I believe someone at Laminar Research (X-Plane) might have had about six too many Red Bulls when they coded this Waco crash sequence. It just keep going, and going, and going. Tough machine though, no parts were seen flying off.

#avgeeks #aviation #airplanes #pilotlife #flying #flightsims #XPlane #aircraft

I have been dinking around with real-time WX in #XPlane recently. Flew a night flight in “actual” IMC last night, pretty accurate and loads of fun. #avgeeks #airplanes #flying #flightsims

I love my dad, but have struggled sometimes to find common ground to use to connect. We try, but neither of us are great at interpersonal communication. A while back, though, I had an idea. When he and my mom were out visiting to meet my first daughter (pandemic baby), I asked if he’d like to try my flight sim setup. I use VR, and have a bunch of controls for throttle, stick, and rudder pedals that I’m sure were a bit intimidating… but he immediately said YES!

So… I got him all set up, into the headset, hands on the controls, and put him in an F/A-18C flying over Syria, with a flight plan to land at Incirlik airbase in Turkey. As things loaded in and everything started… his jaw dropped. I told him to just fly around, do whatever he wanted. And I sat back and watched for a half hour as he flew in circles - tentative at first but more confident after time. Eventually I guided him on how to follow the flight plan and find the airfield he was to land at. I helped get him set up on final approach and talked him through the approach to the touchdown. It may not have been the best landing ever, but the smile on his face was the best thing ever.

He later that evening told me that going into it he had no idea what to expect… but what he experienced blew his mind, and he wanted to do it again someday.

I still remember this as one of the coolest experiences ever. I may not always know how to express myself, but I got to share something important to me with my dad, and he not only got it - but was ultimately just as excited about it as I am. I’ve heard since then from others that he still talks about it, two years later.

#DCSWorld #DCS #FlightSims

Playing around with the camera settings in X-Plane and managed to get in tight on the Pitts S1s doing some aerobatics over KOSH.

#avgeeks #aviation #flying #aerobatics #flightsims #Xplane #pilotlife #biplanes #Oshkosh #OSH23

I was reminded earlier today of back when I was much younger, early 90s era, and I discovered combat flight simulators. I honestly can’t remember which one I picked up first, but I flew many of the popular ones. Jane’s Combat Simulations had a lot of them - Fighters Anthology, F-15, F/A-18, Longbow (and the even better Longbow 2)… but others like F-14 Fleet Defender, Falcon 4.0, and EF-2000 were just as interesting and fun. The graphics were amazing for their day, the controls a bit simplistic but workable.

The kid I was back then had no idea what was coming. After many years away from it, I got back into flight sims as an adult. I discovered new advancements far beyond what I expected (improved graphics, better flight modeling…) with things like head tracking so moving your head moved your virtual head too. A few years after getting back into it, Oculus released the Rift CV1…. And of course I got one. It was a complete game changer - for the first time putting me IN THE COCKPIT of high performance aircraft. Several generations of VR equipment later and things are better than ever. All of the aircraft I flew back when I was a kid with basic 3D graphics… I can fly now in high fidelity, in VR, and it’s as if I’m in the cockpit of the real thing. It’s a blast. I’m living in a future 12 year old me would never have imagined possible… and it’s pretty awesome. (As far as flight sims go, anyway…)

#flightsims #dcs #vr #nostalgia