The 'Official' Screenshot & Tips thread 4 FSX enthusiasts & flight simmers.

[!bluetonic!]

It's been a busy week here and I haven't flown online.

My flight sim equipment turned up. It's all snuck in and set-up. Everything is almost perfect except a broken Nav1 dial. Which I've sent a couple of emails off to see if it's fixable.

Briefly, the throttle controls are excellent and very robust. The avionics is great and it's amazing to fly 'off the mouse'. I haven't plugged in the Yoke/s yet. I was ever-so slightly disappointed to find out that 1) It's the older 'serial' model with a USB adapter and 2) FSUIPC doesn't pick up the controls directly. You have to use the Elite software which hooks into FSUIPC and use the config there to configure the controls. In other words, I couldn't switch Nav1 dial for Nav2.

On the plus side, it does seem a worthwhile purchase and definitely adds the immersion factor. Hit 'Ap Eng' to enable the auto pilot. Twizzle the HDG to set the heading. Dial a comm frequent and hit the transfer button.

This weekend is busy, but come good weather on Sunday and I'll be off for my real-world flight to Cardiff.

I also found this:-

Quoted from PPRune:

"December 13 has been confirmed as the date for Qatar Airways first Boeing 787 Dreamliner flight from London Heathrow.


To start with, the new aircraft will be used on one of the airline's five daily flights from London to Doha - Flight QR 075 departing Doha at 0625 hrs, arriving at London Heathrow at 1105 hrs, with the return flight QR 076 departing London Heathrow at 1505 hrs, arriving in Doha at 0045 hrs the following day.

Flights are now bookable for this flight.

Qatar Airways took delivery of the first of 60 Dreamliners earlier this month with the second arriving over the weekend."

It looks a great plane. If you do a youtube search for this year's Farnborough display, you should be impressed.

 

[ringo747]

Have you started taking real-world lessons blue?

 

[!bluetonic!]

Nothing serious. Lesson number 2.

 

[Vuvuzela]

It's been a busy week here and I haven't flown online.

My flight sim equipment turned up. It's all snuck in and set-up. Everything is almost perfect except a broken Nav1 dial. Which I've sent a couple of emails off to see if it's fixable.

Briefly, the throttle controls are excellent and very robust. The avionics is great and it's amazing to fly 'off the mouse'. I haven't plugged in the Yoke/s yet. I was ever-so slightly disappointed to find out that 1) It's the older 'serial' model with a USB adapter and 2) FSUIPC doesn't pick up the controls directly. You have to use the Elite software which hooks into FSUIPC and use the config there to configure the controls. In other words, I couldn't switch Nav1 dial for Nav2.

On the plus side, it does seem a worthwhile purchase and definitely adds the immersion factor. Hit 'Ap Eng' to enable the auto pilot. Twizzle the HDG to set the heading. Dial a comm frequent and hit the transfer button.

This weekend is busy, but come good weather on Sunday and I'll be off for my real-world flight to Cardiff.

I also found this:-

Quoted from PPRune:

"December 13 has been confirmed as the date for Qatar Airways first Boeing 787 Dreamliner flight from London Heathrow.


To start with, the new aircraft will be used on one of the airline's five daily flights from London to Doha - Flight QR 075 departing Doha at 0625 hrs, arriving at London Heathrow at 1105 hrs, with the return flight QR 076 departing London Heathrow at 1505 hrs, arriving in Doha at 0045 hrs the following day.

Flights are now bookable for this flight.

Qatar Airways took delivery of the first of 60 Dreamliners earlier this month with the second arriving over the weekend."

It looks a great plane. If you do a youtube search for this year's Farnborough display, you should be impressed.

I've been online a couple of times, quite late, so ATC have been off.

Glad the goods worked out for you. I've been looking on ebay for a couple of things. I was bidding on some radio stacks but they went for too much. I would like to add some controls to my setup. Maybe Father Christmas will be bring something, who knows .

I've decided to move my lesson to spring time. The weather is so crap at the moment don't want to take a chance.

I saw something about the 787 coming to Heathrow. I was on http://www.airliners.net/ the other day looking at the 787. The cockpit looks superb!

 

[Cavallino]

I don't think so. Unless you stretch your screen. I tried it and it doesn't look very good. Get yourself a new monitor and have a triple set-up. Some good prices at the moment.

Well I have a dual monitor setup but whats the best way to arrange the screens? (is it via the new window/undock method above) ?


Also would you use the 2D view presumably?

 

[Vuvuzela]

Well I have a dual monitor setup but whats the best way to arrange the screens? (is it via the new window/undock method above) ?


Also would you use the 2D view presumably?

It only worked in the 3d view and looked Fine.

I just stretched the screen. I tried a few things but stretching was the best option.

I have a 27' and 24' monitor so it looked a bit silly. As soon as I changed to 2d view the view went back to one monitor.

 

[!bluetonic!]

I have a multi-monitor setup. Nothing too flash by today's standards, but things that I accumulated and are too good to get rid of.

1 x 15" - For Mumble or Teamspeak
1 x 19" - For EFB or Plan-G
1 x 23" - For FSX Virtual Cockpit
1 x 19" - For External views or a Web Browser

FSX is an undocked, windowed view.

I'll get some pics up over the weekend.

 

[Jason2]

Hi guys, just a quick question in regards to a motherboard, if by its max RAM speed it has (OC), does that mean you need to overclock the motherboard or something? Say for example, the motherboard says "1666MHz (OC)", will I be able to get RAM at 1666mhz and it will work? I hope this makes sense. Just the (OC) bit is confusing me and don't want to get the wrong ram. Cheers.

 

[!bluetonic!]

Hello Jason2. Sounds right, but post this question in the RAM section for a definitive answer.

 

[Vuvuzela]

Vatsim very busy tonight. I couldn't get a screenshot for some reason

 

[!bluetonic!]

My awesome real world flight | Kemble to Cardiff via Bristol

So Sunday 2nd December was the date for my real-world flight. The weather was good and I met Chris and Stuart from Cotswold Flying Club at 09.30z and the beauty I was going to be flying:

Spoiler

Chris was my mentor on this trip and he had de-iced the plane and done all the external pre-flight checks. He had already booked us out for the flight. We walked up to the plane. I took the Captain's seat.

He asked if I wanted to do radios of which I said yes. My first slip up was referring to 'Kemble Information' as 'Kemble Tower' ala Vatsim. And my second in quick succession was calling us Golf-Whiskey-Yankey instead of Golf-Whiskey-Kilo ala my callsign for light aircraft in Vatsim.

Those things out the way, we taxied to Runway 26 and off we went.

Spoiler

Chris took off and then let me do some flying. But with a well trimmed aircraft and little wind there wasn't much to be touching. We settled at 4000ft and admired the scenery.

Spoiler

We changed over from Kemble Information to Bristol Control and then flew IFR. We were cleared into the zone, maintaining 4000ft and given a sqawk code. We flew East to West with the runway to our right.

Over Weston, we were handed over to Cardiff Control and were cleared ILS for Runway30. Chris lapped up the flying here as he said he never gets to do this often. E.g wait for muggins here with his simulator dreams.

We were number 1 and were quickly reverted to number 2 as a Jersey callsign plane was coming in. We were vectored over the Channel and then were vectored back round onto the ILS.

It was windy but Chris was in full control.

Spoiler

And we landed safely and had a quick backtrack for the GA parking.

Over at Cardiff we checked in to pay our (my) fees which was a total of £56. 2 x movements (1 landing fee. 1 ILS fee). We then went to the pub they have there which overlooks the airport for a well deserved cup of tea.

We saw an ATR and Dash-8 depart whilst we were there and also some GA traffic.

Spoiler

After tea, it was back in the cockpit and I did some more ATC spiel. And took off from Cardiff airport. We were cleared VFR via Wenvoe.

Spoiler

Here's a few more scenery shots:

Spoiler

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And then as an added bonus we flew over the historic Filton Airfield and saw the static Concorde.

Spoiler

The it was back to Kemble. We joined downwind for 26 and I did the landing which could have been tidier.

It was a fantastic experience and Chris' company was great. The bill was £357 and I left for home with a massive smile on my face.

Spoiler

 

[ringo747]

Nice - sounds like you had fun!

 

[Iraklis F.C.]

Hi guys, has anyone bought Opus FSX? it looks like its a groundbreaking weather engine.

 

[Cavallino]

Very nice read bluetonic.
I've never done any flying lessons before and have been contemplating it. I was told to expect an average of £100 an hour. Is the goind rate these days?

 

[!bluetonic!]

Cavallino, thanks. Most good flying schools will offer a 'trial' flight of 30mins or 60 mins. Have a look at groupon or the red letter days for a cheaper introductory flight.

I'd guess that £100 is your base price.

If you can get over to Kemble, they have an excellent cafe there with breakfasts or lunches with unrestricted views over the airfield so you can make an afternoon of it. They can also do 'high-octane' experiences and you can do some aerobatics. Not for me though!

If you're after a cheaper air experience, there's microlights or very-light aircraft flights. Redlands in Swindon do this although I haven't been to visit them yet.

 

[Devrij]

Those are all very familiar airfields as I used to live in Bristol, drove by Filton airport regularly, and my brother lives near Kemble so I often drive past it. I can imagine that being a great little flight. Very jealous, although I think I'd be a bit lost on the ATC and navigation as I don't use VATSIM or any of that yet (just default FSX ATC, which is pretty rubbish).

 

[!bluetonic!]

Devrij, for me too..

I work in Bristol, have flown from Bristol Airport and lived in Cardiff also.

My 'co-pilot' had a friendly, immense knowledge of everything. Chatting to me, but then having also heard our next instructions from ATC.

Don't be afraid to stop off at the airport for a coffee and have a look around. The entrance is on the road to Tetbury. Under the rail bridge and further along that road.

My offer of FSX and VATSIM tutoring is open to anyone that wants to learn the basics of Flying, Navigation, ATC. We could replicate my flight no problems at all in a shared cockpit.

 

[Devrij]

Devrij, for me too..

I work in Bristol, have flown from Bristol Airport and lived in Cardiff also.

My 'co-pilot' had a friendly, immense knowledge of everything. Chatting to me, but then having also heard our next instructions from ATC.

Don't be afraid to stop off at the airport for a coffee and have a look around. The entrance is on the road to Tetbury. Under the rail bridge and further along that road.

My offer of FSX and VATSIM tutoring is open to anyone that wants to learn the basics of Flying, Navigation, ATC. We could replicate my flight no problems at all in a shared cockpit.

I might have to look into that (I don't have much time for simming these days ). I now live up north so won't be down that way for a while. When you say "have a look around", how open is it? Might be a cool photography visit.

 

[!bluetonic!]

There's naturally security fencing around the outskirts. But you can clearly see many end of life planes currently including some Cathay Pacific 747s.

Drive through and you can park for free, walk past the tower and go into the modern cafe. You can sit in or outside. A smaller fence stops you going 'air-side'.

You can then watch traffic arrive and depart, mostly GA.

 

[Vuvuzela]

Excellent photos mate. Looks like you had a awesome day. Great shot of Millennium Stadium(big rugby fan). I can’t wait now for my flying in the New Year! That was a C172?

Are we going to fly this week? I’ve been on most nights but a bit boring on your own(playing the smallest violin lol )

I also bought prepar3d and really enjoying it. Ported over most of my planes(Still no news on ATR and a small fee for Ifly) and scenery(Orbx have a great tool for this). As I mentioned last time, using it mainly for VFR but did take out the RJ last night and did a flight from Southampton to Liverpool . There is talk about v1.5 coming before the big one next year(v2)

Hi guys, has anyone bought Opus FSX? it looks like its a groundbreaking weather engine.

Better than the REX? Will have a read about it.