So, I've Been Slacking

At the end of the move Rush (great movie by the way), Niki Lauda is preflighting a Lear and James Hunt happens upon him on his way to fly somewhere interesting. The two engage in their typical act of giving each other a hard time, and as part of that conversation Niki encourages James to get into flying because it would add some structure to his life. James then makes a comment about how he thought Niki was going to get poetic about flying. Rather, as the calculating Austrian noted, flying was simply another structured environment into which he could stretch his skills. I can't say I blame him. To a certain degree, I look at aviation the same way.

I've never really sat down to analyze my interest in flying. To me it's always been a passion, but I never understood why. I'd imagine that, for most people, a true passion is just something that's ingrained in them; something that doesn't quite make sense in a logical fashion, but something that has a certain gravity to it. Any time someone's asked me why I got into aviation, I've usually deflected the question with a joke about how, as a kid, I saw Peter Pan fly on his own, tried to do the same myself, fell flat on my face, and realized that I'd need a plane to help me out. I don't think I've ever been able to explain it, and that probably makes more sense knowing that my parents say that I've been enamored with aviation ever since I was a little kid. Occasionally, though, I let myself wander and make decisions that pull me away from flying, which was a partial cause for my lack of flying in 2014. Life is a journey, though, and it's not usually one without mistakes.

Quite a number of things happened in the past year, and none of it personally aviation related. Let me first qualify that by saying that I mean "personally aviation related" in the sense that I made no personal progress towards my ratings. More specifically, I haven't logged a flight since the last post on this blog. I have, however, spent a lot of time in and around planes.

A significant portion of my aviation-related time was spent as part of a crew flying a DC-3. While my stick time is limited to cruise legs here and there, it's my goal to eventually work up the ladder to get the ratings necessary to add bars to the jacket and shoulders, and sit up front. As it stands, though, I'm the radio/nav guy with one bar. I don't object to that in the least, however, as it gives me the opportunity to fly around in a DC-3 and hang out with with a great crew. I had alluded to getting to meet the crew in a post back in October of 2013, but I'm kinda surprised I didn't write more about it since then. If you're interested in following along with those adventures, the plane has a Facebook page. I imagine I'll be including a post here and there about my adventures in that part of my aviation experience. Over time, I have a feeling that it'll become more dominant, just as I have a feeling that I'll eventually drop the "(In Training)" off of the blog title. For the people who believe in continuous learning, worry not - I agree with that mentality, but I do also think that it's worth dropping the qualifier off as soon as I work my way into a professional flying job of some sort. While I doubt that I'll be going into any airline flying, there are definite opportunities around me, which I'm rather lucky to have.

Additionally - and probably slightly more significantly - I accepted a position with Precision Manuals Development Group, or PMDG. Like the DC-3, I've also mentioned PMDG here on the blog before, as I'd started to help them test their software back in 2013. The current position is a paid one, which has afforded me more of an opportunity to get back up and flying (though I haven't made any posts about the flights yet). Unlike most of my other jobs, this one also has a lot of potential to let me grow into using some of my other talents.

The first two projects I helped with as a member of the team were updates to existing products - the 737 and 777 - to bring them into new simulators (Lockheed Martin's Prepar3D, and a reboot of Microsoft's FSX in Steam). Next up is a ground-up rebuild of the 747 product, and an entirely new project: the DC-6.

Like the DC-3 opportunity, I'm really excited to see where this goes. On that note, I'm headed off to discuss just that with the owner. Look for some posts about the recent flights sometime in the near future.

The Hiatus Continues

While the hiatus continues, I've been anything but relaxing.  For those of you who don't know me personally (and even some who do), I've actually been staying pretty close to aviation during my break.  A few weeks before my last flight, I got an invitation to be a beta tester for a company called Precision Manuals Development Group.  The company specializes in creating realistic, study-level simulations of various aircraft for use in Microsoft's Flight Simulator.  In my case, I helped test their latest offering: the 777-200LR/F.  While I clearly have no time in the type, I was brought on as someone to stab around for bugs.  I also ended up taking a few writing tasks.  Testing will continue for the next few months, too, as they add the 777-300ER and -200ER to the product line.

I also ended up creating a few YouTube videos, showcasing the aircraft and explaining how to operate it.  Interestingly enough, my YouTube channel, which had about 1,000 views up until that point, is now standing at 43,500 views.  That's about 30,000 more than this blog at the moment.  Given my success there, I'm thinking of branching the content into two different categories: flying (as exhibited here), and simulated flying.  The sim side of things has always been a passion of mine mostly because it helps me survive the times when I'm not out flying in a real aircraft.  There it is.  I admitted to it.

The secret is out, people: I'm a giant nerd, too.

Then again, to some of you reading this, that's not at all surprising...

So, for those of you who are still not sure, I will now prove it to you:

As I mentioned, the simulator is my way of surviving the times I'm not out flying in a real aircraft.  Given the right tools, too, it can be an incredibly strong asset to real flights as well.  Granted, the sim I'm using is not certified by the FAA for logging time, but the concepts learned in the sim have saved, and will continue to save me valuable (read "expensive") time in training.

As you all know, The Doctor (N172DR) is one of the aircraft I fly most often.  It's a simple plane, it's relatively cheap to rent (especially now that N96178 is gone), and for some reason, it tends to be available when I want to go flying.  In the sim realm, another company known for high-quality simulations of aircraft is A2A Simulations, who just released a C172R.  Of course, since I have so many hours in one, I figured it would be a good way to survive this hiatus and keep relatively sharp.  I couldn't just go burning holes in the sky in just any aircraft, though.  I fired up Photoshop and "painted" it up like The Doctor to the best of my ability.

It's not perfect, but I think I did a decent job at capturing most of its grandeur.

Judge away, but this is helping me stave off the flying cravings until I'm allowing myself off of this hiatus.  I'm imagining I'll evaluate my various options for the long IR cross country flight using it, as well.  I have a few other ideas, too, but I'll go into more detail in another post.

There's a ton to catch up on in the world of aviation and related technology, so expect me to get back on writing more often in the near future.  Of note: some unfortunate news about Contour, updates in ForeFlight and CloudAhoy, and some new ideas for my online presence - both here on the blog and over on YouTube.