HumanDrone

You know, Herr Olham, I have admired Germany on her self-discipline and the ability to stay solid amidst the chaos over there, but as you say, she is caught in the "Too big to fail" status of the Euro, and the sovereign debt issues of the rest of Europe. But yeah, maybe if we keep this genteel, as we did the global warming thing, we can gripe a little without getting locked. I will say that in my opinion, moving away from nuclear power generation is a BIG mistake, esp. if it's only based on Fukishima, but hey- there is still a lot to admire about your nation. Over here, the mind just boggles. $16,000,000,000,000 in debt?! Are you serious? When I was younger, a congressman was chiding his pork-barrel spending compatriots - "Hey, guys, a million here and a million there - pretty soon we're talking real money!" and in my relatively short adult life I've seen that go from millions, to billions, and now trillions. And neither side of the aisle seems to "get it" - no matter who gets in, we get hosed, and hosed royally. Both parties spend like drunken sailors, it's just a matter of which direction the money gets wasted. Not buying into a conspiracy theory or anything, but it seems as if something bigger is going on here, that these big finance and big-government types have a tiger by the tail, and are struggling - but from here it looks like the struggle is all on paper. If Joe owes Fred and Fred owes Billy-Bob and Billy-Bob owes Junior and Junior owes Joe, it seems like the lot of them have to sit down and see what they can cancel out. But what do I know? I have to make do with my paycheck, I can't just tap a bottomless source (Taxpayers) when I get the notion to spend a bunch of money to "Help the taxpayers (to re-elect me)". Oh, yeah - I DO have the same view as you, if not worse, on the elections - I could just puke, i have completely tuned out. I know how I'm going to vote, but I'm not tickled about it, I don't have any great hopes that it will change anything. When these are the best candidates either party can come up with, we are, as my boss likes to say, "in deep do-do." Best to you all, Tom

Politics, n, from Greek "poly" = many, + English "tics" = ugly, blood-sucking parasites.

Lawd ha'e mercy, Lou, you throw open an invitation like that with this idiot election a few weeks away?! ;) I'm to the point where any discussion of it turns my stomach, The commercials, the rhetoric, it's disgusting, and an insult to the collective American intelligence (either that, or an awful description of it, God help us...) At least I know we're not alone with what Flyby and Widowmaker are saying!

Our dear fellow may consider moving if this fellow puts his new home up for sale. I imagine something this would be the result if I tried to build a regular home with square corners and plumbed walls! Best to all, as we wait out these final two weeks! ;) Tom

Yessir, my friend it is, but it's only in the USA that you'd load your bicycles onto your 4WD, 360 HP(268 kW) Hemi V-8 Powered SUV and drive 40 miles (or more!) to go bicycling! Nice country, but the good places to cycle are really spread out! We're hoping to go to Ohiopyle while the autumn glory lasts. That bridge is part of a bicycle trail that runs from McKeesport, PA, to Washington DC!

I know little of Hobbits, but loves me some Harleys! So good on ya, bro, whilst we wait these last two weeks for WOFF! Now my beloved shares Lou's understanding of mo'sicles and my two-wheeling is of the pedal-powered type; but when my oldest son had a Harley, he let me take a spin on it, and man! Then he shows up next day with a T-shirt from the dealership that only buyers get - we live in an area once dominated by steel mills - and it read "Hot Metal Harley-Davidson" and I got bit so hard... It's like I told him, after seeing the machine, and then the shirt, you'd have to have a testosterone level in the parts-per-trillion level not to get bit! I am fortunate, though, that my autistic son can ride a bicycle, and handle the gears needed to navigate the hills around here, We had a marvelous 16 mile ride yesterday through brilliant autumn foliage, along a lake nearby, followed by a family picnic and some good grilled hotdogs - it's the good life, I say!

YOW! that's a lot of hose! I'm surprised you had any pressure! Glad guys like you and Bullethead are out there, I can't do it but I donate every year. By the way, I'll wave atcha this evening, BH, on my flight from Charlotte to N'Awlins! Best to both of you, Tom

Well, Hawksbee you have my sympathies. I squeezed in my first OFF Flight in ages - a "quick scenario" that turned out to be Sopwith Camels vs. Fokker Triplanes (appropriate for me & the season, I suppose). It was true OFF style, no markers, no TAC, no cone - and here I am with TrackIR and all, and kee-rimineee, I couldn't get a line on anybody, I'm whipping my head around, can't see who's shooting at me, can't find anybody to shoot at, and before long I was gliding earthward - and even then they wouldn't let me go, someone had to continue after me as I struggled to land, and blow my right lower wing off, which of course sent me out of control into the ground. At the beginning, I saw a notice that 2nd Lt. Heza Pantswetter had been assigned to my squadron! Reminded me of a thread I started back aways!

I like Olham's link as well. But while I like saving energy, I don't know how well I could adapt to the lack of windows in such an abode.

And meanwhile, this one has been restored and is flying again in New Zealand!

Loved it! Despite the futility and waste of war, there's beauty in the noble qualities of courage and ingenuity, hard work and sacrifice!

I know what you mean; the amount of waste, suffering, cruelty and death we've inflicted on one another across recorded history is incomprehensible - will we never learn? I just had another trip to Montevideo, where the Admiral Graf Spee lies scuttled, and I've flown past the wreckage of the USS Arizona in Pearl Harbor - look at the tremendous waste in just the sinking of HMS Hood and the retaliatory sinking of the Bismark, and horrifying abandonment of the survivors... and in the past century, not millions, but 10's of millions, perhaps 100 million lives lost to the butchery and barbarity of war, pogroms, "purges" - it seems any excuse to hate, grab power, or grab riches will do. The US Civil war was a bloodbath of the first rank; and it had to be even worse before firearms - can you imagine being hacked to death with a broadsword? And still we have the likes of Joseph Kony running around dealing the cruelest pain, death and despair one can imagine - hacking a mother's breasts off so that she cannot nurse her infant among other things. I cannot believe in evolution just on that basis- it's an insult to the apes! ;) Sheesh. Just today, though, I had a glimmer of hope that some sense may begin to prevail... God help us.

thstsee, now i canst talk right causth of all the drool running down my chin!

She didn't say that. She said she wanted a hot dog! <bad-ummp!-tsss.jpg>

See, this is why, for quite a while now, I have instructed all my followers to use a 2.147 mm diameter wire mesh, on 7.291 mm spacing, made from uni-polar magnetized Unobtanium-239. If you craft this carefully and place it between twin layers or Reynold's wrap (generic aluminum foil doesn't work, as the gov't has laced it at the quantum level with strange quarks), you can block their mind-bending signals. It's difficult for me to find enough of the stuff, though, because, in order to protect my brains, I have to cover the part of me that I sit on, so I need to get enough for a pair of briefs!!!

We await the details & pics anxiously! Welcome back!

Indeed! I love horseback riding myself, and to have such a crisis and tragedy come out of it is just horrible. My thoughts and prayers are with you and your wife!

But Olham! Did you also see the article in the sidebar about the historically accurate Albatross D.III replica that flew for the first time last April?! Correct engine and all, apparently - "an original six cylinder Austro Daimler engine, produced in 1917!” Maybe you have information on this from other sources, but wow, that is an achievement... took them 20 years! Note the test pilot comments: "already on the second flight I felt so connected to the aircraft that I couldn’t help by doing some aerobatic manoeuvres”. These manoeuvres included a series of touch-and-go, a stall, some tight turns and a Immelmann... Sounds like a good (and/or crazy) pilot, and a very well-handling aircraft...

Now that would be fun! Is this the Fantasy of Flight in Polk City, Florida? If so, my sister lives very close by - I know she's been there, her brother-in-law has quite a nice library of aviation- a lot of WWII and stiff, a beautiful drawing of an F4-U, etc. So I can get FSX scenery? Aeroplanes as well? Much thanks! (Yeah, right... I can't even manage some stick time in OFF right now and I'm going to go off and start another venture? But it shan't always be like this, winter approaches!) Oh, and thanks, Olham! Nice video! EEK! And I just found their site! You can get a BIPLANE RIDE! DO WANT!

I'm with Bullethead here. It's worth a couple of weeks of delivering pizzas or "welcome to Walmart" or "do you want fries with that?", if you're able. TrackIR is just that indispensable, especially for a lousy pilot like me. You can look over the edge, line up to your sights, glance over your shoulder, all kinds of things, without horsing around with a hat button or keypad malarkey. Beg Santa Claus, tell the gang to pool together for your birthday, just somehow get it. You'll never regret it. (@ BH... "every brief moment of sobriety...." you are quite the writer, sir!)

I'm finishing one of those now. Trying to do Franz Stigler's aircraft from his encounter with Lt. Charles Brown's B-17 in Dec. 1943. I never thought German victory markings would be so hard to find! - 1/18th scale... hint hint... ;)

Criminee! I forgot about that! What kind of OFF'er am I? I'll go all-out and have a nice Merlot!

Welcome! I just happened on your post and wanted to say Hi! Now others who are better at this will be along, I'm sure, but you can always "cheat" and press "M" for the map button - I think that still works. For best immersion, though, the hard core guys here print their maps and used dead reckoning and ground landmarks just as the pilots did. When I get more time to fly, I'll probably go that route. How long have you been an OFF'er? Do you have anything like TrackIR so that you can look around easier? BTW, you'll find that this is one of the best, most "gentlemanly" forums on the internet, a very competent and helpful and courteous group of "avaitors." So again, Welcome! Best, Tom

So, BH, you are near the Waterford Nuclear plant? I don't do much work in the nuclear stations, but have done a few jobs for Entergy. Glad you were able to help them out! Yeah, nukes are a lot safer than people give hem credit for - even Fukishima would have been okay if an earthquake considerably more powerful than the (very powerful) one it was designed for hadn't hit it. Big problems when that happens, though! As to your station generator: maybe the guy said it was low on OIL? ;) Tough break! Best, Tom

Wow, that would be nice, and I hope you have a safe and fun trip, CaptSopwith! I am in Montevideo, Uruguay, now, on a trip to test an electrical generator, and though I've been abroad a few times, I'm a bit of a rube and don't get too adventurous - I don't know Spanish worth diddly, and not many here know English, so... Anyway, safe & fun (real) flying! Like BH says, we have members in Germany! One in particular comes to mind... Best, Tom