HumanDrone

That would be what I'm talking about. It's breathtaking!

It's not all like that, Herr Olham. But when I get out to places like this, it is truly amazing. You go out at night, and the stars are simply unbelievable, innumerable and burning intensity and just a huge black, clear sky, but so immediate in another way, it's tough to describe. If you ever book a trip to the American West, try to insure that a new moon night is in there somewhere. But do ask the locals if you plan to go on foot any distance. I was recently in Craig, CO, and saw my first mountain lion in the wild! So when I eventually parked, I didn't go far from my car! Best, Tom

You know, that's just it. There are somethings you do in a company knowing it will never be a big money maker, if at all, but just because you can, because it is a part of who you are as a company. And yes, everything changes, but still, in light of the long history of the franchise, in light of it being more like a research effort on 'just how real we can make this?'; how fast can we get information to from the inputs to the screen; the technologies and raw innovation involved in getting your code right out to the edge, efficiency-wise, should spread to other parts of the programming operation. I think when you have an operation like this in a company, it is a good thing. It's a whole lot more fun and motivating to optimize code when you're trying to make an airplane flight look realistic than when you're trying to optimize Excel so some accountant can see his figures faster, but at the core you're doing the same thing - and it gives your company a reputation, an image. It's just sad, and firmly marginalizes Micro$oft in my mind as being just that: a utility programming company that's all about their bottom line. They had a good community, and they dumped it. So yeah, maybe eventually it's X-Plane...

I'd second your motion but I'm not an OFFicer of the OFFer's! Welcome to the madhouse, HH!

If it were me, I dunno, I'd have gone for an "all in one" simulator similar yo FSX, but with possibilities for combat, etc. Maybe that's asking too much, but there have been psuedo-combat offerings for FSX. If you look at what our heroes here have done with CFS3 to make it into a WWI simulator, it seems to me that, if you developed a simulator that could "do it all", i.e. you could plug ant scenery and any aircraft into it that does anything an aircraft does, then you'd have something. Maybe not something that'd be a commercial success, but something! On the other hand, it could lead to distasteful things like re-enacting the 9/11 strikes, but if you're that much of a scumbag, you'll find a way to get your sick jollies some other way. It's too bad. As good as CFS3 and FSX have been made to be, I can hardly imagine what they could do with current hardware speed, tons of RAM, 64 bit code, etc... I like flying around Pittsburgh in FSX, and with the add-on terrain mesh and scenery, I can even show you where my house should be! As with others, I hope the employees affected can find good work.

I find them fascinating, myself. I'm a real map guy, and I love things like Google Earth, etc. But one thing I guess I never thought about until just now. We have Supply Dumps and Ammo Dumps and even Unknown Dumps. That's an odd idiosyncrasy of English usage - usually a "dump" is where useless stuff goes!

I'm with the general sentiment in this thread, it's a sad when such a medal passes from the family of the soldier, and like Flyby PC, I wonder what could be done to prevent such things... I have just thought, though, could it be that they buyer is not just a crass commercialist, but instead paid that sum out of deep reverence and a desire to insure that it - and it's story - is preserved? We can only hope so. And once again, we find and example of the chivalry and mutual respect often found in WWI, as the Germans hosted Pte Godley for Christmas Dinner in honor of his VC. Touching... And finally, NS13Jarhead, i thought if I typed this up it's stay in my head better as a place to visit if I roll that way. Thanks! Tom

I'll raise a glass with you and Olham, Lou! To the brave soul who merited this honor! And shame on us as a people for letting the recipient's act of valor slip into obscurity. Most of us today, I daresay, would be curled up in a ball and crying like a little girl if we had to face what many of these men faced.

Hang in there, Lou, good work. The tough part (too tough, for me apparently) is keeping it off! Not to be discouraging, but just watch - you, too Hellshade! And tranquillo, gald to hear the good news for you! If I walked 4 miles a day, I'd better go 2 out and 2 back, or someone would have to carry me home! Now if I can just get some inspiration to re-lose 40 lbs.... Sheesh.

Come to the US, we could show you some sun! I am now in Mexico on a job, and coming down from the airport in Texas I passed fields of parched corn, acres and acres lost to drought. At home, it's been hotter than it's been since 1988, and very little rain - none since I last posted about it here. If it wasn't for the spring next to the house, all our gardens would be gone.

Glad to see you here, HH! So, uh, how are we going to sneak Taz's new Snoopy into this lovely Sim? Here's to you!

This is indeed a fascinating report and thread as well. Now I am curious, as I haven't been able to "fly" for quite a while now, and before that was mostly QC. My question, if you start campaign mode, time could conceivably pass two ways: 1. The manager looks at the day you signed up, and starts a real-time calendar from that day forward; 1 day = 1 day. Thus as our Wayfarer said, it would take the same amount of time from enlistment to Armistice as it took in actuality. 2. The manager feeds you missions as you are able to complete them, i.e. if it's a rainy Sunday and you can fly two week's worth of missions, then that's how the date advances. I'd kinda like it if it were #2, but then I don't know how they'd handle hospitalizations. Yet if it were #1, I'm thinking, ok, I get hospitalized for 24 days, & my wife says, "You haven't flown in a while..." and I tell her I'm in the hospital, and she'd just roll her eyes, "You are WAY too into this!" (especially if I were wandering about the house with bandages and crutches and kept referring to her as "nurse Gladys!) Best, Tom

Welcome back! Make mine a Root Beer!

Well, now you've ruined it! And I was looking forward to meeting a virtual Mata Hari! It's like in the Charlie Brown halloween show, when Sally cries 'You kept me up all night waiting for the Great Pumpkin, and all I get was a stupid beagle!" (good on ya, mate!) except the poetry was, shall we say, a bit plebeian?

Oh it's you alright! Probably one of the most convincing 'shops I've seen in a while. The coat and collar with the PLM is perfect, dashing and masculine, while the photo you used with the off-camera glance is suggestive of a more thoughtful and introspective man, rather than a brash, swashbuckling type. Very well done!

And I finally found your source, I think. Is it not Rumey, 665?

What a collection! Thank you, mein Freund!

Nope! Nothing about the cruelty of man surprises me! History is replete with some of the most fiendishly painful tortures and cruelties imaginable, and from every corner of the globe; it's not like the Nazis were the first.

I've discussed this on another board, and it's a sad thing indeed. But stop and reflect for a minute. Kids are not naturally "sweet and innocent", except as they are trained (and hopefully protected) by their parents so that a sweet and peaceful spirit can develop. But what passes for "innocence" is in fact ignorance, say the wide eyed wonder of a child as they indeed are surprised or amazed at a new discovery. But what if the wrath of the toddler had not been restrained? Kids can be the cruelest creatures on the face of the earth; I know, I used to be one! And I raised 5, so let me tell you... I can remember teasing the dog, scaring my sister half out of her wits, teasing her; and in school I dealt with a friend being brutally bullied; I can recall fistfights and manipulation and and a complete lack of empathy, even a delight, at hurting another's feelings, belittling them publicly, etc. As B52STRATO has said, it's easier to destroy that to build - because the natural tendency of the child is generally selfish. If we are fortunate, we are trained, restrained, disciplined, and loved (really, love includes all of that) so that we do have empathy, consideration, and respect for others - to approach, in some degree, the ultimate maxim to love one's neighbor as oneself. What has to die in a person, what horrid presence or hellish impulse, must exist to allow them to descend to where the death of a whole race is seen as a desirable goal? And yet, we see those same traits, as WM said, to some extent in all of us. Not to get preachy here, but the longer I live, the more I agree with terms in the Bible that refer to us as "lost" or "blind", and that's the better among us! But to the point at hand, if I had some magic or sacramental power, I would take each of these guilt-ridden children and wash any such guilt from their hearts forever. They didn't do it. Instead, have your babies, embrace the good, and become an instrument of peace, forgiveness and restoration. This is a big reason why I "fly" - to remember how cruel war is, and to remind myself what horrors we as individuals and a race are capable of. Hopefully it changes me for the better. Best, Tom

I'm glad there's only 2 weeks left until the release date! I'm running out of drool... those are some mighty fine screenies! Seriously, though, if I can't find some time to fly here, I won't remember enough of HitR to realize what an improvement this is! Best, Tom

If ever there was a reason to make me try campaign mode... I like it, I want to meet Beatrice!

Wow. I want to seriously congratulate everyone on this thread for their even-handedness and willingness to listen to one another, for the perspective that each brings. I post on a very wide-ranging "Christian" board where many people, from atheists to pagans to Buddhists to fundamentalists, start threads like this, and it usually turns near violent, with at least 1 "Hell" call (a special area where they can call one another things that have NEVER been posted on this board!). And there are many well-educated people there. But boy, do they get fired up on this issue. Our dear Bullethead would be dragged to Hell very quickly - and I bet he'd make quite an alligator to wrestle! I wish I had time to go through what everyone has said, there are so many good points and things I'd like to reply to. But no time for that. I'll just leave this: Have I ever related going to Lowe's to get parts for a solar powered clothes dryer? I told the fellow what I was doing, and he was immediately fascinated, wanted to know just how such a device worked. I knew I had one on the line, so I played him well, talking about how it optimized exposure to solar radiation and natural convective currents, blah, blah, blah, and when he asked me what I needed, I told him "water pipes to make up two "T"'s and some hooks for the clotheslines, it took him 5 minutes of laughing before he could collect himself enough to give me a hand. That's how eco-elitist we've become in the West, as WM says, that we somehow think we've invented "green" when our ancestors only had "green" to begin with (and a large part of the world is still that way)! When I was growing up, pop (soda) bottles were glass, but were always returned for deposit - milk bottles, too, anything glass. Now we think we're the great eco-warriors for recycling a small fraction of the quadjillion plastic bottles we pump out. But funny thing about us. We are, so far as I can tell, the only creature that looks around and says, "What am I supposed to be doing here?" That's pretty odd, I think. Some of us want to preserve, everything from snail darters and spotted owls to old homes or buildings or cars; some say on to the future, whatever it brings; and the whole spectrum of in-betweens. We all have our ideas, and this is probably the first time I've seen it discussed without somebody being called something unprintable. Best to all, Tom

Yes! Here, here! Still I, want the dev's to get it right, so, two more weeks won't hurt, I guess... As to the current drift, in one respect, we all have a dog in this hunt - We've got one planet, no real means to get off of it one way or another, and no place to go if we could. While I agree with Flyby PC that it is indeed our job to take care of the planet, on the other hand, I'm more than a little concerned about the corruption of our scientists and the use of them to increase government scope and control. We're so top-heavy now in the US that it's knutz, just crazy. If I had the level of debt that our Federal gov't has, compared to my income, I'd be absolutely beside myself with dread; I'd be financially crippled. A guy I like to read says, "When a politician spends money, look at what he's buying..." and it's usually control. We have the Federal gov't giving grants to little 500-person towns like mine to hire a police officer, or build a park, or renovate the main street to attract business; and the whole bureaucracy on top of that to administer these programs - where, if we want to hire an officer, or build a park, we could just discuss it at the town hall, decide to to it or not, and raise the taxes (or not, or float a bond, etc) to pay for it. The further away the source of the money is, the easier it is to spend it, and the more inviting corruption becomes. And it's an impediment to real change, because while most of America is highly dissatisfied with Congress, the same people get re-elected because - THEY BRING HOME THE PORK! Hello, that's the problem! Trouble is, even if it's true, I don't know how you tell the Brazilian rancher that he can't buy land and clear it, because we need the rain forest. Or the souls in Timbuktoo or wherever that they can't build a coal-fired power station because of CO2 issues. And I have zap-all zero faith in governmental institutions, especially un-elected and un-accountable ones, to do anything about it without killing people on a massive scale with some misguided "allocation of resources" program, a la the Soviets, and we can see how well THAT worked... If there is anything I'd be suspicious of, it's that somehow the multinational companies are suppressing energy efficiency technologies in order to keep their sales volumes up. But that's as far toward wearing tin-foil hat as I'll go. I work in the power industry, and I grew up in the 60's and 70's. Back then, the die-hard environmentalists were screaming that we were headed for a global ice age! And the green freaks were demonstrating left and right, shutting down construction of nuclear power plants. Other environmentalists were stopping construction of hydro power every place that they could - and hydro is arguably the easiest and most cost effective way to both make power and control erosion. They were right about some issues - helping the salmon migration, for instance, but so much of that movement was simply anti-progress for the sake of anti-progress. So what do we have in the US now? An over-abundance of fossil-fired power, and wind farms all over God's creation, and now they are complaining about the environmental effects of wind farms! Our nuclear program is 'way behind the curve. So while I agree with Flyby PC, I am very suspicious of the global warming agenda - just follow the money and you'll start to smell the stinking fish. And I am glad, too that this discussion is being had in a gentlemanly way. No sense getting strident anyway- - we'll not fix anything from THIS board! Finally, thank God, we've had some rain! Three thunderstorms in two days! Best, Tom ETA: Cross-posted with Widowmaker....

I thank you all! Yes, indeed, I am a man most blessed. Let me reply to some of these. As Hasse Wind points out, there is the other extreme to small snowfalls. I mention this because of a good "war story" concerning snow. A few years back, I had just nearly put myself in divorce court for buying an 18 Hp New Holland Compact Utility tractor. I got a pretty good deal on it - it was 4WD, Diesel powered, with a front loader, box blade, back blade, 60" floating mower deck and a trailer for getting it around or for other uses - I just pulled home a ton of wall block, for instance... anyway, my Wing Commander durn near court-martialed me for buying that thing! So come February the following year, and my company needed somebody to go to Kansas to do a test. The weather was calling for maybe 4 inches of snow, so I took it - "Promises, promises..." I thought. But the snow was much worse than forecast. We're flying back from Kansas and all we hear is snow, snow, and more snow. Arriving in Charlotte, we learned that they had closed the airport in Pittsburgh! We waited for several hours, and finally took a flight to Cleveland and rented a car and drove back to Pittsburgh. Meanwhile I'm telling my wife to leave that monstrous driveway alone, I'll dig us out when we get home- the tractor was pointing straight out of the garage - and she's out there with my (autistic) son trying to shovel what is now 22" of snow, with snowplow piles at the end of the driveway, and I'm like DON'T DO THAT! And she says, but they're be no place for you to pull off the road, and I said "It doesn't matter- No one will be out anyway, and I can clear the driveway in just a few minutes with the tractor! So in the end, my oldest son was able to get to our place and HE GOT TO USE MY TRACTOR TO PLOW SNOW FOR THE FIRST TIME INSTEAD OF ME! But at least it kept her from further attempts at a truly Herculean task. We ended up with 44 inches of snow that month, and I got plenty of slow plowing in, and my dear beloved has since learned to appreciate the versatility of the tractor. Turns out what really disappointed her was that she wanted a John Deere! (mucho $$, especially new!) In the downpour department (just for you, Lou), the worst we've had was in 2004 with the double punch of Hurricanes Francis and Ivan (or what was left of them). Francis already had the ground saturated when Ivan came and dropped 8 inches of rain within a very short span, something like 12 hours. There used to be pine trees running up between my house an the hill to the right in the picture, as I didn't own that land, a vacant 4.75 acre tract. So I'm leaving work early because of flood warnings everywhere, and I call my wife to make sure everything there is okay, and she says, "No! A tree just fell on the house!" She sounds panic-stricken, so I'm walking her through on the phone looking for damage or signs of leakage - turns out it was the smallest of the pine trees, and all it did was bend the rain gutter a little. But that lead to me getting that tract of land, as the owner didn't want to bother with the trees and was willing to sell it to me cheap. Ivan also collapsed the hill behind the addition - a structural retaining wall is there now. But surprisingly, it's not rain that sends the landscaping downhill - It's the critters! Deer, turkey, squirrels, ground hogs and God knows what else are always grubbing around in that mulch, eating the shrubbery, etc. I need that "Not tonight, Deer!" solution in the 55 gal. drum size! Well, excuse me for a TL;DR post. I thought you may enjoy it, especially our patriarch Olham, checking in on leave! It'll give him a nice long story to peruse in his leisure! Best to you all! Tom

Sad indeed! R. I.P. Mr. Roach! The plane must have had some pretty tough stall issues...