Nick Tselepides

;) If you want the best Seafire (navalised Spitfire) go to the Aeroplane Heaven" website, register first--it is free-- and download the plane, panel and sounds. Warning: it is 27 mb, so you may need over an hour if you have a World War One modem which burns coal to work like I do. But it is worth it, as you get the best Merilin sounds existent, which you can then alias to your other Spitfires and many other Merlin-engined a/c like the Hurricane, Lancaster, etc.... Cheers

Navychief, Is this the Skyraider which also has 2 or 3 more textures ( blue, Vietnam etc)? If so, I have it and I could send you a better panel for it than what comes with the download.

Take a look at this panel view, reached through the hatswitch on the stick-- many more reachable in all directions of the hatswitch. http://www.shackletonproject.co.za/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=134 Go to this forum, read a few things, visit Rick Piper's site and David Maltby's and get ALL their aircraft for k2 and k4 and their panels--some of the best there is to download and fly in k2 and k4. Also check out the great Seafire they are talking about from the "Aeroplane Heaven" site--register for free to download it and their other freeware stuff. Send me your impressions at Jinx@e-free.gr I promise you LOTS OF GREAT FUN, a great education for the younger ones, great flights, great schemes and panels and sounds, all in the above lot. Try flying the Anson in Egypt and landing by the Pyramids....Then take off and see the bedouins at dusk or at dawn milking their camels westwards towards Libya, having flown over Rommel country...Or just do your thing.... Cheers Nick Tselepides

Feel very close to all of you guys. At 57, I am probably older than most of you. ;) The secret: Top priority is your health. The secrets within the secret: Do not drink more than 2 bottles of wine per month (with dinner), be optimistic, and keep busy with what you really like doing. Never do what your soul and mind disagree with. There is only one I, so take good care of it. That is my advice. We would hate to lose such good guys to petty, non-worthy enemies such as drinking and depression. Leave those charming traps to the idiots, as the less we have of idiots the better it is for the planet. Cheers babies Nick

In Greece it is election day today. A sunny Sunday.The people in the streets are in their Sunday best clothes, smiling, and going to the nearest electoral center to vote. From 18 onwards, all ages, the old included, carrying their dignity and pride with them despite the occasional walking stick to help them along. The men, limber and well-shaven most wearing a tie, and the women, properly scented and elegant.The kids traling behind their parentsfor the cake or icecream to follow in the cafe later, under the green trees, outdoors...A picture from old times? No. It is happening here today, thank God. In the old times, feudal and before that, government changed through war and bloodshed. Lives were lost, famine and diseases often came with the wars, and the people were at the mercy of warlike rulers who treated them like slaves... Today, a morning comes when one simply strolls into the voting room, drops a vote in a box, and the next morning, he has a new government to rule his fates and the state. In Greece, voting day is like a holiday, and everyone is glued to the TV Sunday night till late, watching the results as they come in from the various parts of the country..In a few hours, without bloodshed, a new administation comes on, and the old one walks off quietly, as if nothing had happened. The process repeats itself every four years or so in most places. Power is handed over in a quiet, civilized way, without much fuss. And it is taken for granted that things should be that way by most countries. ;) Democracy. A real gift. It was first invented in ancient Greece, and the world has followed suit. The Dark Ages saw its demise by the barbarians. The Enlightenment and the French Revolution brought it back. "Demos" means people in Greek, and "-cracy" means Power, from the verb "crato" = to hold power. In 15 minutes from now, I will have cast my vote, and done my supreme civil duty. Nick Tselepides (Also posted at the simhqforums)

Of course life is good, PC Pilot... ;) Life is the supreme gift we have, and it is a lady that brings her good tidings and favors to all and each of us, without any discrimination. I am very glad you feel happy. And all of us should make a point to feel happy more often. It is not difficult--it is just turning a botton in our mind to the "optimist" position, with a simple finger movement. That is all it takes, believe me. Try it, and try it every day. ;)

For those of you who have Arrestor Cables and Arrcab, get the carrier Waikato from avsim 2002 Scenery--you have AI aicraft flying around you while you fly and on the deck.... If you install the flights which come with the zip, make this change in each .FLT file, so you can have your panel showing: Scroll down the FLT file and find: [Panels] Panel.On=False HUD.On=False Change the original text to : [Panels] Panel.On=True HUD.On=False

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/489128/L/ http://www.airliners.net/open.file/489126/L/ feel the power! http://www.airliners.net/open.file/489039/L/ http://www.airliners.net/open.file/508301/L/ get this to fly in k2 or k4!! from David Maltby's site. In addition, there is an Anson at avsim FS2002 original aircraft (search for "Dave Booker") which is the best Annie done so far.... You may also have a good look at the Shackleton Project webpage, esp. the forums for FS2002....

;) If you are like me and love British early aircraft, the best on the net are in the link below. Viking, Dart, Valetta, Strikemaster, Viscount, excellent sounds, and excellent cockpits...for k2 and k4... I strongly advise everyone to pay the site a visit... I 've been around for some time and I have not seen such great work on that period before.. Rick Piper's site. http://www.btinternet.com/~rick.piper/ ;) ;)

Navychief, A most interesting thread you started. I have saved all of it, will study it, and than give my opinion. Next Sunday we are having elections in Greece and TV and media etc are very busy with the electoral campaign and candidates. It looks like the socilaist governmwent will be going out the door this time, after 20 years of being in power. With it, we got the Euro, but also unemployment, a monkey-like welfare and health system, and many promises of the tipe "We shall..we shall.. we shall..." and they did nothing. Also food and goods prices rose, pensions stayed the same--old people get 300 Euros per month, and 1/3rd of the population has fallen below the poverty limit line. More soon.. Your shipmate Nick

NavyChief. I was going to direct him to that same link, but you got there first... Otherwise, there is always the trial and error method, which will always reveal the truth if you are in doubt..... Cheers :P

I toyed around with Rick Sasala's a/c and repainted like this--fictional scheme. Great flier, too. ;)

There are two useful tools for viewing AI aircraft while you fly in FS2002, and you can view the AI planes either from the cockpit view or from your external view (spot view). You can use either of these to chase and get close to the AI a/c. The first one is just a gauge, and you add to to your panel trhough typing text entries in your panel.cfg , and it is the simpler, easier to use. (see my picture). The name is: "FS2002 AI Radar Window by Eric Marciano and Jorge Salas" and you can find it at the major sites.It comes as "rdrwdw.zip", and I think I found it at flightsim.com under FS2002 Utilities and Miscellaneous, if memory serves me right. From its Readme, you get this: "It is a radar gauge. It requires Pete Downson's FSUIPC version 2.83 or higher. It works with the traffic information provided by FSUIPC. It shows all the surrounding aircraft managed by FS2002 AI. You can select an aircraft (your target) by clicking it. The radar will then show information about the target. Tutorial for adding to the default Baron 58 panel is included, but the window can be added to any panel of your choosing. A new XML icons gauge was also created for this package, for a custom toggle icon on the main panel. The XML icons gauge also has a number of additional toggles (in addition to all the default toggles) which are very useful for adding other custom windows with dedicated toggle buttons." The second one,"AI View",is a plug-in screen, which you access from your menu bar at the top of your screen, under "Plug-Ins". This also shows a lot of information, but is not as easy to use, though it allows you to click and see a close-up view of the Ai plane ahead of you. This comes from its "Readme": [[ AIVIEW.DLL version 1.0.0.1 (Freeware) - "AI Tactical Display" enabler for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002 (version 8.00.010919.01). DESCRIPTION ----------- With this module you can enable FS2002's hidden tool "AI Tactical Display", a tool that displays a map with information about the AI Aircraft (ATC traffic). INSTALATION ----------- Copy AIVIEW.DLL into your FS2002 modules folder. Within FS2002 you can enable "AI Tactical Display" by selecting it from the Plug-ins menu. Tip! Double-click on a unit name to change the view to the selected aircraft. © 2002, ALTING Software Latest version is available from: http://www.altingsoftware.com ]] I found this second one by doing a google search and typing "AI View",but the Readme above gives a site. Let me note here that there other such tools, and I have tested 3-4 more, but these two seem to to be the best. One of the others is "AI Map", but it made my game hang up/get stuck each time, so I discarded it--maybe one of you has had better luck with that. If so, let me know, as it looks okay if only it would work. At the pic, I am flying an RAF 74 Tiger Squadron Beech Baron 58 (my own repaint of the default a/c) and nearing an AI a/c. The small screen is the first radar gauge I mentioned above, titled "radar"--and through the buttons at the bottom you can change the range--20,30,40 miles--it is set at 20 here. :)

Does anyobody out there know of a good panel for the S-3 Viking USN a/c? If not, I guess I will have to make one from scratch. :)

Thanks Aceman, Nice pics. I have made a panel by now, will post a pic here soon.

I am looking for a Viking S-3 panel for FS2002/ FS2000/ FS2004/ CFS2/CFS. Any of these sims have panels that can be used by any in this same group, as MS has very wisely kept the same setup/open architecture in these. Some early gauges may not be compatible with the later sims, but any gauge in any MS sim can be replaced through the use of the "cfg.egit" utility, which also makes panels ffrom scratch and is easy to use. In passing, I will note that when MS left the FS-type structure out and came out with that fish-eyed mediocre monstrosity called CFS3, it failed miserably, with bad sales plus grumbles. They are now preparing for CFS4, and, having learnt their lesson only too well, they are considering keeping the same structure as all of the sims I mentioned above. Check out the CFS2 forums at Simouthouse.com to read about all this. Let us wait and see. Meanwhile, I have started making an S-3 panel myself, after a picture of the real thing, and it is coming out very nice.

One of the fun things to do in FS2002/04 is try and chase the AI aircraft and try to formate on them. Here I am with a Skywarrior chasing an airliner over Rio de Janeiro. I had to drop wheels and flaps closeup to slow down so I could take the screenshot. I tried with an F-14 Tomcat chasing the same aircraft and it was more difficult as the Tomcat is faster and I tended to pass him each time, then open wings to slow down so he caught up with me. Lots of fun. Try it some time if you haven't.

HogFan, You probably need to get "TrafficTools", downloadable at the major sites, and make the Bear an AI aircraft, then assign flights to the Bear through TrafficTools--time, place, area etc and take off from a nearby spot and find it. TT should have all the relevant info in its Help files, Readmes etc. Nice to know I amnot the only one chasing AI planes. ;)

Navy Chief: For your FS2002/04, now you can have two more Tiger Moths I repainted for you with your name on the side, one all red with the insignia of VA-65 Tigers (Intruders) and one light green (with red nose) with the insignia of VA-15 Valions and your name on the side of both aicraft. That should make you happy I bet. I did not bother to change the RAF roundels, but that is ok, as they are fictional anyway. In the "select aircraft" window, the text mentions your name and Air Traffic Control calls out PETE for one a/c and WARD for the other, as call signs. They are lovely to fly and if you press the 'I' on the keyboard you have smoke trailing out, nice to see at the tower view and do aerobatics with. They have no brakes, but you come in to land at 40 mph and do a 3-pointer and they stop....They have great cockpits, 2D and virtual... Note that if you need practice in landings, they are ideal for 3-pointers and even for slight aerobatics. This is a conspiracy on my part to get you off flying jets for a while. ;) Sending you tons of stuff, by the way. It will take you a year to install what I am sending you. Since you seem to like cars, Bill Lyons has car downloads on his webpage that you can drive in FS2002--they are very nice. They do not have planks from Georgia pine for spoilers, as Jaguars and some Buicks are allergic to wood, though the dashborad in the Jaguar is made of high-quality varnished wood from Scotland. Some of his cars even have a box hitched and trailing behind on 2 wheels, where one can place the wife, under a colorful parasol on a rocking chair. All 20s stuff--the golden age!!! One car in particular has two boxes trailing, the first for the wife, the 2nd for cats and kitties of all types and colors, with an occasional dog here and there to keep intruders away. All this was just to make you laugh and keep you happy, shipmate...The Tiger Moths are true though. And you can download cars for FS2002made by Bill Lyons ...

As I've been repainting some a/c, both for SFP1 and for the MS sims, I have often wondered aboput a matter of artistic approach: 1. Do you prefer the repaints to look weathered (though not overdone) or do you prefer them to be unweathered, slick-looking, like the desktop airline models one sees? 2. Do you prefer fictional, non-existent color schemes or authentic ones? I'd be grateful for any feedback...

I installed LOMAC, without any patches, and each time I load wepaons my PC restarts... I have an AMD Athlon, 2,200ghz, 512 memory, Nvidia G-Force 4200 card. I uninstalled the game after all this. These Russians cannot make anything right--their other stuff is full of bugs also.

darkpresence: Great news to see you're doing the A-6. If it is a -B model, they probably did not have Shrikes. Also, do not trust the Sqn Signals publication--they often have mistakes in their info texts--there are better books out. A google search on the net will reveal them. The VA-65 Tigers could be added to the list of skins. Cheers

Navychief, Nice screenshot... Is everything okay otherwise?

Here is a mythical poster for the game....

Since the forum changed looks, Icannot upload an image. Thenew setup confuses me.If only some friend could tell me how to do this step by step...I would ve very grateful.