So I've started FSX and was looking for a nice airport to start at while I've noticed that the interface sounds were missing. You know, that 'click'. I've restarted FSX. No change.

Started my MP3 player and I saw that music was playing, but I didn't hear a thing. Rebooted the system. No change.

Fired up the sound config of my fancy card and looked for all settings. They looked normal, but when testing the speakers, no sound came up. Uninstalled the drivers, fresh install, new setup, still no sound. Tried some more reboots.

Then I've turned my speakers on.  :-[  :( :-/ ;D

Feel free to throw funny names at me now. I'm obviously a complete idiot when it comes to PCs.  :-X

You're not the only one to do that sort of thing. That reminds me of a time when I was young (about 17 or 18).

I got out my electric guitar, plugged it into the amplifier, turned everything on and strummed the guitar. All I heard was the quiet sound of the chord I had just played! Not a sound from my amp. So I twiddled some knobs on both the guitar and the amp. Still no sounds coming from the amp. So now that I know that my amp has a problem and I start looking for it. I reached over the back, I touched the back of where the AC lead was plugged in. Well holy sh**! What a buzz. I had just zapped myself with 240 volts! But that wasn't good enough, my amp still wasn't working. So I reached over the back and touched it again. Whoa! Another 240 volt zap! Still my poor old amp refused to work and...yep...I reached over the back a third time and and touched it AGAIN (some people never learn do they)! Well I had had enough of the shocks so I went to put my guitar and amp away, when I noticed the volume knob on the guitar was at zero! It was the one knob that I had not touched. So I turned it up to ten and near blew my eardrums out! She was working fine.

But I'm telling you now, that was one shocking experience that I am not in a hurry to try again.

http://i669.photobucket.com/albums/vv58/Markoz958/Jamminginthegarage.jpg
This is me "jamming" in the garage (around '76 or '77). I'm the one in the black singlet, playing the bass guitar
Sorry about the poor quality

Too bad you can't see my amplifier in that pic. :(

Hahaha, very good, three times in contact with the local power supplier.  ;D By the way, that band history once again shows that you is a cool fellow, Mark.  :)

The worst part of it is that I was the lead singer as well! The other guys in the band refused to do any singing other than backing vocals, so I got the job of lead singer. I only found out years later (last year in fact), that because I could play and sing at the same time and none of the others could. :o

;D I used to boil water for tea.  It took a looooong time until i noticed that i forgot to light up the gas   ::)

I watched the vid from this guys. http://www.aopa.org/
Some sort of seminar. One topic was radio setup, and the guy said that very often pilots forgetting to check jacks, volumes both on headphones and radio itself, or trying to "fix" no sound problem with jack plugging - unplugging while the problem is - volume on headphones :)

Markoz wrote on Jul 5^th, 2012 at 7:15am:

The worst part of it is that I was the lead singer as well! The other guys in the band refused to do any singing other than backing vocals, so I got the job of lead singer. I only found out years later (last year in fact), that because I could play and sing at the same time and none of the others could. :o

:o Playing bass and sing much harder then playing guitar and sing!!! Thats for sure. RESPECT!!! :D

Scientific studies show that the lady attraction rate is greatest at the lead singer, then the lead guitar. So with Mark combining both.. . 8-) I'm off learning the guitar now. Don't tell my gf.

On the action with the plans on boiling water and forgetting to actually switch that thing on,  that's a regular at my place.  :-[

How about that?

;D

---

Haha, well, you should add the flight sim hobby on the sex appeal scale. While people may expect low numbers with that one, I'd even say it receives negative values.  :o And that's regardless of any skill.  :-/

Yep, thats true. Im a pro sax player, and i have flight sim hobby. Thats how im getting zero sex appeal values :o But, at least im hot hitting negative ones  ;D

But similar rw aviation graph will show Concorde pilots on top regardless of any skill, and Cessna pilots at the bottom  ;)

Fighter pilots will be bellow Concorde, coz they young and foolish, and Amerijet 727 freighter pilots will be low, because of rumors that they dont have lavatory in their planes :)

Nice summary.

Nice lady 'So you are a pilot. That's cool. What are you flying?'
Not so nice sim pilot 'Well, I can fly pretty much anything that sim menu offers. Wait! Why run away?!!! I'll pay the drinks!'   Darn, it's always the same. :-?

But sax players are cool. Not? Well, no Concorde pilots, but.. cool. If I could play the saxophone, my girlfriend would at least think that I can do something.  ;D Don't worry, I've got two 'backup' hobbies running, so I'm at least trying to compensate for the sim's negative value.

[edit]Ahhh, now I've got your sentence. See? Playing the saxophone does compensate for the sim's negative input. You are overmodest on your skill, Windy. Although there isn't a single instrument I could play and I think the sax is a hard one to learn and manage.[/edit]

;D
BTW! There is a way to make flight sim hobby give zero, or, maybe even positive values!

You gotta buy real 727 nose section, and transform it into a sim. - thats for zero results, some girls likes lots of switches :) Im afraid of that kind of girls  :o

If you buy entire 727, transform nose into a sim, and passenger cabin into a super-luxury room - that could give a positive values :)

Just dont tell her how much it costs  :)

P.S. Its hard to do with a concorde nose section,....its too loooong  :)

Size matters?  :o :-?

---

My new house. Good ventilation!

http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/1810/727g.jpg

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Hey Windy.

I had a new girlfriend every other week because I got tired of fighting them off. So I dated them instead. :D
The ladies here in Aussie were uneducated, back then, they didn't know that the bass guitarist didn't have much sex appeal.:P

We flight sim hobbyists will finally get the respect we deserve after we land a plane and save everybody in it after the pilots become incapcitated!  ;D

Are you suggesting we arrange an "accident" for the pilots?

Well, if there happens to be a particularly attractive woman on the plane, maybe...  ;)


Flight sim enthusiasts have to be the only people who have this secret hope that their plane will get hijacked so that they can overtake the hijackers and fly the plane.

fs_addict wrote on Jul 5^th, 2012 at 4:11pm:

Are you suggesting we arrange an "accident" for the pilots?

What a great idea!  :D


boeing247 wrote on Jul 5^th, 2012 at 4:23pm:

Flight sim enthusiasts have to be the only people who have this secret hope that their plane will get hijacked so that they can overtake the hijackers and fly the plane.

I don't know whether I could do it and I don't really want to be put in a situation where I be put into  situation like that. Here is one: Snakes on a plane - Flynn and Troy take the controls of the plane and Troy reveals that his flight experience was from a video game flight simulator. No thank you very much! :o

Markoz wrote on Jul 5^th, 2012 at 4:39pm:

I don't know whether I could do it and I don't really want to be put in a situation where I be put into  situation like that.

The cruelest twist of fate would be if you were in an aircraft that you didn't have in the sim.  :o

Ohh, cmon...they all flies the same way, just speeds different  ;)

Guys! You speak evil!!!! Crime is no good by ANY means! We'd better clear our minds of that thoughts. Dont wish for crime to happen!

boeing247 wrote on Jul 5^th, 2012 at 3:24pm:

We flight sim hobbyists will finally get the respect we deserve after we land a plane and save everybody in it after the pilots become incapcitated!  ;D

GET OUT OF MY MIND!!!!  ;D

NNewcomb wrote on Jul 5^th, 2012 at 7:05pm:

boeing247 wrote on Jul 5th, 2012 at 3:24pm: We flight sim hobbyists will finally get the respect we deserve after we land a plane and save everybody in it after the pilots become incapcitated!  ;D GET OUT OF MY MIND!!!!  ;D

Whenever I'm on a plane with my friends, I always talk about how old the plane is or how it might crash. That usually freaks them out, but they rest a little easier when they hear I can probably recover the plane with two incapacitated pilots.  ;)

I see, while the rest of the passengers gets upset when the crew reports the FO to be out of order due to the fish, there's this one guy in row 29, wearing that MS FSX shirt, who's smile gets bigger and bigger while thinking 'one more to go!', right?   ;D ::)  :P


boeing247 wrote on Jul 5^th, 2012 at 5:25pm:

The cruelest twist of fate would be if you were in an aircraft that you didn't have in the sim.  :o

;D ;D ;D


On the rw cases, sometimes being very tragic but also amazing.

There was a guy landing a King Air by himself because the real pilot had a heart attack while climbing out to cruise altitude. Now that was a (former?) private pilot, but only on the small single engine planes, not on some twin turbine. Best thing was that his wife and daughters were in the back of the plane, so I guess the guy has a pretty good description of 'high mental pressure' from now on.

Find the video here. The real pilot unfortunately was declared dead later, but the family made it and the guy flew and landed the King Air. The first seconds will give you the pilot's voice, then the passenger reports his trouble and flies. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhMom-YHgoU And some text here. http://www.atc-network.com/News/29695/Brian-Norton-and-Dan-Favio-controllers-coach-passenger-Doug-White-to-safe-landing-after-pilot-s-tragic-mid-air-death


And there's a newer case of some 80 year old lady who flew the light twin after her husband died while in control. I can't even imagine the pressure you gain from your loved one just dying in front of you and you then have to take the controls, quickly 'learn to fly' (they've circled over an hour) and then land. Well, that's life and she made it. http://abcnews.go.com/US/wisconsin-wife-80-lands-plane-dying-pilot-husband/story?id=16062534 Short Video. http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/46945433#46945433

Me says that even the rw professional pilots will give a honest hats off for those folks. People are amazing at times.  :o

I heard about the 80-year-old woman who took over after her husband died. I can't imagine the mental state she must have been in. Wow.

And, of course, when I'm on a plane, I don't hope that that the Captain and F/O are going to suffer heart attacks or be killed by hijackers, but I have this tiny hope that I'm going to be looking into the cockpit as I'm stepping on or off an aircraft (I just sort of stare at the FMC  ::)), the pilot will look at me and go, "You want a cockpit tour?"

I actually almost tried to score a chance to go in the cockpit after the last flight I was on. I was going to ask the pilot about the landing and impress him into showing me around the cockpit (okay, Flight Deck--I know one of you is going to point out that jetliners don't have cockpits), but I was with a big group and so I didn't want to hold anyone back. Next time...  :P

I actually went so far as to find a 737 flight simulator that's open to the public, just about an hour from my house. I'll be planning a visit there...

boeing247 wrote on Jul 6^th, 2012 at 5:28am:

I actually went so far as to find a 737 flight simulator that's open to the public, just about an hour from my house. I'll be planning a visit there...

I see, you are practicing for the emergency case. That's a vital pilot skill, being prepared. Thumbs up.  :)

There's a story of Tex Johnston being a passenger on a plane and realizing that the pilots in front had big trouble fighting the dutch roll tendency of that early jet age thingy. So he went to the cockpit and flew that thing out of the wonky situation. Of course, after 911, he would have struck a massive cockpit door and the plane would just have crashed.  :D Well, to be read with  :P of course.

Oh!!! Tex, I hope he didnt performed aileron roll to clear that dutch roll tendency  ;D