von Baur

Nor had I. I had no idea they had cutouts at the wing root. I trust that will be represented When this plane is included in OFF. What am I saying? With the attention the devs give to detail, of course it will.

I wish I'd thought of that. Oh yeah, I DID!!! I even posted about it 2 1/2 years ago on this forum. Check out the last post on this thread. toot, toot (tooting my own horn).

Congratulations and good luck, Widowmaker. I say "congratulations" because I've seen how difficult it is to overcome an addiction to cigarettes. And I say "good luck" to remind you that it's a fight that you'll have to fight every day for a lo-o-o-o-ong time before you're truly free. I'll stop there, but please read my "private rant" post.

LOL...This reminds me of when I was stationed in South Carolina. Danny Ponder was from Greenville (pronounced by him "GREEN-vull"), South Carolina and Danny St. James from Lawrence, Massachusetts, which is near Boston. They each had a heavy dose of their individual regoinal accents. The funniest thing I think I've ever heard in my life is the two of them trying to imitate each other's speech. Being from a reasonably neutral area myself, and having an ear for such things, I prided myself on being able to mimic dialects and accents. But what came out of their mouths at those times was beyond me.

I've never been a big believer in "one size fits all". And while I don't reject the notion totally I find that it rarely fits very many very well. It's nice to see someone else who doesn't mind 'fixing' something that's brand new to make it better fit his idea of how things should be, too. One question: how did that go over with your wife ? A few years ago I bought a Logitech 3D Pro because it was the best I could find at the time. Immediately after getting it out of the box I took it apart and removed a piece of the centering apparatus that was making it too stiff. I caught a few looks and a half-hearted "As long as you know what you're doing" from the late Frau von Baur, I can tell you. (BTW, the stick worked fine and I used it for three years or so until I bought a SWFFPro2 to use with OFF P3)

Beautiful work, Lou . Nothing beats a set-up that's custom-built to your particular needs and situation. And the pride in making it all come together is very satisfying, too. We men are, after all, builders. I particularly liked your ingenuity with the throttle/mixture controls. Absolutely brilliant. My first impression of it was that it was homemade, but only from the standpoint of its uniqe appearance not its excellent workmanship. Slarti, I'm hoping to get a dedicated flying computer in the next year or two but for now mine also must serve double-duty. And while I don't have to share it with anyone, trying to work around a joystick is a pain in the pilot's seat. My solution can be seen about halfway down the first page here, and as pointed out it's relatively simple and very inexpensive. It also allows you to choose the exact position of your stick so you can have it in the center for realism or off to the side for comfort (and for realism, if you're flying an F-16).

Sorry to trump you all, but...my son arrived home Dec. 16 on leave from Afghanistan. It cost all my built-up vacation and flex time, plus one unpaid day (it's been a rough year, I usually have to burn time so I'm not going over my allotted carry-over time at the end of the year), but I was able to take off the whole two weeks.

LOL, Jarhead...I can relate. The unofficial motto of my first duty station was "We can jerry-rig anything" due to the unpredictability of the situations in which we often found ourselves. This has led to the incorporation of quite a bit of not-according-to-Hoyle configurations around my home. And no matter how much planning I do, many times I find I've forgotten or misguaged something on my first attempt. My recommendation is to maintain flexibility, both with regards to your materials and your plan. That's one reason I like the spiral-wrap. If you find you've cut it a little short you need only add what's needed and the seam will likely not be noticed by anyone. If you need to add some new wires later it's easily enough done without having to discard the previous installation, which is not the case with zip-ties. And unlike bread ties it can be used over and over without weakining and it holds bundles of all sizes. Try adding a couple new pieces of equipment to a bread-tie bundle that's already near it's limit. Another advantage to it that hasn't been mentioned yet is that you can have wires going in or out at any point along the run of the bundle.

Logitech G940. Kind of pricey, but it's stick/double throttle/rudder pedals with force feedback on the stick. So one wire is from the pedals, one is to the computer and the last is the power cable. I didn't bundle the throttle-to-stick line in because it sits on the left when inuse and I detach it for storage.

As promised, this is what it looks like out of the box, and this is what it looks like holding the three wires out of the back of my joystick. I will agree with Tamper that when you get to more than a foot or two it can get tedious to wrap and unwrap, but I'm assuming you won't be doing that terribly often. When you contrast that with the fact that it's fully flexible, completely contains the wires (unlike zip-ties, velcro tie-wraps or bread ties) for the neatest look possible, and you don't need tools to take it off and any scissors other than those used in kindergarten will trim it to length, IMO it's the best solution. Like I said, the first place I found it was my local Walmart. But when I went back there last year looking for more (first box was only five feet) they no longer carried it...and I tried four different stores in two towns. I finally found it at O'Reillys Auto Parts. If you don't have one where you live and you can't find it anywhere else you might be able to find it from them online.

Spiral tubing!! It's basically a plastic ribbon that wraps around itself to creat a tube. You can cut it to whatever length you need and wrap it around your wires. If you need to add or remove wires you simply unwrap it and rewrap it. Most convenient and versatile system I've ever seen. They used to sell it at Walmart but I got my latest box at an automotive store. I have to get off to work now, but I'll put up a picture this evening.

Harumph? No one mentioned "Blazing Saddles". And it's not an aviation film. Although who could forget Lillie von Schtupp, the Teutonic Tit-willow?

I've seen the trailer, Javito. The part that aboslutely turns me off to the movie is the scene they always show at the end, pilots huddled up as if before an (American) football game, with the "rah-rah" dialogue. I can't help but think that if anyone really did that before a mission, in any war, they'd have pulled him for being unstable.

One of the things that made "Airplane" so great (other than being a disaster-flick spoof while disaster-flicks were still big business) was the cast and the way they were instructed to act. What comedies had Robert Stack or Peter Graves done before that? Or Lloyd Bridges? Or Leslie Nielsen? These were established, though past their prime, dramatic actors who were told to take these insane lines and deliver them as though there was an Oscar nomination on the line. Who can forget Graves in the cockpit asking the little boy, "Do you like Gladiator movies?". Or Stack whipping off his sunglasses (even though it's nighttime and he's indoors...funny enough already) only to reveal another pair underneath? Bridges's deadpan , "Looks like I picked the wrong week to give up sniffing glue" as he buries his head in a paper sack? And the crowning glory of Nielsen's "Don't call me Shirley" and, "Win one for the Zipper" as the background music slowly fades into the Notre Dame fight song. And while the first two didn't press the idea any further, Bridges made a few screwball comedies after "Airplane" and Nielsen used the genre to revive his career to the point that most people under 40 have no idea he ever did anything else. Now, if you'll pardon me, I have a new Blu-ray home theater system in the living room and a flight from Los Angeles to Chicago to catch. I hope they serve fish.

Many excellent choices. I liked "The Eagle Has Landed", "Cross of Iron" (both of which I read before seeing) and "Das Boot", as well as the here-to-fore unmentioned "Letters from Iwo Jima" (only saw the last hour or so, so far) for their humanistic portrayals of 'the enemy'. Not every German soldier was a fanatical Nazi guilty of war crimes and not every Japanese soldier lopped the heads off prisoners with Samurai swords and glady chose death over surrender. Most of them were told the same things that we told our troops about the Japanese, that they'd be tortured before being executed anyway. Too many movies have painted with too broad a brush. "Kelly's Heroes". One of my favorite movies of any genre. First of all I'm a big Eastwood fan, it has lots of action and it doesn't take itself too seriously. I loved the scene where Eastwood, Savallas and Sutherland step out for a 'showdown' with the Tiger. Even that early in his career Clint wasn't afraid to spoof the Spaghetti Westerns that made him a star.

For the flying: Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (got it on DVD) The Great Waldo Pepper For the laughs: Airplane (got it on DVD) Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines

Can I at leasst make mine a chocolate milk? Welcome aboard, Abbay. It's lots of fun and only promises to get better (a promise the devs have delivered on very successfully for several years, now).

You may or may not have heard a few weeks back about a little mishap they had while testing a cannon (in case you hadn't, read this). Apparently when they said they wouldn't be doing any similar experiments there any more, they chose to move here.

Pardon me for being a pain, but I've not been making use of the mods for OFF. Other than those needed to match everyone else's files while taking part in the Vasco's Volunteers group a couple of years ago the only one I currently have is the no-tracer mod. You see, having dealt with the new-FM-a-week days of Red Baron (and the "my mod's better than your mod" arguements they generated on the Wings of Valor forum) I'd decided not to get involved in all of that with OFF, particularly since the on-line side has been laid to rest. But the downside of UOP's doesn't seem to be infecting this game and I, too, am a little tired of AI SPAD's out-turning my Fokker D-VII and so I'm ready to "take the plunge". However I'm a little stuck. I've seen Ol'Paint (btw, does that mean you're "a-peeling"? ) and HPW speak of something called JSGME. I did a search and the only two hits that came back were the two posts on this thread. Could it have been mentioned in a post or posts that have since been deleted? What is this JSGME and where do I get it/how do I use it? Or is that info contained in your readme file as well? And I, too, could probably use the answer to Ol'Paint's question, considering the near-stock condition of my game (yes, I do have HitR).

So if I want to do this do I need to get the empty-weight mod seperately or is it included?

My first static line and my first HALO jumps were both from C-123's (several years apart). Other military jumps were made from: C-7 (H) C-130 (SL/H) C-141 (SL/H) CH-3 (SL/H) UH-1 (H)...ok, it was a demo jump, but it was my unit jumping into an airshow at Langley AFB, VA, so I'm counting it as a military jump Sport jump platforms were: Cessnas from 172-206 (206 had a 4' wide "barn door", excellent for getting everybody out quick) Twin Otter Twin Beech DC-3 C-7 C-123 C-130 CH-3 UH-1 (outstanding RW platform...with those big doors open and the front half-doors removed you could unass 12 skydivers in an instant ) Rides (yes, I actually landed on the plane sometimes), other than those already mentioned: O-2 OV-10 (this almost became a jump platform but the Air Force cancelled the test at the last minute ) OH-58 (CW-3 pilot was crazier than me ) Ch-47 (I don't remember a hole in mine..I think those could be covered and were only opened when the chopper was going to be slinging something, but I won't swear to it...anybody with more knowledge of the subject care to clear that up?) Leer Jet (not sure of the model, but it was cool..VIP transoprt sent to take the team I was on back home from a mission ) Boeing 707, 727, 737 DC-9, 10 couple of puddle-jumpers, can't remember the tyes these days Since getting and playing around with FS-X I've decided that once I retire I'm going to buy an Ultralight and start putting some air under my butt again.

IIRC, this was problem early on, probably doesn't happen as much any more so your search would have to go back three years or so. If you're using the Vector clip adjust the cap so it's about normal in the back but high on your forehead.

I see my weather forecast was ignored. You young whippersnappers never listen to your elders.

To Wels and Beard: You're both wrong. they are officially JUNK!!

Happy Birthday, youngster (57 here)! Allow me to share Wayon Jennings' take on growing old, WidowMaker: Well now, baby you're a looker and I know what you're looking for. You've been looking over every man at the bar. Honey, I know I've got a few years on you But if you're shopping around let me tell you a thing or two. Well I look a little rough and I got a few miles on me My body needs work and my style ain't what it used to be And honey I'll admit there's places where I'm wearing thin But I ain't broke down, I'm just gettin' broken in. Chorus Well I may be worn, but baby I ain't worn out Let me take you for a ride and I'll show you what I'm talking about I guar-on-tee, there's a lot of me left to love Well I may be used but baby I ain't used up I've been wrecked a few times and honey it shows I guess There's been once or twice that you could say that I was repossesed There's one little thing that I think ought to be understood It aint how you look, it's what you got under your hood. Repeat chorus By the way, be careful tonight. I hear there's a severe drunk front headed for Newcastle.