WELCOME TO THE NEWSROOM - Full update monthly,
Important News as and when it occurs.
This Full Update 02/12/00.
A 767 held over London, awaits atc clearance for its arrival at Gatwick- pic by Pilot 144 Simon
Latest News 12/12/00.
Porthos and Aramis back in Mail Service !
Jonathan the World Cargo Manager has informed the Newsroom that 2 Shorts in storage have been taken out as they have been chartered by the Royal Mail for Xmas, who evidently don't have faith in the railway system and are worried they won't be able to deliver all those cards!. He has done some flights for the Xmas period using these two aircraft. Good news indeed for the turboprop fraternity !
Hopefully by the time you read this all of the details will be available from the World Cargo site.
CEO Flies Again !
Imagine the surprise that our General Manager got when he received a Pirep from a Pilot 100 Gary. Next he'll be telling us that Father Christmas does have an airfield at the North Pole and we've been invited to help him deliver the pressies ! Ho ho ho......
With Lands End in the background Kerensa begins her descent to St Mary's.
Editorial.
Could this be the lull before the storm I ask myself ? Things here at HQ are strangely quiet. Mark (boss) is conspicuous by his absence although his phone never stops ringing and even Dave Finney's paint splattered overalls remain hanging on his door as he attends to 'essential business' in Montego Bay - a likely story....
So, no news is probably good news as we slip into festive gear and the inevitable office parties, but anyway here goes.
is Launched.
The big news for the month is undoubtably the start of CDAC operations out of Montego Bay.
Not normally known for getting to grips with these big noisy jet thingys I threw myself to the mercy of the Operations Manager and volunteered to join one of the delivery flight crews of CDAC's aquired Douglas DC8 freighter.
Brrr...a chilly start to the day at Colorado Springs with light sleet in the wind - glad of my thermal vest whilst doing the walk around !
Dave Finney has done a great job here and the aircraft behaved impecably and predictably. I soon felt at home in the right hand seat with the most experienced pilot in the company Sandy in the left hand seat. Well lets be honest who wouldn't !
FL390 over Florida and the temperature on the ground has risen considerably! Time to get those thermals off methinks.
CDAC is giving our pilots the opportunity to fly out of Montego Bay to Miami, Anchorage and London Heathrow for the time being. Jonathan Fenech and Dave Finney have done all of the hard work for you in creating the flightplans and making the web pages. Just turn up FLY and ENJOY !
(I used FS2K for my flights but the FS98 version should work just as well.)
All play and no work ?
Whilst some managers are away topping up their sun tans and others are flying to exotic locations like Alderney and Carlisle two managers have obviously been working hard at their desks making UK Direct a great place to be ! These are Mark Greenough of the Scenery Department and James Cheetham of the Safety Department. Without going into details here I would like to thoroughly recommend a visit to their respective departments. There is some good work being done here please support their efforts !
Oh, and Mark had time to take a screenshot of him heading out over London from City airport one dark, grey and damp evening. Note the London Eye! Thanks Mark.
Well Done Roberto !
I know this is not hot off the press but to be honest I didn't really fully understand what our Roberto was doing in England last month ! So being the nosy bloke I am and he the obliging chap he obviously is, he sent me an email .
Roberto Cardone's Academy Tempest in 56 Sqn markings.
'Roberto Cardone travelled from Rome to enter the competition with this excellent 1/72nd scale Academy Hawker Tempest. He has been an IPMS(UK) member since 1992 and this fine model earned him a commended in this years contest which he describes as "the best satisfaction in my modelling life! ".'
The End is Nigh ?
Don't worry it's not a tale of gloom and despair just me bringing some attention to a freeware utility that has really given my FS2K flying a helping hand. If you are a real computer genius then don't bother to read on but if like me a little help goes a long way then read on.
Whilst reading an aircraft installation manual my attention was drawn to some information which seemingly reinforced my suspicions about FS2K. The tips were basically to always start FS2K with a clean boot up before a flight and secondly to close down all of the uneccessary programs running in the background using up vital system resources. If like me the list of programs that appears when you press Ctrl+Alt+Del is a bit scary then a nice little program called End It All will (hopefully) safely do it for you. If you'd like to give it a try then you can find it at ; ftp://ftp.roychaffin.com/pub/enditall.zip
Roy is part of the team behind the fabulous Douglas DC-3 for FS2000 Pro, files wjrdc34a &b, all 23Mb approx. of it ! Now there is a real aircraft........
and finally....
An anonymous photographer captured this scene at Liverpool the day that Dave Finney was practicing his online ATC. It got misplaced under a pile of NOTAMS on my desk and as Dave is away in Montego Bay I feel brave enough to publish it !
Oh Sh...t !
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Newsroom Manager