Conspicuous by Their Absence

[No Dice]

WooooW Dude,
Hang in there Hubba, Damn that sucks.
I was ill many years back and had to also take a few years off, things can and will get better.
You focus on the above: your second family will be here watching your six.

I will use private emails from this point forward.

Dave

[smilo]

lots of comments and questions to reply to.
i'll do my best to cover what i can.

first an foremost,
Guy, i'm sending the most positive thoughts
as i am capable of for a speedy recovery.
i hope you are up and at 'em soon.

Ivan, no need to pm the fsds to ad2k question.
from what i gather ad2k can import afx,
but, as far as i know, not fsds files.
therefore, fsds must be converted to afx
in order to import a project into ad2k.

i think i might have mentioned this
somewhere else, a while back.
matter of fact, i received fsds a month or so ago,
but the zip was corrupt and i couldn't open it.
so it goes
then i got involved in another project an forgot about it.
maybe i can pick it up again, later...much later.

kids,
i know everyone is full of advice,
so take this with a grain of salt.
it is most difficult to get kids to do what we want.
almost impossible...
give them several options
that would seem to appeal to them,
while including what you have in mind.
that way, they think it's their choice.
for example, if he wants the 190 gray,
teach him to paint it.
it will, most likely, take longer to get it done,
but, that way, he learns something.
as for shooting, if he's into it great,
if not, give him the basics of firearm safety,
and leave it at that.
who knows, he may pick it up later.

i am reminded of my daughter and the way she ate.
pick, pick, pick, nearly drove me crazy.
i was concerned that she wasn't eating enough.
then i dawned on me that i was thinking
she should be packing away as much as me,
but that her stomach was only this tiny little thing.

i heard a thing on NPR yesterday
about study of kids and sugar.
apparently, prepubescent kids naturally have
a built in high sugar intake factor.
it's basically, so they can have a high caloric intake for growth.
with that in mind, they prefer sweet foods. to an extreme.
i've got to say, this goes against my past assumptions
and what i thought best for my kids.
but it makes sense.
so, put a spoon of sugar on those
mashed potatoes and green beans
and watch 'em gobble them up.
yeah, right! hmmm, how about honey?
bottom line, kids know when they've had enough to eat
and they won't intentionally starve themselves,
unless they're anorexic or something like that.
so don't worry about it.
just make sure they have good stuff to eat.

as for japanese aircraft,
even though there are many interesting examples,
personally, i am more interested in the european theater.
except for the mavis. wonder why?

although i am gathering a decent collection,
i am always interested in any ar196
information and pictures/drawings.
i do have to say that i am getting tired
of cleaning up drawings.
seems like i've been doing it for weeks now.
i am thinking that i might just go ahead
and build the tail section,
just for a change of pace
and to keep my interest up.

so, what's this offer that will mess with my ad2k plan?
just curious.

well, that should be enough for now.
i've got some drawings to mess with.

[Ivan]

Hi Smilo,

Thanks for the advice on kids. Dunno even HOW to apply it. I need to provide a motivation for my son. He likes Wizard 101, an online game. At the moment, I promise a reward if he should bring home a good report card.

Regarding the H6K Mavis, why not something like a H8K Emily? The Japanese had LOTs of float planes and flying boats.
As you know, CFS doesn't handle sea planes all that well. I was seriously thinking of doing a PBY a while back, but could not figure out if I should do the land plane or sea plane. One can't have both.

Anna Honey is heading out of town again next week. NOW, the issue is that I have one child who needs to be at the bus stop at 0630. The other needs to be at school at 0845. Dad's not going to get much sleep for a while. The crunched car was declared a total loss, and I have a cheque I need to cash tomorrow.

- Ivan.

[smilo]

one thing old people are really good at...
telling others how to raise their kids.
as if we are just packed with knowledge
and have never screwed it up. yeah, right

as i recall, way back when,
i was interested in the mavis as a target.
i was thinking about putting together
a thousand mile war mission package.
apparently, one was the p-38's first kill,
somewhere out in the Aleutians, i think.
i've actually spent time out there working, twice.

sorry about the car.
i hope you weren't too attached to it.
probably just as well to total it
and start over from scratch...no pun.
seems like cars with major repair work
always have bugs that come up later.

[No Dice]

Ivan,
Hope you don't mind my 2 cents worth on the children. Girls and boys are two different animals. But:
when young up until 12 , limit belongings as much as possible and make them earn them.

Next, Get your son a Vasectomy when he is 14, Takes care of any future problems and helps keep your
life quiet (er) for many years to come. They leave home and you rarely see them again.

Now, Girls...You are stuck with for life, yes...economically and mentally....they never go away.

So , I contacted my friend Beau, " he stars on the show " Swamp People" on discovery channel"
and asked his advise on how to deal with girls that just won't move on and make thier own lives.

His advise was " Chewt em, Chewt em"


Hope that helped.

Dave

[smilo]

interesting concept, Dave.
although i would recommend the nut job very early,
that way, they'll never know.
kinda like calves and lambs.
just kidding honest.
that was not a goat pun, honest.

as for daughters, i've heard that they can be a pain.
i wouldn't know,
mine didn't speak more than a sentence to me at a pop.
and that went on for years.
heck, i still feel like i'm an idiot.
no comments, please.

my how things have changed.
she's on her way home
after spending the summer working
on a yacht in the Mediterranean.
she'll be home for a week or so,
then it's back to Florida
for the Lauderdale boat show.
and then, who knows after that?

[Ivan]

So far both of my children seem to like having me in their lives. I don't mind. They don't seem to be embarrassed by having Dad around when they are doing things. They will be stuck with me alone for almost a week. Bet they will miss Anna Honey by the time that week is over. Then two and a half weeks and yet ANOTHER trip.....

We shall see how long that lasts: The kids liking to have me around and my endurance as the single parent.

- Ivan.

[Ivan]

I am sure there are a few good Me 109E's out there, but this AFX came from the Freeflight Design Shop and I have played with it for a while. The original is by Richard Osborne circa 1997. Tonight I did a few more fixes as a design exercise without any connection or impact on other current projects.

I will eventually build a 109 as a G-10 or a K-4 and it won't be based on this one. Still, it isn't a half bad looking plane considering how few Polygons it has in it. There aren't all that many bleeds either.

- Ivan.

[Ivan]

Hi Folks,

I just noticed yesterday that Womble55 has uploaded a Hispano Buchon (Spanish Me 109) also based on Richard Osborne's AFX. He actually tried to make an entirely different aircraft while what I did was only to try to refine and clean up the model to build the same aircraft.

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/soh_ftp/...1318248815.jpg

- Ivan.

[Ivan]

I have already spent a fair amount of time chasing down things for the SCASMing of the Me 109E. I was just thinking that perhaps this would be a better model in a significant way if I were to add a few more polygons and put in an animated Spinner. The 109E sometimes had a Spinner that a pair of opposing quarters painted Black and the other pair painted White. That kind of moving spinner would look interesting.

Personally I like the Pilot's face. It has a Moustache because it originally was 'sposta look a bit like Adolf Galland.

- Ivan.

[Ivan]

Just for amusement, I was checking out my old Bubbletop Thunderbolt last night. The real aeroplane is rather heavy, so it isn't a surprise that whatever direction it is headed, it stays moving in that direction pretty easily. It is hardly an agile plane.

It rolls fairly well though, especially at high speed. I took it into a vertical Zoom Climb and turned off the engine. As the speed bled off, the propeller slowed and then stopped. I tried to keep it pointed up as long as possible but eventually the plane nosed down. Not surprisingly, the plane entered a spin. The plane sideslipped at about a 45 degree angle but the nose did not go vertical. Instead, it continued to spin. I slewed the plane up to 15,000 feet to see if it would eventually nose down or come out of the spin. It never did.

I wonder if a real aeroplane would behave that way?

BTW, One other thing I noticed was a small bleed of the retracted flaps when viewed from the front and low. I can't think of an easy way to fix that.

- Ivan.

[Ivan]

Just for amusement, I was checking out my old Bubbletop Thunderbolt last night.&nbsp; The real aeroplane is rather heavy, so it isn't a surprise that whatever direction it is headed, it stays moving in that direction pretty easily.&nbsp; It is hardly an agile plane.<BR><BR>It rolls fairly well though, especially at high speed.&nbsp; I took it into a vertical Zoom Climb and turned off the engine.&nbsp; As the speed bled off, the propeller slowed and then stopped.&nbsp; I tried to keep it pointed up as long as possible but eventually the plane nosed down.&nbsp; Not surprisingly, the plane entered a spin.&nbsp; The plane sideslipped at about a 45 degree angle but the nose did not go vertical.&nbsp; Instead, it continued to spin.&nbsp; I slewed the plane up to 15,000 feet to see if it would eventually nose down or come out of the spin.&nbsp; It never did.<BR><BR>I wonder if a real aeroplane would behave that way?<BR><BR>BTW, One other thing I noticed was a small bleed of the retracted flaps when viewed from the front and low.&nbsp; I can't think of an easy way to fix that.<BR><BR>- Ivan.

[No Dice]

Not to worry Ivan, She flies great and pulls as she should. Most of us don't fly her as a 300 areobatic.
Actually I am including her in some of my next mission releases for Corsica and Italy 1941, Although it
won't be 1941. LOL

Dave

Just waiting on the next release

[Ivan]

Hi No Dice,

The reason I was looking at it was because of your comments. I was figuring that I would try to fix the view of the Tail through the Cockpit Armour in the same way as my experiment with the Me 109E. It isn't hard to do and will be a standard part of future releases. The Razor Back version just needs a slight bit more work because it shares a whole lot of stuff with the Bubble Top.

We shall see what develops next. I am a bit worn out from all the 3D modelling, so it may be SCASM or Textures or Flight Models for a while.

- Ivan.

[No Dice]

I can well understand why you may need to take a break and you should , just to avoid burnout.
But if you could pull off that seat back, that would make a world of difference.

I looked at that scasm tutorial more than once but for some reason my brain just refuses to see
what is right in front of my face.

Dave