Joe Kurr

Back again after a nice weekend at Leeuwarden airbase. We arrived on Thursday morning, and parked in the approach on the 24 end of the runway. The police patrolled the area, but for the first time since 2004 there were no problems, and we were not sent away. The show itself was nice, with some first-time appearances at a Dutch airshow, and also some aircraft which would be there for the very last time. I took some 1776 pictures, so it'll take a little while to sort them all out. Here are two already: 1. Greek F-4E Phantom on final approach on Thursday 2. Dutch F-16 Solo Display throws a flare Expect more pictures in the coming days.

I'm off to photograph the arrivals, and staying on a camping near the airfield until Sunday. Hope to see some of you at the show. You can recognize me by my "Codemasters Campzone" T-shirt, or a dark-blue "Track4 IT Group" jack. I will also be wearing a "Natural Point" cap.

Today I heard that for the very first time ever, one of our KDC-10 tanker aircraft will do a solo display, with some very spectacular low passes at high speed. Two aircraft have been added to the list yesterday, both from Germany, and both on static: - An-2 Colt (D-FONL / DM-SKM) - Seagull There are also some cancellations: - Due to technical issues, the PBY-5 Catalina and the DC-2 'Uiver' will stay at home - Due to a crash today, only two of the four Harriers will attend to the show (all others are grounded until further notice).

On Friday 20th and Saturday 21st of June, Leeuwarden airbase in the Netherlands will host the annual RNLAF Open Days. Like every year, entrance is free, and opening hours are from 08:00 until 17:00 on both days, with the flying program starting at 09:00. For a complete list of participating aircraft, have a look at this page I will be there on both days, and post pictures in this topic if I can find an open WiFi hotspot. For those of you planning a trip to the airbase, here is a map of the showground: If you want to go there on Thursday (main arrival day) keep in mind that there are no-go areas at both ends of the runway. Entering the red zones on the pictures below can cost you 180 euros! At the 06 end: At the 24 end: Hope to see some of you there!

Hi Alex, I'm already working on an interface for this, using an AVR AtMega8-16 micro controller. I think it will be either a keyboard device (lots of buttons) or a joystick (less buttons, but also analog axes). For the joystick-approach I already have a working test-setup, based on the MJoy project by Mindaugas. But our first priority is to get the stick finished, so I'm currently working on a version of the Cougar PCB to fit our stick. When that is done, I can again concentrate on getting the switches on the panels to work.

I wonder how long this topic will exist... DCS will be released when it's ready, and not one day earlier.

Software developer here. Besides building dotNet applications, I also do some web development, mainly in php (with a lot of CSS and javascript on the client side)

Let me add another country to this topic: The Netherlands :D

In my experiment to control Lockon via a PDA (See tech section) I made a "Refuel ON" and "Refuel OFF" button :) Did the same for brakes and "Fire weapon", although I never got to test the latter. Worked pretty well :)

BS might be released this summer, or it might not, in which case we will have to wait a bit longer. You may substitute "this summer" with any period you can think of ;)

Great report Groove! It was nice to meet you again, too bad I couldn't find the time to visit you guys for a checkride in the Ka-50. (why did you leave so early? :P) I have uploaded 100 pictures to the DFDT web site, you can find them here: DFDT LLTM 2008 Photo Gallery With all the reactions I heard, I think Tobit might have to build a second hall to fit all the participants for next year! :D

Back home again, after a terrific meet. I'll post some more pics tomorrow, after I've had a shower and a good night's sleep :) @ Vekkinho: You might want to check our DFDT Cockpit Project topic in the Tech discussion, HPO regularly visits and posts there, maybe you can send him a PM.

Today HPO paid us a visit, and he brought his Flanker stick with him. When he showed it to Jim, he took it outside to take some pictures of it. "SMILE :D" Here's a picture of all V-pilots taking part in this year's LLTM: Click the picture for a large version.

A small hello direct from the LLTM in Ahaus. In a few minutes the event will be officially opened and then the competitions are on. I'll try to post some pictures throughout the weekend. (if I can find the time between running the compo and trying out Black Shark :D )

Don't count on the texture files being accurate. We compared the Lockon Su-27 stick to a picture I've got with roughly the same camera position, and there is a huge difference. The white bar in Lockon is about half as wide as in real life. The top-right screw is half-in and half-out of the white bar, offset to the right, in Lockon it is completely inside the white bar. The bar's angle on the picture is a lot less than the bar in Lockon. So this is why we rather don't use the texture files for reference ;)

The buttons on that web site are small Java applets. So you might need to install Sun Java, or tell Internet Explorer how to work with it...

Uh, nope, I haven't been watching here lately, and it seems I've been missing some very interesting updates! @ TriggerHappy: Very clever technique you got there for developing your PCB. Is there another step you take after you get it out of the hot water, or is the water enough to erode away the excess copper?

Hi DArt, Your project looks promising! If you need a Linux tester, let me know :)

Well, you don't have to buy the Cougar, you can also buy our grip and look at it ;)

Wow! Now you've even baffled me! :shocking: I'll start working on the electronics as soon as I can lift a soldering iron again :)

Thanks for the link, downloading now :)

I can't download the video, both FTP servers seem to be offline, and the http link redirects to the front page :(

It's going to be hard to keep the LOFC competition together with BS just around the corner :P

That doesn't surprise me anymore. We use An-124s to fly our Apaches to and from Afghanistan and Iraq, because they're cheaper than USAF C-17s or C-5s. Sometimes an IL-76TD shows up to transport some spares, like this one, registered as ER-IBF. (Picture quality is quite poor, because the weather was very bad at the time)

Liger Zero preparing his flight: (the guy in the Campzone shirt is me) And flying a mission: So you see, flying at the LLTM can get quite serious :)