Aviation Collection Four

I do find aircraft inherently interesting. I’m not sure why. Perhaps it’s the idea of defying gravity (I know they don’t really do that but it’s a simpler explanation to what’s going on). I’ve recently mentioned these items at work and searched this site but they didn’t exist here. So this is to make up for that. There are a couple of other communications about the aviation collection, search them by the tags at the bottom of this page.

My first diecast model was a Northrop F5 Freedom Fighter. I bought one of these from a stall at North Weald many years ago. I can’t remember if it was an airshow or just some event I was at. That F5 represented the VF111 Sundowner United States Navy unit. I used to have it on display at work because I would use it for cadet type things, especially explaining the dynamics of aircraft and airflow. This model was lost. More accurately I think it was stolen. It was in my room and then it wasn’t. This was a shame but I knew I needed an F5 because they are cool and also it’s an F5.

I can’t remember which unit this F5 represents. It might be an aggressor squadron. It just looks nice. The second diecast aircraft I bought was from a stall at the Royal International Air Tattoo in 2019 (I think). I took my kids there and enjoyed the day I spent watching displays and seeing the static aircraft. I wanted a memento of this trip and so I bought an A400M at, what I thought was, a reasonable price.

The A400M sits atop my NAS drive in one of the tech corners of the house. It looks pretty there, guarding the dining room.

The third and final model I have is tiny. It’s a pretty small model of a small and cute plane. I’ve written about the Baby Bus here. I couldn’t find a British Airways version of this plane, there’s still an Air France version flying I think. But this is a lovely plane.

Those are my aircraft and apart from some trinkets I have from a 1980s Brize Norton that is pretty much it for collections related to aviation.

Finally Uploaded

I finally managed to upload a video to YouTube after about a month of trying now and then. I don’t know why things didn’t work well for that time. But, I’ve managed to upload two videos recently. I’d been trying for ages to upload my V22 flying video. It’s now done.

Recent Places

Some photos from places I’ve been.

Keg

Every now and then it’s well worth jumping around in front of a crowd and hitting things. I would always suggest that you do this in a safe space and also where everyone knows what’s going on. I did this recently and I had a great time. Not sure what to do if we play more songs though. How do I top that?

Upload Frustrations

I have been flying in the Simulator recently and trying out a new aircraft. I’m learning how to use the V22 Osprey and this time, compared with X-Plane 11, I am actually reading the manual! There’s a really good plugin for X-Plane that shows an on screen version of the checklist and this has made it relatively straightforward to know how to start and operate this aircraft. When I say straightforward I mean it’s ok once you have learnt where all the switches are.

Because I love how X-Plane looks and how the aircraft operates I’ve been wanting to share my experiences via YouTube. Multiple times over the last month or so I have recorded by screen and sounds using OBS and then tried to upload the resulting video. It turns out that YouTube doesn’t seem to like this. I don’t know why but after an initial decent upload bandwidth the video stops uploading to YouTube. I’ve tried leaving the upload running for a while and although the percentage seems to increase the rate is very low. I can’t wait all night just for a video to upload.

When you search for help with these problems I love the way the websites reckon it’s my fault. Have you checked your wifi? Have you checked your broadband? Have you checked the firewall? All of these things I have already checked. I’m not stupid. I just want to know why my video fails to upload. I suspected it could be that the video is approaching 1GB in size but when I downgraded the quality it still stopped uploading. Maybe I should try a PS5 upload to see if it’s me.

I really want to share some videos covering night flying, the flares being released, landing, vertical take offs and the wing blade fold system, which is really cool. I will keep trying. I know it’s not really like my “followers” are demanding this but I do want to keep adding stuff to my channel. I like the idea of sharing things people would actually appreciate. Here’s a previous video I uploaded: