In spite of its ups and downs (no pun intended, seriously), this has been one of the best years of my life, in many ways. Yes, a lot of that is due to the fact I've begun my journey toward my PPL, but a lot of other non-aviation things have gone on, both good and bad.
In the end, some of it made me stronger. Some of it wore me down. But all of it showed me what I, and those I hold dear, are really capable of achieving in spite of life's challenges. Lessons I've learned before, but even more so this year I believe. Take that, 2014. You were such a lightweight.
One of my favorite things that happened this year is that I started this blog to share my journey, and my passion for aviation. Actually, I started it on a forum dedicated to a spaceflight simulator. But I wanted to share it with more friends and colleagues without them having to register for an account there. So I made the jump to Blogger, sort of. I'm duplicating posts there at this point.
Speaking of aviation-related things, I've been an avid flight-sim junkie for years (which helped me cover a LOT of ground in my early lessons in a hurry). I also in recent months began recording videos of Flight Simulator X with FRAPS just for fun. Since I have a Google account, I decided to upload one to YouTube, unlisted, and share it over at orbiter-forum.com to see what kind of reaction/advice I got. The comments were all positive and constructive, so I took some suggestions, and made another video last week.
Here is the first. Please forgive the poor audio quality. I'm using a Rugged Radios headset with an adapter cable for PC and a Turtle Beach USB adapter. It actually sounds like a low-end aircraft set because it pretty much is.
And my most recent. Improved audio this time around thanks to a Logitech USB microphone, as well as improvements to the default KHNB scenery by yours truly.
For me personally, my flight sim setup has been invaluable during my training, especially with all the down time I've had due to weather, plane maintenance, sickness, etc. I do still plan on uploading a video showing my hardware setup. Perhaps I'll get to that over the holidays. But maybe not. I'm in the process of doing my own testing of the recently-released FSX: Steam Edition, which I picked up for a cool $5. Expecting great updates from Dovetail going forward, but already performance is better than the original/CD version of the simulator.
That's about it for now. I don't have a lesson scheduled next week, but I'm ready should the opportunity arise.
In the meantime, Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good flight!
Two Victor Uniform, clear of the active.
No comments:
Post a Comment