Nutter Group Flights......

In the words of Mr. Dane Flats, a well-known FSX Twitch Streamer, we do this for the company.  You probably noticed I have updated the blog title to include a reference to The Nutters, a group of FSX/P3D enthusiasts who meet on a regular basis to fulfill one goal: fly the virtual world while wreaking havoc on VATSIM :-)  I’m fortunate Facebook Messenger allows users to silence chat notifications.  On more than one occasion, I have awoken to my misses asking, “Are the boys flying today or what? Your messenger is going crazy!”  We have formed what I believe to be a tight group of individuals who simply enjoy one another’s friendly “banter” amongst buddies.  The banter is non-stop, offensive, and well….welcomed!  Yes, we wouldn’t have it any other way and I’m hoping to be able to head across the pond in the future to meet these blokes in person.  But remember guys, if I head to Manchester…I will be going to Old Trafford…..regardless if you like it or not.  And yes, I realize that will mean I have to secure my own transportation :-)

Of course, all these flights happen with time zones set aside and we still manage to make this work.  I continue to hear, “What time is it where you are?”  Followed by a few expletives in the best English accents.  I was joking about wreaking havoc on VATSIM since each of us is a pure professional when taking to the virtual skies and navigating the controlled airspaces of the US, UK, and Europe.  Thankfully, we have Danish Michael, aka Rolls Royce, to keep us in check and to answer any technical questions about the approach, departure, etc.  We aim to please and it is always a nice gesture to hear VATSIM controllers compliment us on our ability to follow directions/procedures.  Of course, that doesn’t stop us from flying formation in uncontrolled airspace at FL370 while cruising at Mach .80.  Hey, it makes the wingview screenshots that much better. 

We have made some great group flights lately and one involved a long haul from KIAD to EGLL.  Yes, it was definitely a long flight which took 6:45 to complete in the beautiful PMDG 777F in FedEx colors.  During the flight, I was able to experience an oceanic crossing with Shanwick control on-line.  This was a first for me and thankfully, The Nutters came to my aid and walked me through the process of making position reports and the correct format.  All went well with ATC control it was definitely nice to see The Emerald Isle out the windscreen.  The Heathrow director got everyone down in one piece and fortunately, I was able to taxi to the cargo apron without an OOM crash.  When I checked, I was down to 300 MB of free virtual memory for FSX.  That isn’t much and keep in mind that before approaching Heathrow, I was hovering at 1.4-1.5 GB of free memory.  This tells you just how much complex scenery can zap your system.  Other flights have taken us from Houston to Denver, Heathrow to Helsinki, and Las Vegas to Dallas Fort Worth.  The flights were made with various aircraft including the Aerosoft Airbus series, the QualityWings 757-200, and the PMDG 777-200.  Each aircraft has its place in my hangar and while some are more complex than others, they each fulfill the roll of flying the virtual world.  Please enjoy the various screenshots from recent group flights and I invite you to also visit out Flight Simulator Pictures page on Facebook.  There, you will see plenty of screenshots as we continue to cruise the virtual skies.  Please click the screenshots to open them in "full screen" mode.

Facebook Link: Flight Simulator Pictures

Add-ons Used:

FSX w/ DirectX 10 enabled (Steve's DirectX 10 Fixer)

Active Sky Next

REX4 with Texture Direct and Soft Clouds

FTX Global/FTX Vector/FTX openLC Europe

FSDreamTeam KIAH/KLAS

Flightbeam KDEN

Aerosoft MegaAirport Helsinki/Aerosoft Heathrow Extended

QualityWings 757/PMDG 777-200/Aerosoft A321

FSDreamTeam GSX/Aerosoft AES Ground Services

Old Prop Solutions 777 Immersion/PrecipitFX