crl848

I was temporarily living in New York City at the time, having just finished two years at business school in the US. On September 11th 2001 I was sitting in an office block in mid-town Manhattan owned by the bank I was working for, in the middle of a boring lecture during an orientation programme. I remember someone getting a phone call about the first plane, and trying to check the internet but it was very slow. Also the cell phone networks were overloaded and no one could get a call through. Finally we heard the full story some time after the collapse of the towers and were directed to leave the building and go home. There was a lot of confusion and no-one knew what was going on. I walked home through Central Park to the upper east side, and we could see the smoke rising from lower Manhattan. My wife was at home and had watched the second plane hitting the tower live. I joined her and finally saw the whole story. I suppose we watched live TV the rest of the day. That night we had dinner with some friends who were journalists at the NY Times, trying to make sense of what had happened. The overwhelming desire was to connect with friends. My memories from the days afterwards are: the flyers of missing persons all over the subway and public places, the truckloads of debris griding past day after day, the odd feeling of unreality as offices shut for days and middle class people lounged about in the park and ate dinner in nice restaurants. There was no way for ordinary people to help such as giving blood, as it became clear very soon that there was no need for blood. My company did offer counselling and some people seemed to need it. I always thought this odd as outside lower Manhattan we did not experience any of the vivid events of the attacks. I have, thankfully, no particular trauma. The main feeling was how weird it was that the city sustained a major attack a couple of miles away, yet life goes on practically unaffected for the vast majority. Perhaps my lack of deep visceral reaction is because I'm not an American, perhaps in London we have experienced a lot of terrorism over the years and it becomes part of life. Or maybe I'm not very empathetic. I claim no special status for having "been there". It goes without saying that I have deep sympathy for all victims of this and other terrorist attacks and nothing but condemnation for the perpetrators. Reading all the "I was there" stories in this weekend's papers, I thought that perhaps my own experience of the banality of "being there" might be interesting.

It's funny that they're associated with Ed Rasimus. From memory, when SIMHQ did an interview with him years ago and mentioned the then forthcoming Strike Fighters sim, he was fairly (probably rightly) dismissive about the ability of a computer sim to give a meaningful feeling of what mid-60s air combat was really like. Perhaps he's changed his mind.

Early loves were Lou Reed/Velvets (first gig was LR in the '89 I think). Punk/new wave. Bowie. '70s heavy rock: Purple, Sabbath (not hard rock/HM). Reggae especially '70s dub, DJ and roots. Gimmie indie rock! I still like Teenage Fanclub, Dinosaur Jr, Primal Scream. Last gig was PS playing the Screamadelica album a couple of months ago. Catch them at festivals this summer.

That's even worse!

Looking amazing Ravenclaw. Who let the South Africans loose in Germany?

This is a dream come true, keep up the good work!

A sad moment for mankind and the mighty US space programme. I thought about taking the kids out of school and going to Florida for one of the final flights, but decided against as it is probably an insane circus on the space coast, more than usual anyway. My 7 year old is a massive space buff as am I.

It's fun to be reminded by a newcomer to the sim how great it really is vs. the competition.

Yeah, some of the planes with a lot of adverse yaw require rudder otherwise you can't turn. I don't know which ones off hand apart from the F-4 which is famous for it, as I've got rudder mapped to twist on the stick so do it without thinking. Seems to me that a lot of '60s planes will need rudder to dogfight.

And limited to 6g or less depending on various parameters, so its turning circle was rather large...

Have you looked in users/saved games/thirdwire for the mod folders? There you should see SF2E/objects/aircraft etc. If not I think you can create them and drag/drop the aircraft folder.

That was a black day in the history of the British Army. But I personally would like to point out that said army, including a few friends of mine, generally did a sterling job in keeping the "peace" against enormous provocation and terrorist atrocities over the years. Sorry if this ruffles anyone's feathers but more than 1,000 members of the security forces were killed in the Troubles.

Well said. Sadly it only takes one or two to try to turn the clock back. Got to be doomed to failure though surely.

Hi guys, I decided to reinstall NF4+ (patched to EXP2 B I think). No trees or buildings on the terrain. I tried to install Stary's files directly over the NF install to see if this changed anything but no joy. What have I missed? Thanks...

Thanks Dave. I think I cured it - checked the 3rdwire site and it turns out I had downloaded but not installed the hotfix B patch for EXP2, which fixed the TOD problem caused by EXP2. With this in, I can see trees & buildings in Stary's terrain that I installed in SFE2. NF4 has been porked by installing the patch, but I'm sure that was it (Doh!). Thanks again for all help.

Here you go Dave. BTW nice to see that someone else lives his life by the sayings of David Bowie! Main Objects Aircraft 1 Aircraft 2 Update 1 Update 2 Update 3

OK, sorry for the bump but I still have no joy on the buildings and trees. I have looked through the data.ini and it seems OK. Updated drivers etc. I also installed Stary's standalone terrain mod into SF2E, with the same results. Here is another screen. Any help gratefully received, this is driving me nuts.

I've been following the Flight Control Simulator guy for a while and have conversed with him via e-mail a few years back. His designs have evolved over the years as you can see in the pics and vids on his site. They certainly look interesting and I have been tempted, but for the expense of buying the thing and shipping it across the Atlantic. If you live in the US or Canada it's got to be more realistic. At the end of the day, though, they are still prototypes with the potential glitches and improvements to future models that this implies.

Wrench, I have the seasons. Here is a screen showing an "industrial structure" target but nothing else.

I've played about with the graphics settings and they are all high or unlimited. Airfield buildings are there but no cities or trees. Strike missions only give a fuel tank as a target. Is it EXP2 breaking it or something more fundamental? Thanks again for the help.

Well, I think so. The seasoned terrain is all there, just no buildings or trees. If I want to start again with the terrain, what should I delete and re-install? Sorry for the ignorance.

This probably explains why the Buccaneer is still missing as an official add-on. TK mentioned before that it may appear as an AI plane even though with the Lightning F.6 cockpit much of the work to create a flyable has already been done.

Very sorry to hear about your loss - his selflessness is uplifting.

Love the onion.

He is a pilot, GA not jet or military though. Reminds me of watching a BBC programme on the Farnborough airshow a few years ago. The presenter is flying (I think) in the South African Rooivalk military helicopter with a test pilot. Presenter asks pilot if he can take the controls, pilot duly hands over control. Then asks - "you are a qualified helicopter pilot aren't you?" Presenter replies that he flew Lynxes in the British Army. Pilot presumably breaths sigh of relief.