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May 28, 2004. I did a complete overhaul of the navaid db system to natively support Robin's nav data file format.

May 28, 2004. Last weekend in a moment of weakness I bought another R/C airplane off ebay (combining local pickup with a nice sunday drive with a good deal ... what are you going to do?) It is a Tiger Bipe 40 ARF and much of the assembly work was already done. I have polished off most of the remaining tasks including cowl installation. I still need to install the wheel pants, canopy, and a couple stickers but those are all minor cosmetic things. Today (fri) I went out over my lunch break and took it on it's maiden flight. (And it still is all in one piece.) :-)

May 19, 2004. Happy Birthday to me! Don't ask how old. I feel the same as I did yesterday. :-)

May 18, 2004. (update) I am nearly finished with my Mariner project. Remaining tasks include: (1) I may need to do some work sealing the nose hatch and the wing saddle. (2) I might take another stab at fiddling with the flaperon setting on my radio although that's more of a curiosity than any thing I would need for flight. (3) Fly.
I started up the engine in my front yard this evening to see if it would run (I bought it off ebay) and to try to get it adjusted a bit. The engine took a couple tries to get going, but once it fired, it ran very smooth and very strong. It should be a great performer for this airplane. I wouldn't be suprised if I could take off from dry grass, but I didn't want to try that tonight in my yard. :-) I may want to tweak things later (especially in terms of water proofing) but I think I'm about ready to go flying!

May 17, 2004. (update) The land cover issue has been traced to the tgvpf tool ... then further traced (I believe) to the lower level tgChopPolygon() routine which wasn't designed to handle multi-contoured polgyons or polygons with holes. The good news is that I believe the problem is fixed. The bad news is that I will need to completely reprocess the VMAP0 data for the entire world.

I am working on a complete world rebuild for FlightGear. Airport improvements will include much new and updated data from Robin Peel, approach lighting will factor in displaced thresholds correctly, much improved airport surface smoothing code, other various bug fixes, and windsocks, towers, and rotating beacons. Terrain improvements will include SRTM data for Eurasia and Africa (in addition to North and South America), and fewer artifacts from long 2d polygon line segments. I also plan to include accurate radio towers for the USA (lacking any data for the rest of the world.) Due to some extra debugging needed (Airport surface work, and there some missing land cover issues has developed that needs to be resolved) so I am setting the estimated date of completion to June 7, 2004.

May 13, 2004. (update) I am nearly finished with my Mariner project. Remaining tasks include: (1) A bit of work to make the wing fit better in the saddle. (2) I need to reinforce the wing bolt area. (3) I need to do some work sealing the nose hatch and the wing saddle. (4) I might take another stab at fiddling with the flaperon setting on my radio although that's more of a curiosity than any thing I would need for flight. (5) Don't forget to take lots of pictures. :-) (6) Fly.
This is a really nice looking aircraft! I'm hoping to do my first test flight this weekend up near my parents house (weather permitting, and assuming I don't forget some critical piece like the wing bolts or fuel or the battery charger...)

May 13, 2004. (update) I am working on a complete world rebuild for FlightGear. Airport improvements will include much new and updated data from Robin Peel, approach lighting will factor in displaced thresholds correctly, much improved airport surface smoothing code, other various bug fixes, and windsocks, towers, and rotating beacons. Terrain improvements will include SRTM data for Eurasia and Africa (in addition to North and South America), and fewer artifacts from long 2d polygon line segments. I also plan to include accurate radio towers for the USA (lacking any data for the rest of the world.) Due to some extra debugging needed (Airport surface work, and there some missing land cover issues has developed that needs to be resolved) so I am setting the estimated date of completion to May 30, 2004.

May 9, 2004. Major thunderstorms rolled through the area this evening so the Xenos vs. GM Cheerios soccer games was cancelled. You can find schedules and scores at the MRSL website. Xenos plays in the "3rd Red" division.

April 23, 2004. I am looking into adding OpenAL (http://www.openal.org) support to FlightGear. This will give us the ability to (a) handle 16 bit and stereo sounds, (b) hopefully support a larger subset of audio platforms and hardware, and (c) do spatial audio some time in the future.

April 8, 2004. The single engine flight sim project I am working on for ATC Flight Simulators has officially received FAA Level 3 FTD certification!

February 18, 2004 - 6:12AM. Welcome Amelia Esther, 8lb 1oz, 19 1/2" !!! Here is the official announcement with pictures.