Nearly 10 years ago on 9/11/01 I woke up to turn on my TV and see thousands of people lose their lives.

Today I awake an American who’s country has taken out the world’s number one terrorist.

Today is a great day to celebrate!

(Click to download the high quality version of this image)

God Bless the USA by Lee Greenwood:

A really good friend of my Dave, whom I haven’t seen in about 5-6 years, has been in town for a few days. It was really cool to have him over this evening and during that time, he took command of the yoke and went for his first flight in the sim!

Have to say I was really impressed! Great takeoff and for a first flight ever, a very controlled flight and landing!

Great job DDF!

It’s hard to believe it but Pat’s last flight in the sim was over a year ago! He was over tonight with my other good friend Dave and after Dave’s flight, took the seat and flew over the skies of Los Angeles!

A lot has changed since Pat’s last flight, but most noticeably is now the full front overhead and the CPFlight EFIS’s/MCP

Been about 2 months since I’ve been in the sim. March and April are notoriously busy for me personally and work wise. Things are now selling down.

I got an email from Ali from 737yoke.com that said the 2 yokes I ordered should be shipping by May 1st, 2011. I’ve been patient and he has kept me updated from time to time about the status of the order.

So I look forward to getting them in a couple of weeks and then getting some really good photos up of them.

The multiplayer server is running well on the new fiber connection. Check it out at http://mp.my737sim.com

When I last flew I was running into ILS approach issues with Sim-A. Mark said he couldn’t replicate the issues I’m having. Others like Markus running FS9 aren’t having the issue it seems. (Thanks Markus for putting up the video, I’ll definitely check it out!)

So when the yokes arrive, I’ll put some hours into trying to figure out what is causing the problem. It could be an add-on. So I’ll disable everything, try a flight, go from there. Or I could be doing something wrong in the CDU as well.

Just a good reminder that this hobby now has a wide variety of hardware vendors and software components. All of that can lead to different problems. Don’t give up, take a break, remove some of the complexity and eventually you’ll get your bird flying :)

What the heck…

My heart goes out to the people of Japan. Below is what is left of flooded Sendai Airport in Japan.

I lived through the Los Angeles Northridge earthquake in 1994, that was a 6.7, and one of the scariest moments of my life.  I can’t begin to imagine what they felt during this 8.9 quake. And that they have had 70 plus aftershocks nearing what our major quake was in size. Unreal, just unreal. Further, the Tsunami that hit the coastal areas is something out of a horror novel. I took some video late late night from the local news.

Here is some HD video

This is nothing short of majestic, to have on film the final launch of Discovery, viewed from an aircraft in the sky. Amazing, just amazing!

Did a 2 1/2 hour flight from YBBN to YMML, using FTX (Full Terrain) airports and ground scenery.

Click here to view the photos!

Going to take advantage of this weekend to learn some of the things the Sim Avionics CDU can do. Seems it has a cool pushback with sound feature, as well as Cabin announcements. Time to learn!

My nephew was over visiting this evening and took the Captains seat! I think he enjoyed his flight! But I think he enjoyed my PS3 more! :)

KLAX to KSAN testing out the new OLED visuals! Enjoy the flight!