FastCargo

I've heard that too...in any hobby, there are folks who take it a little far... FC

1. As far as I can tell, you can only change the type and size of the font (which changes the overall size of the loading bar). You can also change the location. But that's about it. 2. There is only a list of the various acronyms and what they mean (AHM, SAHM, etc), there is no "This number is this type of weapon" list anywhere. The best way folks have been making weapons is taking another weapon that works in a similar fashion, and change the parameters to the weapon that you want. FC

What really sucks about this is that now the feds may consider getting involved and make a law prohibiting such devices on the flight deck. One of the things we fight in my civilian job on back side of the clock flying is boredom...not having enough stress is just as dangerous as too much. Electronic devices (non-transmitting) can be just as much of a help as something like a book, sudoku, crosswords, etc. The trick, as with anything else, is a good crosscheck. One person craps in their pants, and the rest of us have to wear diapers... FC

Saturn 5 technology was reliable, had tons of throw weight capability, and was proven (hell, Apollo 12 was STRUCK BY LIGHTING DURING ASCENT and still made it to orbit). The biggest issue with getting things to orbit is that it takes fuel to move weight. But you also need fuel to carry fuel, and that additional fuel needs additional weight to the structure to store it....you get the idea. That's why traditional staging is efficient, because you get rid of 'dead weight' as you use up fuel. Which means more of your total liftoff weight can be dedicated to your payload. You can already see the issue. The shuttle configuration required lifting a structure the size of a DC-9 to orbit, not including the payload. This is why the shuttle was built as a semi-reuseable system, to increase the payload fraction (the amount of total liftoff weight taken up by payload). The original proposals for fully reusable systems resulted in very large, very complex, very expensive to develop systems that didn't have sufficient payload fraction. So now, you have the worst of both worlds...staging, so you dispose of parts of your rocket with every launch, and reusable, so you have to lift a lot of weight that has to be returned back to earth...reducing the amount you can throw into orbit (yep, it was designed by politics...no, I'm not kidding). And don't get me started on using non-throttleable, non-shutoff capable solid rocket boosters on a man-rated spacecraft... Our current technology level to get to LEO needs to fall into one of 2 camps...either fully reusuable, with an acceptance of low throw weight, or a BDB (Big Dumb Booster), which has high throw weight, but disposable rockets. I personally think we should have had both...Saturn 5 tech to send up your large cargo items, and a small reuseable spaceplane (think Dyna-Soar) for crew or small payloads only. This is my opinion of course...I'd be curious as to what Jedi has to say about it... FC

Look at the video tutorials, and also, read the ThirdWire exporter notes. Aircraft do not use 'bones' like you think of for other types of modeling. FC

I wish I did have Phantom time... Anyway, thanks for the comments guys. I figured everyone in our hobby has encountered this kind of individual at one time or another... FC

That's not a texture problem, it's a LOD problem. You are missing the 3d model for that particular aircraft. Also, you are no longer running a stock install if you've added mods. Check how you installed the mod to make sure all the files needed were included. FC

Not easily, not legally. FC

You didn't use the materials editor to properly assign TGAs to the parts, including activating the Opacity and Self-Illumination parameters. As far as shadows, there is a thread someone else asked the same question. The answer is yes, just like any other ground or air object, the appropriate lines have to be written in the ini file. FC

Well, we actually do use laptops in the cockpit for flying purposes, that in and of itself isn't unusual. It would be the equal of using paper schedules to point out things to each other. However, again, even losing comm isn't necessarily a huge deal, it sometimes happens, but usually gets fixed pretty quickly with a guard call or just "Hey, I haven't heard from anyone in a while, let me call center...". But the amount of time out of comm and the very large overshooting of their destination...I can't fathom how that happened AT ALL. Seriously, I haven't a clue on this one other than they were both sleeping. FC

I would also recommend "Phantom Over Vietnam" by John Trotti. http://www.amazon.com/Phantom-Over-Vietnam-Fighter-Pilot/dp/0891415998 An account of flying USMC Phantoms for 2 tours in Vietnam. Most excellent book...less technical, more personal. FC

Please cut your signature down to something more manageable. FC

Not all aircraft listed are flyable in any series of ThirdWire sim. However, you can make any aircraft flyable. http://forum.combatace.com/topic/20789-how-to-make-ai-planes-flyable/ The Knowledge Base is your friend. FC

http://www.snopes.com/photos/military/pearlharbor.asp FC

Which aircraft? Post the data and loadout.inis. FC

The 'transonic wave' as it is inaccurately called, only occurs at certain speeds and certain humidity levels. Outside of that, you won't see such a thing. FC

That Dyess patch is CLASSIC! I wish I had that one when I was there.... FC

Actually, it's a bit more complicated than that. I have a few models (actually, most) with holes in them that don't do this sort of thing. And based on my very recent project (classified), I think I have figured out why. The big thing is if the sim determines by looking at a mesh if it considers it 'convex' or 'concave'. Specifically, imagine taking all the 'holes' and doing a 'cap' on it, then look at the mesh and see if it consistently bows outward or inward. If it bows outward, then the sim will say it casts a shadow. If it bows inward, then it will say it doesn't. Where the lines come in is if the sim gets confused because something is connected or welded were it shouldn't be. An example would be say if you had a mesh that had two elements that were completely closed (lets say two complete oil barrels on top of each other). If you then were to weld those vertices where the barrels join, the verticies might weld, and now you have shape with 2 internal bulkheads taking the same space in the same mesh. The sim gets confused, and the shadow gets messed up. The way to solve it is either make them two seperate meshes, or at least 2 separate elements. When I've been approaching my model builds that way, I haven't had any problems with shadows. FC

"Stop touching the feet!" FC

Though most of them were fakes of course, a couple stand out. First, the aircraft painted up to look like a 787 Dreamliner is actually a real aircraft called the 747 LCF Dreamlifter. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Boeing_747-400(LCF)_Dreamlifter.jpg It's used to carry 787 wings from Japan to the US in about 8 hours. Secondly, the flying wing aircraft, though not real of course, were featured in a Air and Space Smithsonian magazine issue about what aviation might look like at the 150 year anniversary of the Wright Brothers first flight. FC

Guaranteed they were bitching about the Delta/Northwest merger, ALPA, management,etc. Morons. I've lost comm before....but never flown PAST my destination...and that's in the middle of the friggin night. FC

For everyone's information, hacking a LOD to change a name of a bmp, or a bmp to a TGA does not do anything for you in terms of making parts disappear. Worse, anything that uses that particular bmp/tga will be affected too. In other words, say you change the reference to a TGA file and make the pitot disappear. Any other mesh that used that bmp will now disappear too. LOD hacking is not recommend unless you REALLY know what the hell you are doing and what the consequences are. FC

"To fly west, my friend, is a flight we all must take for a final check." - Author Unknown Goodbye Oliver, you will be missed. S!