Hawkeye

Thanks AlphaWhiskey -- What a great resource to have around. Hawkeye

Hey guys, We had very low ceilings here in Nashville today -- 1100 AGL at best. I needed to get the water out of my lycoming so up I went -- it was a great excuse none the less. After a couple touch and gos (I do an 800ft. AGL pattern in the Pitts), I decided to skim the deck just to see how accurate our AWOS was. As I got closer, I began to feel like I do at home with lomac -- with a 17inch old NEC multisync by the way. Now isn't that just a nice tribute to the developers of this marvelous flight simulation? Lighting, sound, movement, everything except for my sore tail bones was there. You could see patches of the layer that were lighter than others just as in lomac, you could see depth in the layer, as in lomac -- it was all there. Just an early evening comment on a gray day in Nashville for what I believe is a fantastic sim. Give me a couple bud's, my super sonic lomac SU-whatever, a distant rural military runway, and I'll do touch and go's with options until the cows come home! Do they have cows in the Ukraine? Have fun guys, -- Hawkeye

Finally had a chance to read one of those articles -- F15 CAP -- It just amazes me how much multi-tasking those guys can do. (excuse my newbie ignorance, but it sounds like Mr. Mudd is a previous or current fighter jock? -- if so, which plane, which theater, time period?) For me to get that kind of exposure where previously very little material as such is available to the general non-jet fighting crowd is absolutely fantastic. You talk about multi-tasking! You gotta love the scenario of an engine fire, too close for comfort live bogies, lead element, etc. etc. I'd have to bring half a pint of whiskey into my office everyday if I was to stop myself from pissing my pants! Unbelievable. Thanks for the very rare look into a fighter pilot's mental and physical world Mr. Mudd -- Yes, I'm sure the fictional write ups are just that, but with the fighter verbiage, the attention to all aspects of a mission re: time, waypoints, alts, speeds, bearings, distances, weapons, etc. , it all takes me in -- hook, line and sinker. Great stuff and keep it coming -- -- Has anyone asked for, or does a fighter's dictionary exist? Robert Shaw's book is very thorough, but you have to go digging for it. With all the quick radio banter where every other word is code, it would be nice to have a quick reference. Thanks for the entertainment Mr. Mudd -- -- Hawkeye

Sounds like that might have been a career ending "slightly" above glideslope -- I hope not though. Is Eglin right on the coast down there? Some friends of ours go to the beach on the gulf and come back with fighter stories where they can see "fighter jets" dogfighting out over the water. Sounds like a fun place to live if that's the case. I was in San Diego for a while out in Miramar, and you'd see the F18's come and go -- no fighting, but pretty fun to watch them do an overhead approach for a very hard left turn to set up their downwind. Got to love that sound! -- Hawkeye

OK -- just found an old thread so I'll try to pull it down off of: ftp://ftp.chproducts.com/pub/BioHazCentral/LOMAC_Eagle.zip You have a screen shot for that mission showing general vis. down to 0. I'd say that definitely qualifies for IFR time. I heard a story from a friend (so take this with a huge grain of salt as all my hangar guys like to talk a lot) -- a military cargo plane, I want to say C-130, which may be wrong -- was flying from Italy to a base in Germany. Over the Alps they pick up weather and go on instruments. The weather gets thick with several layers all the way down to 500' or so AGL. They pick up a report from their primary and secondary airports that there is thick ground fog. no where to go, all fuel reserves will be used at either 3 of their alternatives. They pick the best out of the 3 based on fuel and possible go arounds. They nail it the first attempt. The runway is never seen, only felt by both pilots. The fog is so think they have to call out for a tow. The pilots just sit on the runway (later reported to be smack dab square on the center line). They know the tow has arrived because the truck runs into the gear. Well, that's my story (fable?) for the night -- no luck on the video, I think that ftp site is bogged down -- I'll try again later -- -- Hawkeye

I'd love to check it out -- Can you point me in the right direction? -- Hawkeye

OK -- looks like I was looking at different distributors, not manufacturers -- sorry for the confusion. Re: multi monitors, here are some interesting sites -- these are corporate, business designed products for multiple application and data integration, but appear to have the capability to work well with flight sims -- with some reference to this exact functionality. I'm wondering how many folks out there might be using any one of these, or anything similar? I am also wondering if the TrackIR product might work well, if at all, with these? http://www.9xmedia.com/ http://www.panoramtech.com/ http://www.maxdisplays.com/ http://www.massmultiples.com/ http://www.donz.com/ My ultimate goal, and I'm sure a lot of folks are interested as well, is to create as much of a 360 degree world as possible and these products, short of multi-thousand dollar projector systems look almost doable. A huge investment that I'm not going to make right now, but perhaps over time, competition and better hardware, will allow for a near complete flight immersion experience? lo-mac's built in 120 degree view helps considerably with this immersion goal in my opinion. My natural peripheral I'm sure is near 180 degrees, so with the Track IR system, a multiple monitor or wide angled screen and the increasingly better resolution offers of some of the later sims, life in the fast lane is getting much closer to my Budweiser equiped arm chair. Thanks all, Hawkeye

re: Track IR -- Thank you, There looks to be a couple different manufacturers of Track IR? Can anyone recommend a particular model/manu.? Mr. Mudd's video looks very seamless, considering the extra load on his system to generate the video capture. I am curious how this would look and "feel" on a Panoram multi-monitor system -- is anyone running anything at the higher resolutions like 2048 X 1536 with a Track IR device? Thanks again Mr. Mudd! -- Hawkeye

Hey guys, What is Track IR? Thanks -- Hawkeye

Hello all you Lock On Gurus out there: Has anyone been able to engage the TV video mode on their A10 MFD while in the A2G mode using the AGM65 Maverick? If so, how do you do this? I've tried "O" for Electro-Optical with no luck. I can use the HUD target designator off the HUD, and the reticle or cross hairs do show up in the MFD, but with no TV background. Thanks very much for your help, Andy "Hawkeye" Hawes P.S. -- by the way, this is the demo I am referring to, thanks again --

Hey Beta, Thanks for going to the trouble of hacking out a new mission. I'll give it a shot asap. Correct about the type of Mav re: zoom/no zoom. I guess I have way too much time on my hands -- did a little internet research on the Maverick and wow --there are a ton of models out there A-J and beyond. I believe the B is by default a 3X zoom, with no adjustments. Then there is a whole slew of variances re: IR and TV, how they acquire, ranges, payloads, etc. Fun stuff to read up on -- at least for a rookie like me. Thanks for the trouble and happy Mavericking -- Hawkeye

Very interesting Beta -- I'm running an ATI9500. Every other aspect of the sim seems normal, except for the display and since you mention the color anamoly, I have to think there is an issue then with certain video cards. Perhaps my display does show someting, but with no contrast? Black on black? I've had a couple folks reply that the tv image in the A10 display has been disabled for the demo. Very mysterious! Thanks for the reply -- Hawkeye

Thanks Yojimbo! Well that makes perfect sense. Thanks for the help, Hawkeye