What you doing this weekend?

[Nick the wanderer]

9 hours ago, Mickly said:

Must have fuggin jinxed it … guys been in touch, he can’t get it started, it’s been laid up for a year, he’s drained the old fuel, & put a new battery on it but it’s not playing ball … bolllocks !!

I'd see that as an opportunity for a bit of a discount...

[Mickly]

1 hour ago, Nick the wanderer said:

I'd see that as an opportunity for a bit of a discount...

Indeed it is, but he’s on holiday from Saturday & then I’m away, so he’s got a fortnight to sort it.

[Grumpy Old Git]

MOT

[Simon Davey]

42 minutes ago, Grumpy Old Git said:

MOT

Good luck 

[rennie]

Got no plans to go out this weekend!

We're having a new bed and mattress delivered today for the spare room. I think we may be having visitors from Norfolk at some point 

[Grumpy Old Git]

MOT Passed - No issues.

 

@rennie - My invite must have got lost in the post! 

[ChrisBiggsUK]

This weekend, I'm making the most of my final weekend as a pedestrian.  43 years of walking everywhere will be coming to an end on Wednesday.  My feet will be thanking me for taking up Motorcycling.  My wallet, not so much.

[AstronautNinja]

5 minutes ago, ChrisBiggsUK said:

This weekend, I'm making the most of my final weekend as a pedestrian.  43 years of walking everywhere will be coming to an end on Wednesday.  My feet will be thanking me for taking up Motorcycling.  My wallet, not so much.

I don't think it's something to make the most of if anything you should be protesting and refusing to take another step unless it's to mount the bike 

[AstronautNinja]

1 hour ago, ChrisBiggsUK said:

This weekend, I'm making the most of my final weekend as a pedestrian.  43 years of walking everywhere will be coming to an end on Wednesday.  My feet will be thanking me for taking up Motorcycling.  My wallet, not so much.

If anything I'd be sat on my sofa with my helmet on drinking beer through a straw 

[ChrisBiggsUK]

29 minutes ago, AstronautNinja said:

If anything I'd be sat on my sofa with my helmet on drinking beer through a straw 

I don't drink, otherwise that would be a pretty solid way to spend the day.

Somehow I don't think that Coffee through a straw while wearing my helmet will have the same effect.

[Fiddlesticks]

Helping number one son move into his first UNfurnished pad.

Bit like helping someone burgle your own house, really.

Edited October 5, 2024 by Fiddlesticks

[Tinkicker]

I will be sat in a digital Fairchild Republic A10C II Thunderbolt.  AKA the Hog.  I spent a happy afternoon designing and adding a new mission to my campaign yesterday, and will be talking off from Incerlik Airbase in Turkey, crossing over into Syria and searching for and hitting an armoured column heading up the highway towards Raqqa.

During the mission I will hit a big milestone.  Currently have 997.2 hours in the hog.  That will roll over the 1000 hrs mark during the mission.  If I live.

 

1000hrs sat in here.  Whoodathoughtit?

 

[Tinkicker]

1000.6 hours.  It did not go well.  Found the convoy on the Raqqah highway close to Deir el Zor airbase.  Took out a bunch of armour and lost one of my flight to a stinger man portable anti aircraft missile.  I got stitched real good by a quad mount ZSU 23 mounted on the back of a truck.

Lost all nav systems, radios, both displays inop, had to shut down port engine and pull the fire handle.  Hydraulics low pressure on system one fed by the port engine, so no service brakes or nose wheel steering on landing.  Flaps should be slow deploying but OK as long as the port engine is still windmilling in the airflow.  Below landing speed it will stop and pressure will drop to zero.

 

So absolutely no idea where I am as the only piece of nav equipment left functioning is the standby compass. Luckily I know a rough heading back to base and set out.  Autopilot cannot handle the yaw created by the assymetric thrust created by the starboard engine at full power and keeps kicking off.

I am at 200 knots and barely above the speed that the rudder can combat the yaw.  Any slower and the hog will spin out of control.  The right wing needs to be held low to help combat the yaw with the slight loss of lift it means.

I am at 2000ft and need to climb to at least 7000ft before crossing the mountains close to the Turkish border.  Bugger, it looks bleak.  Right foot holding pressure on the rudder to keep her crabbing roughly in the right direction.

I finally get her settled into some sort of flying condition and have time to jettison the remaining weapons and ejection racks.  That gets me another 5 knots airspeed.

I settle in to a long, boring and uncomfortable journey back to base and trade my 5 knot airspeed increase for a slow 200ft per minute climb to get over the mountains. That should get me 8000ft at least before I get there with spare time to lower the nose and get my 5 knots back.

 

Arrived back over Incerlik and had to land without radios.  Luckily it was a dawn departure and not dusk.  If dusk, without radios, I would have no runway lights.

 

So landing... Flaps down, gear down and indicated locked,  eased her onto the tarmac.  Then the fun started.

 

I surmise that the port main gear wheel had been shot away, because as quick as a flash, she departed the centreline annd headed for the left infield.  No steering to counter it, right brake and rudder did nothing either.  So into the rocks and weeds at 100 knots.  Left gear collapsed, the outer 3 ft of the left wing was torn off and I tore through the undergrowth doing a steady pirouet as the aircraft was busily shedding parts of itself.  Nose gear must have also collapsed as I found myself leaning left and looking through the windshield at the ground.

Shut off the right engine and battery switch.  Sod it, I pulled the ejection handled and ejected.  As I had a a walk around on the ground, yup, left main and nose gear collapsed.  No sign of the left main wheel.

 

As the Tremeloes have it " silence is golden".  I lived to fly another day.  I have an inkling to design my next mission around the Euphrates Dam.  I have another 17 or so missions to design to make up the campaign, already starting from the ferry flight into the area of conflict, first to RAF Akrotiri on Cyprus, then to my unit based at Incirlik, to the end of the conflict that will see me moved across several airbases, ending up in southern Isreal as the insurgent forces are forced back over the Suez Canal. 

This mission was mission three.  Once completed,  I will fly the entire campaign start to finish over the winter months, then delete it and start afresh in a different arena.

Todays flight was just a mission test.  It does not matter if I get shot down, I need to get lower to observe that the convoy, enemy infantry and weapons are behaving as they should. 

I will be far more careful when flying the entire campaign as a newly assigned to the middle east pilot, on his first tour. 

Already campaigned in the Persian Gulf and Georgia on the Black Sea.  It is a lot of work designing the missions, but I enjoy it.

 

Hit hard over Deir ez Zor.  Incerlik AB is across the large sea inlet (Iskenderun) north west of Allepo, right by the side of the river.  On the south east side of the Iskenderun inlet, you can see the mountains that concerned me greatly...

 

 

Incerlik.

 

 

Edited October 6, 2024 by Tinkicker

[Simon Davey]

That looks too serious to be fun, it looks totally addictive though.

How do you operate the controls, via keyboard and mouse, do you have flight sim equipment?

 

[Tinkicker]

8 hours ago, Simon Davey said:

That looks too serious to be fun, it looks totally addictive though.

How do you operate the controls, via keyboard and mouse, do you have flight sim equipment?

 

 

 

VR cockpit for the hog.  Every switch is laid out exactly where you see them in the  HogVR cockpit.  They are how I start the hog up from cold and dark. The Stick and throttle unit are exact replicas of the real thing, right down to the amount of pressure required to squeeze a trigger.

Right to left:

White box, six switches.  Electrical panel.  Battery master switch, emergency floodlight switch, Left and right engine AC generator switches, inverter switch and APU generator switch.

Small white box in front and above:  Canopy raise and lower switch.

Heading left across the desk. Armament control panel.  Targeting pod switch, master arm switch, laser arm switch, gun stabiliosation switch.  3 smaller switches in a row control the display systems and HUD.

Left of armament panel, we have the landing gear handle, built around a real aircraft gear handle mech.

Small black box.  Ejection seat raise and lower switch to get your eye view level to align correctly with the head up display. 

White box below: Fuel distribution panel, various booster pump switches ect.

Throttle unit. as described above, with all the correct switches controlling various systems.

Left of the throttles.

Two buttons.  1.  Signal lamp test button, lights up all the warning lamps in the cockpit. 2. Fire detection and bleed air test button.  Tests the fire detectors and leak detectors that look for leaks caused by holes in the engine casings.

Row of 4 buttons.  Stability augmentation switches in pitch and roll.

Single red button.  Sets the correct aircraft trim for takeoff.

 

The handbrake looking lever at the side of my seat is a collective lever for helicopter flying.

Rudder and toe brake pedals on the floor.

 

 

 

 Hog cockpit:  Compare the two pics and you will see the switches laid out the same.  In VR the cockpit looks exactly like a real one..  Of course, I only fitted the switches I use a lot.  I operated the others by mouse curser and clicking either left or right on them to switch them on or off.  To a man, every single person who sat in my rig with VR headset on, all reached out to touch the instrument panel.  Every one.  Of course, there is nothing there.  It is quite amusing to watch.

 

Edited October 6, 2024 by Tinkicker

[Simon Davey]

@Tinkicker

OH F*CKING WOW!!!!!!

 

That's amazing.

 

How do you see the switches with the VR on, is it by feel, or am I being a plonker?

Edited October 6, 2024 by Simon Davey

[S-Westerly]

This weekend has seen the start of preparation for a forthcoming inspection in Rotterdam.  1200 pages of BS to wade through. If I could turn to drink I would. Still at least I should be home by the end of the month. 

[AstronautNinja]

5 hours ago, Tinkicker said:

 

 

VR cockpit for the hog.  Every switch is laid out exactly where you see them in the  HogVR cockpit.  They are how I start the hog up from cold and dark. The Stick and throttle unit are exact replicas of the real thing, right down to the amount of pressure required to squeeze a trigger.

Right to left:

White box, six switches.  Electrical panel.  Battery master switch, emergency floodlight switch, Left and right engine AC generator switches, inverter switch and APU generator switch.

Small white box in front and above:  Canopy raise and lower switch.

Heading left across the desk. Armament control panel.  Targeting pod switch, master arm switch, laser arm switch, gun stabiliosation switch.  3 smaller switches in a row control the display systems and HUD.

Left of armament panel, we have the landing gear handle, built around a real aircraft gear handle mech.

Small black box.  Ejection seat raise and lower switch to get your eye view level to align correctly with the head up display. 

White box below: Fuel distribution panel, various booster pump switches ect.

Throttle unit. as described above, with all the correct switches controlling various systems.

Left of the throttles.

Two buttons.  1.  Signal lamp test button, lights up all the warning lamps in the cockpit. 2. Fire detection and bleed air test button.  Tests the fire detectors and leak detectors that look for leaks caused by holes in the engine casings.

Row of 4 buttons.  Stability augmentation switches in pitch and roll.

Single red button.  Sets the correct aircraft trim for takeoff.

 

The handbrake looking lever at the side of my seat is a collective lever for helicopter flying.

Rudder and toe brake pedals on the floor.

 

 

 

 Hog cockpit:  Compare the two pics and you will see the switches laid out the same.  In VR the cockpit looks exactly like a real one..  Of course, I only fitted the switches I use a lot.  I operated the others by mouse curser and clicking either left or right on them to switch them on or off.  To a man, every single person who sat in my rig with VR headset on, all reached out to touch the control panel.  Every one.  Of course, there is nothing there.  It is quite amusing to watch.

 

That's pretty nuts. I'm always very close to getting a full driving set up for home. 

[Tinkicker]

7 hours ago, Simon Davey said:

@Tinkicker

OH F*CKING WOW!!!!!!

 

That's amazing.

 

How do you see the switches with the VR on, is it by feel, or am I being a plonker?

The switches are exactly where you see them.  You reach out for them and find a switch under your hand.  Of course, you have a quick feel around to ensure you have the correct switch, but 9 times out of 10 you do.  It all becomes very familiar.  But you double check all the same.

 

Have a vid from the USAF.  The DCS Hog was originally commisioned by the US Department of Defence.  Does the hardware and software look familiar?  Looks very familiar to me.

Believe me, DCS is not a "game".  The DCS Hog pilots manual has 800 pages.  As an impoverished ex trainee pilot, DCS and VR is a dream come true.

 

DCS is used for pilot training by several airforces around the world.  Of course, the original aircraft was the Hog.  Way back in 2010. The hog systems got updated and the original, now no longer confidential version of the hog got released to the flight sim geeks in 2011. I have been flying the hog since 2014.  Way before VR.  Flat screen only back then.

 

Edited October 6, 2024 by Tinkicker

[Simon Davey]

Ah yes, recognise the throttle gear for sure. 

What you have achieved is something to be so proud of, not just the technical expertise, but 1000+ hours. 

I'm in awe. 

Edited October 7, 2024 by Simon Davey

[husoi]

Boxing

 

Get my stuff into boxes

[Mickly]

Going to Weston Super Mare with Missus & others, not great at this dreary time of year …. But !!! 
it’s the Weston Beach Enduro, an absolutely amazing spectacle, which we go to watch most years. Guys go watch and drink beer on the beach, Ladies go shopping & drinking cocktails, everyone’s happy

[rob m]

Went to see Paul Weller at Guildhall Portsmouth last night. As expected he was excellent, as was his band. Got Fu Manchu at the Electric Ballroom in Camden next week then Faithless, Prodigy and (hopefully) Sam Fender before the years out. 

 

Had one of those days today where the weather was crap so stayed under the duvet watching MotoGP, WSB and footy on the telly while having a few beers. 

 

If I see a break in the weather tomorrow then I'm giving the bike a good clean and ACF 50 smothering. 

[AstronautNinja]

22 minutes ago, rob m said:

Went to see Paul Weller at Guildhall Portsmouth last night. As expected he was excellent, as was his band. Got Fu Manchu at the Electric Ballroom in Camden next week then Faithless, Prodigy and (hopefully) Sam Fender before the years out. 

 

Had one of those days today where the weather was crap so stayed under the duvet watching MotoGP, WSB and footy on the telly while having a few beers. 

 

If I see a break in the weather tomorrow then I'm giving the bike a good clean and ACF 50 smothering. 

What a man. Beer in bed

[rob m]

12 hours ago, AstronautNinja said:

What a man. Beer in bed

Ah not in bed, I have a duvet I sit under when I watch TV because I'm too tight to turn on the heating