"Nothing but the rain"
I was doing a thing in X-Plane when the beauty of it struck me. Look at the water, look at the reflections in the glass, and look at the countryside. Just beautiful.
The text boxes in the air just off the nose are other aircraft inputted to the simulator by an add-in I use. It makes flying around less lonely.
I try and have a play in my flight sim a few times a week. It’s nice and calming, I get to see the countryside and it makes me happy. My initial plan for today’s flight was to take off from Biggin Hill and then head to the coast, go low level over the Channel and then land somewhere in France. However, after take off I thought I’d do some sight seeing over London. I turned west. I could then see Canary Wharf, the City and beyond, but there was a little target right in the middle. A small square on the screen. So, it just had to be done. I was flying the L29 and it’s a lovely little plane, not much fuel capacity but flies well. I pointed the nose at the square and off we went.
I’ve called this communication Doing A Pollock in honour of the actual RAF pilot who flew his Hunter through the bridge. I love how his unit was posted to Africa after his stunt!
I’ve had two racing wheel stands that have both had a single point of weakness. The stands were around GBP60 but the angle of dangle was kept secure by a single bolt going through a flange on an axle. Both of these wheel stands failed where the flange met the axle. The design just wasn’t good enough to cope with the torque involved. So, I looked up another stand using Google. I initially searched Amazon but I didn’t want my money passing through that company so the plan was to get an idea of cost and then buy direct from a manufacturers website. Using this method I found GT Omega. I decided to buy one of their stands. It was sent via DHL but I wasn’t in the house so I had it delivered to a pick-up centre. You might imagine I could get the package sent to the DHL centre I can see from my house but that wasn’t an option and I had to go to Sittingbourne instead.
I picked this box up on a really humid day. It was awfully humid. I was grumpy all day and I didn’t enjoy the weather, much like I found the weather this whole summer to be awful. I’m currently looking into buying an air conditioning unit for my house. It’s a small house and I reckon I could make it very pleasant during the heat waves that we are going to keep getting. If you aren’t filled with an existential threat about humanity and the climate then I think you probably just aren’t a thinking human being.
This steering wheel stand is constructed very well. It’s solid. I can’t see any points of failure and it holds my wheel, gear stick and pedals perfectly. I love how Logitech have made their products with securing bolts built in so they can be fixed to third party devices. The HOTAS system I have works in a very similar way.
As you can see the whole frame is pretty solid. I reckon I could stand on the wheel block and it would easily hold my weight. The pedals are screwed in position and now there’s no movement and I don’t have to use my feet to adjust the pedal position while driving. The gearstick is in a more “simulator” position and I try to use this when I drive a car that doesn’t have “flappy paddles”. Overall this is a decent addition to the setup. It even folds up so can save a little bit of space when needed.
The above picture shows my view. Nice big, bright TV. 7.2 surround sound. Telemetry box on top of the wheel showing tire temps and other information. All in all the driving experience got a lot better with this new stand.
I recently realised that I have some reward points in my X-Plane shop account. It looks like I’ve spent enough money to get some “free” extras. So I purchased the L29 for X-Plane. I’ve been flying around in it and it’s nice and smooth. It doesn’t react to anything as fast as the other military planes I have but it’s nice.
The picture is me flying from Hildesheim to Hannover checking out my new scenery files. Now, it turns out that the title of this communication is a reference to a Monty Python sketch that is about an albatross. The problem is that the L29 is really called the Delfín and it’s the L39 that is the Albatross. Oh well, maybe I’ll get the plane correct next time!
For whatever reason a while back I decided to build a “big thing” in Minecraft and I kinda broke my own rules while doing it. Until this point I had made it a mission that all builds shouldn’t be able to be seen from the main base on the shoreline. I failed to do that with this build:
So, I am going to build some sea cliffs to hide the superstructure of the platform. I’ve started the basics of the sea cliffs and we will see what happens. I’m looking forward to it, but I’m also scared at the same time. There’s a lot of work to be done.
One of the weekly events that happen in Gran Turismo is a time trial around a particular circuit in a particular car. When I logged in recently there was a timed lap challenge around Spa-Francorchamps in a Porsche. I always try and do these events as they are an easy way to make some in-game money. With this particular circuit the game seemed very strict with track limits – there were bollards on some corners and if you touched them it invalidated the lap. Here is my laptime result:
The world record is 2:30.316 and then levels of greatness are done in terms of percentage time added on. I managed to get a GOLD time on this circuit. This makes me very happy. I’m normally somewhere around a mid-silver. I’ve only had two gold times before. I think this will bag me a million in-game credits.
Above is my overall results from the online challenges and races. I don’t really enjoy the races because it’s quite common to get bumped off the circuit and all your qualifying practice and time are just ruined. The time trials are more interesting and a better way to compare yourself to others.
After the aborted attempt at a short break in the Lake District I caught up with playing the game Hogwarts Legacy. I think I got it as it was reduced in the PlayStation store to about GBP15. This seemed reasonable and I had a go at playing it. I had started a game a couple of years ago but didn’t really feel it so left it alone. This time I paid a bit more attention to the details and the mechanics of the actual game and I also think that playing Horizon Zero Dawn gave me more of an idea of how these adventure stories work. It’s a new genre of game for me.
After about 45 hours of playing the game I have completed the main storyline and while there are lots of smaller quests to complete and objects to find I think it’s time to stop. I’m not that used to playing games for three hours straight. Most of the other games I enjoy I can easily pop in and out of so short bursts of playing time are the norm for me. Minecraft doesn’t care how long you spend in the game and I always feel as though I have achieved something. Gran Turismo is normally played for about half an hour and then I’m almost bored, I find other things to do that are more interesting. I can also enter that game and undertake a single race, which including qualifying will get me the daily mileage completed bonus.
The thing that struck me most about Legacy was the lighting. It is very impressive. Likewise that’s what amazed me about the Horizon games. How the game was coded and the engine it used to ensure that the lighting was gorgeous! I loved the sunrise and sunsets within the game. They looked just wonderful. Sure, the mechanics of the actual game was fun too but to be able to stop and watch the sun within a virtual world amazes me.
It’s worth playing computer games just to look at the views.
This midwinter break I’ve spent my time playing a PlayStation game, I guess it could be available on other platforms, I don’t keep a track of these things. I’ve been playing Horizon Zero Dawn [remastered]. I’ve been playing this because the Lego version of the game was free with PlayStation Plus and I completed that particular game. I decided to get the actual game because I really enjoyed the Lego version and it gave me something to do over the break. I’ve really enjoyed playing this game. I’d like to say I think I’m getting better at these types of fighting games.
I’ve completed a playthrough of the basic game but I haven’t yet ventured into the Frozen Wilds. I think I will leave that for another break in my work time. I have found this game very addictive to the point that I deleted it about a week ago as I thought I was spending too much time playing it. Within a few hours I had downloaded it again and continued playing. There’s so much to the game and plenty of little challenges that make it really good fun. The rewards are plenty too. It’s very well designed. Not only is the game play well constructed but the game is pretty too.
These two images were captured as I collected some PSN trophies. They don’t really capture what the game looks like. I’ve been so impressed with the falling snow in the mountains, I genuinely think that’s the bit I will remember most, such clever artwork. There is a photo mode in the game and it’s not something I’ve really played with, I like working through the quests. Maybe when I’ve finished it all I’ll have a look at getting some amazing shots from that mode. I did take one picture and that was when Aloy walked past a downed aircraft.
This game has been amazing fun. Really well designed and also, a little challenging at times. However, as my skill levels have increased I no longer dread taking on the machines, it’s more of a fun challenge now.
