Mediterranean Tour Update LGSK-LGRP-LCLK-LGSM

And the Airbus Tour continues to some nice airports.

We leave Skiathos fly to Rhodos, Larnaca and back to Samos, with its very interesting approach.

LGSK[Skiathos] – LGRP [Rhodos]

Boarding and loading up in Skiathos

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Intercom System Setup

A lot thoughts for a lot of cockpit builders is going into the Intercom System. There are some very good and very real easy to use replicas available. Seems the best out there is the one from Ruscool.

Most of the time I am flying alone in my flightdeck, therefore I don’t need those more expensive solutions. I tested and figured the following solution for me. It’s working, its simple and its cheap – although its not 100 percent real.

First I have to explain my setup a little. I have one PC running vpilot and handles the communication to the VATSIM ATC. On this machine there are 2 headsets connected. Each one has a separate USB Soundcard, where the 2 3.5mm connections are connected. In the windows system config the configuration is made that the loopback device from the captains mic is the first officer headset and vice versa. So everytime the captain speaks the first officer will hear him. Not perfect, but it’s working. If you want stop transmitting to the intercom, you can disable the mic input via a switch on the Plantronics GameCom 388 Headset. Sounds simple? It is 🙂 As I sayed not perfect, but its working and sounds quite real.

Configuration of Captains Mic
Configuration of First Officer Mic

Mediterranean Tour Update LIRN-LICC-LGSK

It became a little quiet about my Mediterranean Tour, because of the mentioned points in the last post. I have continued now flying on my second Flight Simulator PC, which is running FSX. I flew there some legs with the A319/A320 and A321 to get also a little more experience in the Airbus System Logic. Here are some pictures from my flights.
Boarding at LIRN
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Hardware issue on PFD machine

After a 2 month brake I started all the PCs for a system check and update sequence today. After half an hour the PFD pc went dark. I rebooted the machine and as soon as the windows logo appears it shuts down again. I thought of an HDD first, but it happened on different times. My next guess was one of the USB connected devices. So I unplugged all 8 devices and rebooted, same effect. I took the HDD drive out and installed it on a same spare machine, there all was working. So I decided to switch the machines. During unplugging the graphic card I noticed that the CPU cooler was not fully in place.

So this was my issue as well. The machine overheated and shut down itself. After inspecting the cooler I noticed that the clips on the cooler were broken and therefore the cooler was not tight on the CPU anymore.

Destroyed cooler clips

I continued with the replacement of the graphic card and USB PCI card and started the machine. All was working again.

So I ordered on eBay some spare parts for the cooler clips to have a backup PC ready again in a few weeks.

Business trip and Summer break

It’s been a while since the last post, but there are 3 reasons for that.

First I was one week in Atlanta on a business trip. I flew from Vienna via London to Atlanta. I enjoyed a smooth ride with the Boeing 777-200 from British Airways over the Atlantic ocean. There also this perfect picture was taken. Its really a massive GE90 engine to be watched from the window seat 😉

Second, we enjoyed a week of family vacation in Italy.

And third, its hot, very hot in Vienna. For the last 2 weeks we had around 30-35°C each day. Not very refreshing in the non air-conditioned flight deck 😉

Mediterranean Tour 2018 – Leg 6 – Djerba [DTTJ] to Naples [LIRN]

The sixth flight is a 2 pilots flight again with Chris. It takes us to North Africa, to Tunisia.

It is mixed real time and timelapse mode.

flagimages free available from http://flaglane.com 
Maps generated by the Great Circle Mapper – copyright © Karl L. Swartz. http://www.gcmap.com

VACC Austria Realops event. Rotation LOWW-EDDM-LOWW

On June 9th the Realops Event took place in Vienna. Therefore you could book Real Time slots from this day schedule from the Vienna airport. Outbound and Inbound. The event was hosted for the 10th anniversary of VACC Austria. Happy Birthday, again!
I flew a rotation for austrian virtual from LOWW to EDDM as OS117L and back to Vienna as OS118C

Video Capturing Setup

Back in 2016 I have started my streaming / capturing setup for some flight. During the month of usage I have changed and adopted a lot.

Since a couple of month I am running a stable configuration in terms of camera angle and the organisation of the picture. Below you can see the actual setup and a short description the 16 different information spots.

click to zoom the picture

  1. Actual Flight Number
  2. Departure and Destination Airport in ICAO standard
  3. Remaining flight time (direct route)
  4. my blog address
  5. virtual airline I am flying for
  6. Main Flightdeck View – captured from an SJCAM 4000 Action Cam
  7. First Officer View – captured from an Logitech Webcam 720p
  8. Captains CDU
  9. First Officer CDU
  10. Captains Chrono
  11. Actual Flap position
  12. Captains PFD
  13. Captains ND
  14. EICAS Screen
  15. Lower EICAS Screen
  16. moving flight map incl. altitude in feet and meters, outside air temperature in °C and speed in knots and km/h

I will now explain a little where all the information is coming from.

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New Design on the blog

Since a couple of years I was running the same design on this blog. The most thing that was bothering me lately, was the limited space for bigger pictures. So I have searched and tried a lot themes. In the end I chose this one, direct from WordPress, the 2015 theme.

Very simple design and I can use larger picture sizes to show you more detail.

I hope you enjoy it. Comments are always appreciated.

Building a 737-800 Homecockpit [OE-LNJ]