lalex

;-) We also enjoyed seeing our houses then in FS - I was living in Haifa at the time, and Ilan still lives there, in the same apartment. And yes, you got my last name right! You see, 10 years and your memory is still intact - and most of us are still here and even living in the same houses, but we all have a "bit" less hair and what's left is a bit gray too. But we're all still enjoying the same hobby. This really sounds like a chat in a geriatric ward ;-). People might throw us out of here on the grounds that Dinosaurs are not allowed in the forum LOL.

:-) At the time Ilan worked at Elscint and I worked for Lotus. The version of Haifa you d/l from the internet was a demo we tried out. We showed it to BUG's marketing manager and he bought it (licenses). They manufactured the CD + box and bundled it with MSFS 95, 98. Same went for Tel Aviv and Israel. At the time we were contacted by several flight schools in Israel saying how they use FS 95,98 with our scenery to practice CVFR. The quality cannot be compared with what we can do today - Tel Aviv, Eilat and the new Herzelia are good examples of this - but at the time even 64m/pixel graphics resolution was something unbelievable LOL. Today MSFS can display 5m/pixel but the underlying graphics can go as low as 1-2m/pix. The tools we have today for satellite pictures allow us to create a full photo-real textures similar to what we've done until now, in less than 5 minutes - there is absolutely no work involved preparing that scenery, but there is plenty of work in finding the right pictures source and if necessary to manipulate the pictures in order to obtain the best resolution/colours out of the basic picture. Then there is the work of laying down the 3D objects. TLV for example has in excess of 1000 buildings and some trees - specialized autogen + custom buildings. That's where most of the effort and work went. But I digress... I am happy to hear from an old "customer".

Who are we if we don't remember the Big Bang (or the Garden of Eden)? :wink: We might think that we were born only yesterday!

Same Ilan, and now we're doing MUCH more serious work as partners - still in the simulation business :-)

הם כבר הגיעו לגדולות! לדעתי אגב דוד הוא חלוץ הסנרי הישראלים, לא? Without trying to detract from the excellent work for Herzlia etc. and the bright future that awaits its creators, I must point out that the pioneers of the Israeli scenery (and photo-realistic at that) were Ilan Papini and myself. In 1995 we released the commercial first photo relalistic scenery for Haifa, Tel Aviv and the whole of Israel through the BUG Stores. We were the only other group in the world at the time (Mallard's San Francisco was first) to release a photo-relaistic scenery for Microsoft FS. It was dedicated for FS 95 but it worked well for FS2000 too. It was the first scenery to be released on CDROM since it was a hefty 9MB! LOL! Mallard came on diskettes ;-). We developed our own CAD-like tools and used SCASM to compile the scenery files that we created. We had a 3D view of teh mesh and could see the entire Israel in mesh-display and photo-real within the tool itself! Placing objects was very easy - just select the object from a toolbox and place it with a click on the 3D screen. It is very similar to the tool that Mega Scenery developed only years later to create their successful series ;-). At the time, Mauruzio Gavioli and Ugo Gandolini (LAGO ) wanted to buy our technology and scenery rights. We preferred to keep everything at home. Much time has passed since then and the technology allows today to load Gigabytes of scenery (like FS Scene) on a hard disk and on DVD and super-fast PC can run much smoother than then, but believe me, it was fun to do that work and see you being appreciated worldwide. So historically, Ilan Papini and myself made a world-wide (and not only local) premiere with a photo-realistic scenery for Israel. As a matter of fact this was THE first Israeli scenery - period. BTW, if anybody wants to see the original packages of those products, then you are welcomed to come and visit me. I usually do not brag with anything and not trying to break the party for anyone - the proof is in the pudding, as the English say - but I found it necessary to post this correction and set the historical facts straight. Thanks for the applauses ;-)

Just installed the Herzelia scenery and... IT IS AMAZING! Really pro work! Challenge: a photo-real scenery for Haifa and Jerusalem and MAYBE Rosh Pina (with the Hermon ) ... hey - why not a full Israel. It seems that you guys have access to very good pics so go for it! Kol Hakavod!

Kfir, sorry if I sound nagging but look what I found by using Google with the query "spy planes": http://www.edwards.af.mil/articles98/do ... ver/u2.htm This was the second result! So what is the "musar heskel" again? USE GOOGLE BEFORE POSTING SIMPLE QUESTIONS - ;-)

From the Lear 45 building team ;-) :new-bday:

LOL - when I fly I do that at night and I keep my voice down so that my passengers (wife + 2 kids) do not wake up. I'll try to boost the mike anyway :-). Thanks for the service. It makes us proud to see that VATIL is out there together with VATPAC, VATCAN, VATUSA, etc. we (you) are an empire! Keep up the great work. Hint - please make a movie of the control room this Passover and use it as promo! PS: to help your imagination. I will fly the first leg of the Onesky 4 together with a real co-pilot and will share the load. I plan: LLBG-EGLL EGLL-BIKF BIKF-CYHZ CYHZ-KEWR Lots of hours lots of planning :-)

I blame Ilan Jonas, Izik Bakshi for tempting me to go online - AGAIN. Now, because of them and the excellent LLBG control, my cockpit work has stopped. Almost every free moment that I have, goes online instead of towards finishing building my cockpit. Now I will fly Onesky4 only with a partial cockpit. FAA would NOT like this. See you online!

Hi guys. I tried to reserve a dep slot at LLBG on May 6th for the OpenSKY 4 event, but all I could place was my name. I see that many others have the company logo, flight details etc. How am I supposed to place that info in the dep slot reservation? Thanks,

Paris: any FNAC. London: Any Dixons (expensive) or PCWORLD (a bit outof London). Addresses: just ask around any taxi driver . You don't expect us to be a Travel Agency, do you?

היי מוטי, אנא תשומת לבכם, בפסח זה לא מועד הקורס. בפסח חשבתי שזו הזדמנות להרשים את אילן כדי שיקבל החלטה סופית להביא את החניכים - טיסי אל על אי שם בחודש מאי לארוע או מקום שיתואם איתו. אבי If everything goes according to plan, we should ask for his permission to announce this major decision on the VATSIM network and get the premiere on "first division to be used as training grounds for a real airline". IMHO, VATIL and VATAME heads should make sure that we give maximum visibility to this fact. Alex

:-) I only need real ROUTING - the rest of the planning is not an issue.

Check this and go build a cockpit LOL! http://www.biff.nl/images/filmpjes/Kl%2 ... onaire.wmv

Hmmm. Any chance of getting ONE FP for each? I need only one realistic FP for each destination , not more. Just don't leave me with the dreaded autorouting :-(

For some reason the FPs are not complete. I still miss the following: From LLBG to: KJFK, KEWR, VTBD To LLBG: KJFK, KEWR, VHHH Thanks, Alex

Thanks Oren, That helped.

Hi, I am preparing to return to online flight and I need several REALISTIC flight plans from LLBG. I am interested in real flight plans - not auto-generated. Destintions include: LCLK LGAV LGIR EDDF LSZH LOWW LIML LIRF LEPA LEMD LEBL EHAM EGLL KJFK KNYC VTBD VHHH I know it's a lot, but I can't find any reliable source for these plans and I'd like to "fly" preferred routes and not some auto-generated plans. Thanks for any help. Alex

Hi Michael, No, it's not a silly question. It could interefere with sceneries/landclass which make non-standard (usually manual) modifications to the underlying mesh. Actually the developer states this very clearly. I would describe this as "FS Global is the official global mesh and scenery designers should follow it" and not the other way around. In any case, the FSG developers are willing to modify their mesh or help scenery developers in case of problems. I tested my sceneries for Israel and I found no problems :-) In any case, considering what you get for the money IMHO it's worth this risk :-) Alex

Hi guys, Just a short notice and recommendation: I have bought FSGlobal 2005 and I must say that IT IS GREAT! It is 14GB worth of worldwide SRTM mesh - all at 76m! It offers the full SRTM database (which is actually about 75%) of the world) with CORRECTED shores, altitides, etc. no voids or error peaks etc. It costs @$50 and it's worth EVERY PENNY! Obviously it makes all and ANY commercial or freeware 76m SRTM mesh out there obsolete - including my Israel SRTM :-). It does not replace any 10m SRTM. 10m SRTM meshes are available for the US only. If I were Microsoft, I would buy this and make it as standard part of the FS2006 . Alex

Wellington

Bullshit! The article is a disgrace and it is about 10% of what was said there. I imagine that they didn't have enough space to print more but at least they should've been accurate. He didn't see his plane - there are no RAF bombers at Meggido anymore - not when we visited there anyway. He also DIDN'T fly the plane. He refused, saying the his reflexes might not be the same... They missed though all the interesting facts and stories and an opportunity to show a historic side of Meggido airport. They did however spelled right the name of the flight school owner. Talk about free advertisment. They also staged the picture as they insisted to place the walking cane in plain view and add some "drama" to the picture. Pathetic! No respect for the elders. Just between you and I, the Maariv reporters were - to say the least - annoying, rude and unfortunately, not very bright. What a pity. Best, Alex

His name is Albert Lisbona and here is a link to some of his squadron deeds (you will not find this in Maariv ). http://www.burmastar.org.uk/117squad.htm#History Best, Alex

Hi everybody, The meeting was very interesting. The pilot is 92 years old and totally lucid and full of energy. He can talk all the time and was happy to share his memories with us. He was born in Germay and was abroad when the Nazis took power. Being Jewish, he joined the RAF and learned to fly in Rhodesia (no longer on the new maps ). He married with Levi Eshkol's secretary (he met her while on his Meggido tour of duty) and lived in UK until 6 months ago when he made Alya. When we asked him WHY he made alya he said : "Good question - I should have made Alya 20 years ago!". Nice huh? The most emotional moment for me was to actually browse through an authentic WWII bomber pilot logbook and see his training log, his first solo (Aprin 21st 1943) and all his sorties in N. Africa, Italy, Yugoslavia, Burma, Vietnam, Malaysia, etc. There were several notes like "heavy flak encountered" and "pursued by enemy fighters" and of course - "direct hit on Jerrys [Germans] and town". Usually you can see these logbooks in museums behind glass - here I really touched history so to speak. Sorry nobody could make it but it was on a short notice anyway. The story will be published in Maariv tomorrow so make sure you get a copy. I have taken several shots and we'll publish them the day AFTER tomorrow - Maariv asked us very nicely not to compete with them - hahaha! Best, Alex