VIRB to Truckee

I finally got the prop filter for the new Garmin VIRB action camera and it largely eliminates the prop banding you get with regular cameras.  I flew the Baron up to Tahoe for the weekend so it was a good chance to test it out.  The music doesn't quite work but it still came out pretty cool.

It's alive!

I finally got my monster PC rig working, mostly.

It turned out to be a royal pain to build the PC from scratch.  The first motherboard (Gigabyte gaming7)  I used was bad and would randomly reboot.  I returned it and got an ASUS Maximum VII which has been flawless.  The biggest headache was getting all the peripherals to work in Windows 8.1, and getting a good WIFI signal from my base station which is on the other side of my house.  I'm still struggling with that a little bit, but a signal booster seems to have fixed it for the most part.

I've got the Saitek yoke working and it's pretty good.  I actually shouldn't have bought the PFC yoke because I feel that the Saitek is just fine for my purposes.  I also got the Saitek X52 gaming stick which I'm using to play WorldOfWarplanes which is pretty amazing.  The resolution is incredible and the NVidia 780ti is having no issues driving the 3 monitor display at over 100 frames per second and 5760x1080 resolution.  So far I'm experimenting with Prepar3D and XPlane and I'm a little torn on which one I prefer. Prepar3D has more planes and is easier to use but I'm having some driver issues where I cannot use the Saitek Multi and Switch panel without some wrangling, and when I get it working then my trim wheel stops working.  X-Plane has better graphics and a better flight model, but limited aircraft and panels.

Here is the final shopping list, I bought evertyhing from Amazon except the VolairSim chassis which I ordered from their website.

VolairSim chassis http://www.volairsim.com/
ASUS Maximus VII motherboard
Intel I7 4790K 4ghz CPU
3X BENQ 1ms gaming monitor 144hz XL2720Z
Razer DeathAdder gaming mouse
Razer DeathStalker gaming keyboard
Samsung 840 Evo SSD
Seagate 4TG SATA HDD
Corsair Carbide Air 540 Case
Corsair Vengeance 32GB DDR3 1866mghz RAM
EVGA GeForce 780ti GPU
LG 12X SATA BluRay Combo Drive
Windows 8.1 64bit system builders OEM
Saitek Pro Flight Cessna trim wheel
Saitek Pro Flight Rudder Pedals
Saitek Pro Flight Switch Panel
Saitek Pro Flight Multi Panel
2X Saitek Pro Flight Throttle Quadrant
Saitek Pro Flight Yoke
Saitek X52 Flight Control System (For Games)
TrackIR5 Head Tracking

Un vuelo en Costa Rica

I met up with a fellow pilot and friend of the blog on a recent trip to Costa Rica, and took him up on his offer for an air tour, which was seriously awesome. Many of the roads to the more beautiful spots in Costa Rica tend to be windy, unpaved, pot holed and sometimes cross rivers. We had a nice diesel 4runner that took a real beating and I began to understand why they charge so much for rentals there. What a great country for general aviation though, in 20 minutes you can do the equivalent of 5 hours of driving! What a beautiful country filled with friendly smiling people, at least up until the world cup loss. Pura vida, thanks again Larry!