YSFLIGHT 20080220 Version ready for download!

Birds (and Animals) Around Carnegie Mellon.
Uploaded "Northern Flickers' Kick-Boxing"

Airplane Photo Gallery

Uploaded photos from the Wings Over Pittsburgh air show.

CaptainYS's Flight Logbook.
Uploaded summary of flights in May.  I've been extremely busy for a few weeks and could not update the web site, but I was managing to fly as often as I can to keep my currency up.

Birds (and Animals) Around Carnegie Mellon.
I succeeded in taking a close-up photo of a Gold Finch for the first time!

Solid and Physical Modeling 08

I was staying in Stony Brook for the last three days for a conference called ACM Solid and Physical Modeling 08.  This conference is relatively competitive conference, and I used to think it was impossible to have my paper accepted to this one.  However, this is already my second time to present my paper in this conference.

Spectacular sunset.

I had to change an airplane at Philadelphia and then flew to Long Island McArthur (Islip) airport.  From Pittsburgh to Philadelphia was nearly the identical path to that I flew in Cessna.  I wanted to fly by myself.  In fact, Carnegie Mellon allows to rent an airplane for business trip (attending a conference is considered a business trip) if the pilot is instrument rated.  So, I'm qualified for that.  However, I couldn't rent an airplane for whole three days.  So, this time, I had to fly as a passenger.  The airplane from Philadelphia to Islip flew over the Atlantic to avoid New York class B.  From the airplane, I could see a spectacular sun set.

Stony Brook is just 55 miles east of Manhattan.  So, I was hoping that I could skip some sessions and go to Manhattan.  However, the only practical (affordable) way to go to Manhattan from Stony Brook was by train, and it takes 2 hours.  That's what I heard.  The train station was away from the conference site (State University of New York) so, skipping one or two sessions was not enough to go there.  So, I gave up Manhattan and attended almost all sessions.  Nonetheless, I took a lot of work to do from Pittsburgh, and was writing documents and programming while listening to the presentation.  I was put in a poster session and had only three minutes to present my research.  At least my paper was printed in the conference proceedings though.  Apparently the projector was not capable of synchronizing to my laptop, and initially I could not show my power-point presentation, but I had also copied my files to my USB drive.  So, I could do my presentation.  I don't know how many of you are in grad school and studying CAE and computational geometry, but anyway I made my paper available from here.  Just FYI.
　

In the campus of State University of New York at Stony Brook

On the second day, there was a conference banquet.  Pittsburgh is far away from the ocean and I was missing fresh seafood.  So, I was determined to eat as much seafood as possible during my stay in Stony Brook, which is on the ocean.  However, when I stood on the line for the buffet, there was no sea food.  Later I found shrimps and big lobsters.  So, I stood on the line again, but they were all gone before I reached shrimps and lobsters.  Luckily, another batch of shrimps and lobsters came later, and I could eat two big lobsters.  I fulfilled the biggest (?) purpose of the conference.

On the last day, my airplane was supposed to leave 6:40pm, but the conference was over by 1pm.  The weather was not so good, and anyways nothing was within the walking distance.  So, I just came to the airport soon after the conference was over.  But, lucky to me, the airplane I was supposed to ride was delayed (probably cancelled) and I was switched to the flight via Boston.  Immediately, Legal Sea Food restaurant came to my mind.  I had no complaint!  The problem was, the airplane to Boston was supposed to leave at 1:55pm, but the woman told me to switch to the Boston airplane at 2:00pm.  There seemed to be no chance to make it.  But I ran and barely made it.

The Boston weather was perfect IFR.  The airplane was Beach 1900, and there was no cockpit door.  I could see the cockpit window from the cabin.  I believe the crew shot an ILS approach, and the airplane apparently broke out of the cloud just before the minimum, i.e., the runway was insight only several seconds before the touch down.  I saw the runway slightly to the right, and the pilot made a slight right turn to get it aligned, and landed.  Probably, the ceiling was just about 200 to 300ft.  While taxing to the gate, the control tower was partially hidden by the cloud.  Due to the weather, the airplane from Boston to Pittsburgh was also delayed.  I enjoyed three pieces of raw oyster, clam chowder, and crab cake for late lunch.  Then the airplane delayed again, and I had one piece of raw oyster and Blackened Raw Tuna Sashimi for dinner.  I also purchased a medium clam chowder for my wife.  I had never enjoyed the airplane delay this much before.  It was really good to attend this conference.

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Perfect IFR condition at Boston.  The control tower was partially hidden in the cloud.

An easy way to lose a customer.

I've moved.  But, within the same apartment complex.  I was living in a small one-bedroom apartment, but this time I moved to a large one-bedroom apartment on the same floor.  So, we have been busy moving stuffs from the old apartment to the new apartment, and making phone calls to tell address changes.

Everything went well, except the phone.  The phone was supposed to be transferred on Wednesday morning.  But, I didn't get a dial tone in Wednesday afternoon.  I called Verizon again, and they told the phone will be available by Thursday morning.  Later on Wednesday, I received an automated phone call to my cell phone, and told Verizon technician will come to the apartment in the morning of Thursday.  On Thursday, nobody showed up.  I called Verizon again, and they told the phone would be available by 5pm.  But, no dial tone in the evening.  Today, I called Verizon again.  They said, they can send a technician, but they will charge $90 for the first 30 minutes.  I had enough.  I called Comcast to switch the phone service from Verizon to Comcast.  Lesson learned: If you want to lose a customer, charge your customer for something that has not even started.

Birds (and Animals) Around Carnegie Mellon.
Uploaded "Blue Jays broke up!?"

CaptainYS's Flight Logbook.
Uploaded "Long Cross Country (Part 3: Homebound!)"

CaptainYS's Flight Logbook.
Uploaded "Long Cross Country (Part 2)"  I had to fly a Localizer Back Course approach, which I practiced only once during my IFR training.

CaptainYS's Flight Logbook.
Uploaded "Long Cross Country (Part 1)"  I ended up with shouting on the radio "Please give me clearance!" to the control tower.

I'm running a YSFLIGHT server during Japanese long holidays (called Golden Week.)  The address is .  Please feel free to log on and enjoy!

CaptainYS's Flight Logbook.
Uploaded "ILS Approach".  You can see how instruments guides the airplane to the runway during an ILS approach.

Birds (and Animals) Around Carnegie Mellon.
Uploaded "Blue Jay (and Robin) Update"

Birds (and Animals) Around Carnegie Mellon
Uploaded "Ceasefire (?) of Flag Staff Hill".  The Blue Jay pair came back and one of them started brooding.  Robins also started re-building their nest.

Birds (and Animals) Around Carnegie Mellon
Uploaded "Battle of Flag Staff Hill".  A pair of Blue Jay started building a nest in Flag Staff Hill.  However, a pair of Robin also started building a nest on a tree right next to Blue Jays' tree, and the territorial dispute apparently started a battle over tree-dominance.

CaptainYS's Flight Logbook.
Uploaded "20kt of safety"

CaptainYS's Flight Logbook
Uploaded "Landing Practice in Gusty Wind".  This time you can see my not-so-smooth landing video.  I'm now instrument rated, but it does not necessarily mean I am a wizard of landing.

CaptainYS's Flight Logbook
Updated.

YSFLIGHT 20080220 Version for Linux is also ready for download!

Birds (and Animals) Around Carnegie Mellon.
Updated

I finally received my permanent airman certificate with instrument rating!  Below is the close up of the back face of my new certificate :-)

CaptainYS's Flight Logbook
Uploaded "Cessna got a flight-data recorder, and 15kt Cross Wind!".  Below is a video from night landing in 15kt cross wind.

YSFLIGHT 20080220 Version (for Windows) ready for download!  Linux version will follow soon.

CaptainYS's Flight Logbook.
Updated

CaptainYS's Flight Logbook.
Uploaded "IFR Training for the first time in a month".

I try to take back up copies of my important files regularly.  Although I had a horrifying experience of losing almost all the working files late last year, my backup files turned out to be intact, and the hard drive that I though lost was actually not lost.  So, that incident horrified me, but I actually didn't lose any files.

I started taking monthly back up in 1999.  1999 was a year of big change for me.  One year after I entered Ph.D program of Carnegie Mellon University, I faced the Ph.D Qualifying Exam.  Until then I never knew what winning something was all about.  For the first time in my life, I fought with all I had.  I never knew that there was a occasion that I broke into tears from overwhelming joy.  It was a real taste of victory that I had never experienced.

And, I released the very first version of YSFLIGHT in May 1999.  I was writing YSFLIGHT little by little when I wanted to get away from study for Qualifying Exam.  In that version, there was no OpenGL version and Direct 3D version.  Virtually no graphics card could accelerate OpenGL.  So, there was no point to make OpenGL version.  That time I never expected YSFLIGHT was going to grow to this level and used by so many people over the world.

When I was organizing old backup CD-Rs last week, I found the first version of YSFLIGHT by occasion.  It reminded me of the days of my Qualifying Exam.  Now I can say it's a good memory because I passed it.  (It could have been my end-of-career!)

As for YSFLIGHT, I was going through pre-release test for the new version and found a bug in the landing auto pilot.  As a programmer, I sometimes encounter a bug that makes me wonder why the hell this program was working?  The bug in the landing auto pilot was one of that kind.  So, it took me some time to fix it, but it's gone now.  Hopefully I can upload the program to Vector.co.jp and will be available early next month.

Updated CaptainYS's Flight Logbook.

The weather in Pittsburgh was not good for flying for several days.  But, today is an extreme.  Pittsburgh is in a brutal blizzard.  The photo below is taken from my apartment.  Occasionally, a parking behind the building across the road was not visible.  So, it was almost zero visibility.

Now, what does Allegheny County airport's weather report say?

KAGC 101553Z 26031G40KT 10SM BKN034 OVC046 M02/M11 A2976 RMK AO2 PK WND 25040/1552 SNB15E46 SLP092 P0000 T10221111

Wind 260 at 31kt, peak gust 40kt.  Wow!  It's a typhoon-class wind.  But, visibility 10 miles?  What?  Sometimes automated weather does not make sense.

CaptainYS's Flight Logbook
Added "VOR-only Navigation" .

Uploaded Saving Dell Latitude XT.
I was suddenly assigned to a sketch-based CAD interface project last year.  That put me into a panic mode for a while.  But, in return, my advisor purchased one of the most anticipated tablet PC, Dell Latitude XT.  I received it, but it suffered from the infamous Blue-Screen-Of-Death (BSOD) when it was funning on battery.  I don't know if anyone is suffering from the same problem, but I uploaded how I reached the solution and saved my Dell Latitude XT from being scrapped  in Saving Dell Latitude XT.

Updated Birds (and Animals) Around Carnegie Mellon.

Instrument Check Ride Passed!

CaptainYS's Flight Logbook
Uploaded details of my check ride..  The video below is from a landing to Beaver County airport.

I'll go for the instrument practical test this Wednesday.  I'll post the result here and CaptainYS's Flight Logbook.

Updated CaptainYS's Flight Logbook.

Updated CaptainYS's Flight Logbook.

My first flight of 2008 was a night flight to see a light-up event called Celebration of Light from the air.  The event was held in Hartwood, which is about 10 miles north of Allegheny County Airport.  I drove through the event last year, and it was really an impressive light-up show.  However, it was not so impressive from the sky.  It took five or ten minutes to find the place.  The city lights of Pittsburgh was more impressive from the air.  Unfortunately, the maximum sensitivity of my digital camera used for taking flying video was ISO400, and it could not capture city lights well.  The below video is from the landings when I came back to the Allegheny County airport.

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