I witnessed the plane fly over Rooty Hill train station just after 8am on Tuesday 15 June. A few minutes later, the plane crashed into the front yard of a house, next to the Canley Vale Public School.

I noticed at the time what I thought was a prop blade hanging down from the right hand engine pod. The report confirms my observation, as the pilot had shut down that engine some time before flying over Richmond. My observation about the height was also correct, as the plane was tracked at 1000ft just south of the M4/M7 motorway (Lighthorse Interchange).

ATSB Interim Report into the Canley Vale Plane Crash

Very sad indeed.

As you can see, according to the flags, the wind is roaring in from the top left corner of the photo.  The flags around the middle of the photo lend support to this theory.  However, looking at the flags on the gravel strip at the bottom of the photo (and thus the most important ones being so close to the firing line), the wind is roaring in from the right side of the photo.

So, what is it to be?

Do you aim left and up, or right and down?

Interestingly, the shot shows the wind is changing direction, as shown by the flags on the gravel strip.  The pink and yellow flags bottom left show the original direction, the flags (and bulb) are showing it swinging around to the right.

The video this came from has sound, and yes, people were shooting at this time.

Go figure!

(BTW: to my noobish eyes, there’s way too much information out there to digest, so which ones do you watch?)

I started off by completely ignoring the wind, and just concentrating on getting the shots on paper, then closer and closer towards the 10 ring.

One night early this year, I turned up to the range, and was horrified to see the wind flags dancing all over the place in the stiff wind blowing through the place.  Up top, in the trees, it was howling through. I scored a 200, one of my first of many to come.

So, what was the difference between this night, and the others, where it’s been much quieter? Well, I was forced to wait for the breeze to relax.

Rather than waste ammo (and I was starting to shoot Lapua eXact, at $35 a box of 50!) shooting at each target, hoping, and praying for some luck, I waited for the wind to be more favourable to me.  During my sighters, I noticed that the breeze would blow hard, and then completely relax.  That state of relaxation would last about 30 seconds to a minute or two, then it would pick up and blow hard again. I took my time, waited, watched my timer tick down the minutes and seconds, and intently watched (nee, “studied”) the flags. I could feel the breeze kinda give a dying sigh, and collapse.  I could see this effect in the flags - they’d go limp, but sway from side to side, slowing, then hanging limp. I’d then aim, fire, unload, reload, aim, fire, as quickly as I could whilst the breeze was dead, getting in two to four targets each time, before the wind cycle would start up again.  I’d hear the noise from the trees before feeling the wind whistle through the firing line. Sit back, relax, and start studying the flags again.

The 200 was a very satisfying result.  I ended up with the highest score that week, with my name on the board in the club house for all to see.

The lesson learnt that night was that patience pays.

As mentioned in an earlier blog post a few weeks back, I recently attended the North Rocks Prize Shoot, and had my first victory. I’d never been to that range before, and I was again horrified to see the wind flags all atwitter, and simultaneously pointing all around the compass. What to make of that?

I have developed a habit at the end of my setup phase, where I put my earplugs in with about 5 minutes to go, and wander off to a corner of the firing line to study the flags, and calm my nerves.  It’s a time to watch the rhythm of the breeze, and see whether it has any discernable moments of clarity.  Luckily for me, it did that morning.

I noticed that the breeze would be all over the place, but gradually drop to the point where all the flags were pointing from right to left, and fairly constant.  I noticed that the breeze would also die away completely, though less often than just organising itself into one true direction.

I shot two 200’s and a 199, to place first in A-grade.  The more telling statistic though was the 53 centers.  The shooter in second place, scored a 598 with 46 centres, even though the breeze had moderated somewhat as the day wore on.

What stood out at this shoot for me wasn’t my first ever win, but how everyone else shot.  Some of the guys took ten minutes or less to do all their shots.  That’s fine, if the end result was a 200 (my first ever 200 was shot in under 10 minutes), but to score less than 200 (and especially scores around 195-199), I think is silly. Why get all the way to 195, but drop 5 shots because of impatience?

I also noticed that shooters were making silly shots at times.  The flags would be all over the place, but I’d hear shot after shot go downrange.  Unless they’re shooting on the sighters, to “test” the breeze and work out holdoffs, it’s Lady Luck who determines where those shots are going.  I’d even occasionally hear a shot go downrange, followed by a groan from the shooter.  Why did they let that shot go, if the end-result was always gonna be an 8 or 7?

That day, I learnt that discipline pays.

I put that into practice the next day, when I competed in the prone discipline. I scored a respectable 580, but amazingly, it was enough to win the day outright.

I’m a newbie at prone target rifle shooting, as I’d only been shooting this variant since March. So, imagine my horror when I turned up in the morning to shoot the first detail, and the flags were behaving significantly worse than the previous day.  It was going to be a real test for me, as I only know how to aim dead-centre.  I’ve still not worked out how to holdoff like I can with my bench gun. Again, I was forced to wait, use patience and discipline to shoot as accurately as I could, and see where I ended up.

I noticed one thing during that detail - I was always the last off the firing line.  When the second to last shooter backed away from the firing line, I still had 5 or so shots to go.  I made them all wait for me to finish.

I learnt one thing during my early days shooting benchrest - being first off the firing line does not win you a prize. This also applies to prone shooting. Admittedly, prone shooting involves a level of discomfort, which people lessen by shooting quickly. But I would have thought that, that day, the breeze was tricky enough to warrant caution.

I write this post today because someone heeded some of my “advice” (patience), and shot a great score.  I was shooting in the third detail, with this guy next to me, when at some point early on, I noticed the breeze had picked up. I took my finger off the trigger and leaned back in my chair.  This gent did the same.  I was watching the flags, and reading the wind, and waited for the cycle to die off.  Just when I felt it was right to shoot, when the flags visibly collapsed, and was squeezing the trigger, I heard a crack from next to me.  I shot, scored a 10X, looked to my left, and noticed he was smiling.

“Good hold, mate”, I said.  A nice center was the result, he replied.

I hope that he learnt something today, and not to just blindly fire through the breeze, hoping to Lady Luck each time.

Early that afternoon, his girlfriend IM’d him, and said that some were available from Nextbyte Broadway, so I rang them and confirmed that they were indeed in stock. Fifteen minutes later, my colleague and I were handing over money, and I’d finally laid my hands on a new 32Gb 3G iPad.

I was getting a bit desperate, you see, as I was due to head off to the Sydney Bears v Gold Coast Bluetongues game being held that weekend at Penrith - a night of tweeting for the Bears beckoned, and I was keen to see how the 3G iPad would handle.

It took me about an hour or so to unbox, do the initial sync, and refresh apps. It took me longer to unlock the micro-sim card. When I saw the sim activate and show the “Telstra Mobile” with signal strength, I thought that was it, right?

Wrong!

I turn up to the ice arena, whip out the iPad, have everyone nearby drool over it for a while, and then fired up Twitterific.

“No connection to the Internet”, it replied. What!?

I settled down when the game began, pulled out the iPhone, and started tweeting. A thought crossed my mind about the APN settings on the iPad, as they were blank. Recalling how we set up 3G at work, I typed in “telstra.internet” into the APN field, and voilà! The iPad was connected to the Internet at last.

Tweeting from the iPad was chalk and cheese comparable to the iPhone. It’s so much faster to type on, as the keypad in landscape mode is just the right size for touch typing. I enjoyed interacting with the iPad, and as a result, spammed Twitter with game updates. I had 5 bars of Telstra NextG coverage inside of the ice arena, so connectivity to the Internet (and twitter) was surprisingly fast.

I use Twitterific HD, by the way.

Just yesterday, I worked out how to get my DVDs onto the iPad. I already have Handbrake, but it’s currently not aware of the iPad (but an update is in development, apparently). Some more searching led me to a page with some iPad presets for Handbrake, so using those, I’m now able to rip my DVDs with Handbrake, import them into iTunes, and sync them across to the iPad, and watch them in fullscreen landscape mode. The video is quit good, but not pristine. It’s likely that the presets aren’t quite right, but I don’t mind.

It’s great to curl up in a warm bed, prop the iPad up, and watch shows and movies. The screen is big, but not too big, and with the great battery life, its possible to watch lots of shows (awesome when confined to bed sick these past few days…).

Anyway, its time to finish this update, which I’ve typed on the iPad, and used the Wordpress app to upload and publish.

Life is good!

North Rocks Prize Shoot (Benchrest)

I’ve not mentioned on Becsta.COM yet that I’m a sports shooter, but the past fortnight has been so exciting in my world of sports shooting that I’m bursting to tell you all!

I started target shooting back in October last year, and initially began this sport shooting a discipline called Rimfire Benchrest. We use (mostly) customised .22LR rimfire rifles, and shoot off the bench using a scope at a target 50m away.  In late November last year, I bought a beautiful custom Feinwerkbau rifle with a Lilja barrel and specialist benchrest stock.

In April 2010, I attended the TRA Nationals, and shot a 598 (out of 600), with 46 centres, to place 5th overall in Benchrest.  A guy from Queensland scored 599 (also 46 centres) to come 1st and be crowned the National Champion.

In May 2010, I attended the Springwood Prize Shoot, and shot a 597 with 44 centres, to place 2nd overall in A Grade.  The winner shot a  598 w/ 50 centres.

A few weeks ago, I attended the North Rocks Prize Shoot, and did rather well!  I shot a 599, with 53 centres, to win A Grade. Second was 598 w/ 46 centres, and third was 595 w/ 40 centres.

What was remarkable about this victory was that I managed to pick the wind, and shoot to the conditions, whereas a lot of people shot poorly because the wind was flukey, messy, and sometimes downright despicable.  It wasn’t, however, blowey, so timing and reading the conditions were paramount.  A truly sweet victory indeed.

North Rocks Prize Shoot (Prone)

In late Feb, I started shooting prone smallbore target rifle, which is a discipline shot at the Olympics.  This form of shooting uses a .22LR target rifle, with peep sights, a shooting jacket, sling, glove, and is shot from the prone position.  The distance to the target is the same, at 50m, but we shoot 5 shots into each target on a card, to score 200 for a card.

The day after I’d competed in the Benchrest comp, I competed in the prone discipline.  I knew I’d do ok, as I’d been previously shooting excellent scores in our club competition, but as a B Grader, I didn’t have any grandiose visions of winning the competition outright, as there were several very experienced A Graders shooting on the day too.

Anyway,  I set up on the firing line, to find that the wind had picked up a notch, was very shifty, and the wind flags were pointing in every direction, and often all at once too. Because I’m still noobish at this discipline, I was full of fear before that first shot, as I knew that the comp was gonna be a long one - I’d not shot in those conditions before, with the wind so strong, shifty, and really unpredictable. All I know is how to shoot with the sights dead centre on the target, as I’ve not learnt yet how to hold off for wind and spin drift effects.  With a scope, it’s easy, but with peep sights and and eyeball, it’s a completely different ballgame - err shot.

I really shouldn’t have worried, and I found that I soon forgot about the cruel wind, and used all my reserves of patience and concentration to shoot what I thought was an average score for the competition - a 580 (193 + 196 + 191) - far less than what I’ve been shooting in the club comp (about 196’s or higher each card). In the back of my mind, I knew that, no matter how good I’d shot, someone would have shot better. What I think was telling about my day was that I was last off the firing line each time, and often I had 5 or more shots to do whilst everyone else waited for me to finish. That was patience at work, acutely watching the flags.

You see, I quickly realised that there were periods of time when the breeze either blew from R to L and all the flags were in the same direction, or there were lulls of a few minutes.  There were times when the flags were parallel to the ground and pointing all around the compass (literally!), and I’d hear shot after shot go off. Unless they’re being shot at the sighter targets, they’re wasted shots, and costly too.

Well, as it turned out, noone shot better than me, not even the A Graders.  I’d won the prone comp outright by one point. The guy who won A Grade, but was second outright, shot a 579.

An Opportunity Awaits Thee Who Shoots Well

This story doesn’t end with my two victories that weekend.

The gunsmith who built my benchrest rifle queried me after I’d won the benchrest comp whether I was going to shoot in the RBA competition.  I’d not thought about seriously competing in RBA, as I’ve generally not had the time to compete at anything other than my club and random other weekends.  When I looked at my calendar, Malabar RBA shoot was free, so I decided to attend, to see what RBA shooting would be like, and also to see whether I’m any good at it.

A few days later, I received a call from one of the most powerful men in rimfire benchrest shooting in this country.  He also attended and competed at the North Rocks Prize Shoot, but didn’t do as well as he expected. He was enquiring whether I was interested in attending the RBA Nationals, being held in Brisbane in August.  The sweetener was that if I did well, I may very well be considered for selection to represent Australia at the Rimfire Benchrest World Championships in 2011.

Well, didn’t I sit up and take notice then!

Flying at Jerilderie 2010

I attended the Jerilderie 2010 LSF tournament, held again this past June long weekend, and am thoroughly fed up with it.

Jerilderie in June is cold, often blowey up high, is very hard on the models, we get up at an insane hour of the morning to be ready to fly by 8am, am often packing up in the dark, is so cold your hands freeze up (did I mention this place is cold!?), the competition itself is hard, demanding, I complain about the short length of the winch line (measured at 143m) and get ignored by the tournament organisers and LSF committee yet have someone in second or third place complain the next day and it’s “oh, thats not right, we need to fix that… they should have complained yesterday about the short lines… it’s their fault” and it gets fixed, and the tournament is just plain hard work.  The nights we get drunk, stuff ourselves full of yummy food, eat drink and be merry.

What is there not to like about Jerilderie LSF tournaments?

Well, the political side of the competition truly bites, and I was introduced to that for the first time this year.

You see, they changed the length of the winch line for this year’s competition from 200m to 150m.  At the AGM, a motion was passed by the majority present that the winch lines would remain at 150m for next year.  I’ve not seen the point of 150m lines, bar turning the competition from a landing comp, to a flying comp in a vain attempt to “spread the field” a bit in the scoring. So what if the score from 1st to 20th place is 100 points! That’s why we have computers with programs to track and determine the end results according to set criteria and rules.

I stood up at the AGM and said matter of factly that I wasn’t having fun.  Well, even though the flying did get better the next day, I still wasn’t having fun, and that’s a shame.  With the wind blowing strongly on the first day, and everyone needing to achieve stonking launches to minimise the height lost by the reduction in winch line length, there was carnage galore, with broken winch lines, and out of control planes.  I’ve never seen as much carnage to models that day at that competition ever.  Some of the guys unconsciously pushed the limits too far, and that’s wrong, and quite dangerous.

With my new replacement eXplorer, I didn’t want to push the bounds of what’s possible with that plane, and suffered as a consequence. I never recovered from the bad flights I had, and as a result, ended up down in 50-something place, out of about 62 pilots(?).  In comparison, last year, with 200m lines, I came up around the early 20’s.

It’s just too hard a competition to have fun at, unlike Armidale.

And I was thinking about that thought since returning home from Jerilderie.  It seems that Armidale is more laid back, and I attribute that to the varied flying we have up there. Armidale is more informal, you can fly Open Class (F3J/F3B planes), RES Class, Open Electric, Limited Electric, and hand launch. Jerilderie is very formal, geared for the expert flyers and aspirants for Worlds selection, and we only fly Open Class and hand launch.

I found out at the AGM that LSF Australia donates money to the F3J Worlds Team, the F3B Worlds Team, and now potentially also the F3K (Hand Launch) Worlds Team. Yet, the LSF as an organisation is not there to support anything bar promoting flying and flight proficiency. There’s no promotion of the sport of flying (and gliding in particular) as a whole, there’s no support for juniors or beginners/intermediates, there’s no promotion of the sport for women, and if you don’t have an expensive F3J or F3B plane, you’re not gonna do well in the tournament.  It’s as simple as that.

Jerilderie does appeal to me, however, as it’s a great excuse to get away for a long weekend, reaquaint with flying buddies, and simply fly. I always enjoy that part a lot.

… and a Sad Ending to the Fortnight.

At 8am on Tuesday, the day after returning from Jerilderie, I was standing on the platform at Rooty Hill, waiting for my train to arrive, when I noticed a plane flying quite low and slow.  It was tracking southbound directly over Rooty Hill Road (North) and Rooty Hill Road (South), roughly parallel with the M7 Motorway.  My initial thought at the time was that it was a geospatial mapping aircraft.  It was flying at a height of about 500-600ft, and was just above the dispersing fog. I’ve commuted from Rooty Hill for some 5 years now, so I found it was so out of character to see a plane in that part of the sky, that I was bound to take an interest in it.

As it was flying away from me, I looked up at it again, and noticed what I thought was a prop blade hanging down below the right engine pod.  My next instantaneous and unconscious thought was “why wasn’t it windmilling?”.  I did not connect the dots and conclude that the plane was in trouble.  I looked away, then looked back at it, but it’d flown far enough away that I couldn’t pick out any details.

I did connect the dots later when I was at a coffee break, noticed on the caffeteria TV that a plane had crashed in Canley Vale, wandered into work, and discovered that the plane I witnessed fly low and slow over Rooty Hill was the one that crashed next to Canley Vale Public School a few minutes later.

I noticed the following about the plane:

• It was flying “clean”, i.e. no flaps
• It was flying in a straight line, no weaving or bobbing around
• It was flying low and slow.  With my model gliding experience, it was about 2 to 3 times tree height, about 500-600ft.  If I was flying a model at that point in time in that airspace, I’d have been seriously worried about that aircraft being in the same space.  Note that I don’t fly gliders at Rooty Hill, obviously.
• The engine note I would say was equivalent to a very fast WRX boxer engine burble, not the crisp, clean turbo-prop note.  It was NOT surging at that time.
• I thought I’d noticed a prop blade hanging at approx 7:30-o-clock position down from the RIGHT hand engine pod, looking from the back of the plane.  I did not see any other blades (it has three blades), though I could be mistaken in “seeing” this blade.
• No undercarriage were down
• The weather was mild, though cold, and foggy.  Blue skies above the fog.
• The fog was light enough for me to see from Rooty Hill platform 1 down the tracks and under the M7 Motorway overpass, but not all the way up to Doonside train station.  It was slowly dissipating away.
• The fog bank was fairly low.
• I didn’t see the occupants.
• The plane was not trailing any smoke
• There were no other interesting marks or anything out of place on the fuselage that I could see
• I didn’t see the initial outbound journey, or the time of the initial incident, or the turn to head southbound. I only noticed it as it approached Rooty Hill shops and the train station, and watched it for about 10 to 15 seconds as it flew overhead.

The next day, I contacted the ATSB, and reported the above observations to the investigators.  It’s the first time I’ve ever had to do anything like that, and I hope it’s gonna be the last time. I found the audio transcript on the LiveATC.Net website, and listened to it.  Towards the end, you can just feel the fear in the pilot’s voice, but even then, he was still matter-of-fact, and in control of himself, and trying desperately to get back to Bankstown.

I hope that what little info I could provide the investigators, it would help them to solve the mystery of why the aviation community lost two good people that day.

So that ends a rather interesting fortnight.

Call of Duty:Modern Warfare 2 was released in early November last year.  In the intervening period, Infinity Ward have released two patches to fix some major bugs and exploits, but have refused to say anything about DLC or its contents apart from it being released in Spring. Just this week, however, Robert Bowling tweeted that DLC news will be released this week, and in one tweet, mentioned a weird website.

They have to announce some DLC, because there’s a heap of bad press about Infinity Ward and Activision at the moment, surrounding the inglorious removal of the two lead developers, supposedly for insubordination.  There’s talk that the DLC can’t be released without these two guys permission, so it’s off to the courts to decide.  In the meantime, us gamers all lose faith in MW2, and both Infinity Ward and Activision lose credibility and what little support they have left…

The only way I’m going to return to MW2 is if the DLC is way-out-there awesome!

Introducing Battlefield Bad Company 2

In the meantime, I’ve been playing the new Battlefield release, the second iteration of Bad Company.  The same four characters return in a battle against the Russians to stop the deployment of a terrifying weapon on US soil.

The game has a deep (and long) single player campaign, and the usual online multiplayer component.

In short, I love it!

Why?

I think it’s because the maps are large (some extremely large), the action is deep, but spread out, and there are no over-powering aspects like kill streaks.  I can slink around as a sniper, and pull off some awesome headshots from across the map.  Ok, I could do that in MW2, but sniping across the map involves a lot of skill, as bullet drop needs to be taken into consideration - no more do I aim the crosshairs centre-mass, and squeeze the trigger.  I need to estimate the distance, aim off the elevation, and only then take the shot.  Headshots are the usual result - well, either that or a hit marker.

Multiplayer also includes various weapons, from quad bikes, to tanks, hummers, AA guns, helicopter gunships, a remote-piloted UAV helicopter, and a Blackhawk with crew-served miniguns in the waist. Lots of personal weapons, launchers, machine guns, grenades, C4etc, all add up to some hectic and confused battles across a completely destructible landscape.  There’s little emphasis on KDR ratios, as the missions are objective based.  Sometimes, the mission is to capture and blow up M-com stations, or capture points.

The graphics aren’t quite up to par with MW2, but that’s ok, as you’re not there to enjoy the scenery, but to blow it all up!  However, the landscape, and the ambience are superbly done - fighting for control of the M-com stations across a hilly, snowy, dark map, or through the middle of the jungle, is just surreal at times.

Ranking up is slow, but this is primarily because I’m only starting, and have still to unlock most of the sniper rifles (and all of the other non-recon weapons for that matter!) - sniping targets across the map, raining mortar rounds on top of tanks, throwing C4 onto vehicles (not to mention collapsing buildings), and spotting targets for the squadmates, is just so addicting, I’m not scoring massively (unlike the demo…) each game.

So far, a thoroughly enjoyable, and refreshing game, given the fiasco that was Modern Warfare 2.

The only issue I have with BF:BC2 is that noone seems to talk in this game… Hmm…

I should have tweaked to the issues in the weeks leading up to the release, because Activision started pulling all the YouTube vids of the game, citing supposed “DMCA” concerns.  Why would they do that?

So, I buy the game, settle in for a night of gaming, and finish the single-player campaign in about 4 hours! The content was gripping, but the ending was a bit, well, abrupt.  It certainly clears the way for Modern Warfare 3, or DLC content, given that Gaz and Soap are now international fugitives.

The strength of Call of Duty:World at War was the Zombies mode - you run around inside buildings, and repel hordes of zombies.  MW2 has taken a different tack, and introduced Spec-Ops mode - you complete set missions from scenes out of the single player campaign.  Same maps, same stories, rehashed in an interesting way.

But it’s the multiplayer aspects which has me in fits at the moment.  The maps are brilliant, and much larger than the CoD4 maps, have some amazing environmental effects (snow, blizzards, sandstorms, etc). Infinity Ward also added a lot of new weapons, new skills to master, new challenges, and both kill and death streaks.

In recognition of the fact that gamers are producing some ridiculous kill streaks (racking up the kills without dying), they added about 15 different streak rewards, from care packages (which drop random kill streaks), to UAV jammers, Predator missiles (which you can steer towards your target), various helicopters (one of which you can sit in the gunners seat), the AC130 (which is controllable), and even a tactical Nuke (which obliterates everyone on the map, and then ends the game in the Nuker’s favour).

There are also a bunch of new perks, including “pro” versions of the perks.

The number of ranks has increased to 70, and there’s still the ability to prestige too.

All up, sounds like a lot of fun, eh!?

So, why am I stupid for buying this?

Because I thought that Infinity Ward cared enough to listen to the gaming community, and fix some of the major bugs and flaws seen in CoD4:MW, and ended up in Modern Warfare 2.  However, they didn’t, and now I understand why.

I read an article in the newspaper the other day that Activision raked in $580M of our money in the first week alone! So, it’s not about entertaining the community, and being sensible enough to do something about the bugs and flaws, it’s all about making money, lots and lots of money. Update: As at 30 November, it’s now being reported that Activision raked in $3B - that’s $3 Billion dollars!

Who cares about us gamers, right?

All I can say about that is, “don’t bite the hand that feeds you!”.

They didn’t bother to fix the matchmaking - it prefers to select US-based gamers as hosts, rather than the one most suited to the majority of gamers in a lobby.  Thus, we could have 12 aussies in a lobby, all with green pings, but if one leaves, and an US gamer joins, it automatically moves the server to them, and thus us Aussies get screwed over, and end up with yellow or red pings.

The gaming community asked for the ability to restrict searches for games to local games.  Treyarch responded, and wrote a facility to do local game searches into CoD:WaW, but IW didn’t.  They said they’d improved the matchmaking, and thus don’t need to provide a local search facility.  See the above for the resulting matchmaking problems.

They didn’t bother to fix the spawn system. MW2 often spawns you in front of an enemy, or spawns you under an airstrike, or spawns you in full view of a chopper, so you end up immediately dying again. Surely the game should know where the airstrike will strike, right? Surely the game should be coded so that you don’t respawn within (say) 20m of an enemy.  Alternatively, why not give us 5 seconds of invincibility, so we can get away to safety (or turn around and gun down the guy spawncamping)?

I also suspect that they haven’t fixed the ranking up bug either.  Why do I say this?  Because I have lost rank, perks, points etc on occasion when the game occasionally locks up when in the lobby.

I am also experiencing issues where a “lost connection to host” immediately bombs me not just out of the game, but completely out of Xbox Live! Why? Cod4 did this too! It’s not my internet connection, or network, or Xbox, because I can play Rainbow 6:Vegas 2 all night without a single dropout.  So, I can only conclude that IW doesn’t know how to write clean, efficient, and resilient netcode.

They’ve added a bunch of weapons, including a few more shotguns.  However, the shotties are over-powered, and you can dual-wield these now too (called “akimbo” in the game). You can infinitely run around without degradation, dual-wield shotties, and snipe with them across the map. A shottie should be ineffective past about 15m, and dual-wielding them should make them wildly inaccurate.

One perk I’m now using all the time is “Cold-blooded”. This perk hides you from UAV’s, and removes the red boxes around you when someone is controlling the various kill streaks.  Ok, that’s fine.  So, why then can I stand under an enemy chopper, and blaze away, and not have it shoot back at me? Granted, I like this (I considered the choppers in CoD4 way too overpowered - they snipe me through closed windows on occasion), but it’s a bit ridiculous at the same time.  I’ve been in numerous games where a helo or harrier jet arrives, hovers over the map for 30 seconds or so, and leaves, without firing a single shot. What’s the use of that?

Some equipment attachments are weird - why a “heartbeat sensor”? Is it to stop people camping, because they can be detected by the heartbeat sensor?

My biggest gripe though, is with the Riot Shield.  Apparently, it’s impervious to all bullets in the game - you can’t shoot through it, so how are you supposed to stop the advances? Some people say it’s easy, but I find them impossible!  This game is Modern Warfare, not Modern SWAT Police, so the concept of a Riot Shield is completely lost on me!

There are some things which I think are great touches.  I can now shoot down UAV’s, and all the other flying “vehicles”.  They add to my pointscore (but not the lobby/team points) too!

There’s a new sniper rifle - the Cheytac Intervention .408, which is the only bolt gun in the game! I initially thought that this rifle was utter crap!  But, after getting used to it, I’ve found it to be a beast of a gun in the game - it’s accurate, and makes the coolest “silent” sounds.  Yes! I can now equip my sniper with a silencer!

So, my sniper class is now the following:

Primary: Cheytac Intervention .408 w/ silencer + hearbeat sensor

Secondary: PP2000 automatic handgun w/ FMJ and holographic sight

Claymore and Smoke

Perk 1: Bling Pro (allows me to dual equip both primary and secondary guns)

Perk 2: Cold-Blooded (working towards Cold-Blooded Pro)

Perk 3: Ninja

I’m pretty invisible now, apart from being detectable through a thermal scope, which Cold-Blooded Pro will fix, and just love to sit back and snipe people running around the map.

Alas, the problems I see with this game, and the bewildering array of weapons, perks, and options, makes this game rather frustrating to play.  Unlike CoD4, I don’t think this game has the stayability as CoD4 had.  I certainly don’t think Infinity Ward are going to do much with it, bar release a map pack, and a couple of limp-wristed patches.

A lot of people are saying that this game is awesome, and is game of the century et al, but I think they’re all blinded by the rather slick promotions, the supposed controversy, and that we’re all sheeple in the end.

If you don’t have it, go and hire it.  Don’t buy it.

Why bother giving them any more money?

Flight Control has spawned a bunch of related apps, including games like HarborMaster, which I also have, and enjoy playing.

The game play is pretty simple - aircraft appear on the screen at random times, and you have to route them into their proper airport, by drawing a track on the screen with your finger.  The game finishes when two planes collide.  Generally there are three types of aircraft (fast, medium, and slow movers), and a helicopter.  The action starts off slow but ramps up to the point where you can end up with 15 or so aircraft on the screen at once!  Quite a handful to keep separated, which I still have not worked out a reasonable strategy.

I discovered this morning on the train that Flight Control has been updated again with another map.  Flight Control has teamed up with the Royal Flying Doctor Service, so the map is themed after the Australian outback, with the usual two airports and a heli landing pad.

However, this is where things depart from the usual Flight Control gameplay, which I think is a great change from simply adding another themed airport.

The first screen shot on the left is the main screen after I’ve selected the RFDS airport. The high score, after a very quick play once Flight Control was upgraded is 38 *sigh*. I seriously have issues playing this game - my highest score is about 130 on Seaside. I am not worthy!

Where this map becomes quite interesting, and a departure from the usual Flight Control gameplay is the interaction of the RFDS aircraft. The icon on the left of the display in the second image is the alert showing that an RFDS aircraft is inbound. The track that it is going to follow is automatically selected - there’s no choice as to which airport it is going to land on, nor where the track is placed. Thus, as in real life, you have no choice but to route your aircraft around the RFDS plane. Very clever, and adds to the complexity, especially when lots of planes are on the screen at once.

It’s also not the smallest plane in the fleet either! The icon is quite large, at about the same size (or slightly larger) than the Jumbo aircraft, so the chance of collision goes up. It just adds to the challenge of maintaining clearance, and getting it on the ground successfully!  The track in the third picture shows the RFDS plane is going to land on the small airfield, but I’ve also seen it go to the large airfield at times too.  There’s no way to control the RFDS plane!

This latest addition to Flight Control adds some new spice and challenge to an otherwise great game, and just in time too, because I was watching how many updates were being released for Flight Control versus HarborMaster (who have released three updates with new maps and changes of gameplay (a hurricane which changes the routing of the ships, a pirate ship which you have to destroy using a cannon, changes to the dock layouts, and now a monster which gobbles up ships in the dock)). I was becoming bored with the Flight Control gameplay.

Because I’d previously played CoD4:MW (Call of Duty 4:Modern Warfare) to death last year (and ended up selling it in disgust due to the inaction by Infinity Ward towards fixing the ranking up bug), I quickly settled into my usual style of play for these games, being a sniper.

Many games passed, whilst I put up with and adjusted my game style to the horrible Springfield w/ scope - terrible weapon with a terrible scope.  I moved away from sniping (because I was too slow at sniping with the Springfield, and the maps are too small), I started using what I deem to be CQB weapons (the Thompson (which I love…), and the other rifles and MG’s).  Of course, because my style of play is as a sniper, I’m no good at CQB, and would often get smashed in the scoring.

Eventually, I ranked up enough to unlock the Russian Mosin-Nagant, and found it to be quite nice, and _then_ unlocked the scope for it.  Godly weapon! Back to sniping I went, even on relatively small maps.

A thought crossed my mind - how about I unlock the scope for the M1 Garand?  In the game, the Garand is a painful semi-auto, because of the stripper clip, and it’s weak power.  However, unlock the scope, and I found I could one-shot kill people across the map easily, and accurately to boot!

The Garand contributed to my slinking away into a corner to snipe away all game.  The end result, lots of games where I’d shot 4 rounds for 4 kills with zero deaths…

My definition of Camping

The new maps for CoD:WaW are great!  They’re spread out in both width and depth, which allows me to do what I excel at - snipe at long distances.  I’ve often been accused of “camping” in these games, because I’ll sit in one spot all game.  I’m not a camper, because where I set up my “camp” I can usually see most of the map, sighted down roads, across to high-traffic windows, doors, alleyways etc.  To me, a person who is a “camper” is one who sits under a stairway, and gets targets of opportunity.  There’s no skill in that, no challenge.

So, why 4 and 0? Why not more?

I don’t blaze away at just anyone who strolls by.  Before I fire, I consider the following:

• Is a Recon plane up?  If so, I won’t shoot, because then I’ll be marked on the map as a red dot, and my position has been given away.  For my sniper class, I’ve usually equipped the “UAV jammer” type perk, which usually means your character is wearing a gillie suit, thus invisible to recon planes.
• Is the target looking in my direction?  If so, I may or may not shoot, depending on other factors.  Generally I will, but I do consider what will happen next if I shoot and miss…
• Is the target near someone else who could “see” me or my shot?  It’s slow to move from target to target quickly, so sometimes I won’t fire, because I can’t take on more than one target at a time.

As a result, I quite often finish a game with four kills and zero to two deaths.  Is that good or bad?

In my opinion, a positive kill/death ration (KDR) is a good thing - I’ve contributed some points to my team’s effort, but minimal deaths.  If I went 10 kills and 15 deaths, is that good?  A lot of people think it is, but why?  10 kills is good, but it’s the 15 deaths which is the bitey end of the statistic - I’d seriously doubt you’ve scored a 7-streak, and brought out the dogs with that kind of score!  If I went 10-15, I’ve obviously had a terrible game!

Bring on CoD4:MW!

For some strange reason, about a month ago, I bought my 5th (!) copy of CoD4:MW, and have since abandoned CoD:WaW for the moment.  One glaringly obvious thing that I’ve noticed in these CoD4:MW games is that people love running around the map like chickens with their heads chopped off.  This presents lots of targets, and lots of problems to snipers like me, who like to slink around silently and slowly, getting into a good spot to score kills.  With people moving about, they get seen, and get shot at.  If you don’t move, you (generally) don’t get noticed, and (generally) won’t get shot at.  It’s simple!

The equation: moving about = activity = noticed = shot at ~= kill.

The problem is that lots of people moving about usually equates to doing it without regard for what the rest of the team are doing, and therefore there are people wandering all over the map, quite spread out, and thus likely to find the odd sniper holed up in a spot…

Just about every game, I’ll equip with one of the sniper rifles (M40, M21, Dragunov, R700, or the venerable Barrett .50cal). Most games, again, I go 4 and 0, 4 and 1.  I have gone 15:0 and better too. Those games I cherish, because the headless chickens were really headless, running around and getting knocked off and wonder why afterwards!  Of course, the converse is also true.  I know I’m tired, and need to quit and go to bed when I get 0 and 10 (which I’ve had twice now…).  Both games, I’ve done my usual slinking about, but both games, I’ve been caught out in the open, moving about *sigh*

Isn’t 4 and 0 boring?

Sometimes it is, definitely.  Going 4 and 0 usually means I’m being overcautious, or am just plain in the wrong spot at the wrong time.  Other games, I do it deliberately, for the in-game achievements, or to manage my KDR, or to “slow” the game down somewhat, especially if I’m 4 and 4, and the other team are aggressive. With the other team being aggressive, they’re up and about and being rather noisy, my potential targets increase, but I’m in danger of going 4 and 15, which is never good!

Is 4 and 0 too passive?

According to the point score, yeah, maybe I am being passive - but I’ve never been accused of being quiet on the mic.  For instance, on “Ambush”, there are two well known sniper buildings - one with a hole in the wall in the metal section, and one which has been blown out completely, in the concrete section.  I was sniping from the hole-in-the-wall building, and noticed a target sniping from the other building.  However, because he wasn’t looking over towards me, he was sniping down towards the grassy section, so I knew he was there, but couldn’t get a clean shot.

I noticed that another player on our team was set up atop a wall in the middle section of the map, and could see across to this target.  So I called him into it, he took the shot, got the target, and thanked me for it.  My job was done! I went on sniping down the road, and across the sandbagged flat roof in the concrete section.

It’s extremely rare to hear people calling out targets to others - I do it all the time - if I die, I call out where I was shot from.

So, just because I go 4 and 0, doesn’t mean I’m not playing!

Along with a great crew, I was flying a great glider, the NAN Models Xplorer, imported by Dave Pratley.  The Xplorer is a 3.5m F3J/TD fully moulded carbon/kevlar/fibreglass glider, which can be acquired from Dave in various colour schemes.  Extended tips are available.

The Xplorer is renowned for light air floating.  My Xplorer truly revelled in the Jerilderie air, and I regularly achieved 9:58 or better, with inside 2m spots.  I had two “bad” flights where we didn’t pick the air correctly, and I flew the X into crap air, and suffered.

Over the 5 days of flying, I only flew my F3B Icon a couple of times, and even then only during the Friday practice day.  I flew the Xplorer over all 8 rounds of the competition proper, and during several fun fly days back in Sydney recently.  I’m in total awe of the floatiness, and flat glide, that the X achieves.  With a setup fine-tuned by Steve Keep, the landing approaches are slow and predictable. A great glider, and a worthy addition to my quiver of gliders, very much beginning to replace the Icons.

Over the two and a half years that I’ve been flying the Icons, I’ve become one with them, to the point where I instinctively know when I’m flying them too close to the stall, or too slow.  I only managed to achieve great launches after Brian Lindsay provided some magic tweaks to the radio programming to my (now dead) Icon Bitza.

Now I’m learning to fly a new glider, and it’s quite a challenge, but I think I’m starting to get a feel for the Xplorer’s flying attributes.  It doesn’t like to be flown slowly in thermal mode, and is much more tip-stally than the Icons - it’ll drop a tip, whereas the Icons drop the nose.  Hands off, the X just wants to glide and glide and glide, so that’s how I fly it now - point it in a direction, and left it fly.

I went out to the HMAS field on Saturday, and had a couple of flights.  The launches were downwind, with about a 5 knot breeze down low, but about 15 knots up at altitude.  The X didn’t like it at all.  With a bit of ballast, I think it’d do quite well, but at the moment, I don’t have any finished ballast bars to use.  As a result, the glider was tossed around quite a bit, but even so, I managed to thermal away in a strong area of lift, and to my surprise, a flock of pelicans joined me.  We flew with the thermal for a good 5 minutes or so, following it downwind, but as the glider was approaching a no-fly area, I hit the reflex, and flew back upwind to where I originally encountered the thermal.

Lo and behold, another thermal, but much weaker.  Again, to my surprise, the pelicans followed me upwind, and began circling underneath me once more.  Alas, Steve had to pack up, so I brought the X home to a straight-forward landing.

On Sunday, I again took the X out to HMAS for another funfly day.  The initial few flights were pretty short, as the sink was horrendous in the cold still air.  Around 2pm, the Club held it’s AGM, so Steve launched my X, and I had the field to myself whilst the power planes were grounded.  I spent about 6 minutes or more doing lazy 50m circles at tree height off the end of the runways, and being chased by the crows.  I was impressed that it floated so slowly down so low, and so flat.  I worked a tiny bubble for ages, but it slowly drifted down the runway towards the wind sock, so I eventually gave up, and landed the X “on the runway” :)

At Jerilderie, we witnessed some rather interesting Xplorer wing failures.  It seems that there’s a potential quality/manufacturing issue with some builds, as there are reports (and experienced at Jerilderie) of joiner box failures.  There were two spectacular joiner box failures on launch, and one discovered failure on landing (the pilot knew something had happened on launch).  It certainly made Brian and I nervous about our Xplorers (both of us had new X’s at Jerilderie).  Joe Wurts also maidened a new Xplorer at Jerilderie.

However, that caution didn’t stop us from launching our X’s to the moon, or spearing them into the ground on landing.  As a result, I doubt mine has the same problem (maybe it’s a manufacturing fault only with the lighter build X’s?), as I was punishing it, and really bending the wings hard on launch.  Had some truly awesome launches too from Joe and Steve - real “Yip Yah!” affairs.

So where to next?  I’ll definitely be placing an order soon for the extended tips (takes the span out to 3.9m), for the light air mornings, and later acquiring another X.  Dave’s support before and during Jerilderie was very much appreciated!

- bec