On Thursday 22 Apr 2004 8:39 pm, Chris Horler wrote: >>Martin wrote: >>>Curt wrote: > >> I'm looking forward to the report. :-) > Jon, > > Does the patch work? Or require a bit of modification? > Maybe we might have to wait if Jonathon hasn't yet sent it. > > Cheers, Sorry, guys, I'm a bit behind the curve; only got back from London about an hour ago, having been all day wrestling with s*dding Windows XP on my mother's PC. Grrrr. I've started to write up a few 'lessons learned' from the show, but in summary I agree with the others; it was good for us to meet each other, it was good for FlightGear to get the exposure, and universal plaudits, it was good for the Fleet Air Arm to get the publicity for the Museum, and I believe that IBM felt their sponsorship was well spent.
The patch that Chris speaks of is one he hacked out on my laptop [1] actually on the stand during day two to address the issue of non-animated rotor on the slaved helicopter display. I have to get it off the laptop and to Jon Stockill for testing, and I'll do that in the morning. Just time for my highlight of the show story. Fewer than ten percent of the punters managed to make a landing to be proud of, and the absolute best I saw was from young Kieran (hope I've got his name right) who is, I guess, about nine. Being wary of getting a proper helicopter pilot in that seat (Hi, Tracy) I asked everyone first off what they knew about helicopters - Kieran told me that he'd practiced on simulators, pointed out to me in the real cockpit where the controls were, looked about for the engine start switches, and was disappointed that I was going to do that with Shift-]. Anyway, he flew the simulator effortlessly, gaining height, controlling heading, diving and levelling out, and eventually put the machine down for a featherlight best-of-the-day landing. Remarkable, but better was yet to come. A couple of hours later, he appeared at my elbow again, presumably having persuaded his father to stand for another hour in the queue. I just passed him the controls, started the engine, and away he went again. From back near the slave display, Dave Luff calls out "This is adventurous stuff - who's flying?" "Guess", I replied, so Dave thought he'd make life interesting by increasing the fog levels. Keiran is unfazed - "I'll probably use my radar and GPS" he says, airily. Dave takes this as a challenge, and ups the time rate so that Kieran is flying in the dark. The artificial horizon is unlit, so the lad had only the instrument pointers and the stars to work with, and so help me he *still* managed to land that helicopter. Thanks to everyone for all the hard work: I had a great time. Regards Jonathan [1] Not my laptop, truly, but my daughters, onto which I flung Mandrake at very short notice :¬) _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
