There’s a company who design aircraft for flight simulators called AOA Simulations and I have to say they have the perfect mix of aircraft I really want to fly and excellent quality so I have, over the years, spent some money getting their aircraft. The most recent addition to my collection is the CV-22 Osprey. I owned this aircraft before on a previous version of X-Plane and so decided to get it again. The company do have an F35 but I have other fast jets and I’m not fussed about that.
Wind Farm Views V22
Look at how ridiculously pretty this aircraft simulation is. I’m not sure the actual aircraft is pretty, I will need to reflect on that.
Heading To The Loop V22
I’m slowly learning how to take off and also control the direction of the prop-rotors. I needed to assign extra buttons on my set-up to make sure that everything was within easy reach.
Mach Loop Journey – V22
Today I managed to transition to vertical flight mode from standard flight and I will say it is not an easy conversion, you spend some time in a stall actually!
Bridge Inspection V22
I’m looking forward to spending more time with this aircraft.
I have numerous posts about how much I enjoy the game Gran Turismo in all its variations. However, there are times when it is rather frustrating. I’d spent about twenty minutes on this licence test and at one point this was my time:
One Of Those Annoying Things
My first and current thought was “fuck you”.
Then there’s some other games I play and this time it just looked so gorgeous, except I wasn’t sure who the hell would build a chest at the end of a log sticking out over the edge of a mountain. It does look lovely though.
I’ve been trying to get the last car in Gran Turismo to complete the café menu. I need twenty million credits. I also need the car to be in the store. Every now and then I get distracted by other cars that appear in the shop or that are new in the dealer area. Hence, I’m not that close to the required funds yet. So, the weekly time trials is a good way of making money and also completing the daily marathon driving distance.
Still Happy With It – GT Speed
Here’s my time from one of the latest challenges. I’m just under 4% away from the fastest in the world. I’m still happy with this. It seems not too bad for someone who plays a little each day and not all day every day.
I’ve been testing the new PC set up by flying around places I’ve recently visited. It’s nice to see how these places are recreated in X-Plane. I think it looks pretty good, it’s good fun also.
Hurst Castle via X-Plane
I’ll soon write about a visit to this castle and some other places in Hampshire and Dorset. I flew over Hurst castle to see how it was created within the flight simulator.
Portsmouth via X-Plane
I haven’t been to Portsmouth for quite a while but I am planning to head back there soon. It looks good in this early morning flight. Note the aircraft carrier.
The New Forest via X-Plane
Having stayed in the New Forest recently it was nice to fly over it. There’s quite a bit of air activity in the New Forest as it’s within the ILS of Bournemouth International. There are a few 737s, the odd Airbus A340 and some Draken Air Dassault Falcon 20s.
I have recently completed a couple of nice little games that I thoroughly enjoyed. It’s quite rare for me to play games other than the “big three” – Gran Turismo, Minecraft, and Fortnite. These are my standard games and I probably play a little of them everyday. I tend to want games that I can jump in and out of and the time needed for a session doesn’t matter. GT7 I can play for a few laps or a longer race depending on how much time I have in the real world. Minecraft is a world contained on a server and so I get to play that whenever I want and I can do as much or as little as I feel like. Fortnight I play to be with the Legend and spend time with them.
I did recently play some other games and really enjoyed them. They weren’t too stressy and I knew they could be played for a little while and saved easily. Also, I didn’t really have to learn new controls – this is important to me as if I only play a game a little bit spread out over time I don’t want to have to learn a new control system.
Atomfall
This is a game of wandering around the Lake District in the early 1960s [it could be the 1950s I didn’t pay that much attention] and you have to survive and escape. I love the Lake District and had wanted to play this for a while, then I think the price was reduced and I had a half term break so decided I would go for it.
The Lake District – looking gorgeous – Atomfall
I played the game on easy mode and even then I died quite a bit! I really enjoyed the story, the scenery, and the gameplay. I think my favourite thing though was the occasional crashed helicopter and the militaria of the age. The whole game really captured the time period. It was a really nice game to play.
Under The Waves
This game follows Stan, a North Sea diver, and explores their journey after the death of their daughter. For me, the cut scenes were a little too long. I don’t really care about those things, but I know the story was important to this game. I enjoyed the pace of this game and each day I could swim around and do the jobs I was meant to do. There weren’t any time restrictions within the game as those can make things really stressful. So I was able to explore with ease.
Under The Waves – from the press pack
I enjoyed the game. That’s the point isn’t it? To enjoy things.
I’ve been playing Atomfall and I’ve really been enjoying it. I am playing in almost-peaceful mode because I want to enjoy the game. I’ve still died plenty of times though! The developers set the game in the Lake District in the 1950s after the Windscale accident. I really like the look and feel of the game. It’s got proper sci-fi feels about it.
Gran Turismo has weekly time trails using various cars around various tracks. I try to take part each time because it’s a good way to get credits and also rates your driving against the rest of the world. I normally get a silver award for these which means I’m within 5% of the time of the fastest in the world. Recently I got gold for being within 3%.
Gran Turismo Within 3%
I’m also within the margin by over 1/10 second which I consider a good result. So, another 1.5 seconds knocked off my time and I’d be best in the world – highly unlikely. I only play for around thirty minutes a day so I’m never going to be the best. I’m also working on getting gold in all the master licences but that is taking quite a bit of time!
Gran Turismo Overall Progress
I go in phases with this game. Sometimes I play enough every day for the daily workout prize and then sometimes I leave it for a couple of weeks. I’m half and half at the moment because I’ve been playing AtomFall which I am enjoying a lot.
In testing for video output and uploads on the PC I decided I would try flying a floatplane in X-Plane. I chose to take off from Rochester, UK and land on the river Medway. This is not as silly as it seems because eighty years ago the Shorts Brothers made seaplanes in Rochester and they slid down a gangway to the river Medway for their first flight. The whole area is now residential but you can still see the gangway which is a historical object. It would have been nice to still have seaplanes and floatplanes taking off from there.
This is a terrible film. There. That pretty much sums it up. I rated it 2/10 on IMDB and although I didn’t leave the cinema before the film had ended I certainly fell asleep and did not care about anything in this film. It’s terrible. Such a shame. They could have made an amazing story, but no. They did not.
