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 :)

So I started off this morning wanting to get some SIOC scripts for my new Opencockpit gauges. I fired up Sim2, which is the SimA server, and low and behold my Sony PS1 screen that is my captains clock screen was blank. It was on, but no video. I checked the svideo to RCA connector on the back of the Nvidia card. It was good. From there I have an RCA cable go right to the screen. That was ok. So I checked the Display control panel. TV Screen wasn’t showing up. I checked the Nvidia control panel, set it to force TV recognition and rebooted. Nothing. Bah. Then I remembered I had done some Windows updates on shutdown the last time Sim2 was on. I bet Windows screwed up a driver. Went to Nvidia’s site, installed latest drivers, rebooted, screen was OK. Stupid windows updates.

So then, I fire up mcp.exe from the sima server and it says it can’t find my hardware cpflight mcp. Argh! Config file said COM4, I saw no com4 in device manager. Hmm. Checked the power connector and what do you know, it had slightly come out a little, when I installed the new 3 LED screens. Plugged it in and well a couple hours later, NOW I’m ready to start on SIOC scripts for my new gauges.

Start simple on your troubleshooting. It’s usually the stupid stuff that is the root of the problem.

Just wanted to send a thanks  to Clause at http://twitter.com/claus1974 for the recent kind words from them! Thanks guys! #awsomesupercoolniceguy

This is a good builders tip. But I never really came into using it until I started on annunciators. Anyhow, flat smooth plastic has a very hard time bonding to other flat smooth plastic when you try to glue it. Even crazy glue. So use a little sand paper and rough up the plastic on both gluing surfaces (as seen in this photo) to give the glue something to grip onto.

Found out about Liquid Tape. It is liquid “electrical tape” basically. Great for times you forget to shrink tube your wires, want to seal something up or insulate a hard to reach place!

This is an amazing video from the launch pad of Apollo 11. It was filmed on 16mm film, at 500 frames per second. Remember, this was in 1969!

WOW! From the erupting volcano in Iceland that has caused UK air traffic to completely shut down.

UPDATED: Here’s another shot! Would YOU want to fly through that?

Click here to watch an animation of UK airspace clearing out to avoid the ask cloud! (Give it a minute to load) Thanks to the amatuer airspace trackers for recording this!

I received my first real piece, the FDS MIP, on July 21st 2009… In 9 months my sim has encountered an amazing transformation from this:

To This!

I just want to thank all the manufactures out there of hardware and software alike, that have spent countless hours making this dream of mine possible!

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/transportation/4346192.html?page=1