ironroad

Bless their families, they are going to need every ounce of support they can get.

Laws needed to made; however, it appears that the FAA just violated its own mandates set by Congress. It was a "ruling" made by hysteria and not common sense. Laser pointers are just as dangerous to aircrews as RC aircraft are. IMHO the government was beyond the curve on this one, failed to acknowledge that civilians have access to tech to use to be exclusive to the military, tech companies, or wealthy enthusiast. Furthermore, a lot of state/local governments have been PO'ed for many years because they want to be able to openly regulate and tax the hobby, while gaining open access and approval by the FAA for "drone" tech for law enforcement purposes. Just as note, I'm not against any regulation of the RC hobby but I'm against regulation that is made to strictly made to "deny" while not protecting the rights of hobbyist. I doubt the government is ready to offer the same protection to "toys" or prosecute those that attack them because they now have declared everything over a certain weight an "aircraft". Some states have taken it upon themselves to file charges, but I doubt the federal government is going to pursue charges against some angry paranoid self-centered farmer with a shotgun that shoots down his neighbor's drone because it was spying on him.

Sorry for the long ranting post, but something about this really bothers me, it makes me wonder "what's next"? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The 21st of December marks the first day of DOTs/FAA requirement for any rc aircraft over .55 oz to be registered with the United States Federal Government. What does that mean? ANYONE flying something in the airspace, regardless if you are operating from private property, flying your kid's Christmas toy, or flying with professionals an rc/hobby event, has to register they name and address as if they were registering a full-sized aircraft. http://techcrunch.com/2015/12/21/the-faas-drone-registration-site-is-now-up-and-running/ http://www.wsj.com/articles/faa-to-require-most-drones-to-be-registered-and-marked-1450110318 http://www.cnet.com/news/heres-what-you-need-to-know-to-register-your-drone/ How did this come to be? In my opinion, the same way most regulations in the U.S. have been brought about in the last three decades (across multiple presidential administrations and multiple sessions of Congress), knee-jerk reactions to the government's inability to keep up with modern consumer technology and look ahead to possible trends instead of political infighting and political careers. Now I have always been moderate in my views and have a pretty decent understanding of how our U.S. federal system works (political science, governmental administration, and history were my areas of concentration as an undergraduate many years ago). I have come to the conclusion that "knee jerk" reactions in law and rule making making almost always lead to more problems down the road for everyone, including those "making" them. RC flying has existed as a hobby since the late 1930ss. "Drones" (a term that has been perverted by the media and a clueless public to mean any RC aircraft with a camera) have existed since the tail end of World War II, as their development was pretty much on par with guided munitions/"smart bombs" (something the public thinks has only existed since the 1991 Persian Gulf War). However, since most RC aircraft no longer require hours of building and tinkering in the garage and even more hours of flying time, anyone at any skill level can get their hands of something that uses to only be a niche market for enthusiast with time and money on their hands. Can RC aircraft kill? Yes, for decades hobbyist have noted that their hobby requires skill and patience and bad accidents can happen. But unlike the gasoline and kerosene powered beasts of yesteryear most of the available aircraft on today's market are battery powered and are made of cheap polymers, foams, and plastics. But the worry about today's aircraft isn't about accidental killing, but more about worries by people who are professional "meddlers". On one hand, you have government employees/agencies looking to justify their positions and budgets. They believe that there is some secret terrorist society training to strap sticks of dynamite to rc toys in order to fly them into important places or people, something reminiscent of one of Wile E Coyote's schemes to catch the road runner (most consumer rc aircraft can barely lift their own weight, let alone alone an extra pound of explosive material). Then there are the "rubes" who believe that there is a secret society of expertly trained RC perverts, hiding in the shadows ready to spy on their home, property, and children. If the government does not take care of the "drone problem" then grandpa and his shotgun will. I really see this whole "ruling" by DOT/FAA ending badly for all parties, either through sheer embarrassment or by litigation. The executive did an "end-run" around Congress's own laws/mandates that initially declared RC aircraft were a hobby and could not be regulated by the FAA http://www.modelaircraft.org/files/hr658_020112.pdf . They got around it by getting the DOT to declare anything over a certain weight an "aircraft", but they stopped short of calling any RC hobbyists "pilots". IMHO, due to the niche nature of the hobby, it is low enough on the pole for most people not to care (unless they think the gang of perverted terrorist are coming to track them down) and just enough legal play with words that certain categories won't draw the attention of Congress and the courts. In my opinion, too little regulation leads to large catastrophic problems later, either in the system or in society at large and too much regulation stifles rights, innovation, and growth. Ideally it would be a "zero sum" gain, everyone would either get something or no one anything. But in some cases it is best to completely leave government/bureaucracy completely out for the good of personal rights and freedoms. A bad precedent has been set.

I have been subscribed to this gentleman's Youtube channel for some time, but I must admit I just found this and my respect for him just went through the roof. He remade an entire documentary using FSX. I have to bow before the master, I can only dream of having such talent.

Militia Training

Had no idea they still had any.

F3Hs, F-8s, and F-4s operating off the same ship. Looks like they may have been training squadrons.

Most large airports, regardless of country, use arresting cables, barriers, and/or runway "overrun" areas at the end of each runway to recover damaged aircraft. Also, most runways are thicker at the ends, where the touch down markings are, to handle crash/hard landings; however, just because a runway is "long" does not mean it is rated to handle aircraft/equipment above a certain weight. Nor does it mean it can handle situations beyond certain "stress points" (i.e. big boys like the 747 and C-5 are limited on the types of runways they can "slam into without the material underneath giving away or hot exhaust gases from fighters can melt certain runways). During the Vietnam war, US Marine air base at Chu Lai was so short that they had no choice but to use catapults and arresting gear to launch and recover aircraft (A-4s during the early years). Also prior to 1965, Da Nang had to use arresting gear and temporary matted runways to recover the Marine aircraft based there. After American involvement was stepped up Da Nang expanded and became a large hub for just about everything that few in and out of South Vietnam.

That was probably the most soothing and calm crash landing ever. He was probably narrating the whole thing

A short film on the VMFA-323's role in the Vietnam War and a short history on the build up of Da Nang Air Base durin the height of American involvement in the war.

Is it a frame rate hog? I jut upgraded my system to an I5, got rid of all my mechanical drives, and jumped ram up to 16 gb, I'm looking for something for it to cut its teeth into.

Holy crap this is awesome, you can relive history without having to leave home.

Big thanks to MadDog80 for the awesome Bayou Militia Skin

Any Video Converter is good for converting clips before you run them through Movie Maker if they are in some wierd format, but if the clips are your general Mp4, WMV, MpegII, etc. WMM should be able to read it any no conversion is needed. Conversly, you could also load the clips straight to a hosting program like Youtube and do your editing there, but it is not as convient as using a program on your system. Audacity is good to use, a lot of the audio I used in my past videos I would run in Audacity first in order to do the "mixing", change pitch, tone, etc. For example, I could never find the right "claxon" sound and echo for some of my videos so I just made one in Audacity by running a few high-pass filters and mixing a number of sound effects (you can skip to 1:12 to hear how it turned out). For the 720P output, once it is rendered that is the resolution it is stuck at. You can, "upscale" but the sharpness and clarity are going ot suffer, hence why it is best to render a video at the highest resolution possible prior to uploading (besides video hosters like Youtube are known for nuking resolutions and frame rates).

Go show Migbuster, the thing I like about most newer tablets is that they can easily take an 64GB or large SD card which can be had for cheap. I like my Nvidia Shield, the fact that it came with Nvidia Hub and had so many consoule ports offered for free was the main selling point for me. Plus I can stream from my NVIDIA card onto the tablet to play games like War Thunder or Grand Theft Auto, but I haven't really found a need for that.

Windows Movie Maker and Lightworks are probably your best bet in regards to "free" video editors and they are what I primarily rely on to edit and make my videos. The most recent version of Movie Maker was "dumbed down" and limits your ability to merge more than one audio track, do picture in picture (PIP) type effects, and you have less control over the output of the video (only WMV or low bitrate MP4 are avialble for HD at a res of 1980 x 1080, no 2k or 4k is availble) Lightworks is techinically free, but it has a steep learning curve and can be a bit finicky. However, unlike Movie Maker you have more tools at your disposal like filters, lighting effects, masking tracks, merging several audio/video tracks that can play concurrently and you have more control over your video output. However, there is one big catch. While you have more "tools" than movie maker, you are limited to an output of 720P in the "free" version of Lightworks. The full verison of the program ranks just below Sony Vegas or Adobe Premier, two awesome programs that I advise you to try out for free for 30-60days you have a chance, but at the full version price of Light Works you might as well just purchase Vegas, Adobe, or Corel's Video Studio. To wrap up this wall of text, my advice, if you want to do something quick and dirty an in HD for free, just use Windows Moview Maker and make sure to turn your video output bitrate as high as the program will allow. If you want to get in depth video editing for free, I suggest playing around with the free version of Lightworks or playing around with a trial verson of Vegas, and then buying Sony Vegas, Adobe Premier, or Video Studio.

All things must come to an end so I present you my closing videos for the DCS video series I started over a year ago titled Eleven. The close is a three part video, with the first video titled : The Mighty Eagle The second video consists of the credits and a thanks to all of you for your advice, support, and critiques of my video edits. Finally, the last video is a tribute to the American Airman, particularly my father who served the United States during the Cold War period once in military uniform then again as a law enforcement officer. Perhaps the creative bug may bite me again and I may start a new project, but until then this is it! Hope all of combatace's service men and women from all the world's nations had a wonderful Veterans/Armistice day.

I'm ok I guess, I really haven't gotten into the scripting aspect of DCS's editor like I did with Operation Flashpoint, ARMA, or JANE's F-15 and F-18. I really wish DCS had a better AI logic, in the sense of being able to have, or at least script, large flight packages like in Falcon4, GCI/IADs in Jane's, or having truly reactionary forces like in Op Flashpoint. As for the music, it was probably used in one the many military documentaries shown on TV or cranked out on VHS in 1980s or 1990s. I remember hearing in a few documentaries on Operation Desert Storm. The composer is a UK guy by the name of Alan Hacksaw. He and a lot of his contemporaries cranked out volume after volume of generic corporate/documentary soundtrack music during the 70s-90s. Most of it was used for news shows in the US or UK, sports films, or military documentaries. Thankfully Youtube's content ID caught it and gave me the information on the copyright holder. I always try my best to get the original composer or the rights owner info and make sure my videos don't get monetized.

I just completed another video as part of my series XI (eleven) Part 11 Charlie titled We are the Night. This video is a bit degraded in quality for several reasons: First, it was filmed during DCS night hours and capturing night scenes in DCS is a while different beast in terms of quality when comparing to daylight hours. *To get "clearer nights" for your rendered video it is better to film during dawn or dusk hours and then place a "virtual" pseudo filter on the clips during the video editing process. However, in this video I wanted all the night distortions to be intact. I wanted it to try to simulate the level of strain that comes with looking through NVGs, and the particles, debris, fog, etc. that gets stirred up in the late night and early morning hours due to atmospheric effects. Second, to do some of the effects for this video (i.e. night vision, FLIR, etc.) I had to switch video editing programs and use a program I am unfamiliar with called Lightworks. Lightworks is a powerful tool and I would rank far ahead of windows movie maker (but still far behind Sony Vegas) in terms of abilities and usability. On the plus side. there is a completely free version of the program available and there are no trial or rendering time limitations. Unfortunately Lightworks is not intuitive, has a steep learning curve, and the free version has some rendering limitations (i.e. file type and quality). Finally, Youtube kills uploaded video quality. You can capture, edit, and render clips with a moderate level of quality and ok framerate and they will look decent on your machine (or if transferred via physical media). However, upload them to Youtube, or a similar mass sharing online streaming service, and it is like cooking prime rib in the microwave. I understand that things have to be compressed to be effectively uploaded and shared online as space is a premium and servers don't pay for themselves. So when creating a video I always capture and render it at the highest level of quality possible, even it means dropping the frame rate drastically. You can easily get away with 24-30fps and still have a smooth and "cinematic" looking video. *This is my first ever video were none of the flying is done by me. All AI sycophants.

Elected officials need to know that there are " "consulting" jobs ready for them after they leave office.

A piece of history narrated by one of the test pilots.

I just finished part B of Fallen Angel: A Hero's Welcome To provide some context for this videos the play list for this video series (which I started over a year ago) can be found here: XI Parts 1-7: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJqAZtXkKIWWn7anCGs8wmixcJHgStnri XI Parts 1-8 and interlude: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJqAZtXkKIWWcYBVGQugevxwVOBy6Fg_P

Welcome And thank you for years of sacrifice and service!

I normally fly the F-15, but I looks like I might give this one try once things get settled with this and DCS.

America went from the Apollo program to this: All in under four decades