Looking for a Southwest pilot...

[CKlimko]

Whats really sad is that I think I know who you are talking about.... I am a member of VATSIM and work on their Virtual ATC service. There is a guy ( I think a kid) who flys into the area all the time citing that he is a RW pilot at SWA. He then proceeds to plough the runways each and every time.

Regarding Virtual world. I am sorry that members on here ridicule .As a RW dispatcher I got as far in to avaition that I could. FS and the Virtual world enabled me to see what I missed. there are thousands of pilot who not only frequent the skies but also serve as educators to those wannabees. Not only that but the FAA themselves have sought to align information to make the Virtual world as real as it can be.. The VA associated to my company actually has constant communication to be realistic. It might be for kids but their are some serious dudes out there working the V world...( oh how do I know. I took a group around the Ops center the other day)...and yes I also am a VA member...

Education not ridicule...

Mark

Interesting perspective there Mark, I'm the same as you, belong to a virtual airline (2), and fly online with VATSIM. For the most part it seems "dorkish", and everyone seems to think that. I just bit my tongue and continue on. Heh, I don't even consider myself a computer nerd either, just a FS junkie.

To the contrary FS coupled with VATSIM and Squawk Box takes alot of time getting the "know". For example you could be flying from Chicago to New York, and if there is a controller online with ZAU, you'll call on voice mind you for clearance, and everything up the the center controller until handoff to the next center. The expect you to know the terminology, how to cross XXX at a certain altitude, ILS, VOR, DME, LDA approaches, etc, etc. This type of flying tries to mock the real-world as close as possible, it's not your typical default FS plane following the green line direct from ORD to MIA.

And I know flying online with voice it has helped tremendiously with my speaking skills when I'm taking real-life lessons, and it has hellped on other areas as well.

And just to show you how "real" people take FS. Have a look at this plane/panel combo made by PMDG. It costs about $40, but it's amazing. I fly it all the time.

And that article can be found here. http://www.avsim.com/pages/0504/pmdg_737ng_review/pmdg_737_review.html

 

[FN FAL]

LOL..... yeah, I know Bobo! Great guy! I flew with him a bunch when I was an FO in MDW. How do you know him?

Ask him why he writes up all the ADFs!

I haven't really seen much of him for a while, but I do think I owe him a visit to try and catch up on old times and see how he's doing.

We used to work together at a sporting goods store back in the early eighties. I will ask about the ADF's...thanks!

 

[FN FAL]

Which DZ do you hang out at? Lake Wales, ZHills, Sebastian, and Deland here..

Been to Z hills, but only to drop off a few friends for the big easter boogie...we had to head over to Sarasota with the rest of the crew to hang out with some friends. We did fly over to Sebastian because the remaining skydiver in our party wanted to "ZIG" while every body else "ZAGGED". What a bummer for us. We waited for two hours to get on the porter, because the DZ at Sebastian sent their big plane over to Z hills. So all they had available to jump was the porter and the C-195. It was still fun, even though we only got to jump once and had to turn the rest of our lift tickets in. Guess that's what we get for "ZIGGING"! Hahaha!

Oh yea...I did a lot of jumping (almost 7 seasons worth) at Shiocton, just west of Green Bay, WI. Those guys would be Chris and Carrie Quatsoe that come down by you at Z hills a lot, they are called Wolf River Skydivers. Now I jump at a really cool place in Ft Atkinson...Atmosphair Skydivers. Great bunch...kind of a student factory, but we still have a lot of fun.

 

[Tripower455]

FN-FAL,

I noticed in your location that you name one of my favorite movies of all time The Atomic Cafe. Funny how a series of different clips tells the story without any dialog.......

 

[FN FAL]

I have yet to actually see the movie "atomic cafe", but I have found the information about that movie on the "conelrad" website http://www.conelrad.com/atomic_cafe.html very interesting. Click the Conelrad sidebar to the right of the provided link and it will take you to the conelrad home page, where you will find hours of interesting reading and audio related to that crazy cold war era. Lots of stuff about some of the era's movies as well. I distinctly remember seeing "Panic in the year zero" with Ray Milland. Very spooky stuff for those times.

As the kid of a career Fleet Balistic Missile submariner, I pretty much was surrounded by the machinery and people of the cold war all througout my childhood. Since the old man was part of the original Polaris FBM program, he was personally interviewed for his position by Hyman Rickover himself. Living near Groton, Norfolk and on the Charleston Naval Weapons Station, gave me a real appreciation for that part of the Navy that protected us silently through those very strange times. While living on base at Charleston, you knew when they were missiling up another sub, because you would see missiles on trailers heading for the piers all the time...right from where you lived.

Eventually, it was my time to join the service and I wound up at a place called Harbor Clearance Unit Two...now known as Mobile Diving and Salvage Two. I pretty much had the equivelent of four years shore duty in Little Creek VA. and knew if I didn't volunteer for the Enewetok Atoll salvage operations, that most of my work in the Navy would have been TAD salvage operations stateside.

At Enewetok, I got to work around A-bomb craters and a lot of WWII history. There was even an island at the end of the chain that makes up Enewetok that had an H-Bomb malfunction during the test. That Island was being rendered safe by scraping topsoil (army corps of engineers) and running it over to the island that had two craters in it. Army Corps of engineers had a concrete plant on that island and were mixing a slurry to fill the two craters with the radioactive topsoil. We would on occaision have to dive the craters to see how the cement slurry would settle.

So...having grown up and having served during the cold war, I also find such stuff as "Atomic Cafe" an interesting and educational look at that time period of American and world history.