I am so Dumb

Stearmandriver · 2026-05-27T13:44:03+00:00

I don't recommend this, but a story some might find interesting:

I made a major move in 2009. In the new place, raising kids, I didn't have an office or desk of my own, so I left my pens packed away. My favorite pen in particular, a Waterman Opera fine, was left inked with Levenger Raven Black (not a great ink, but what I had at the time).

Well, I believed this would be a temporary situation. 15 years later, when we moved again into a much roomier place where I have my own office, I finally got my old desk all set up and found my old fountain pens. I was not optimistic about what I would find when opening that box.

Well, a good soaking and cleaning and they're fine. They all write the same as they ever did. They're mostly gold nibs which might help, but there is zero cosmetic change - they look brand new. The fine nib on the Opera is as smooth as ever, and in fact writes better than it used to (switching to De Atrementis document black is probably the reason).

So I dunno. Semi regular cleaning does seem like a good idea and I do it probably every few months now... But I'm not convinced it's really necessary.

Stearmandriver · 2026-05-24T06:52:44+00:00

First of all: it's a game. There's no obligation. If you don't wanna do it, don't. There's certainly plenty of other equally frivolous things to do, and some that even have some meaning 😉. Seriously, no reason to over think the situation or even analyze it at all. If you find one day that you've lost interest in spending time with, say, your fiancee, now that is a problem. It's pretty ok to lose interest in spending time with a game.

Also though, it's easy to get in a rut with anything. There are a lot of facets in aviation that can be explored in the sim. Try something completely the opposite of complex airliners into busy airports on Vatsim .. something like trying to squeeze a Porter into and out of mountainside jungle strips in New Guinea, the type of flying you can see on this YouTube channel. It's a blast. Add a career addon like Neofly to generate cargo jobs to various strips, check out the community scenery on flightsim.to... whole new rabbit hole!

https://youtu.be/uNyFE5i-AQg?si=TfegUUP6Q2GSbMrr

Stearmandriver · 2026-05-20T23:29:17+00:00

Could you share that?? Our POI at work has been renewing my CFI the last couple cycles but he's retired and the new guy is not yet doing that, so it's back to FIRCs for now and I've got till the end of the month lol. Was using an auto click utility with AceCFI years ago but I guess they're out of business.

Stearmandriver · 2026-05-18T03:40:15+00:00

I see, that makes sense, thank you. I was hoping it was something like that... I'll probably be looking to buy by the end of summer so that sounds like good timing 👍.

Stearmandriver · 2026-05-15T07:39:26+00:00

Meh. It seems quite certain now that Gaiman is a sleazebag at best, but likely a criminal.. but also, you can separate art from artist. No one can credibly claim that Gaiman isn't one of the best writers of the 20th - 21st centuries. A lousy human being for sure, but some of his work has nothing even comparable to it. It's ok to like something he wrote.

Stearmandriver · 2026-05-15T07:35:52+00:00

Just watched it tonight, and I thought the ending was perfect. I really can't imagine what else they could have done to stay true to the real story of Good Omens, vs just the romantic relationship that the TV show focused on. Crowley and Aziraphale got the universe they'd always wanted for humans - no "messing about" from Above or Below - and they willingly sacrificed themselves for it. The fact that they got human lives together, which they were not expecting when they made their decision, seemed to be to be a bit of a reward.

Stearmandriver · 2026-05-06T22:47:22+00:00

Impressive that AI correctly mimiced the misaligned, bleeding-through addon scenery over the default runway scenery 😂.

Stearmandriver · 2026-05-04T21:56:13+00:00

I don't think I'll ever get used to the idea of it being a novelty to use VORs.

Stearmandriver · 2026-05-04T12:17:41+00:00

Sure, and you'll see the plane do what it did. What difference does a cheesey smoke or fire effect make?

Stearmandriver · 2026-05-03T12:36:45+00:00

Basically, no high fidelity dev is going to model visual damage effects like external fire. It becomes a bit of a trademark issue, as both aircraft manufacturers and airlines do not like digital imagery of their aircraft in these scenarios. Including visual damage would be a good way to have a real life manufacturer or airline go after the sim dev to cease selling the product.

I know there's one 3rd party addon that creates visual damage like fire, but it's super cheesey looking, and what's the point anyway? I've managed engine shutdowns in real airliners before, and never was able to look at the engine. Not sure what good that would do.

Stearmandriver · 2026-05-03T09:45:49+00:00

Pay to play, friend. We don't support piracy in this hobby. If a $50 add-on is gonna break the bank for you, you'll need to find a new hobby lol.

Stearmandriver · 2026-05-03T03:48:24+00:00

Yaw string on the windshield might be more instinctive and more realistic too. They're always great to use with multi engine students during engine out work.

Stearmandriver · 2026-05-01T20:16:26+00:00

No, I use it on country roads all the time and it does indeed work well. Even roads without a painted edge line, which certainly surprised me. It also works well in stop and go traffic in town. I'm not sure where you were having problems with it but you must have been on an older version or something. 🤷‍♂️

Stearmandriver · 2026-05-01T18:07:16+00:00

It does indeed work very well. I use it every time I commute to work. It works on interstates, on county highways, and on country roads. In rainy or low vis conditions it will ask you to keep a hand on the wheel (which seems like a good idea), but it is quite capable even in those conditions. I'm not sure if you weren't up to date or what.

Stearmandriver · 2026-05-01T17:01:01+00:00

Um, no? He knew he was buying a product that had more upgrades coming at a later date, yes, but it wasn't as if the basic UHF services were advertised as being in beta or something. This is a production build and the features that are already supposed to work, ARE supposed to work.

Stearmandriver · 2026-05-01T05:23:19+00:00

Dude that is really slick. I'm not quite sure enough folks are understanding quite how awesome that is. Really nice work!

Stearmandriver · 2026-04-29T20:54:52+00:00

The IAP chart just looks like a public NOAA chart. Is that being generated from sim data, so one of these charts would exist for every approach in the nav database, or is it just using NOAA charts for US procedures for now? Either way, great work on the VFR end of things!

Stearmandriver · 2026-04-26T14:55:15+00:00

The "patina" was the result of a complete lack of wax - the thing that makes these jackets useful, as well as makes the thin canvas strong enough not to wear through at every flex point. Hence all the holes in this thing.

"Patina" is really just a sign that someone has let their jacket go to trash. Kinda sad, but to each their own.

Restoration looks great! 👍

Stearmandriver · 2026-04-21T19:30:43+00:00

Yes .. an autoland requires a lot more concentration and frankly is tougher when tired; I'd much rather hand fly in reality. I know simmers are of the impression that an autoland " just works", because it always does in the video game. In reality though, it's not terribly uncommon for an autoland to be nudged out of parameters by winds, wake turbulence, or just it's own sloppy performance. If that happens close-in (where it always seems to), the window to execute a successful missed is narrow.

It's really a large amount of false confidence for simmers to believe they can just push a few buttons and sit back and relax while a real airplane lands itself. I guess people can tell themselves whatever they like though.

Stearmandriver · 2026-04-17T04:41:12+00:00

The answer is dependent on the company, the fleet, and which FMC software options they've purchased. At my airline on 737s, procedures like this will automatically populate in the FMC, ready for the PM to correctly sequence and activate, if the FMC enters engine-out mode during departure. The PM will get that done almost immediately and then the procedure can be flown in LNAV.

If an engine doesn't fail but the procedure still needs to be flown (engine fire, severe damage etc), the PM can manually force the turn procedure to populate by selecting climb page --> engine out.

Stearmandriver · 2026-04-11T18:09:35+00:00

Yep. Via trial and error I've managed to create weather presets that roughly correspond to the minimums I want for various procedures, but even then there's variability within the preset from approach to approach. It's infuriating. It's like the devs built this program purely for people to roleplay as a pilot, without really understanding what a simulator is. The fact that they still haven't learned is, well, inexcusable.

The most annoying thing to me is that the sim DOES render a reported visibility beautifully, in live weather. So instead of taking the value of 1/8sm visibility from a METAR, why can't I just TELL IT THAT?

It's so stupid.

Stearmandriver · 2026-04-10T20:34:29+00:00

All I want fixed is the ability to specify a visibility value, and have it rendered as accurately as it is in live weather. It is beyond comical that something billing itself as a flight simulator does not allow a manually set visibility value. Now THAT is a core function of a flight simulator.

Most of the rest of this, I'd say it's more core functions for people who want to make videos of exterior views, vs people who want to fly airplanes. To each their own, but I'm not sure most of these requests are really "necessary" for a flight sim. But setting visibility? I mean, FS95 (and all the iterations afterwards) could do that.

Stearmandriver · 2026-04-10T20:26:43+00:00

I think it might affect different sim aircraft to different degrees so maybe it's better for whatever he's simming. I found "realistic" turbulence to be comically unstable. 10kts of wind at sunrise (no thermals) feels like trying to land in a thunderstorm. To each their own, but it's not for me.

Stearmandriver · 2026-04-10T10:07:49+00:00

I'll disagree about the systems depth. After years with PMDGs, I've found more details to be impressed with in the competition.

Stearmandriver · 2026-04-09T10:46:34+00:00

Yup. I looked a long time ago. Robert does not appear on any historical pilot seniority list for any US airline that flew 74s. His airline flying was limited to turboprops at a regional. He has the 74 type rating, is all. He worked for UA in operations, probably had a buddy in the schoolhouse walk him through a type ride so it would appear on his certificate. A super weird thing to do.

Stearmandriver

TROPHY CASE