The Hypertexthero Linked List

Monday, 22 July 2019

Making Eagle Dynamics, Heatblur, the U.S. Navy, and Tom Cruise, volleyball, and fast mover fans happy.

Not expecting much from the plot writing, but if the flight cinematography is as good as in the first film I will be satisfied.

Real Pilot’s Instructions on Flying a Virtual Spitfire #

Requiem, responding to a comment on his video about takeoff and landing in a Spitfire MK.IX in IL-2 Sturmovik:

Colin Delaney thank you very much! To answer your question yes I fly professionally and am incredibly lucky to do so. It’s quite a story how I went from a flight simmer to real life pilot. Previously I was a flight instructor for single engine, multi engine, and instrument training but currently I’m an airline pilot flying the CRJ-900 in the USA. I try to approach these videos with my flight instructor and gamer hat on to make them as understandable as possible, plus I have them peer reviewed by other real life pilots (with airline / fighter jet experience) before releasing them too. If its good enough to make it past that review then I’m happy for you guys to see it :-)

~~Would love to hear that story~~ Here it is — a wonderful story of human kindness — thank you for the link, Requiem! See Requiem’s video on common landing errors and how to fix them (this time flying a P-51 in DCS), one of a series of succinct, informative virtual flight lessons.

Saturday, 20 July 2019

JFK’s Moon Speech #: Paul Burka, on John F. Kennedy’s speech 1962 speech announcing the goal to land on the moon before the end of the decade:

It is a great speech, one that encapsulates all of recorded history and seeks to set it in the history of our own time. Unlike today’s politicians, Kennedy spoke to our best impulses as a nation, not our worst.

Thursday, 18 July 2019

Kerbal Space Program On Sale #: The game that helped the author of xkcd and Thing Explainer understand orbital mechanics can be bought for $10, until July 24.

Wednesday, 17 July 2019

Holy mackerel, nothing went wrong! #: Michael Collins, the astronaut who orbited the moon aboard Apollo 11 command module Columbia while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin descended to the lunar surface:

That’s unusual; all those little bits and pieces — pieces of machinery here, that little bit of it up over there — all the things that could have gone wrong. The flight to the moon and back is a long and fragile daisy chain. Any tiny break in the chain and and the whole venture is screwed…

…I just couldn’t believe that our equipment, down to the last little nut and bolt, that there wasn’t something, somewhere in it that had been overlooked, something that was going to malfunction and when it went wrong, something we might or might not be able to cope with.

So I salute the designers, engineers, the mechanics and the maintenance people, all of them who made that equipment so reliable.

Neil Armstrong’s Photo Legacy #: There is only one photograph of Neil Armstrong walking on the moon, and in it, he has his back to the camera.

But there is also a high definition scan from Apollo 11’s on-board motion picture (film) footage, showing Neil’s face while on the lunar surface, made for Andrew Chaikin and Victoria Kohl’s wonderful book, Voices From The Moon: Apollo Astronauts Describe Their Lunar Experiences.

Tuesday, 16 July 2019

Apollo 11 in Real Time #: Follow a replay of the Apollo 11 moon landing mission in real time. The launch, 50 years ago, is in just over t-minus 10 minutes.

Monday, 15 July 2019

Don’t Always Listen to the So-Called Experts #: Margaret Hamilton, who led the team that created the onboard flight software for the Apollo missions, including Apollo 11:

Often in the evening or at weekends I would bring my young daughter, Lauren, into work with me. One day, she was with me when I was doing a simulation of a mission to the moon. She liked to imitate me – playing astronaut. She started hitting keys and all of a sudden, the simulation started. Then she pressed other keys and the simulation crashed. She had selected a program which was supposed to be run prior to launch – when she was already “on the way” to the moon. The computer had so little space, it had wiped the navigation data taking her to the moon. I thought: my God – this could inadvertently happen in a real mission. I suggested a program change to prevent a prelaunch program being selected during flight. But the higher-ups at MIT and Nasa said the astronauts were too well trained to make such a mistake. Midcourse on the very next mission – Apollo 8 – one of the astronauts on board accidentally did exactly what Lauren had done. The Lauren bug! It created much havoc and required the mission to be reconfigured. After that, they let me put the program change in, all right.

Instruments of Change: 2. Khaen / Violin Duo #6 #: Jaron Lanier & Barbara Higbie, from Lanier’s Instruments of Change album. Music, like an airplane, is an instrument of change. Both can transport you to a different place.

Life Lessons Learned in Mission Control #: NASA Flight Director Gene Kranz:

You’ve got the skills. You’ve got the knowledge. You’ve got the love, and you’re capable of moving forward and making a great life for yourself.

Sunday, 14 July 2019

Project Apollo Archive #: High-resolution Apollo imagery scanned by NASA‘s Johnson Space Center.

Spitfire Suprise Low Pass #

I have always loved the flying and camera work in this video, pulling away from the speaker slowly, to reveal the approaching airplane, flying so low it is still hidden in camouflage with the English landscape, and given away by a bit of dust it kicks up from the ground that makes you realize its frighteningly low altitude and high speed as the plane comes straight at the viewer and camera crew, from behind the speaker, who shares our reaction!

The Spitfire in the video was flown by RAF pilot and Red Arrows aerobatics display team founding member Ray Hannah.

Friday, 12 July 2019

Tutorial Videos for Flight Simulators #: Shamrock One Five over at Stormbirds lists some good channels. My favorite is the irreverent Laobi.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 #: Insightful commentary about the new Microsoft Flight Simulator trailer by wordsmith and simulated flying expert Tim Stone over at my favorite website about videogames, Rock Paper Shotgun.

Wednesday, 13 April 2016

Why Do We Believe in Electrons, but Not in Fairies #: Benjamin Kuipers on the scientific method.

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The Hypertexthero Linked List is a list of links to other places on the internet that Hypertexthero finds interesting.