Reno After-Action Part 1
(Written on Monday night inflight from DFW to IAD)
I'm writing this from 33,000 feet in an American Airlines Super 80, somewhere over Arkansas, I believe. Since I'll be getting into Dulles pretty late, I figure I'll hit the sack as soon as I get home. Tomorrow I'll have to return to my normal life, and I wanted to get down some words on the incredible experience of the past week. Since leaving D.C. last Tuesday, I've met amazing people, felt the rush of seeing breathtaking speed, and witnessed terrible tragedy.
I am, of course, referring to the Reno Air Races. The World's Fastest Motorsport is something I wanted to see firsthand for a long, long time and I can tell you, it did not disappoint.
You don’t have to look far to find someone more eloquent than I, so I will not comment on the three terrible crashes during the week. I met a number of pilots and crew members involved with the various levels of competition at Reno, and they are men and women made of more skill and determination than I have ever encountered. They fly for the pure love of what they do, and my hat comes off to anyone who puts so much on the line to accomplish something that remarkable.
The races themselves are almost beyond words, but I’ll try to say something worthwhile. You really have to see it to fully understand. In the pits, you can walk amongst these fantastic machines, tuned and sculpted to stride with authority along the very razor’s edge of performance. In the Gold level of the Unlimited class, engines that cost nearly a hundred-thousand dollars are run so hard with so much unfettered force that they are practically useless after the race, and, of course, you can’t forget the fact that these machines are flown around 50 feet above the ground.
But I didn’t just go out to see the races. I traveled out with members of the ACES Studio to demonstrate the new Acceleration expansion pack for FSX. I’ve defended the XPack on the AVSIM forums under the assumption that you should really wait until you see make judgments. Well, not only have I gotten a chance to spend a good deal of time with the new features myself, but I saw everyone from school kids to some of the actual racers getting into it. In the public booth near the tower, right behind the grandstands, the hourly multiplayer races went from a small focused event to one that drew a large crowd, complete with favorites and cheering. After word got around, we saw competitors showing up before the booth was even open to sign up for the day’s races. By the end of the show, you could barely get to two of our stands because of all the people watching.
In the beginning, a local fan of the Flight Sim series and the Cadet Commander of the Civil Air Patrol squadron attending the races was the leader, and to be honest, I didn’t think anyone would catch him. But as more and more people became involved in the events, a group of hardcore pilots became the main competitors. Many of them were involved with crews from the race teams. Our early champ was eventually overthrown and the pursuit of even better times got underway. The level of competition was so intense that eventually we posted the top time from the developers (lead designer Paul Lange) to give them a target. Even this record was toppled in the end.
A couple of days into the fray, we ran an invite only race between some of the top racers so far, against some of the Microsoft attendees. Of course, Paul was involved, and I was lucky enough to get a seat, although I finished fifth, behind the two developers and two of our top non-Microsoft racers. I blamed dust on the control stick I was using, but by that point in the races, dust was everywhere, and besides, that race was when I set my new personal best time.
Long story short: The air races in the XPack are very challenging, interesting and an absolute blast to fly multiplayer. I can’t wait for the community to get a hold of it and start producing aircraft for the T6, jet, sport, formula one and biplane classes. But even more than that, I want to see what kind of races gets made. Personally, since it would never happen in reality, I want to try my hand at creating a race around the Capital area here in D.C., with a final turn running up Potomac to a home pylon at KDCA.
In addition to the Reno races, I ended up with a lot of stick time on the F/A-18. I showed the bird to more than one actual Hornet pilot in the VIP lounge and they all agreed that it felt right to them. Most had some sort of avionic or system that they noticed wasn’t there, mostly related to combat systems, but they all thought they had everything they needed to fly correctly. One of the many memorable moments of week for me was having a former F/A-18 pilot tell his son about everything that was happening while I ran a carrier launch. He tried hard to walk me through the subsequent landing, but I still managed to smash a perfectly good fighter into the deck.
That was one fun moment out of a thousand from the races. I really appreciated the chance to go out and show the sim I love people from aviation fans who had never flown a sim before to a biplane class pilot telling me that he was going to use the Reno missions in Acceleration for practice. Sometime tomorrow, I’ll get my photos uploaded and posted here, and I’ll start mapping out that Washington, D.C. course.
- Brian
I'm writing this from 33,000 feet in an American Airlines Super 80, somewhere over Arkansas, I believe. Since I'll be getting into Dulles pretty late, I figure I'll hit the sack as soon as I get home. Tomorrow I'll have to return to my normal life, and I wanted to get down some words on the incredible experience of the past week. Since leaving D.C. last Tuesday, I've met amazing people, felt the rush of seeing breathtaking speed, and witnessed terrible tragedy.I am, of course, referring to the Reno Air Races. The World's Fastest Motorsport is something I wanted to see firsthand for a long, long time and I can tell you, it did not disappoint.
You don’t have to look far to find someone more eloquent than I, so I will not comment on the three terrible crashes during the week. I met a number of pilots and crew members involved with the various levels of competition at Reno, and they are men and women made of more skill and determination than I have ever encountered. They fly for the pure love of what they do, and my hat comes off to anyone who puts so much on the line to accomplish something that remarkable.
The races themselves are almost beyond words, but I’ll try to say something worthwhile. You really have to see it to fully understand. In the pits, you can walk amongst these fantastic machines, tuned and sculpted to stride with authority along the very razor’s edge of performance. In the Gold level of the Unlimited class, engines that cost nearly a hundred-thousand dollars are run so hard with so much unfettered force that they are practically useless after the race, and, of course, you can’t forget the fact that these machines are flown around 50 feet above the ground.
But I didn’t just go out to see the races. I traveled out with members of the ACES Studio to demonstrate the new Acceleration expansion pack for FSX. I’ve defended the XPack on the AVSIM forums under the assumption that you should really wait until you see make judgments. Well, not only have I gotten a chance to spend a good deal of time with the new features myself, but I saw everyone from school kids to some of the actual racers getting into it. In the public booth near the tower, right behind the grandstands, the hourly multiplayer races went from a small focused event to one that drew a large crowd, complete with favorites and cheering. After word got around, we saw competitors showing up before the booth was even open to sign up for the day’s races. By the end of the show, you could barely get to two of our stands because of all the people watching.
In the beginning, a local fan of the Flight Sim series and the Cadet Commander of the Civil Air Patrol squadron attending the races was the leader, and to be honest, I didn’t think anyone would catch him. But as more and more people became involved in the events, a group of hardcore pilots became the main competitors. Many of them were involved with crews from the race teams. Our early champ was eventually overthrown and the pursuit of even better times got underway. The level of competition was so intense that eventually we posted the top time from the developers (lead designer Paul Lange) to give them a target. Even this record was toppled in the end.
A couple of days into the fray, we ran an invite only race between some of the top racers so far, against some of the Microsoft attendees. Of course, Paul was involved, and I was lucky enough to get a seat, although I finished fifth, behind the two developers and two of our top non-Microsoft racers. I blamed dust on the control stick I was using, but by that point in the races, dust was everywhere, and besides, that race was when I set my new personal best time.
Long story short: The air races in the XPack are very challenging, interesting and an absolute blast to fly multiplayer. I can’t wait for the community to get a hold of it and start producing aircraft for the T6, jet, sport, formula one and biplane classes. But even more than that, I want to see what kind of races gets made. Personally, since it would never happen in reality, I want to try my hand at creating a race around the Capital area here in D.C., with a final turn running up Potomac to a home pylon at KDCA.
In addition to the Reno races, I ended up with a lot of stick time on the F/A-18. I showed the bird to more than one actual Hornet pilot in the VIP lounge and they all agreed that it felt right to them. Most had some sort of avionic or system that they noticed wasn’t there, mostly related to combat systems, but they all thought they had everything they needed to fly correctly. One of the many memorable moments of week for me was having a former F/A-18 pilot tell his son about everything that was happening while I ran a carrier launch. He tried hard to walk me through the subsequent landing, but I still managed to smash a perfectly good fighter into the deck.
That was one fun moment out of a thousand from the races. I really appreciated the chance to go out and show the sim I love people from aviation fans who had never flown a sim before to a biplane class pilot telling me that he was going to use the Reno missions in Acceleration for practice. Sometime tomorrow, I’ll get my photos uploaded and posted here, and I’ll start mapping out that Washington, D.C. course.
- Brian
posted by NotASenator at
9/18/2007 03:11:00 PM
0 Comments
