Marlatt

I got a call yesterday morning about an aircraft that I did the nose art on several months ago. This aircraft is a 1933 Vega, made by Lockheed. It is the only one flying at this time and is one of 3 in Existence. It turns out that the one I painted is getting international attention and is at this time the most publicized AC in the world. I was told that it is in almost every aviation magazine world wide this month. The owner, John Magoffin is loaning it to a museum here in Arizona for a time and after it's used for promotional shoots and some other stuff, it will be put on display at the Smithsonian Institute early next year. What strikes me funny about this is that I did one other AC for John, via the guy who does his restorations for him (Rick Barter), and it was an impressive nude on the side of his B-17 that flies out of Gilbert AZ. The Vega just has a black panther on the side. So all of these people are looking at my work but its no where near as detailed or elaborate as many of my other AC murals. This is pretty standard of Rick Barter's work. The guy is a talented person and already had 2 of his restored AC on display at the Smithsonian. Because of him I have flown in some pretty impressive planes over the years. How many people can say they've flown in Eisenhower's personal DC3? Or Cary Grant's DC3? Sadly......of my many accomplishment in my life that most people would think bring fame and fortune, or even ultimate cool status......I will get little recognition for the work and have already been paid my usual $600 fee. So it really amounts to that old saying......."That and $2 will get ya a cup of coffee over at Denny's". Oh well.....my mom says that it's just another feather in my cap. I don't wear a hat......................................... http://www.warbirdsnews.com/warbirds-news/warbird-collections/commemorative-air-force-news/1933-lockheed-vega-display-caf-airbase-arizona.html http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwPPRgXF17M

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=125117 I myself am pretty excited about this. Although the DCS world format isn't exactly the best place in the world to have an F-86, I have been flying the P-51 and the Huey there for some time now and set up my missions with vehicles and planes that are pretty compatible with what I am doing. I think that the F-86 will be just as fun as any of the DCS planes. To be honest, I get a little bored with the A-10. Once you got all of the sequences and button pushing skills out of the way, it seems (to me anyway) to get uneventful. That's why I enjoy the P-51 so much. You have to pay attention to your rudder, speed, manifold pressure, and a host of other things when your flying. So there are lots of people already saying "What's the point of adding another relic from the past to this sim?". I understand that mentality, but I just love the older aircraft so much more than modern planes. Maybe someone at Eagle Dynamics feels the same way that I do. Anyway.....I'm pretty friggin excited and have my credit card already fired up and ready. The F-86 I purchased from XPlane is so ridiculous that I don't ever fly it any more. XPlane has become kind of like flying a Mickey Mouse mobile through Loony Tunes cartoonville. So unreal and cartoony that I just get tired of it after a few minutes.

When I first signed up for the forum, I saw the post about the political forum. After replying, I noticed that "political arena" now appears under my name. But I have never seen this category here on the forums. What happened to it? I noticed that the initial thread for the forum is from 2010. Did it not work out? Were there too many threats on people's lives? Just curious

You have to admit.......things would have been a hell of a lot better had there actually been no Nazis.

I have not touched anything from McGaggers in almost 20 years, nor from BK, KFC, Wendy's or any of them. I have never eaten: Taco Bell, Carl's Jr., Sonic, In and Out, or Jack in the Crack. That garbage is poison disguised as food. I love how in the commercials they show all of these young, in shape modelesque people chowing down on their rat meat and when you go into any real McDonalds, all you see are disgusting overweight slobs. And my little boy loves Happy Meals. So once every two weeks I take him to get one. He likes the TV commercials that are geared toward suckering kids into the rat trap. I honestly believe that they should change the first amendment to make it illegal for people to advertise and promote things that they absolutely know will harm people. McDonalds touts itself as a friggin healthy place to eat for kids. It's criminal in my mind. A new study came out recently about the U.S. military. It seems that less and less people are going in. And while that's not really a problem in my eyes, it is the reason that they aren't going in that bothers me. It seems that record numbers of youth are being turned away due to their weight. And now.....record numbers are being turned away because of low test scores. America is getting fat and lazy. Tsk Tsk. Shame on all of these people capitalizing on harming others. So McDonalds is unfit for consumtion for many many reasons. Not just the ones stated in this thread. It's garbage.

Sorry.....Ruger autos work better if you hurl them at your target. I put them on par with Llama. I've seen those things jam and jam and jam and jam........Especially their 1911-91 military knock offs. Their revolvers are pretty nice but I don't like the indirect firing pin in their Vaquero models. That other guy had it pretty dead on. Springfield is putting out the best 1911-91 knockoff these days. Very dependable and they'll shoot semi wads without jamming. If I'm going to put my life in a firearm's hands....I want it to work every time I fire it.

I was forced into Windows8 because I needed a new computer and no manufacturer is licensed to load anything other than 8 on their hardware any more. I would put Win8 on par with that flustercluck they called Vista (what a nightmare that was). Although both are absolutely terrible to use. I think that 8 is just a little worse than Vista. It's not that its different than the other Windows systems. It's just ridiculously redundant, annoying to navigate with it's useless "charms" popping up, a desktop, and this other no mans land they call the charm menu, it's user unfriendly menu configurations, the fact that you can't touch anywhere on the damn screen without having to worry about crap changing or popping out to prompt a change, and about a gazillion other annoying, unfriendly features. Windows 8 is the straw in this camel's back. And what's with the multi step process to get out of programs like Adobe Reader? You can't just click on the corner, you have to either go to the corner of your monitor, let the desktop icon drop down and navigate to the desktop (not really closing the program, only hiding it) or you have to right click to a whole other menu to close. It's just stupid. I resolved to make my next computer a Mac because Microsoft just doesn't understand what adults want anymore. They cater to kids and their friggin toys. I was kind of under the impression that Windows8 would be OK since 7 was pretty good. But they just bent all of us over again. You can't trust Microsoft any more.

Does anyone here fly the P-51? I can never find anyone in servers who fly these things. I would like to fly with or against other players. Either co-op or adversary. I never get to really test myself against other flyers. Although I'm sure I'd be Swiss cheese more often than not.

http://xfinity.comcast.net/articles/entertainment-eonline/20140410/b530500/?cid=hero_media I certainly did not expect this but I am pretty friggin happy with it. In my opinion.......no better choice. Now maybe I'll watch a little more often. Dave could get a little old, but this guy....I never tire of him.

David Letterman once said of Morgan Freeman "He never read a script that he turned down". And he was kind of right about that. The guy seems to appear in small random roles in so many movies. Many is the time I'd be watching some terrible B list movie, and there would be Morgan Freeman playing some small part. I always think to myself: "Why would such a good actor be in such a poorly written movie?" Lucky Number Sleven is a perfect example. But then again....Ben Kingsley is also in that flick.

Yeah...that 190 has no governed limitations whatsoever. Nor do the other P-51's in the custom missions. Even on Average skill, they outfly you pretty easily. And the AI Hueys in custom missions....forget it. They're useless as tits on a boar hog. They won't respond to any of your commands. All they do is mirror your movements and try to stay in formation with you no matter what you do. On line is pretty much a bunch of guys just like me who aren't top gun candidates but like to fool around with other fliers. I have yet to engage another person in the P-51 in a server. Most people fly co-op missions. That's pretty fun. But most of the servers do not use TS so the only communication you can do is through chat. I don't know why TS has become so......un-used these days. As far as all of these new releases from DCS, I really don't have a clue as to what they have planned for them. It always seemed to me that DCS is kind of long on ambition and short on delivery. The WWII setup probably would never happen if a few select people weren't involved. From my understanding, it's not an ED thing but is being done by outside people. I also remember reading about a Las Vegas theater, or something like that but it never happened. I enjoy flying their planes but as a company they fail to deliver more often than not. I suppose that there are a lot of guys who would argue that point with me but that's the beauty of being a person. You have your own opinions and thoughts.

This thing is definitely on my "to get" list. Your review was pretty in depth, I appreciate that.

I fully agree with you Jedi. I was pretty disappointed when I first downloaded it and had no compatible adversaries to go against. But I found quite a bit of light armored vehicles that can work ok until the WWII package comes along. I still love the P-51 head and shoulders above most of the other DCS planes. But then, I am a WWII plane buff. I also have the Huey, A-10A, A-10C. But I don't play around with the A-10s much. The Huey is pretty fun, but also kind of out of place on any server. Both it and the P-51 don't really stand a chance against most of the competition on the internet. That's kind of why I look for people to fly with.

You got it exactly right Jedi.........But then again, Russia (or the Soviet Union) has never cared what the rest of the planet thinks or does. So just about anything that anyone throws at them is pretty useless. When I was in the Army many years ago during the cold war, I was trained on the Russian mentality. They are pretty brutal people. Some of the things I learned about their methods of getting what they want made my blood curdle. I truly believe that the U.S. and it's allies are much more afraid of them than they are of just about anything we could ever do to them. They have a long suffering violent history that they still carry the lingering effects of.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMnLhlT_364 This is absolutely one of my favorite Youtube videos. It pretty much fits in the idea in this thread. Enjoy! Such a true piece.

Are you serious??? No one flies a P-51 here? Wow!

Am I missing something or does the Huey not come with any instructional videos? I looked on the EA site and there was nothing.

No....but I have now. Thanks!

Guys, you have about another hour before this is over. It goes from midnight to midnight 3/29/2014, Moscow time. That's 11 hours ahead of my time here in AZ. I got the Huey for under $15 and Combined Arms for less than $9. It's only for another hour so you had better hurry up before its over. I have been curious about combined arms since I first saw it so this is a whopping good deal.

I'm new to this forum. I find this political / religion thing terribly interesting to say the least. Although I might not offer input all the time I certainly would love to be included if it's possible.

I have had Xplane since version 9. I'll give you the pros and cons of it: Cons: Xplane 10 seems to have moved more toward boxy, cartoony scenery (Xplane9 is much better). No matter what you do, the gamma is never really good and it causes the scenery to either wave as you fly over or shine like a reflector of sorts. The designers always make the argument that its more about flying than pretty scenery. And in their defense, I've flown in $40,000,000 sims that they use to train pilots and the scenery in those things is pretty sad. XPlane does beat them for detail. XPlane does not include any kind of real world landmarks. No London Bridge, no Statue of Liberty, no buildings accurate to the real world in any way. There are no buildings at any of the airports. Their stock AC are terrible. Even the best of them lack in cockpit functionality, or visual accuracy. When they make training videos, they have to use a Cesna 172 that is not included in the Xplane package as a stock AC, and when you watch the videos they tell you that the stock planes are not set up accurately enough to simulate their real world counterparts. That itself should tell you that they don't bother with realism. No radio chatter in game at all (Xplane9 does). IFR is very shawdy, works sometimes but more often than not.....no go. Same with many NAV functions. Night flying is not great. Stars appear in the water, on the ground, and the moon is never correct even though it is suppose to be. Sometimes the moon appears under the horizon, like in the ground. And again, the gamma is so bad that you can never find a good setting for night. You seem to have to download countless plugins and add ons to get Xplane10 to work as it should have out of the box. After several months of people complaining and getting kicked from their forums for it, they should have had much of this taken care of. They say it's a work in progress but Xplane10 seems to be a giant leap backward. And this "work in progress" has had since Xplane7 to actually evolve. This leads to the last con of Xplane: The community is very unfriendly to those who question all of the above mentioned stuff and get pretty nasty about it. Many newbies I've seen have gotten kicked for inquiring about much of these same issues. It is a very clicky crowd over there. Pros: You can download or design any airport on earth and make it as detailed as you like with their WED software. You can design, any aircraft you like with their plane maker software. You can go to their site and download any AC you like. But the issue there is that XPlane people ( meaning people who buy their software) do the designs and post them for download. This leads to kind of a crap shoot on the quality your getting. Some are just terrible and others are great. But even some of the expensive payware AC I've gotten from Xpane cannot hold a candle to DCS, and some of the other sims out there. And I should note that the WED and Planemaker software have a very steep learning curve. Planes and scenery are very time consuming to build. So for those who want to make their own airports or planes but do not want to spend hours making them......well your out of luck. You just have to download what some other person designed and hope for the best. Xplane is pretty easy to fly for those who are just getting into simming. The roads and streets are accurate to the real world. Very versatile setup options that really make customizing your rig a pleasurable experience. The axis and control settings are among the best I have seen. Some of the payware AC put FSX to shame. The bottom line is that XPlane9 is a much better product. Many of the old timers don't bother with 10. People are still designing new AC and scenery for 9 rather than 10. I like 9 better also. Although Xplane is not perfect, it is on par with FSX in many ways and in some ways it is better. But that train travels both ways. It is still pretty fun to fly and is good for newer sim enthusiasts. But I find myself getting further and further away from really wanting to fly it because there are sims out there that are much better for less money. I paid $70 for 10. I paid $29 for 9. They should reverse those two numbers so far as I am concerned. I have invested well over $200 in payare AC that I found in much better detail and accuracy on other simulators.

I have been thinking about getting the Huey. Anyone have it? Is it pretty nice?

Hey guys, I'm new to this forum. I'll be perfectly honest from the start. I am banned from the EA forum because I was pretty annoyed at the attitude of many of their regulars over questions by not only myself but by many others who went there looking for help and got nothing but attitude. So I voiced my opinions and was banned. That being said, I hope that I will have a good long tinier here on this forum. I'm not a jerk, I just think it's mean spirited to attack people who get frustrated with the complexities of DCS, and I just saw so much of this on their forums. Lets face it....most people who purchase any of their packages for the first time face being overwhelmed to say the least. I purchased the A10c and still have not gotten around to really dealing with it because of all the intricacies involved. And....I'm a P-51 fan so I fly it most of the time. So I come here to hopefully discuss issues I have and share stories of the cool things that DCS has to offer sim enthusiasts. After all.....it is a very good simulator and is so versatile that there are literally endless hours of great flying. So I would like to open my dialogue here with an observation and maybe to solicit some input. Hopefully a few of you have experienced some of what I'm going to address. When I go into the "instant Action" mode of DCS, I find it to be pretty friggin cool. If I only have a couple of minutes to goof off, I just do Ground attack and have at it. From time to time I'll do the dog fight if I really feel like I want to get my b-hind pounded. That AI plane seems to play by it's own rules and have no governed boundaries. I used the instant action mode to hone all of the axis controls and set up my X52 to the simulator. But what I have noticed is that when I go into the "Mission Editor" and set up a mission, the plane acts completely different. All of my axis settings seem to go out the window (especially my rudder). It's like the sim goes into another mode completely. And when I go on line and play, yet again the plane acts different. On line play is not as bad as the mission editor however. And there are other details that kind of make my point. Like when I'm taking fire and my plane is surrounded by pieces of the fuselage as it gets eaten away by the rounds in the "Mission Editor" missions. This does not happen in the "instant action" mode or training. But it just seems counterproductive to me to have all 3 modes act completely different. It's almost like you have to relearn the sim for each mode. Also, although I have the random failures turned off, in the "Mission Editor" missions, my engine will just freeze out of nowhere. Just seize right up. I'm not pushing it, all of my gauges show me well within the boundaries of safety, but my engine will just freeze, or I'll seemingly run out of fuel. Please keep in mind that this usually happens before I get to combat so I know it's not enemy fire. The other day I was just going into a dive to drop a couple of bombs and my engine governor seemed to just give out. I burned up my engine because I could not control it's speed. The "Mission Editor" in my DCS seems to ignore the random failure selection. Has anyone else noticed any of this stuff? Am I missing something? I always fly in "Simulator Mode", I don't think I have ever tried "Game Mode" before. Unless of course, "Instant Action" puts you in game mode without giving you the option. DCS is a great simulator with a lot of really fun things. I really enjoy flying it. So if anyone knows what I'm talking about and maybe can steer me in a direction or tell me what they do to fix it, that would be great. And I am looking for anyone who likes to fly on line to come join me in some dog fighting or to team up with for missions. And again....I'm not a terrible guy, I just have a short fuse for mean spirited people. And I am sure that the people over at EA have had their share of people who don't seem to want to play nice on the forums. I was obviously one of those people. So I harbor no grudges, I just want to chat, fly, and have fun, and if I have questions, I don't want to be made fun of by someone who spends every waking hour playing with the software and treats you like your out of line or dumb because they've forgotten that there is a steep learning curve. Thanks! Mark