Tell us about yourself!

[Master of Blades]

Awright...

My name is Johannes, I live in Sweden, outskirts of stockholn, in what feels like the middle of nowhere. I'm about 17 years old (or rather, will be in october :weird. I'm currently studying to be a Game developer/designer.

I got hooked on Orbiter about... 4 months ago, when i read about it on an X-plane forum (coincidentially, I was then looking for space AddOns for X-Plane).

Currently I am rather inexperienced (nothing against what i was when i started out though, i knew nothing of orbital mechanics, I tried going to the moon by pointing the spacecraft in the general direction of the moon and just kept thrusting xD), still having problems doing orbital rendevouz, precision re-entries and landings and neither can i embark on interplanetary jorneys.

Whats more to say... i sport a Mohawk, listen to punk rock (REAL punk rock mind you, no green day crap), play EvE-Online and have somehow picked up a cockneyish accent (which is rather remarkable since I'm Swedish...), which tend to drive both my English teacher and my mates to madness.

This here seems to be quite a nice community, with pleasantly low ammounts of "GTFO Noob111"-posts.

Cheers

 

[Piet Barber]

about me

I am a 30-something guy with a family of four. My handle is my real name. I'm the only person in the world with this name, from what I can tell. I was born in Rhode Island, USA, moved to Virginia when I was 4, spent about all of my life in Northern Virginia (first Arlington, then Fairfax, and then Loudoun county).

I moved to the capital of Switzerland in August 2007 (That's called Berne for you Americans with no geography skills), and find myself not missing many of the things that I enjoyed so much in the USA. I will never understand "football" (what non-Americans call football, at least). I think the only way to make that sport interesting is to remove the goalie position. I'm planning on being in Switzerland for 2 years total, then return to the US, less fat and probably more (politically) liberal.

On the weekends, instead of spending a perfectly beautiful day chasing a little white ball around with golf clubs, I spend them at the airport. I am a flight instructor for gliders, and I try to get as much personal flying in my single seat glider as possible.

No, not hang-gliders; those people are crazy! Gliders. Kind of like a small General Aviation plane with longer wings, and no engine. (well; no engine most of the time). Go look at my website and see some pictures of what I'm talking about.

I first got started on Orbiter when I played MS Space Simulator a decade or more ago, and wondered what happened to it. I found Orbiter on the Intarwebs around that time. My computer was too puny at the time, and I was going through my "I'm not ever going to run Windows again" phase of my Linux zealotry. A few months of watching my friend play CounterStrike, and I eventually got myself a nice enough computer to play games with; and started with Orbiter again.

The thing I am most impressed about with Orbiter is how the MFDs are so much more powerful and versatile than Microsoft's Space Simulator. Orbiter is superior in every way. .. But sometimes I liked the goofy MIDI music in MSSS better. :blink: I also like playing X-Plane on Mars; but I haven't done that recently.

About a month ago, I got fed up with the crufty mess that my Orbiter2006 folder had become, and wiped away everything; this time using the Generic Mod Enabler. I was about to use subversion for tracking all the junk in that folder; but the Mod Enabler is really what I needed to help keep broken scenarios and broken modules all in order.

I spend most of my Orbiter time in the DGIV until recently, when i started flying Doug's XR1 and XR5 a lot more often. When DGIV'ing I like tuning down the DGIV to the puniest thruster strength, lowest amount of fuel and oxygen, and launching the DGIV on the back of Kulch's Energia out of Cape Canaveral. I also really liked the space elevator add-on.

 

[FlyingSinger]

I had a deja vu experience thinking I'd posted in this thread before but maybe that was in M6 - it all blends together after 54 years or so...

I'm an optical engineer working as the international distribution manager for a software company (optical design and simulation software), which is why I'm writing this from Brussels or some such place. I wanted to be a military pilot and astronaut starting about 1965 but myopia foiled that plan. I ended up studying computer science, physics, and optics. I played with a lot of flight sims (mostly military) through the 1990's before finally getting my private pilot license in 2001 (flight lessons started in 1998 but there was a divorce in there that added a few years). I'm also a singer/songwriter and recorded my first CD in 2003 but that's another story...

I was thrilled to discover Orbiter in March 2005 and was surprised at how long it took a physics guy and pilot to learn it. I wrote "Go Play In Space" that summer to help me (and others) learn it better. I started my blog "Music of the Spheres" in fall 2005, mostly to talk about space stuff and Orbiter. I also became a JPL Solar System Ambassador so I can use Orbiter to teach kids and adults about space (yes, I am a complete and total space geek, thanks for asking ). Andy McSorley helped me on the second (2006) edition of "Go Play" and he and I met The Creator (I mean Martin) for a few beers last September in a London pub. That was pretty cool.

Orbiter is fun (and educational!) for kids of all ages and I'm glad to be part of the world's OTHER international space program. Even if some of you are even younger than my younger daughter (17).

Cheers,
Bruce Irving

P.S. Oh yeah, I live in Central Massachusetts.

 

[Scrooge McDuck]

I haven't even replied in this thread yet.. After countless of topics like this on M6, it's good to have one on the new forum too.

The way Arthur Clarke puts it, I will complete 23 orbits around the Sun next month. Discovered Orbiter about 5 years ago. Recently I graduated, so you may call me 'embedded systems engineer' now.. For my final project I did a GPS related study, during which I've learned a lot of technical aspects on the background and the functionality of the Global Positioning system. If you have any GPS related question, you're welcome to PM me...
Currently planning for doing another MSc programme, probably starting in August. Until then, I'm working on various software development projects.

I've got a lot of hobbies/interests, but some of them are Glider flying, programming, playing piano. Spending the weekends on the airport can be great fun indeed. I'm talking about the same gliders Piet Barber above here is talking about.. Besides catching thermals of course, something nice to do is flying parabolic curves with them, and experiencing zero-g (but will experience a longer zero-g parabolic flight in June). But if I'm not in the mood to fly in the real gliders, I also like flying RC stuff. Creating panoramic photos is also something I can't stop doing.

Recently I bought a sailing boat, I've done some sailing in the past, so I hope to do some more sailing this season. I'm looking forward to cross the world in a yacht at some point in future... Anyhow a plane would be good too, there are lot's of interesting places on the world, and it's great to have such an international community here.

I live in the Netherlands, in my opinion the landscape is way too flat here . But at least it's comparable to the landscape on earth in Orbiter (without the Orulex addon)... I have also been involved in the Solar challenges (not the one in Australia, but the dutch one here with solar boats). In 2007 we build one of the fastest advanced boats. Too bad the whole boat exploded during one of my testing rounds just before the race, but I was lucky to escape from the boat before it completely burned down. As a matter of fact, it was even a little faster than the winning solarboat of Delft University of technology, so it would have been a nice competition without the explosion...

Anyhow, I am also one of the lucky few to have met Martin ("the creator" ) at ESTEC, where I watched his presentation, and had a nice talk with him (maybe I was the only orbiter/forum fan in the audience, but I'm sure after the presentation they where all orbiter fans!). Also met one of the developers of "Stellarium" there. ESTEC in the Netherlands is also the place where ESA finishes/tests most of their space hardware.

On the weekends, instead of spending a perfectly beautiful day chasing a little white ball around with golf clubs, I spend them at the airport. I am a flight instructor for gliders, and I try to get as much personal flying in my single seat glider as possible.

Soaring in Switzerland sounds really great, what type of glider plane do you have? Maybe if I visit Switzerland one day, I could visit your club . Each summer, we take all the planes of our club to another country and rent an airfield for a few weeks. For now I've been in the Czech Republic and Germany, soaring with some mountains is great. Upcomming summer we will go to a place somewhere near Wolfsburg in Germany, looking forward to it.

regards,
mcduck

 

[pilotpercy]

hi, my name is ash, im a chemistry student at leeds university UK. taking electives in quantum physics (the bane of my existance....damn you heisenburg......damn you euler) and astro physics. ive been flying since the age of 13 (im now 20) and fly weekly from RAF635 sqn as a voulenteer instructor (we teach the air cadets to fly). been an orbiter nut now for about a year but ive only joined the forum to night (well this morning). its nice to finaly find other orbiter enthusiasts as my constant tales of pin point injections and the like are wearing thin on my girlfriend who refers to orbiter as that bl**dy buzz lighyear game...................its not a game its a SIM!!!! tisk women ey.

 

[SiberianTiger]

Honestly, Gwen, one of the greatest freedoms you Americans have is a freedom to fly in your private aircrafts without getting permission for every flight from authorities. Don't know about other nations, but yours ubiquity of flying is quite impressive. I'm happy there are people in the world like you are, and envious, for sure.

 

[Capt. Windh]

Hi peeps.

My name is Johan Windh, 25 years old. I live in Malmö in the south of Sweden. Currently employed at a production company as a film editor, but I´m seriously thinking of going back to school and become an airline pilot, since that is my greatest interest and a job I wolud really love to have.

I use FS2004 frequently and try to make stuff as real as possible. I´ve been using Orbiter for about three years. I had some time off but I´m coming back now!

Glad to be back.


/Johan

 

[Danny Ramone]

I thought I should add something in here.

Name is Dan, From good old New Zealand (not Australia) I am 23 and am currently serving in the Royal New Zealand Air Force as a communications and Information systems (CIS) technician. What do you know the recruiting poster lied and CIS is now the fancy name for sit in a windowless building all day. screw that so I have my papers in to transfer to Royal New Zealand Signal Corps and be more specialised as a network engineer.

Still don't know what I want to do with my life though as i really don't like this I.T. Lark. Been playing orbiter for about two weeks now when i can get the wife off the computer. This has really re-ignited my interest in space science so Im looking at going to uni part time to do a physics degree and *maybe* find an international university that will do distance learning on space science papers ( anyone know of anything - let me know)

anything else you want to know ask.

 

[ar81]

I am Pablo, 37 years old. I am industrial engineer, Costa Rica, but due to political incompetence in this country I suffered unemployment due to economical crisis, and crisis helped third world mind who believe abuse at work is acceptable, in the first years of my adult life.

Since it did not help too much to my life plan (it was simple, I wanted a decent job, and a peaceful life), I became tired of politicians who did not let me live it, so I started writing to the press and to politicians, got some articles published and met some politicians. I was decided to change the world, which I did until now.

Economical situation forced me to work in some other non engineering related jobs like being a teacher. And at some point I went freelancer in arts (to test myself in a field I was good when younger), but I was forced to get a job again because I was going to get married. Freelancing does not allow too much stability in a third world country like this. That variety of jobs helped me to have a wider vision of the world.

As I went out of the shell, out of "Barbie world" many people use to live in, I found a reality of poverty and injustice out there. So I started to understand how to solve that problem as I assisted people in the last decade.

I used to have an Atari 2600 and Star Raiders (the first space combat sim ever) and Space Shuttle by Activision. I have my Atari ROMs here by my current TV does not allow connectiing Atari 2600, and I was looking for an Atari emulator and ROMs in the net to replay that game again, so there would not be copyright violaton. Guess what... I found Orbiter in 2005.

When I first came to M6 forums I first found a community like others in the net, where there was not too much will to help newbies, and there were not too many tools to make the work of devs easy. So I decided to learn and make tutorials and tools. I put all my knowledge in arts, programming, music, engineering to serve this purpose. I was decided to change M6 forums, which I did.

I also had to pass through a dark time when someone attacked our community and harassed our members. It requires a whole lot of unhappiness to put so much energy in that, so I prayed for people who do such things, so they live happier. I know what unhappiness is, I passed a few very tough years in recent years. But I also know happiness.

I started to use Orbiter for education and a 7 year old student of mine appeared in national TV in 2005. Later a british 9 year old kid who was student of mine landed on the moon in 2006. It happened while I had some workshops for kids. Then I moved to another educational initiative: Star Show Oddysey 2047 (http://www.freewebs.com/earth-oddyssey/Index2.htm) which brought Orbiter to the public.

Finally M6 forums evolved and moved here, and I find it very nice. You people are making this forum great. I have spent more time as dev than as a player. The balance is slowly changing, but still I feel it needs some work before orbiter becomes the perfect offline "second life". I can say british people have been very helpful.

Thanks to all of you for enjoying the product of our work. All what has been done was done for you.

 

[FlyGirl]

I must agree with you on this point. Compared to most of the rest of the world we have it very good here in the USA for general and homebuilt aviation. I feel very fortunate indeed to live in a country that allows ordinary people to build and fly their own aircraft as they see fit. I wanted to do this since I was about twelve years old and am very proud to say that in 2005 I earned my private pilot license and in 2007 I became a test pilot in an airplane I built myself and can continue to enjoy flying for years. :speakcool:

Honestly, Gwen, one of the greatest freedoms you Americans have is a freedom to fly in your private aircrafts without getting permission for every flight from authorities. Don't know about other nations, but yours ubiquity of flying is quite impressive. I'm happy there are people in the world like you are, and envious, for sure.

 

[ar81]

When I was a kid. I could only dream about piloting a plane.
Here it is too expensive and unaffordable.

Now I have hot and top vessels with very cheap fuel to fly in Orbiter in my spare time.
It is like a short vacation in space.

 

[Star explorer]

you could order a plane from an american manufacturer have flown to were you live. though having it flown there might cost some $$$$

 

[Matte]

uh oh? how can this post have escaped me?

i'm Matteo from Milano, Italy. I leave near the San Siro stadium (soccer fans may know it...) :lol:.

i'm 21, and i'm a student at the second year of Medicine & Surgery here in Milano. in the future i'd like to be an abdominal or thoracic surgeon.

i've first played Orbiter in 2003, when the 030217 was still fresh, and i was completely amazed by it.
I left orbiting in 2004 and took it up agin in 2006.

my first "space related" game/simulator has been Lunar Lander on Win 95.
then i passed to flight simulators with FS95, FS 98, than 2000 and finally 2004; i usually pilot PMDG 737 serie and 747-400, plus Leonardo MD-80.

at the moment i'm a tester for Alain Capt's AMSO, a great fan of it and also to all real probes by BrianJ (i am also a John "Missleman01" big fan, for his GEP package)

the furthest i've been with a vessel in orbiter is Saturn ('cos i've not tried to go further ) and i've never visited Mercury too (orbited around Venus with Magellan).

i'm a volunteer for a public assistance association on the Ambulance here in Milano; i played basketball from 1994 to 2003, and took up again this year.

Bye
Matte

 

[FlyGirl]

Here in the US flying is generally a very expensive hobby too. That's really mainly why I didn't earn my pilot's license until I was in my 40's although I first soloed when I was 16 years old.
In the US if you build your own airplane you have the legal right to do all your own maintenance on it as well rather than being required to pay a licensed professional to do the work. This generally reduces the expense of flying enormously and brings it down to a level where someone like me can often manage to afford it. Unfortunately, as a general rule, even here in the USA flying is a hobby for people with lots of money... (Which I do not have )

When I was a kid. I could only dream about piloting a plane.
Here it is too expensive and unaffordable.

Now I have hot and top vessels with very cheap fuel to fly in Orbiter in my spare time.
It is like a short vacation in space.

 

[Biscuit]

Well, I might as well put my 2 cents worth in here.

I'm Tony. I'm a Computer SysAd down here in sunny (hot-n-humid at the moment) Pensacola FL USA. I do PC support, with quite a bit of VB scripting on the side (I also dabble in Linux and Perl in my spare time at home, when the kids give me any).

Found Orbiter a few years back, but mostly just played around with the built-in DG ... taking it to orbit, then either winding up drifting out toward empty space, or turning it into a DG crispy nugget via a really bad re-entry.

Picked Orbiter back up seriously a few months ago, love all the new add-ons that have been built since I looked at it last. Definately makes me want to pull out the C++ books and finally learn it so I can try my hand at ship building (but then, there's that whole 'lack-of-spare-time' issue to contend with). I can't wait to see what new addons the future will bring.

Am now trying to seriously learn it, and try to run things at least a touch more realistically, as in trying to learn the Shuttle Ultra and the CRT mfd (can get to orbit just fine, the finer details of CRT are still eluding me, like the orientations and delta-v I need to enter for a successful de-orbit). My ultimate goal is to start with a blank scenario, build a station in LEO, then use it as a platform to leapfrog out (lunar orbital station, then to Mars, and beyond) ... 'station building' waypoints along the way, building up my own private universe. (May never happen, but a person can dream.)

 

[Capt. Windh]

My ultimate goal is to start with a blank scenario, build a station in LEO, then use it as a platform to leapfrog out (lunar orbital station, then to Mars, and beyond) ... 'station building' waypoints along the way, building up my own private universe. (May never happen, but a person can dream.)

Sounds like a cool plan! :speakcool:

 

[RangerPL]

I might as well post in here too...

My name is Luke (Lukasz in Polish), I'm 14yo and I was born in Krakow, Poland. So far, I think I'm the youngest here, but that doesn't bother me.

My interests change from time to time, but I'm mostly a war/aircraft junkie. The first sim I ever played was Flight Unlimited 3 in about 2001. It was simple, only covered the area around San Francisco, had 6 aircraft, but it was fun as hell. I later discovered other simulators, and mostly played F16 MultiRole Fighter and Comanche 3 (C3 was a really good helicopter sim). The problem was I did not know a bit of English back then, so I didn't even know how to activate my Radar. So I ended up with a lot of time on the ground (in pieces usually, damn Su-27s). I bought Comanche 4 when it came out in 2003, but it sucked compared to C3. Comanche 3 was a true simulator where you had to have eyes all around your head, while C4 was a shooting game where the only thing that mattered was the amount of retar... err "enemies" you killed. The AI was dumb too, with infantry firing AK-47s at my metal/kevlar helicopter frame (suckers lol). I began to play shooters more starting in 2004, when I bough Delta Force Black Hawk Down. I moved to America soon after (family reasons), and have been living in Connecticut for 4 years now. Though I am Polish, I don't seem to show it. People have asked me if I am Russian, Ukrainian, German, Slovakian, British, Italian, French or Dutch. The funniest one I ever heard is someone asking me "are you French-Canadian?" One person also asked me if I'm Puerto Rican :lol:.

I was always interested in space and had seen Apollo 13 when I was around 6 or 7. I even build a model of the Lunar Module Eagle out of a kit, too bad that my brother (who was around 1 or 2 at the time) decided it needed some repairs and "fixed" it with the hammer . When I came home from school I saw the pieces scattered all over the floor. I think I still have them somewhere, as I never got to fixing it like I planned to. For a while after that, I wasn't really interested in space, until this year when I saw Apollo 13 again. I really though then "this is really cool", so I tried to find some space add-ons for my FS2004, and I came across "Nick's Shuttle Landing Challenge", which allowed you to fly the shuttle in game. There were some inaccuracies, like the fact that it allowed me to fire the SSMEs without an ET, but I loved it. I told my friend from school, Yuri, about it and he told me about Orbiter. So that's how I got here basically. The first scenario I launched was "ShuttleA at ISS", because I thought Shuttle A meant "Shuttle Atlantis" :lol:.


My other interests include:
-Baseball (odd for someone who isnt American, even rarer for an European)
-Music (Rock is my favorite)
-Coding PHP (another one I love to do. I recently got the job of coding the website for my clan, ICF. Should be fun)
-Mapmaking for Joint Ops (I'm currently working on a re-enactment of Black Hawk Down. Loved that film)
-Other stuff I can't think of right now

So, uh, that's about it. Nice to meet you all.

 

[Apollo 11]

Hey Y'all

My name is Dallas Roberts and I live in Houston, TX USA. All my friends call me Dally (from the Outsiders) though. Feel free to call me whatever. Apollo 11, Dallas, Dally, you get it. I'm 23 yrs old, and currently a pending astronaut.

 

[Pilot7893]

Hi peeps.

My name is Johan Windh, 25 years old. I live in Malmö in the south of Sweden. Currently employed at a production company as a film editor, but I´m seriously thinking of going back to school and become an airline pilot, since that is my greatest interest and a job I wolud really love to have.

I use FS2004 frequently and try to make stuff as real as possible. I´ve been using Orbiter for about three years. I had some time off but I´m coming back now!

Glad to be back.


/Johan

Another one who want's to be an airline pilot?! Shweet!

 

[Deke]

Ya know I never really talked much about ME in my original post in this thread. So I suppose I'll do it now...

Anyway I'm 19, I played amature baseball last year and am in the process of going pro hopefully before the end of this year or the start of next year. The game is my life. Always has been. So I really hope to make a productive career out of it. Maybe in in the Hall of Fame someday. Ha ha!