Two to start with

"Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing." (granfury)
07/22/2018 at 21:53 • Filed to: None

I’ll have to scale back the detail settings to get a better framerate, and I wish the screens would be locked together so that moving the view with the hat switch changed all screens at once. This is going to be good...

DISCUSSION (17)

TheRealBicycleBuck > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
07/22/2018 at 22:36

Neat. Which flight sim? Are you a pilot?

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > TheRealBicycleBuck
07/22/2018 at 22:58

I’m working with Flight Sim World, FSX and (soon) Prepar3d. Due to medical conditions and injuries I can no longer hold a valid medical certificate so my flying has to be virtual. My role these days is as an aerospace education officer teaching 12-18 year old cadets how to fly in the sim.

TheRealBicycleBuck > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
07/22/2018 at 23:03

Again, neat. I’m starting ground school tomorrow. I have several friends who are private pilots and a couple who are commercial pilots, so I’ve spent more time in small planes than the average Joe. I’ve just never had the time, money, and opportunity to get my own license. Now’s the time!

Mercedes Streeter > TheRealBicycleBuck
07/22/2018 at 23:17

Dammit, man. I’m still wrangling with the idea of getting into commercial aviation. On one hand, I have a cushy desk job that could pay even better if I worked with a company closer to Chicago. On the other hand, I’m already getting burned out in this career and my path of advancement doesn’t look exciting. I still have a chance to get out and do something new. Planes are probably the only things I love more than computers and cars. The angel on my shoulder says “D itch IT and fly commercially , it’ll be worth the hardship”.

The devil on my shoulder says “S crew it, run for local public office”.

The realist on my shoulder says “W hy rock the boat? Keep collecting smarts in your cushy career!”

(This comment sponsored by Berliner Weisse )

Mercedes Streeter > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
07/22/2018 at 23:19

Yasss!!

My current flight sim rig is an i3-7100 hitched up to a HDD, 4GB RAM, integrated graphics, and wrapped up in an ASRock Deskmini 110. It can max out FSX, even with DirectX 10 on and demanding mods. I plan on upgrading to X-Plane 11 one day (though that may have to be run on my actual gaming machine that has way more powerful hardware ) . :3

TheRealBicycleBuck > Mercedes Streeter
07/22/2018 at 23:37

A friend of mine really wanted to be a pilot, but was pressured to get a degree. He ended up finishing a degree in engineering but it took him 10 years because he was constantly flying or working. After he got his degree, he felt like he had to follow his heart and ended up flying full time. He’s now a co-pilot for a major airline and is loving every minute of it. On the other hand, he once described it as driving a really big, very expensive bus.

My personal goal is to get my private pilot’s license. I don’t think I’ll go any further than that. Going to visit relatives will be a 3-hour flight instead of a 10 hour drive.

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > Mercedes Streeter
07/22/2018 at 23:52

This system is an HP Elite 8300 CMT with an i7 3770 that I built as a Hackintosh. Last night I bought 32 GB of RAM (not yet installed) from a friend for $50 and a GTX 1080. It feels kind of silly putting a $450 video card in a $200 computer, but, well, whatever. For the money I’ve invested, this system runs quite well despite being a bit old. Sure, I’d like something newer/better/faster, but I’m a cheap bastard so that’s not going to happen any time soon.

FSX is running very smoothly on ridiculous settings. FSW takes a big hit out of this thing but is still playable. I’ll need to dig out X-Plane 11 and get it installed on a spare SSD and see how it performs . Next sim to try will be Prepar3D; it’s around this junkyard I call a home somewhere , I just don’t know where. And when I find another DisplayPort cable or adapter I’ll add a third monitor for a gloriously nauseating immersive experience.

Somehow, despite all of the things I need to do on my upcoming (Wed/Thurs) weekend, I have a sneaking suspicion that my butt is going to be plunked down in front of this computer almost continuously...

Kinja'd!!!

Mercedes Streeter > TheRealBicycleBuck
07/23/2018 at 00:06

The main reason I steered into IT was because at the time, the IT career had higher pay and my then current situation at home required me to make more money out the gate. I don’t regret that decision, it was the right one for the time .

However, it looks like times are changing and from what I can tell, starting wages are now good enough that I don’t have to sell off my whole fleet and eat Ramen from my parents’ basement (I know, exaggeration). The girl I’m dating now is ex-Air Force and is helping me with figuring out if it’s right for me. :)

Nothing wrong with being a private pilot, either! :)

Mercedes Streeter > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
07/23/2018 at 00:17

Mmmmm, delicious setup! It may be a little old, but with those upgrades you should be just fine! FSX runs marvelously because it is mainly a CPU hog. If you have a high enough clock, it’ll basically be bulletproof.

My main rig is a Ryzen 1300X, GTX 1060, SSD, 8GB RAM. I’ll be doing a couple upgrades when it’s time to shove X-Plane into it but otherwise it rocks.

If I may ask, how does having depression on record impact the ability to fly either private or commercially? I was never officially diagnosed with anything, however I’m positive my therapist visits would pop up if someone looked into my medical history ?

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > Mercedes Streeter
07/23/2018 at 00:46

This is a tough one. Depression usually isn’t a disqualifying condition as long as you the condition is stable, usually through talk therapy, and can be thoroughly documented. It’s handled pretty much on a case-by-case basis, and honesty and documentation are the keys . But being honest may not result in the outcome you would want, so this puts many people in a very difficult spot. Matters only got more difficult after the Germanwings 9525 incident back in 2015, and many that had been successfully treated were denied medicals based on extreme caution.

If you take an SSRI, as I did for a period, things get even tougher. There are only a handful that are approved, and taking one, despite the generally positive results , opens you up to even more documentation and scrutiny. The paperwork seems endless, and sometimes you start to wonder if it’s all worth it. I would recommend seeking the counsel of an FAA authorized medical examiner for clarification and advice before investing in extensive flight training.

Mercedes Streeter > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
07/23/2018 at 00:56

Oof, I forgot about the Germanwings incident.

Thankfully I’ve only been through talk therapy for a little over a year (very late 2015 - early 2017) and didn’t need any medications to overcome depression, but I still have my bad days. I think my worry is more the combination of my therapy showing up in my medical history with my trans stuff? But even then, those waters may be muddy because the official diagnosis that gave me HRT is some generic endocrine disorder.

Either way, thank you! :)

TheRealBicycleBuck > Mercedes Streeter
07/23/2018 at 00:59

Going commercial is a rough life. One of the reasons my friend is, and will always remain, a co-pilot is because he has seniority. That gets him first bid on flights. If he were to step up to pilot, he’d be back at the bottom of the totem pole and would be there for several more years. Even so, he still lives out of hotels most of the year. Oh, yeah, he also never had kids and ended up divorced after just a few years.

Mercedes Streeter > TheRealBicycleBuck
07/23/2018 at 01:07

Oh, yeah, he also never had kids and ended up divorced after just a few years.

That would be a major consideration against going commercial for me. I don’t mind super long working hours, however maintaining some sort of home/social/love life would be preferable.

And with that said, I could find my way into aviation without being a pilot..find a happy medium where I’m satisfied, compensated, and maintaining something resembling a social life. Before I ended up with the company I’m working for now I tried to get my foot in the door on the IT side of aviation. I think the reason why I didn’t get that position was more because I didn’t have a lot of experience on my resume. My resume definitely looks a bit more juicy nowadays. lol

unclevanos (Ovaltine Jenkins) > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
07/23/2018 at 01:40

You thought about a TrackIR headset? Instead of paying $ 150+ for the trackIR headset, there are $60 alternatives like delanclip or trackhat. I ordered a delanclip and its in the states now. I plan on using it for DCS A-10C and IL2 series. I’ve thought about prepar3d but not sure how it will run on my i7 4790k and gtx 1060.

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > unclevanos (Ovaltine Jenkins)
07/23/2018 at 23:40

Thanks for the heads up! I like the idea of the TrackIR, but I wasn’t prepared to spend the $$$. Today, $150 wouldn’t be a big deal, but I’ll gladly pay a little less if there are equivalent alternatives available that perform as well.

I did a little research and ordered a wireless ED Tracker. This should eliminate the complexity of trying to arrange three screens every time I want to go flying.

unclevanos (Ovaltine Jenkins) > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
07/24/2018 at 00:44

If you ever consider the delanclip it's pretty good. The $60 (damn currency exchange) comes with the track clip, IR camera and associated cables. Won't break like the trackIR headset since it's solid metal. There's trackhat which offers a tracking baseball cap or clip. Not a fan of hats so I'll settle with the clip.

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > unclevanos (Ovaltine Jenkins)
07/24/2018 at 00:48

I did look at that one, but the ED Tracker was both cameraless and wireless, and those seemed like good advantages for only a little more money.