to land on the money, first try and actually soft as a feather, at KLDJ as the sun was kissing the horizon.
I’m very pleased with the overclock performance, and have saved the EFI settings so I can switch back to default and run stock speeds when I’m not using FSX and then with a reboot reload the settings and crank it back up for flying on weekends.
Also I’ve decided Flight Recorder isn’t good for taking photos later. It doesn’t save flight time of day or weather data, so I can recreate my flight path but not the actual conditions of the flight itself, which is disappointing. Oh well, will just return to snapping photos as I fly although it’s not like I take pictures of a lot of new stuff these days 😉
That’s going to change though. I’ve suspended airport development to take a break so with no new fields to fly to, instead this weekend I’m going to try out some of the freeware aircraft that’s been sitting on my hard drive for over a year untouched. Variety!!
Finally, I went back through my Flight Log posts and removed all the flickr gallery images and replaced them with embedded slide shows. Duh. Why the hell didn’t I think of that originally??
12:25pm, June 18th 2001 an email was delivered to my Hotmail Inbox. It was a Monday and I was probably still in school, a high school Senior ready for my final year of formal education to be over. I probably only had a few days left of classroom labor, and I was also probably only half-awake since I had no doubt been up playing Starcraft online with friends until 5am using the internet password I had hacked off my father. I had a rinky-dinky clam shell Motorola phone that had never heard of the Internet, so it was most likely later that afternoon when I got home and managed to get on the family computer (not having my own at the time) to check my email that I saw it. The sender was Dave “Myopic Rhino” Astle, one of GDNet’s co-founders. He was responding to an email I had sent him earlier about the interview I had completed with then-startup educational website Game Institute as well as the offer I had received from https://www.sodapdf.com/ to contribute to the book Game Design Perspectives, edited by François Dominic Laramée. In it he said:
Drew, I’m launching a redesign of the site this week (v3.gamedev.net), so I believe I’ll make this the featured article at launch.
I’ll hold off on the other article for now. Glad to hear about Francois’ book. He’s a great guy who definitely knows his stuff, so the book should be good.
Btw, while we’re talking, we have been discussing the possibility of bringing someone else on the staff, since Kevin and I pretty much do everything, and it’s a lot for us to handle. We haven’t actually decided that we want to bring someone else on, but if we do, is it something you’d be interested in? You’ve been one of the most active people in giving me feedback on the site, and you’ve been a major contributor of content, so we think you’d be able to help the site continue to grow. Anyway, this isn’t an offer yet, I just want to know what you think. And just so you know, we’re all doing this pretty much for free, so it’d be the same with you =)
Dave
It’s interesting now, looking back on it, how 3 very influential things in my life were all contained within a single email. First, obviously was the initial invitation from Dave to become and official member of the GameDev.net staff. Then there’s Game Institute, a company I was involved with for several years and who I still maintain ties with to this day even if I’m not actively involved anymore. I became involved with them directly from the GDNet interview. Finally there’s the book deal I was offered from Francois which later led to excellent relations with Charles River Media (now a part of Cengage Learning) that led me to be involved with the GameDev.net Collection book series as co-editor.
Soooo much awesome has happened in the years since this email was dumped into my Inbox but one thing has remained the same: I love GameDev.net and I greatly enjoy what I do here with the site and what the site itself has come to mean to thousands of developers in the industry. If any of you were scared I’d be all like – “Damn ten years!? Time to find something new to do!!” then no worries, I’m not planning to go anywhere. That said, who knows what the future holds? At least I can look back at 10 years of being directly involved with evolving GameDev.net (not counting the year or so prior of shouting from the sidelines that got me noticed 😉 ) and be satisfied at what I have accomplished with the help of many great co-workers and volunteers from the community.
Thanks once again to the co-founders Dave Astle, Kevin Hawkins and Mike Tanczos for believing in me and giving me the ability to help make this site what it has become today. Thanks also to the wonderful community that is the backbone of this site, and that has grown and matured with us over the years to turn these forums and resources into one of the best places on teh Internets to figure out how to make games.
I could probably continue to wax nostalgic for at least a couple dozen more paragraphs but it’s not like I don’t have stuff to do. Like, Weekend Reading! Onward ho!!
So the weather was a bit rough today, cloud ceiling as low as 800 feet in some areas and no higher than 1500′ pretty much everywhere. I’m still not ready to bother with IFR procedures so I took the easy way out and climbed into the helicopter so I could stay VFR and be comfortable flying at only 500 feet. Luckily N81, the airport I landed at last time, supports helicopter operations so I was able to secure one for my trip.
Two new things I used on this trip:
FSRecorder – I finally remembered to install and set up FSRecorder, which lets me record flight data to play back later. The idea for me is this way I can fly the flight, and then afterwards play it back and skip through to snap photos for my blog post later on. It’s hard sometimes (pretty much all the time in a helicopter) to fly the aircraft and snap a cool external shot at the same time, and I never want to pause the sim since I fly in real time. I will have to troubleshoot it however since when I played back my flight the Dodosim would not activate the blade animation, so I had a flying helicopter with no spinning rotors. Hence, no flight gallery for this entry!
Fullscreen windowed mode – now this is really cool. I fly in windowed mode because I have to use my other monitors sometimes to move my flight map or scroll my flight plan text file, and if I were to do that while the game was in fullscreen mode, the whole window would minimize. The downside to windowed mode, however, is that you have to see the titlebar up at the top of the screen. Well this thread on the AVSIM forums pointed me to an AutoHotkey script that resizes the window to match your screen resolution and hide the titlebar off the top of the display. Works like charm! I had gotten used to the titlebar but it’s still nice to have it gone.
Things started out okay, I was on the tarmac going through my start-up checklist at a little after 3pm, on time for a 3:30 departure. I ended up ready to go at around 3:15 so I had the smart idea of hover taxiing to the runway for takeoff rather than departing straight out. Well the taxi part went okay up until I came to the hold short line and remembered I would need to stop before entering the runway. But I was going to fast and when I tried an abrupt landing I ended up coming down a bit too hard.
So yea I had to run through the start-up procedure again and, not about to let my previous failure get the best of me, I hover taxied once more and remembered to slow down as I approached the hold short line. I ended up landing behind a Maule waiting for a Piper Cub to come in for a landing. He announced 5 miles but this is a Cub, not an Archer and so of course he was poking along probably at like 55kts at best. So I throttled down and waited. By the time the Cub was 2 miles out the Maule ahead of me timed out and disappeared off the taxiway, lol. By then there was no time to taxi on and depart so I just had to keep on waiting for the Cub to finally fly by on final. I taxied onto the runway and ran through my takeoff checklist and then departed to get out of the way of another Piper 7 miles behind me.
My first leg had me intercepting a radial from the Cedar Lake VOR, however after I reloaded post-crash it seems I forgot to set the HSI arrow to the proper radial. I didn’t realize this until I was practically atop the VOR so I had to circle a bit to get properly oriented and heading north to intercept the Turnpike as planned. I was a bit disoriented flying so low, it’s not as easy to pick out landmarks on the ground, but when I reached the Turnpike the 4 lanes was easily recognizable and I turned to follow it. About halfway up the Turnpike to N87 I started getting a bit impatient so I upped my speed from 80kts to 100kts – the good thing about 80kts is that it’s very easy to hold your attitude as you cruise along. At 100kts you need to pay very close attention to the position of your flight controls and the effect they are having on the craft. Your eyes are pretty much glued to the VSI, with sparing glances to the other instruments (mainly the altimeter) and out the window. Just glancing down to check the DME was a chore.
I circled over N87, which is a newly-finished airport I modeled, then caught another radial, this time from Robbinsville VOR, to lead me out to KBLM. I kept my speed up and managed a decent approach as I came over the airport, electing to fly straight in for the helipad rather than land on the runway and hover taxi in. Despite an approach that was, in my opinion, very well done, I ended up futzing all over the place trying to get the aircraft on the ground *sigh*. I finally managed to get on the pad (which is huge at this airport, BTW) and run through my shut-down checklist.
Overall I managed to keep my altitude +/- 100 of 500′, although there were times I took too much pressure off the stick and ended up as high as 700′ within seconds. Descending smoothly in the helicopter is difficult without inducing rotor slapping so I hate it whenever I rise too high. Besides the initial VOR snafu navigation was no problem. I added an item in my takeoff checklist to double-check I have all my nav/com instruments properly set. I also forgot to note my departure time and almost forgot to note my arrival time, so I added two more checklist items to make sure I don’t have to remember next time. I also re-ordered my start-up checklist, which had me checking fuel quantity before I toggled the master battery switch, so of course the fuel gauge wasn’t reading anything.
Weather-wise it was mainly rain here and there, plus some low-visibility (2-3nm) every now and then as well. Saw some lightning flashes light up my cockpit from behind as I flew towards Trenton, but that was about it. Winds weren’t that bad at all. Really it was just the low ceiling – I did have to swerve around a few clouds.
The reason I decided to fly back to KBLM was because the next two airfields I’m modeling this weekend are turf fields, so I plan to take out the 172 to visit them next weekend, return to KBLM and chopper back down to N81 to pick up the V35 and head out to N87 and KMIV.
I was disappointed that I screwed up my departure time for my last flight and couldn’t take off with the sunrise so I decided to try again for this one. Sort of succeeded – I ended up getting a bit too caught up in playing Dragon Age 2 to get set up in time!! Figures.
Easy flight this time, just from one airport to another. It’s been a while since I’ve flown down the Jersey Shore so I decided to take the long way from KLDJ to N81. To make things a bit more interesting though I threw in a DME arc around KACY Charlie airspace since I haven’t done one in a while and it would be coming from the opposite direction – not to mention in a totally different aircraft.
Still getting used to operating the V35B – the main issue I had to deal with this flight was trim. Ignoring the fact that I have an autopilot, because I enjoy the challenge of manually flying a plane as much as I prefer to manually drive a car, this aircraft requires throttle and trim control to get evenly trimmed. I’m talking tenths adjustment to the fuel flow since the trim increments are a bit large, so once I get near a stable trim I start playing with the throttle to keep the aircraft level. Then of course there’s the fact that I can only drain one fuel tank at a time – made even worse by the fact that this model sports wingtip tanks. Wonderful extra range but they are so far displaced from the center of gravity it doesn’t take much difference in fuel from one to make the aircraft start to bank. I have to remember to monitor the tanks and switch over every quarter to make trimming the ailerons easier. If I let my attention off the altimeter for even a minute, I can be 2-3 hundred feet higher than when I last looked!
Flying the DME arc went well. I once again stayed off 12nm from the KACY VOR and this time managed to remain within +/- 0.5nm. The only thing I forgot is that as I passed parallel to the VOR along my direction of travel the DME gauge would begin to read an increase in speed – away from the VOR. There’s really no way of telling whether the increased speed means you’re traveling to or from until you see the range update – although you can guess based on your direction of travel if you don’t get disoriented. I originally set the VOR to the HSI gauge, but before starting the arc I decided to just stick with the CDI needle on the NAV2 gauge since that’s what I used in the Cessna. One more gripe about this aircraft is that when I switch DMEs it doesn’t indicate to me which DME I’m set to, I have to guess based on the range or untune one of the NAV radios to see if the DME readout goes blank.
Pattern flying and landing went off way better when I finally reached Hammonton. Did a 45 entry into downwind after overflying the field to check the sock and brought her around on final almost perfectly lined up with the runway, but at least I was on slope. Put my flaps full down and kept my speed up at around 80kts as my cousin recommended to me and didn’t flare that much. I floated a bit still and bounced on the landing (gently!) but ultimately made it down in one piece and more importantly didn’t run out of runway 😛
I forgot to note departure and arrival times, so I modified my Before Takeoff and After Landing checklists to make sure I don’t have to remember next time.
Since I hadn’t flown in a while I wanted to earn back the lost time in a big way, so I planned to fly all day Memorial Day. Of course the day after I decide to do this I finally get word that there is going to be a BBQ at our house after all, so I had to plan in a few hours break to “socialize”. But other than that it was straight-up, non-stop flying from sun up to sun down. To make things even more interesting, I worked up four new things to do on this outing besides just flying to various airports I had modeled since my last flight:
I bought a new plane! I’ve had my eye on the Carenado V-tail Bonanza for quite a while now and finally decided to purchase it. The Cessna is still my aircraft of choice for small turf runways but I will be expanding my reach soon into Delaware and NY so the greater distance will require a faster aircraft with a longer range. Plus the Carenado craft has more accurate modeling and systems that create a better immersive experience. I must say though that I was disappointed by the breadth and quality of the documentation – although I have come to understand the reasoning behind the quality I’m still not happy with the breadth. Either way tho the plane itself is great, even if the instrumentation is harder for me to see than the Cessna. I might finally have a reason to invest in a TrackIR
I downloaded a bunch of 2004/FSX scenery from Metro Helicopters, a virtual aviation company that operates helicopter services primarily in the Manhattan airspace but also in LA as well. They have various additional scenery in the NY/NJ area that I installed and tested and planned to tackle later on in the Dodo206
I left the Scenery Complexity setting at Very Dense while flying through the Manhattan area. This was my first flight with my new i5 Sandy Bridge processor build and the extra CPU HP lets me add more detail to the Aerosoft Manhattan scenery I have installed. In addition to just making the city look denser and the heliports more busy with static aircraft and objects, it also adds new features like a landable USS Intrepid! Didn’t even know that…
I used a freeware iPhone app called ForeFlight Checklist (Lite) to enter in the checklists for the Cessna, Bonanza and Dodo (both FCUs). It was pretty slow-going and tedious using the iPhone keyboard to do them all, but I really wasn’t bout to shell out $20 just for the ability to enter them via my keyboard (there are other features of the Pro version but that’s the only compelling one for me besides the backups). Won’t deny that I considered it a few times. But once the lists are in they’re in so no worries there. Anyways I use a Joby GorrilaMobile to stand my iPhone up on my desk with the app open and it’s easy to just tap through the checklists. I used to have them open in one of my side monitors but I would have to scroll through them and every time I took focus over to their window the FSX sound would cut out (did not like using the FSX Kneeboard). With the checklists more accessible now, I find myself remembering to use them more often!
So how did the day go? Well I crashed each aircraft once, and it was obvious in general that I hadn’t flown for a while – but still had a good time! Got to dodge around some clouds, rain and even thunderstorms. The overall plan consisted of taking the Cessna around to all the turf fields that I had yet to visit, and then hopping into the Bonanza for the asphalt fields, and then taking the chopper out over Manhattan to stick some pads. You’ll notice I suspended my 60nm per leg rule – there were just too many airports I had to hit. Here are the highlights, the full details can be found in the Flight Plan.
Leg 1: C01 – JY31
I meant to depart at 5:30 – not 6:30 yet I wrote 6:30 in the blasted PTD (Planned Time Departure) field so that’s when I woke up to fly. This meant I missed the sunrise, so that was disappointing since the early fields I was visiting actually had edge lighting to make the early arrivals worthwhile. That’s what I get for flight planning while tired. My route towards the field actually set me up for a straight in approach so I took it. Generally for small unattended fields you should fly over them to check the sock for winds and make sure the field is in suitable condition to land on. However I had a weather report from KWWD a stone’s throw away and the runway was long enough so I just flew in hot to be ready for an aborted landing if I needed.
My departure was late thanks to having to troubleshoot a sound problem so I could split my voice/sounds audio between headphones and speakers.
Leg 2: JY31 – JY04
All I have to say for this leg is I’m glad I got into the habit of checking for VOR identifiers! I tuned into the NAV1 beacon I was homing in on and heard a different Morse code than what I had noted in my flight plan, so I checked the chart on my side monitor and the code matched what I had in my plan so then I checked the frequency I had entered and realized I was tuned to the wrong VOR! One of many stupid ways to get lost, glad I didn’t fall for this one (but don’t worry I screw up later).
Leg 3: JY04 – 9NJ6
Halka Nurseries approach almost did me in – I forgot (and didn’t check – stupid) that there were power lines with actual wires strung up on the approach to Rwy18. I remembered that there was a displaced threshold (not marked) at the same time I saw the power lines – luckily I was still high enough to stay above them but I didn’t even want to hit the replay to see how close I came to them.
Leg 6: JY17 – JY08
The weather had been dodgy all morning – clouds here and there, some low some not so low. I was weaving and bobbing to stay out of them. On approach to JY08 I actually saw some lighting off to the north. I cruised that way a bit to try and screencap some flashes but I was always too slow on the capture button. I did hear some thunder roll through my home area as I began my flight earlier in the morning and the REX weather radar showed severe storms moving through central NJ. Luckily they cleared out as forecast before I headed up that way. Also thankfully they didn’t bring any nasty winds with them!
Leg 7: JY08 – 9NJ8
This was one of two legs for the day that topped 60nm (in fact both came in around 100nm). I had time before departure so I used it to double check the weather ahead since I would be going through central Jersey, and I found it all clear but waited until my ETD rolled around to takeoff. Unfortunately I didn’t let me engine ramp up enough before releasing the brakes and didn’t get enough speed to make it off the ground before running into some trees. Fail.
Luckily that was the first time I remembered to save my flight before taking off! So saved it from being an Epic Fail.
After reloading I tried again and still barely managed to clear the trees at the end. Dunno if it was my operation of the aircraft or the fact that I didn’t bother to check runway length and takeoff distances (*whistles innocently*) but at least I made it out alive this time. As I climbed to cruise altitude I contacted PHL APP to request Bravo transition – of course I was approved. I had an alternate route planned in the event of not being allowed into the Bravo airspace and considered simulating ATC denying me but ultimately decided that would have no benefit for me. Planning the alternate route was the beneficial exercise, not actually flying it. Had I been denied I would have flown to the intersection of the two VOR radials I plotted that would keep me below the Bravo shelf and out of the surface airspace.
Granted clearance, I continued to climb but soon found myself in the clouds – well in between the cloud layers at least. Rather than waste fuel and time dodging around and over clouds, I decided to drop back down to the deck and head west for the river early rather than follow the NJ Turnpike northeast with the clouds. I also tried to maintain a proper 500ft vertical separation below the cloud layer – but later on I double checked and realized at this low height it’s just simply “stay out of the clouds”. Regardless, I did so.
Because I was now below 2700ft I had to call Trenton to get Class D clearance as I continued along the Delaware River north. Again, no problem and there was no traffic as I passed through and announced myself clear (almost forgot!)
Now here’s where I screwed up my VOR navigation. I thought the VOR radial was along my route to the airport, but it was instead tangental to my route. I should have made a note that the VOR was just backup and I had originally planned to VFR navigate the whole way along the river until I spotted the airport. So anyways as I noticed my DME showing me heading towards the VOR instead of away from it, I decided I had missed my radial and turned around. But then I started heading towards it again and realized it was not in the direction I thought it was. So I checked the chart and realized I had the wrong VOR location in mind. Hence arriving almost 10 minutes late.
Pattern Practice
Once I arrived back at KBLM I taxied over to one of the hangars to store away the Cessna until I need it again for smaller turf fields. Then I loaded up the V35B in another one of the hangars and proceeded to create a new profile for my yoke, quadrant and HOTAS to take in additional features of this craft like a variable-pitch propeller, cowl flaps and landing gear – things the Cessna does not have. Next I started her up – which took a few tries until I realized that you can’t select both of the fuel tanks like you can in the Cessna, so I selected one of the tanks instead of leaving the fuel selector in the (what I now know as) OFF position and got the engine started. Imagine that.
So I took off for some pattern practice – mainly for landings but also just to get a feel of the aircraft and to practice patterns in general. However a steady stream of air traffic made things rather complicated. I had to fly a missed approach the first time simply because I was too high thanks to rushing my approach to beat in another aircraft, and the next time I came around a Piper Cub taxied onto the runway and made me shoot the missed approach again. The third time I finally managed to slot in between two arriving aircraft and get on the ground in one piece (though not without audible complaint from the aircraft). However after that it was time for departure on the next leg. Oh and no my patterns were not that great either 😛
Leg 10: KBLM – KFWN
My first leg in the Bonanza was the longest one to give me the most time to accustom to cruising in the plane, even though I would still be doing it under varying circumstances thanks to the Hudson Corridor SFRA. Before even that however I planned to fly over Sandy Hook. As a national park area, you need to be at least 2000ft above it, and when I got up there I saw some lowish clouds hovering in the area so I decided to divert around the Hook and duck down early to slide under the NYC Bravo shelf. From there it was an even further drop down to 1200ft to prepare to enter the SFRA. Transiting craft should operate from 1000 – 1299 feet so 1200 is a nice height that leaves you some room to bump up and down a little. For once I was also in an aircraft that can cruise faster than 140kts so I had to watch my speed upon entering as well. Finally I pre-composed what I would need to transmit on the CTAF as I passed by/over various landmarks along the way.
The Hudson transit went okay, although I found the elevator trim to be way more sensitive than the C172 so I was bobbing quite a bit but didn’t break ceiling – well okay maybe once for a few seconds. I’m sure ATC didn’t notice. I also said “twelve hundred feet” in my first location call but then switched to “one thousand, two hundred” for later calls. I guess the former would have been fine since it’s more concise. It’s a CTAF not an official ATC channel so I bet people have their own tweaks to the general usage. Once clear of the corridor I was still underneath Bravo airspace so I rose up as high as I could and waited to intercept the VOR radial that would let me know I was out from under the airspace and could rise up further to cruise altitude.
And waited…. and waited…
Finally I realized I had done something wrong again. Sure I haven’t had too much experience with an HSI gauge since all the C172 has are CDI needles but I was pretty sure I had set the thing right and the yellow line should have dropped down to complete the arrow. So I gave the OBS card a spin around and noticed that the arrow never lined up under any orientation. I double-checked that a To/From flag was displayed to confirm it was receiving a VOR signal and then finally toggled the NAV/GPS switch. The needle came alive. Argh! 😛
Leg 11: KFWN – KCDW
So there are two things about KFWN that make it unique (not really in a good way): one is that the taxiways are in such bad shape they don’t have any markings on them anymore and two, part of the main taxiway leading down to Rwy03 is so broken down you can’t even use it, which means you have to taxi back on the runway to take off. Sooo I land on Rwy21 but realize that the crosswind is really more in favor of Rwy03. I turn around to taxi back to where I exited the runway and all this time I had blatantly ignored the CTAF comms. I get to the runway and realize there’s no hold short marker. I know, deep down, that I should hold short anyways just because that’s what you’re supposed to do before entering any runway. But I decide to buck the system and just cruise on out… right underneath a Beech Baron on short final. I’m sure you can imagine my chagrin upon hearing over the CTAF:
“KFWN traffic, Beech [identifier] flying the missed approach”
Ok ok FINE I’ve learned my lesson.
Leg 12: KCDW – N05
I guess in retrospect N05, despite having an asphalt runway, was really a field I should have visited in the Cessna. But before I get to that, I wanted to note that I had to follow some departure procedures from Caldwell, which isn’t an everyday occurrence. Always be sure to read the airport remarks section for special details like these.
But anyways I arrived at N05 and had to clear some trees on approach – probably wouldn’t have been a problem except that I had still not gotten a good feel for the way the Bonanza descends on final so I ended up kinda popping over the trees and diving for the runway, then pulling up and hovering until I touched down about halfway down and a millisecond before I was about to shove the throttle back forward. But instead I just stood on the brakes. I forgot the tactic of lowering the rest of your flaps to bring further weight and drag down on your rear (was at approach flaps only) and I actually skidded off the end of the runway and to a stop like a foot from the road.
Okay so landing instead of balking the approach wasn’t the best decision I’ve made.
Leg 13: N05 – KLDJ
This leg’s VOR gaffe is hilarious. So okay I’m departing N05 and already have the OBS tuned to a radial that will lead me to my first VOR waypoint so I can turn to it right after takeoff and climb out. So I take off and once established in the climb go to turn on the radial, but the HSI needle has already become completely misaligned. So I start rotating the OBS and turning towards the needle, but for every few seconds of turn the needle alignment falls out before I can reach the radial. Eventually (and none too soon I am sad to admit) I realize it’s impossible for me to align with any radial because I’m circling the VOR at a distance of less than a mile. Okay, seriously. No more flight planning when I’m tired because I have no idea why I planned to tune into a VOR 2nm from the damn airport!!
So I jumped straight to the second VOR that I should have just vectored to in the first place, and continued on my merry (frustrated) way.
Flying the approach to Linden I found myself sandwiched between a Piper and a Bombardier. Having a freaking jet on my tail I think caused me to rush the approach a bit, but it could also have just been my inexperience with the plane’s approach profile – either way I smacked down on the pavement too hard and triggered a complete crash.
Last airport. Figures.
Quick note: my alternate destination was planned with clear weather in mind – there was a chance I would arrive at KLDJ with thunderstorms looming so 47N was the weather alternate.
Heli Ops Around Manhattan
After dinner and spending time at the BBQ downstairs, it was back in the cockpit behind the stick of a Dodo206. Taking off from Linden, which was always the plan after arriving in the V35B, I flew the LINDEN route up to the NEWARK route that put me over the lower NYC harbor area. There I started taking stock of the Very Dense Manhattan scenery swinging by KJRB for a quick stopover and then a hop over to 6N5 for another short break before heading up the East River, across Central Park and landing on the deck of the USS Intrepid aircraft carrier museum. Next I weaved haphazardly through some high rises (wheeeeee!) and set her down on top of the MetLife building where the old Pan-Am heliport is located.
Next I flew out across Long Island, past the Jones Beach monument I now have a scenery object for, and out to the Freedom of the Seas, a Royal Caribbean cruise ship with a helipad on the prow. It was a 35-minute flight to get out there – wish it was closer. It took me three missed approaches and in general a good deal of hovering and futzing around, but I finally manged to set down smack dab in the middle of the helipad. That was very rewarding.
I departed the Freedom and headed back to Manhattan to arrive just as sunset was kicking in and making the sky beautiful, however things came to a fiery end when I attempted to nail the helipad atop the 111 Wall St building. It was even smaller than the cruise ship helipad and I was having so much trouble seeing it – I finally ended up descending off to the side of it rather than on it and crashed into the building. Plus after a full day of flying and having basically every other helicopter landing that evening be an exercise I was probably just tired. Scratch that, I am tired 😛
The winters can be cruel to everyone, but since they reside outdoors 24/7 for a good few months of the year, our driveways take a particularly harsh beating. Between constant freeze-thaw cycles, shifting, and undulation, asphalt and cement driveways are a mess by the time spring rolls around.
It doesn’t matter what type of driveway you have either, they’ll all be singing the winter blues by the end of the season. Water can seep into a concrete driveway and tear it apart from the inside as it thaws and refreezes continuously throughout the winter. Asphalt driveways can bubble and warp from all the moisture that gets trapped below. Even the mortar between brickwork can suffer from salt, snow, and ice. Find out the best small load ready mix concrete near me.
And driveway repairs are a complicated matter, frequently requiring heavy-duty machinery or materials. So what’s a homeowner to do once the winter has gone and the damage starts to surface? Here’s a quick guide on what touch-ups you can do on your own and exactly how to repair your driveway from the winter apocalypse.
General Driveway Repair Tips
Start by assessing the cause of the damage. Was it the type of de-icer you used? Was it the freeze-thaw cycle that got under your driveway material? Are you using a metal shovel that is wearing away at your driveway’s surface? Knowing what caused the problem will help you prevent issues in the future and address the current issues.
Measure driveway cracks to determine if this is a DIY or pro job. Anything less than ¼ inch (6.3 mm) wide can be tackled by a homeowner. Much bigger and you risk doing more damage than good.
Clean up any gas, oil, or paint stains using kitty litter, or pressure wash the surface for a clean finish.
Asphalt Driveway Care
Most driveway care starts with repairing the cracks that already exist and ends with a good sealant. Here are some specific tips for asphalt driveways.
Use asphalt-patching products to fill in the cracks. Clean out the cracks before applying the filler so the solution takes a firm grip on the material it is binding to.
Fix depressions in asphalt driveways by cutting out the problem area and replacing it with a new patch of asphalt. This is generally a pro job, but if you opt to do it yourself, remember to lay down extra gravel before pouring hot asphalt to prevent the issue from reoccurring. You can also use cold patching products to get the job done.
Use a coal-tar or asphalt-emulsion sealer on asphalt.
Cement Driveway Care
Cement driveways also require cleaning, filling, and sealing.
A quick cement mix and concrete resurfacer can help fill in the cleaned out cracks and make the driveway look as good as new. A handy DIYer can clean the surface, remove hanging pieces from the crack, mix the material, fill in the cracks, and spread the resurfacer all on their own.
Use a trowel to get the mixture deep into the crack and smooth it out on top.
Apply a second coat to the surface of the concrete driveway the next day after the first one has dried.
Siloxane and acrylic sealants will work best on concrete driveways.
Other Helpful Driveway Fixing Up Tips
Here are a few helpful tricks that you can use when repairing your driveway this spring.
Studded snow tires ruin your driveway. Fill in these holes after a long winter of riding your plow or truck across the cement.
Use a wire brush to get off any loose bits when cleaning and prepping a crack.
Sealant should be applied every 3-5 years depending on the weather and quality of sealant.
It was nice to stretch my virtual wings again for the first time in two weeks and also finally make a trip back to Monmouth-Executive Airport (KBLM) which is the airfield nearest to my house and thus my “home field”. Since KBLM is only 13.3nm away from my last destination (3N6 Old Bridge) and my personal trip rules specify ranges of at least 60nm, I had to come up with a round-about path of travel to get there. I decided to simply VOR navigate around the NYC Bravo airspace (yea, I’ve conformed to convention and have stopped calling it “Class B”) and then punch right through it north to south using the Hudson River Special Flight Rules Area. That brought the trip up to a nice 138.7nm (estimated).
Although my departure time called for 6:30, I got home late from Boston (I was at PAX East this weekend) and had to scramble to get the sim and controls set up – I wasn’t even ready to taxi until 6:35. Then I made it to the runway hold short and was going through my Before Takeoff checklist and one of the items on there was to check fuel levels, which I did and noticed that I was below 1/4 tank from my last flight. D’oh!! So I had to taxi back to the parking area to refuel, which means I didn’t end up departing until 6:56pm. On the plus side, one of the things I haven’t mentioned much in my flight logs is how sucky I am at taxiing. I usually end up going to fast and over-correcting on the rudder pedals for propeller torque. Well, taxiing to and then from and then to the runway at 3N6 today for some reason I was able to finally manage the throttle properly to keep my speed manageable and it didn’t look like a drunk person was behind the controls.
So this was a pretty straightforward flight, consisting of elements I have done time and time again in earlier flights. Climb out from 3N6 and establishing cruise altitude/trim all went smoothly, at the same time I turned on course and dialed in the OBI needle for the first VOR. This doesn’t sound like much but it’s quite a feat of multitasking for me still. The air was pretty turbulent so I was bumping around a bit – it doesn’t help that I’m not packing a lot of extra weight besides fuel, which is actually one of the reasons I top off my tanks for each flight besides just not having to worry about running out. There weren’t any serious up/down drafts however, just chop. I tuned into NY Approach for flight following for a while but then just decided to rely on my eyeballs and the fact that aircraft are extremely easy to see at night time (in FSX).
After the VOR hopping I transitioned to the VFR segment of the flight down the Hudson River. Again, no problems besides dealing with frames in the high single digits as I flew past the city. Need. New. CPU. My graphics card (ATI 5870) can handle it but my processor (Intel E6600) is a bit laggy, even when its overclocked. I have my eyes on a Sandy Bridge. I usually just disable AI traffic, but I wanted to ensure I had some planes ready to arrive at KBLM when I got there, so I left it running and just dealt with the choppy frames. Luckily it’s hard seeing the ground textures at night so the fact that they barely loaded wasn’t a big issue.
Arriving at KBLM a Piper Archer announced 12nm out on final for Runway 32 (all AI aircraft fly straight in approaches) so I entered 45-degrees into the downwind leg and waited until she passed me and announced 3nm out before turning base and final to queue up behind her. I was about 2nm out myself when she announced clear of the runway and I made my final descent in to land. Again, frames were an issue here. I did such a great job adding all sorts of bells and whistles to this airport because it’s my home airport that my frame rates nose dive near single digits when I’m viewing the bulk of the airport. However I managed to at least stay on the runway and not crash. I taxied off and on the way to a hangar (there are 7 open) I had to wait for more arriving traffic so I could cross the runway – love it when FSX feels so “alive” like that.
Other than missing the fuel check before taxiing, this flight was entirely routine. I did run a bit long on my base leg and had to hook it back to line up with the runway properly for landing, but that was the biggest gaffe of the flight. I even arrived within 5 minutes (adjusted time for delayed departure) of my Estimated Time of Arrival, which I think is pretty good considering the distance covered.
Plus flying at night is always a totally different experience, and a great way to practice some IFR techniques in VFR conditions.
This week I return to developing some new airports. I’m going to try and run a heli shuttle to/from the city to get some more time in the Dodo next weekend before visiting some of the new fields in the Cessna.