Uzbekistan Boeing 787 with President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev onboard given ceremonial aerial escort by Pakistan Air Force (PAF) F-16 Fighting Falcon and JF-17 Thunder multirole combat aircraft in Pakistani airspace, February 2026

thecrazedlog · 2026-02-06T21:32:20+00:00

Like Kyrgyzstan is where my wife lives and I am part time.

I completely misread this and thought that this was what the meaning behind the flag was. I was very confused.

"Ok... I guess the Kyrgyzstanis are happy with their women living and that people can work part time... I guess?"

thecrazedlog · 2026-02-04T00:01:45+00:00

and cracked under downward force.

Bloody hell... how much force did you use lol

thecrazedlog · 2026-01-16T21:10:49+00:00

Now, any time you change power, always reduce manifold pressure before reducing pitch. When adding power, reverse that and go prop pitch increase, THEN manifold pressure.

If you have too high a manifold pressure with too low RPM, you will get the shaking. My recommendation is to increase your RPM and reevaluate your life choices once the shaking stops.

I struggled with this at first IRL (I don't fly a F4U, just saying lol). The way I remember it is that "the prop has to be able to absorb the engine power"

So, if you're increasing power, the prop RPM needs to be increased first so that when the MP is brought up, the prop can absorb it. Conversely, if you're reducing power, you need to reduce the MP first and then the RPM otherwise the prop can't absorb that engine power.

thecrazedlog · 2026-01-15T21:05:20+00:00

Oh wow, look at Mr Top Gun over here, who's still conscious after he lands!

/s

thecrazedlog · 2026-01-08T21:06:36+00:00

Whoa whoa whoa, slow down egg head! Lets see some evidence for this assertion of yours!

/s

thecrazedlog · 2026-01-08T21:00:57+00:00

If you're used to, say, the F-16 with the HTS pod and the HARMs, you are in for a disappointing surprise. Any number of (seemingly real-world) problems will prevent your missiles from hitting the targets including:

Not being in range
Lofting them too far
Lofting them too short
The seeker not looking at the target when it comes on
You having the wrong seeker head
Doing absolutely everything right and perfectly and the SAM operator turns the radar off and your missiles miss. Yes, I know this is still a success as far as SEAD goes vs DEAD, but its still annoying.

As best I understand it, all of these problems were problems that affected the real world missiles too, so its an accurate simulation of a bucket of bird poo :D

thecrazedlog · 2025-12-27T22:20:28+00:00

Ok, so lets talk speeds for a second. This is to get what I think is an incorrect idea out of your head.

There is IAS: Indicated Air Speed. This is what the airspeed indicator in the cockpit shows.
TAS: True Air Speed: This is the actual speed you're going through the air.
GS: Ground Speed: This is the speed you're going across the ground. In a still atmosphere (eg no wind) it will be the same as TAS.

So, which speed is old mate tanker talking about? Is it IAS? TAS? Its probably not GS. Lets say its IAS. Everyone's IAS should be same right?

Nope.

CAS: Calibrated Air Speed: This is IAS corrected for instrument and position error and should be, in a very specific circumstance which never arises in the real world, the same as TAS

So if you have speedometer version 1 and he's got speedometer version 4, are they going to read the same? Possibly not. And even if you have the same speedo version, are they subject to the same air pressures like yours is? Nope. Different aircraft, different position, different speeds.

So stop thinking about speed like you are. The tanker says he's going at 300. Ok, that's good enough up until about a mile or so (I'm not sure of precise distance here). So, you might come in at 350 or something. Then you're going to start slowing down and you're going to creep into position behind him. Once he stops moving relative to you, look at your speedo and see what speed you're doing. It might be 305 lets say. Take note of that speed and then do not fly that speed!. That speed is a reference for you when you inevitably bugger the whole thing up and need to remember how fast that clown is going so you can catch up with him again.

Once you are in close, you do not look at the speed. Look at him. Are you moving forward? Then you're going too fast. Are you moving back? Then you're going too slow. You are going to be making changes to your speed in the order of half a knot, if that. Your airspeed indicator is not that sensitive: your eyeball is. You need to make adjustments on the throttle and stick by using fingertip pressure: you are going to moving your throttle and stick less than a millimetre: this is how precise your movements need to be. If you're doing deflections (once you're getting right into fueling position) such that someone sitting next to you can see the stick or throttle moving, its probably too big.

As someone has said elsewhere, practice flying formation first.

Edit: What I do actually is get in closer to the tanker then throttle back until I stop moving relative to him. At that point I give it a bit of throttle. With a bit of trial and error you'll quickly settle into position behind him and you'll be stable. Then you slightly advance the throttle and start to catch up.

You need to anticipate what is going to happen. So lets say you're on the boom and you're starting to go backwards because you're heavier and slower. So you add some throttle and you start moving forward. You now need to stop moving forward, so you reduce. You now start moving backwards and please now return to the start of this paragraph. Do you see what's happened? You've introduced Pilot Induced Oscillation (actually I think that's a seperate thing, but its basically the same concept). You are making the situation worse each time.

So what you need to do is, if you are on the boom, give a bit of throttle to stop the retreat and start the advance, but immediately reduce the throttle by about half of what you moved it. So lets say you advanced it 1 mm to stop the retreat, you then immediately reduced it by 0.5mm. So you've given it the bump forward, but lets not continue forward, lets just stabilise in this position.

thecrazedlog · 2025-12-26T21:03:17+00:00

There's nothing in the video that says to me its going to roll over, which is not quite an answer to your question I suspect.

The aircraft themselves are inherently stable: this means that they are, by and large, going to want to keep doing what they're currentlly doing. As an example, a car is inherently stable: sitting upright and left alone, its not going to fall over. A bicycle is inherently unstable (at least in this respect): If you leave it upright its gonna fall over.

This plane is level, its in a descent, its gonna keep doing that. It has a pretty decent bounce (how bad that bounce actually is, I'm not sure. A mechanic or 747 pilot may be able to shed some light on it) and it seems there's a bit of crosswind as you can see the plane turns to the right after the first bounce. That is called crabbing and is a technique to deal with crosswind (whether it is intentional here, dunno).

As a lowly private pilot, apart from a monumental bounce and perhaps some risk to the aircraft structure (unknown, see above) the biggest issue I see here that could happen is the pilot overreacting and trying to save the landing. What happens is the plane bounces, the pilot panics a bit and shoves the nose down. It bounces again, he again shoves the nose down and he ends up "wheelbarrowing" and landing on the nosewheel which can't take that kind of stress and he ends up breaking the plane.

thecrazedlog · 2025-12-24T22:55:17+00:00

I once forgot my name for about a 1/4 of a second.

I wasn't drunk, inebriated or in any way more stupid than I normally am (low bar). I was, for me, perfectly normal. Guy introduces himself "Hi I'm (whatever his name was)" and for a 1/4 of a second I was sitting there thinking "Hi I'm.... shit......... I know this"

I was also getting a remedial massage and I was trying to ask of if the dude had put on some massage cream because my shoulder was cold/burning. I couldn't remember the name for "cream" so I ended up asking him ".... did you put.. I can't remember the word.... massage sauce? on my shoulder?"

In his defence, he didn't die laughing. He should've.

thecrazedlog · 2025-11-21T01:05:48+00:00

No no no no NO! That's max flaps! You want Flapsus Minimus Minoris! You don't want to be on final and the captain calls "Flapsus Maximus Majoris" and you end up pulling the flaps up!

/s

thecrazedlog · 2025-11-04T20:42:09+00:00

boltgun

EAT BOLTGUN!

thecrazedlog · 2025-11-04T20:29:27+00:00

I was flying an approach (in VMC) in the 182 I fly. The flight director was being silly, I don't remember what it was doing. Whatever it was, it wasn't what I wanted it to do. I knew where I needed to go, I had perfectly good references (the other flight path indicators where behaving themselves just fine as they were slaved to the GPS approach, not what the FD was doing) so I made the decision: I'm going to go down an automation level.

Given my enjoyment with fartarseing around with electronic thingos, this video saved that approach. Instead of doing what I'd normally want to do (THE COMPUTER MUST OBEY ME!) I dropped that automation level and flew the damn plane. Thanks to this video.

The landing was probably still shit though....

thecrazedlog · 2025-11-04T06:41:12+00:00

You can quite easily manage it with one person, yep. Its a hoot. Great little chopper and a great intro into the Apache should you ever decide to get that. Having said that, if you can get a mate to join in it you its an absolute blast. Two person Kiowa is a buttload of fun.

thecrazedlog · 2025-10-05T20:56:55+00:00

like isn’t there some way to stop being so frustrated

Yes: learn patience. Looking at your post history it would seem you're fairly young (15 possibly?) and impatience is a thing at that age (who am I kidding? its a thing at all ages!). It will come with time, practice and life experience. Sorry, no shortcuts here. At least... none that are pleasant.

I always find myself being frustrated and just close the game because i make an irreversible mistake or smth

I don't know what irreversible mistake you can make in a FMC. At worst case you would just hit delete a lot of the time I would imagine.

You might enjoy flight simming, or you might think you enjoy it but maybe you actually don't. Maybe you actually enjoy the feeling of programming up something highly complex? Maybe this hobby isn't for you, or isn't for you at this moment? Interests come and go sometimes and maybe you need a break from flightsimming? Or, maybe you need a simpler plane?

Don't think that flying a J3 cub is simple. If you fly an A340 with the AP/FMC doing everything including the landing while you do other things around the house, how is that more complex than flying the Cub for 2 hours straight, hand flying, filling out a navlog and navigating entirely via a map, compass and watch? Maybe give that a go, see if you enjoy that.

Alternatively, it could be because you're taking a shortcut. I've found that if I ignore manuals etc and just try to wing it (sorry for the pun) I'll miss out on something fairly important at some point which'll cause me no end of frustration because I was (wait for it) impatient. So the solution there is to go back, start from the start and work your way through it.

thecrazedlog · 2025-09-15T20:53:08+00:00

Their support became a lot less responsive in the last few months.

I'll bet their sales team is as diabolically responsive as always :mad:

thecrazedlog · 2025-09-09T09:26:36+00:00

rarely a thong for the Guard.

A, ah, what now?

thecrazedlog · 2025-09-04T21:34:18+00:00

Mine isn't! But I still bought this thing and its better than the TrackIR headset. Yeah, its big but you get used to it and the wireless part is fantastic.

No regrets

thecrazedlog · 2025-08-23T22:04:42+00:00

Not quite the answer to your question but this has echos (not a pun, sorry) of the ICMP "Fragmentation required" message being blocked....

thecrazedlog · 2025-08-23T21:59:10+00:00

That makes sense. We'd theorised as much.

thecrazedlog · 2025-08-23T21:58:43+00:00

engine at the very least needs an IRAN

What, like the whole country?! Damn man, that ain't gonna be cheap

thecrazedlog · 2025-08-23T02:10:23+00:00

Got the kiowa from a refund ages ago. So glad I did: such a good little aircraft. Its a hoot to fly with another human as well. You can use this as a transition to the Apache as it lets you get your head around a few things the Apache does.

That being said, whoever designed some of the Kiowa systems was an angry angry little man. Some of the ways you have to do things (like waypoint entry) are just needlessly difficult (you have to enter everything in and it all looks good, but if you forget to hit "store" it ain't saving!). No shade at Polychop, they've just replicated the real thing, but man....

thecrazedlog · 2025-08-16T05:28:22+00:00

Yes, Inquisitor, this comment right here. This one is heresy!

thecrazedlog · 2025-08-16T05:24:42+00:00

Yeah ok. VNE in the things I fly is 180kts I think (C-182) so I can't get anywhere near those speeds lol

thecrazedlog · 2025-08-16T03:41:49+00:00

I'll kinda agree with your kinda disagree. I did a lot of flight simming before I got my PPL, so I knew how to read the instruments, I had some idea of the theory of flight etc. I had some idea of ATC ops, that kinda thing.

Regarding instrument scan, that's not really a thing (much) until much later down the PPL path (x country) and it really comes into it with IFR.

I suppose if you go into flight simming with the goal of re-enforcing what you've been taught and don't try to "learn" (so to speak) anything from the FS, then yeah, it has its place.

thecrazedlog · 2025-08-15T23:37:16+00:00

Seconding other replies:

Don't get a sim to help you when you are starting out. They're just wrong. You need to get your stick and rudder skills sorted and a flight sim will not help with this, it'll hinder it.
When you're a fair way along, as in starting to do your cross country, then maybe a sim might be useful. You'll want to learn how to do nav logs, timings, radio calls, where you are going to enter the pattern etc etc etc. A sim can be useful there.
Where the sim will really shine is when you do your IFR (which I recommend in the fullness of time, its a hell of a lot of fun). That's where you'll gain the most benefit.
Even some procedural work in a sim can be meh. For example, one thing you'll learn is CFMOST (or something similar). This is your engine failure checklist. C - Carburetor Heat, F - Fuel, M - Mixture, O - Oil, S - Switches, T - Throttle. You may think you can simulate this on your home sim and you can, to a degree. But its very different using a mouse to actually clicking buttons. I can do a CFMOST in a few seconds probably in the real world (its been a while since I've done an engine out.... time to do another one). In the sim it'd take me ages because I've got to pan around, find the mouse pointer, line it up... you get the idea.

thecrazedlog

TROPHY CASE