News

PPL Skills Test and CTC/Virgin MPL!

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So a few weeks ago I finally finished the second half of my PPL Skills Test – my final checkride, making me (technically) a fully-fledged pilot! Now I just have to wait for the CAA to check my paperwork so they can send me my license!

I did my test in two flights, the latter being the navigation section (normally done alongside the general handling section, but weather was poor last time so we rescheduled the second part), and while the weather was still far from perfect, I managed to get everything done surprisingly accurately! Despite being blown around by 30kt winds, I managed to get my first planned leg of the journey (to Skegness) quite close, but the unplanned diversion I was given (to an airfield north of Nottingham) somehow worked out so nicely that I stayed precisely on track! We never finished the leg because the wind left us travelling with a groundspeed below 60 knots (way too slow to get anywhere), but considering I was so accurate my examiner believed I was more than capable!

Unusually, we didn’t do any work with VORs or simulated IMC conditions, but I’m very confident with those two things anyway (thanks to X-Plane!) so I’m sure I would have passed that section easily.

In other news, I have also applied for CTC Wings’ MPL programme with Virgin Atlantic, and have got through to the assessment/interview stage! I wasn’t planning on applying so soon, however Flying A330s for Virgin Atlantic was too good an opportunity to miss! I’ll report back after Thursday 4th describing how the process went – it’ll involve a nice list of firsts for myself!

Thanks for reading, and fly safe!
Jiggyb2

Website Updates (again!)

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Hi guys! Lots of little tweaks have been going on around here lately – and I’m sorry I haven’t posted for a while! Here’s what’s been happening:
Firstly, you may notice we now have a proper domain name! That’s right, I forked out the £15/mo to get it all sorted! It also means we now have a proper email address for the site at contact@jettodesigns.co.uk – So if you have anything you want to say, please sends us a message over there or comment on a post!

Along with being able to contact me via that email, there are also a few other methods over at the Find Me! page – why not check it out?

One of those methods is twitter, and you’ll see I have fixed the twitter widget along the right-hand side of this site. I’ll also make an effort to tweet more often as it is a lot faster than writing a blog post!

Since this has been a rather bland post so far, here’s a picture of the Flightfactor Boeing 757-200 for X-Plane departing Heathrow to finish! I absoloutely love this aircraft, and perhaps one day I’ll find the will to do a visual review of it and the JARDesign A320NEO.

Keep flying!Jiggyb2

A very large shipment of models!

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It has been a while since I got an arrival of models but I just received my biggest shipment yet, so here they are! I’ll do a proper review of some of these later at http://www.aviationdelightforum.com/ however I don’t know if they’ll be worth posting here.

Air New Zealand A320 (Sharklets)
This is my first model which is completely outside of my normal collection criteria. I really wanted an A320 with Sharklets though and liked the ANZ one the best. A very nice model it is too, with all the antennae you want!

Fiji Airways A330-200
I loved this livery since I first saw it, Obviously I had to get it in model form! Again very nice and with lots of antennae, Phoenix seem to be putting these on more and more new models and it really makes them look good.

SriLankan A340-300
Again, another very fine model. These A340s are great, I have good memories of sitting on a beach in Sri Lanka with these things roaring overhead.

Qantas A380
My best flight ever was on this aircraft. This model, by Witty, probably isn’t the best I’ve had but is pretty good still. I’ll definitely do a proper review of this!

KLM B737-700
The blue colour of the hull seems a bit dark to me. What do you think?

Singapore B777-200
I liked the look of this model, it is pretty nice but the very end of the tail was chipped, as can be seen in the bottom image. not sure if it is worth complaining about as it is obviously a manufacturing defect.

British Airways B777-200
This just about sorts out my BA widebody fleet that is easily attained – All I need now is a 767 and a 787. Anyone willing to sell one?

On a slightly unrelated note, I also got a new mouse mat since my old one was a bit… old! I chose this Boeing one, it is quite plastic and provides less resistance than my old one but I still quite like it.

I’ve also taken a few collection shots since I haven’t done so for a good while. I barely have any room on my shelves! Tempted to get another shelf or to replace my current ones with even bigger ones. My current ones could do with a replacement anyway.

An Overview of the Worldwide collection:

A better view. I try and keep these aircraft as ones that would realistically fly in to somewhere in the UK. I think the only exception is the ANZ A320 but the CO 757 may also be an odd one.

Next to these, the ‘Russian corner’, for soviet-age aircraft that don’t entirely fit my collection but look great anyway!

Up on my top shelf, I have all my British aircraft. Firstly, my nice collection of BA Aircraft. The 777s take up so much space! I still want a BA 767 and 787 for the wide-body collection, and the A318/19/20/21 in normal colours would be nice. They haven’t cropped up for a while though

And finally, the miscellaneous UK collection. Pretty much just Virgin right now, on my ‘want’ list for this is a Monarch A320, Thomson 787, and possibly some sort of Easyjet if one ever crops up again (ebay ones are TOO MUCH!). Narrowbodies are more important in filling this up since they’ll actually fit on my shelf.

Thanks for reading!
Jiggyb2

I Have Finally Purchased A New Computer!

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Yes, after waiting since who knows how long ago, I finally got the go-ahead to make the purchase for a brand-new computer so I can get back to flying in X-Plane as I always want to go back! This should mean more new liveries for all of you who want to see some more of my work, and I am considering making more scenery and updating the old stuff too.

I purchased it from Computer Planet UK, who have so far been very good. Everything seems reasonably priced to me and I had a lot of fun playing with their configurator beforehand too. In the end, it cost me £830.96 excluding VAT. A lot of money but I’m sure it will be worth it. Should be arriving in about a week or so so I’ll be sure to post whatever I can say about it once it arrives and I set everything up (read: Install a shed-load of X-Plane stuff – 80GB of scenery alone!).

for us nerdy folks, here are the specifications for my new machine:

Computer Case  Cooler Master Elite 430
CPU Intel i5 4670K – (4 x 3.4 GHZ) – Haswell
Memory Crucial 8GB PC3-12800 1600MHz (1x8GB) (DDR3)
Graphics Card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti – 2GB
Motherboard Gigabyte B85M-HD3 (Intel B85)
Networking Wireless LAN 150Mbps
Expansion Cards 4 x USB 2.0 Ports
Power Supply Corsair 650W PSU
Hard Drive #1 1 TB (1000 GB) SATA-II HDD 7200 RPM
Optical Drive #1 Samsung 24x DVD/CD Re-Writer/Reader – Black – (SATA)
Operating System #1 Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64 BIT
DVD Playback Software FREE – CyberLink PowerDVD 10
DVD/CD Burning Software FREE – Nero V12 – NEW
Monitor #1 18.5″ Widescreen Monitor – Black – 2ms – 1366×768 – VGA
Keyboard Standard Slim Keyboard (USB)
Mouse Gigabyte (M6800) Optical Gaming Mouse – (USB) – Black
 Webcam Logitech B500 Webcam – Built-In-Mic – USB 2.0
Free Gift FREE – 6 Port Surge Protection

Kerbal Space Program for steam released!

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Kerbal Space Program has just been released on steam for OSX, Windows and Linux! It is currently £18.99 as part of the Steam Early Access program, and is available here for those too lazy to scroll down.

Here is the official forum post about it:

Hi,

Very good news today! After many months of preparation, KSP is now available on Steam!

We’re very fortunate also in that we’re one of the very first games to be released as a Steam Early Access title. We’ve been working closely with Valve recently to make sure the release went as smoothly as possible, and their new Early Access category is just perfect for us. We’re all very happy here!

So, I think we should probably have a little Q&A here, to clear up what will likely be the most frequent questions:

Q: If I’ve already bought the game on the KSP Store, can I switch over to Steam?
A: The answer to that is Yes, but not right now. We are going to set up a system on our store where you’ll be able to get a Steam key for KSP provided you already have purchased the game. However, we are still working on the exact details of this feature, so it’ll likely be a while until that’s set up. We’ll of course let you know when that becomes available.

Q: What platforms are supported on the Steam version?
A: KSP is available on Steam for all three platforms (Win, Mac and Linux), and the Demo is also available on all of them as well.

Q: What is this Early Access thing you speak of?
A: I think Valve can explain it better than we can.

Q: Is this in any way related to the 0.19 update being smaller than usual?
A: You’ve probably figured out already this is one of the main reasons we cut the 0.19 update short. We wanted KSP to look its best for the release, so we decided to get the reentry fx, animations and all the other features out in time for it. The shorter update cycle worked out nicely for us though, so we’ll try to maintain that flow for future releases as much as possible. The patcher should also be ready by then.

Q: Speaking of patcher then, how does that work with Steam?
A: Steam has its own update system, so for the steam version of the game, we’ve turned off all version-tracking features in KSP. The Steam version will update automatically when we publish new builds, so it all happens without the need of any external tools. The patcher will only be used for the KSP Store-bought version of the game.

A new animated short was also released to celebrate the occasion!

Anyway, that is all from me for now!
Safe flying,
Jiggyb2

KSP 0.19 released!

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That was fast, and highly unexpected! KSP 0.19 adds (according to the original forum post):
* Linux Support:
There is now a native Linux version of KSP! Official support for Ubuntu 12.04, but it should work on most distributions.

* Atmospheric Effects:
Watch your spacecraft flare up as they re-enter the atmosphere, and produce vapor trails during high-speed flight.

* New Kerbal Animations:
The Kerbals got a massive overhaul on their facial expressions! The new Expressions system uses the new Mecanim animation engine from Unity, giving Kerbals a lot more expressiveness. Watch their faces distort in total panic or gleeful joy, now also when you’re out on EVA.

* Rover Wheels:
Drive across the surface of other worlds with the new rover wheel parts, which are steerable and self-powered. Construct anything from tiny unmanned rovers, to exploration buggies, to huge mobile contraptions.

* Graphical and Scenery Improvements
We’ve got a New Launchpad model at KSC, with 100% less launch tower, a new Runway, and much improved night-time lighting, making for greatly improved visuals, especially at night.

* More New Parts
We’ve added several new parts for general construction. Featuring panels, girders, and a lot more!

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I’ll be adding some screenshots in a follow-up post tomorrow!

Safe flying,
jiggyb2

Website Updates!

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Hi there!

This is just a short post to say that I’ve finally gotten off my bum and finished adding download links, images and descriptions to every X-Plane livery! Now everything should be nice and easy to view and download. UPDATE: The X-Plane section is now complete for the moment! go check it out here!

Now everything is nearly done, here is a nice image of the SSKSS, which is also nearing completion!

Safe flying,
Jiggyb2

0.18 Release + KerbalKon Summary

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So Last night (UK time), Kerbal Space Program version 0.18 was released!
From what I’ve played so far, the quality of this update has been superb, and it means that Jetto is back in business!

I’ll release more once I’ve played more!

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As mentioned, 0.18 was released during KerbalKon, of which there were several things to note:

  • Kerbal SpacePort was announced! This handy site is an official mod repository, and looks very, very stylish!
  • The Kerbalizer was released! This is a fun tool which allows you to create your own kerbal avatar! You can get both a free version and a paid one, the latter of which allows many more customization options!
  • Squad have hinted at merchandising, showing off some awesome model Kerbals!
  • The development team showed us images of resource mining, clouds, and jetpacks!

Loads more awesome things happened there too, but you have to watch the whole thing on Twitch.tv to see them!

Jiggyb2

Kerbal Space Program 0.18 ‘Press releases’

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So, The friendly devs of KSP have let 10 very lucky YouTubers create videos of 0.18 to greatly increase the hype (not that they really needed to!)

Here is my favourite:

StreetLampPro is one of my favourite creators of cinematic videos right now… go check his videos out!

Jiggyb2
(PS don’t tell the developers that I’m mentioning release dates, but I am 99% sure that by Saturday, 0.18 will have been released. of that 99, I’m split 45/45 on whether it comes out at the start or end of KerbalKon, otherwise it may just not be ready for release (the other 9%). Anyway, not long now!)