Early in the process of my real-world flight training I promised myself that when I soloed I’d spring for a pair of Randolph Engineering aviator sunglasses — the same kit U.S. military pilots wear. Regular readers know that while my CFI said I was ready to solo last August, because of a delay in my medical from the FAA and other interruptions I didn’t solo until this past March. So while I was ready last year, a promise is a promise when it comes to those sunglasses.
Today they arrived.
Readers have requested that I film some real-world flights, but I don’t intend to video in the real airplane often as I don’t want the distraction. But today I went up to practice some solo pattern work, and I plugged in the GoPro with the LEDs turned off and just let it run. Here are a few laps from the flight, and as always, thanks for watching.
I know posting has been a bit slow here recently, but real life has me very busy and it’s probably going to be like this for a few weeks as I prioritize family, work, and real flight training ahead of the sim. I also know folks are looking for the “Building Your Basement Sim” guide, and it may now be a while (weeks or a month or two, not years) until I finish it — it really is nearly done. In the meantime, if you are beginning or just starting a build, please email me at ontheglideslope at gmail dot com and I will see how I can help as I don’t want to hold people up from getting started.
So thanks for your patience. If it’s any small consolation, I did complete my first unsupervised solo today after six prior weather cancellations. It’s still a bit odd that they just give you a key and let you take an airplane, but so they did. A short hop today, as the winds were close to my minimums and it was really pretty bumpy up at 2,500 AGL (on one jolt I actually bumped my head on the top of the cabin). So I cut things short and headed back to the barn, but the flight was exciting, I’m glad I got the experience, and I did shoot this short vid heading back to parking.
I finally got around to getting new placards from Screaming Aero Graphix to replace the ones on the original panel. I’m looking forward to putting these up.
Just a quick update on the real-world flight training. With the medical approved the solo work has finally gotten underway. I flew my third supervised solo earlier this week, and now the true solo work begins where I rent the airplane and go fly maneuvers alone (and I have the endorsement to fly down to Wilmington to do pattern work in the Delta airspace as well). I need to get five hours of that in, then it’s night takeoffs and landings, dual cross-countries, solo cross-countries, and check-ride prep. My CFI wants me to take the written test in the next four weeks, so I’ve been hitting the books. It’s great to be in this stage of the process.
The Glideslope Spammer Restraint System has, to date, blocked over 250 spammers from attempting to join the site. But today one got through. If you receive a PM from the On The Glideslope message system promising riches from a pool of money in Togo, it’s fake. Delete it. And the offender has been deleted as well.
The night lighting in X-Plane 11 is fantastic. But it can be even better, and a few folks have asked what modification I used to get the even better night lighting in my most recent video. It’s a little file at the .Org called “Better Lights,” and it’s now in V2. It’s simply a text file that replaces your default lights configuration. You may get it here, and be certain to backup your original lights.txt file by renaming it to something origlights.txt before you start. And like most of the stuff in the X-Plane universe, it’s freeware.
Here are some pics from the author.
A viewer asked that I do more night flights, and as I have nighttime pattern work coming up in my real-world instruction, I took it as an opportunity to simulate it here. I did so at about 11:45 PM, and the flight became a lesson in human factors. As always, thanks for watching,
The point-to-point flights continue with a leg from Great Falls to Billings. This was a fun flight, and it illustrates both the solid default X-Plane 11 textures and the incredible ortho4xp photographic scenery as I did not burn ortho tiles for the entire flight. Also: thoughts on the Airfoil Labs C172, Windows Creators Edition, ForeFlight, and fun with and autopilot we don’t fully understand. As always, thanks for watching.
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