OJTheAviator

It's been ages since I've been on the forum (much less this thread) but I stopped by the forum and wanted to pop by and just wish everyone a happy, safe, and overall lovely pride month!

I solved it! TLDR unplugging the internal battery, pressing power a few times, then plugging it back in worked.

I opened it up, went ahead and unplugged the battery (fan stopped of course), then took out the SSD to err on the side of caution, in case something crazy happened next. Pressed power a few times to make sure it was absolutely off, then plugged the battery back in. Pressed power once, and it POSTed! Powered back down, unplugged once again, put back in SSD, and reassembled. It seems good to go now!

1 minute ago, OddOod said:

Have you tried plugging it into an external monitor?
Also, I assume you held the power button for a full 20 seconds.

Thanks for the idea about the monitor, but sadly there's no signal. And indeed I held the power button for 20+ seconds, with a timer, but the fan is still going at full blast and nothing appears to happen.

Hello.

I've got a Lenovo Thinkpad L13. I had it powered down earlier today, and tried to power it back up this afternoon. Upon pressing the power button, the fan ramped up to full speed, yet nothing happened on the display. After waiting for a minute or two with nothing happening, I tried powering it down by holding the power button, however the fan remained on. At a loss, I plugged it into wall power and no lights blinked as they would normally to indicate charging (and I've checked that the charger works with another device).

I'm thinking my best bet is to try to open it up even though the fan is running and disconnect the battery manually, then press the power button to let everything discharge, them plug the batter back in and try again. Is this a good idea? Is there any hope for this machine?

Luckily I've got an entire copy of the drive from about a month ago, so nothing critical should be gone. Still, would like to have the data on there if possible, in case something important is there. Any recommendations for order of operations regarding taking out the SSD/dealing with data?

This is really not what I wanted to be dealing with my first week of classes this year - my major has given me enough to worry about . Any help would be absolutely wonderful!!

Edit: just remembered I need to include system info. It's currently not operable so I don't know all the details offhand but it's got an i7 10th gen, 1TB NVME SSD (upgraded from default 500GB model), Windows 11 and PopOS dual booted (upgraded from Windows 10 originally, running Windows 11 at time of shutdown before incident)

On 7/15/2022 at 6:35 AM, Schnoz said:

So...today was a good day.

Hey, I'm just seeing any of this, that's awesome!

On 1/26/2022 at 7:54 AM, guillaumeazer said:

That's absolutely wonderful, I would really enjoy trying this I think. I suppose that these video and pictures have been compressed here? Can we have access to a raw file (especially for the video) to get a real idea of the quality?

I suppose that it should look like the picture you shared here ?
 

  Reveal hidden contents

Thank you very much for this post

 

Guillaume

Hello Guillaume! It's good to see some interest in this. Apologies for not getting to this sooner - I had taken a break from the forum for a few months. There is definitely some amount of compression here. I can definitely share some raw picture files! comp7vis_clean.dng

As for the video, what you see is compressed, that's true. However, the extra compression I've added for uploading here is actually very minimal. It's very slightly more blocky than on my computer, with a few small artifacts. But the color is almost identical to what you get right off the pi. The issue there is that the pi isn't built for high-bitrate raw video, so it adds a lot of compression by default, and it's very difficult to attempt to save a raw video. All this to say - you'll still have the same dynamic range, same color, similar compression if you were viewing it on my screen directly. For these reasons (and since it would take a fair bit of work to re-cut a new video), it doesn't really make sense for me to share extra/less-compressed video footage.

Let me know if you've got any more questions!

Browser, version and OS: Firefox version 87, Windows 10 Pro version 1909

Steps to reproduce/what were you doing before it happened?

I had just clicked on a notification for an unread status update, read the update, then returned to the home page

What happened?

When I returned to the home page, the little orange circle displaying the number of unread notifications popped up for a split second, clearly displaying 0. It was up for perhaps 1/3 of a second, not enough to grab a screenshot but enough to clearly register it.

What did you expect to happen?

I didn't expect any notifications at all, or if one popped up, for it to be of number greater than 0

Link to a page where it happened, if applicable: 

N/A

Screenshots of the issue, if applicable: 

Unfortunately unable to provide a screenshot due to the nature of the issue as discussed above

Any other relevant details:

I'll mention that I'm not expecting this to be dealt with like a major issue, it's more of a curiosity than anything else. What could have caused this?

If it's a cloudflare error, what was the ray ID from the bottom of the error page?

N/A

 Over the course of the last few weeks, I've become enchanted by Kodak's discontinued Aerochrome film, and color infrared photography in general. This post chronicles what I've learned, how I produced images like this using less than $200 of supplies, and how it could be done for less than $100.

What you are seeing is a meaningful visualization of life in infrared. It is, you might say, "real".

Quick disclaimer: I'm going to be writing this in language phrased as if you, the reader, are following steps to do this yourself. If you actually consider doing this, please read the post fully and carefully before committing! While I'm really glad I got this to work, I can't guarantee you will or that it will make sense for you. That said, it should be fascinating to read about regardless of whether you want to do this yourself!

Table of contents:

1. Introduction to infrared imaging
2. The hardware
3. Assembly
4. Logging onto the Pi
5. Taking pictures with the camera
6. Configuring raw image support
7. Photo editing
8. Bonus experiments and video
9. Conclusion and gallery

1. Introduction to infrared imaging:

The electromagnetic spectrum is huge. Gamma rays go down to a wavelength of a picometer, while some radio waves have wavelengths of kilometers. Humans being humans, we only get to directly see wavelengths in the approximate range of 380 nanometers to 700 nanometers. But our dear camera sensors are not nearly so limited! Not by default that is. Take a look at this diagram I found helpful:

(From https://www.ir-photo.net/ir_imaging.html)

The sensor's natural sensitivity is indicated by the black line, and you can clearly see that it doesn't stop right at 700 nanometers. No, it goes on up past 1000 nanometers! Of course, this usually makes photos look somewhat unusual - camera companies generally want to market their cameras as life-like, not turn-your-garden-into-an-alien-world-like. So, they add a "hot mirror" - a filter that blocks all but the visible spectrum of light. This is in addition to the Bayer pattern that gives us the red, green, and blue components of pixels. That Bayer pattern is a whole other topic, but there should be some great info online if you aren't already familiar. Suffice it to say that if the camera doesn't include the hot mirror, it can be used to see what we cannot.

2. The hardware:

Let me lay out everything I've used here. Essential components will be in bold, though I'm including everything I used.
$35 - Raspberry Pi 3 Model B

$30 - Raspberry Pi NoIR Camera

$25+ - Battery bank with at least 2A output (or equivalent power supply)

$10 - Micro SD card

$50 - Pimoroni HyperPixel 4.0 TFT Touch Display

I also found a Phillips head screwdriver, tape, and a few wooden pencils handy.

You can use other materials. Actually, I'll go as far as to say you should use other materials. The Pi 3 Model B is outdated and still a little pricey. For the most versatile component for use in this and other projects, consider a Pi 4. If budget is your main concern, you might consider a Pi Zero W (note that the Zero will require more connectors than I've discussed). There are actually bundles available with both the Pi Zero W and the NoIR Camera for about $40! A display will be very useful and highly recommended, though not absolutely required. If you don't use some sort of portable display, you'll need to take shots 'blind' through a network connection with another computer. But given that the HyperPixel is rather expensive, definitely consider cheaper displays. Finally, this would be awesome to put in a 3D printed case. I don't have the time or will to do that, but if you did, you could make a much nicer thing than I did and not have to worry about pencils falling off!

3. Assembly:

(Photos in spoilers to save space)

1. Lift the black bar on the ribbon cable connector (the one by the HDMI connector and headphone jack), insert the camera cable, then press the black bar back down.

2. If using the HyperPixel display, lay it screen side down on a flat and clean surface. Be sure the standoffs are installed. Align the GPIO pins, then insert the Pi on top of the screen with smooth and even pressure. Be careful, these screens can be somewhat delicate! Once connected, screw together the Pi and display.

3. At this point, evaluate your specific parts to find some sort of overall goal design. Make sure the Pi won't be in contact with conductive surfaces when in operation; you might need to cover the back of the Pi with tape or some other means of insulation. Also, be sure to keep the SD card slot somewhat accessible - we still need to flash and install the SD card. If you think you'll have trouble getting to the slot later, skip to the SD card installation tips, set it up, and install it now.

4. Use a liberal amount of tape to firmly attach the Pi (or Pi and display) down to the battery bank. Try to do this such that the battery bank becomes a sort of grip for the whole project.

5. Bend the ribbon cable over to the opposite side. Tape the ribbon cable down to partially secure the camera board. Get creative with the tape to fully secure the camera board.

6. It's very possible that if set down with the display up, the whole contraption is resting on the camera module. Probably not ideal! Gather some odds and ends to boost the assembly off the camera. For me, this consisted of three pencils, ends cut off, one cut in half. Use tape or anything else you deem appropriate to secure the odds and ends to the bottom. If you did this right, the device can now rest screen up and the camera module is not touching the table.
 

Here's what mine looked like at the end of assembly:

This was an assembly overview, so some simple online searches should bring more details on connecting the Pi and camera or the Pi and display.

4. Logging onto the Pi:

You'll probably want to use Raspberry Pi OS (formerly known as Raspbian) flashed to a micro SD card. My preferred method is to download the ISO file from the Raspberry Pi Foundation, then use a tool like Balena Etcher to flash the ISO to the card. Once the micro SD card is flashed, simply plug it into the Raspberry Pi and it should successfully boot. Alternatively, you could try the Raspberry Pi installation tool, found here. I've never used it but it might very well be easier.

Now you have to access the Raspberry Pi. If you have a display that works via HDMI, perfect! Just plug in the Pi, boot, then use the default credentials of username = pi, password = raspberry. You should be on the desktop GUI, or if you selected the light version of the OS, a command line interface.

This isn't the only way to log onto the Pi, however. Suppose you have no screen to set things up, or you have a screen that needs to be set up while logged onto the Pi - what to do? SSH is an incredibly useful way to log on remotely, but typically you need to enable it while logged on to a Pi through the raspi-config command. Get around this by adding a file to the top directory of the micro SD card with the filename "ssh" - no parentheses, no file extension. If you can, by far the easiest thing to do now is connect the Pi to your network via Ethernet. If that is impossible for whatever reason, this thread from Stack Exchange should help you configure it to connect to WiFi. Assuming you have connected the Pi to your network, you need to get its IP address - my favorite tool is the Fing app, found here. The app will scan your network and give a list of all devices connected and their local IP addresses. Once you've found the Pi's IP, you'll need to SSH to the Pi. The tool Putty is great, but if you're sick of installing new apps, you can SSH directly from the Windows command line:

ssh pi@192.168.1.63

Make sure to replace "192.168.1.63" with whatever IP address you've found. If you've already configured the Pi with a different username, just replace "pi" with your username. If this has worked, I'd recommend changing your password. Anyone on your network currently has admin access if they know anything about Raspberry Pi's and the default credentials, so probably best to change that.

If you're using a display HAT, configure it now. The Hyperpixel needs drivers to work, so use this guide from Pimoroni to do that.

5. Taking pictures with the camera:

Preface to this section - I'll be writing as if I expect you are somewhat comfortable with the Linux/Unix command line interface. Many applications on Linux are primarily accessed or installed through the command line interface, so it's kind of a necessity. It's not so bad as it might seem at first! That said, a cheat sheet can make all the difference. Search "Linux commands cheat sheet" or something like that, you should find some useful resources. I don't have the time to write a full Linux tutorial in this IR imaging post though, and plus, it's been done before. Search engines are your best friend in this!

You should be logged onto the Pi now - time to test your IR camera! Open the command line; the following command will save an image named "image.jpg" in your current directory:

raspistill -o image.jpg

If you're logged on directly with a screen, you should see a little preview come up for a few seconds, then the photo will be taken. If you're logged on through SSH, no preview displays. Basically, the camera software is somewhat dumb and just overlays the preview over direct graphics output, and since SSH isn't a graphics output, there's no preview. But don't worry, the photo will still be taken after a few seconds.

This is a good place to mention how you can take pictures without a screen. As I've said, it's not ideal, but it's definitely possible. You'll need to use SSH to do this, so I'd say configure your Pi to connect to WiFi. Connect the Pi to the battery, SSH into it with a laptop, then go to some photogenic scene within WiFi range and use the command line through SSH to take pictures. There will be no preview and it only works in range of WiFi or tethered to Ethernet. Not ideal at all, I know. After all, infrared photos are best taken outdoors with lots of plants. But if you're determined to save a few bucks, you could rig up a somewhat mobile solution by using your router in a backpack with batteries to power it, then connecting both the Pi and laptop to the local network. At that rate, perhaps just get a screen.

6. Configuring raw image support:

At this point, you have all you really need to take infrared imagery. But it's still somewhat limited. You definitely aren't seeing the same result there as I showed at the beginning. To get results like that, you'll need to adjust things like white balance and saturation. White balance is possible to change directly on the Pi! I'll get into that later, but it won't be quite as good as being able to adjust everything afterwards. For that, you'll need raw images. The Raspberry Pi camera software does have a setting for this. Just use the command:

raspistill -r -o image.jpg

The -r stands for raw, basically meaning it saves all the data the camera has, not discarding any data at all. After all, for an image to look natural, cameras have to process the data and in doing so, find that some of that information won't affect the final image at all. So, to save space, a camera throws that data out. But that data is essential to change settings after the photo has been taken, which is what we need to do!

Unfortunately, this JPG file stores the raw data in a way that can't be used by most raw photo editors like Lightroom or Raw Therapee. To extract this data, you'll need to install a tool onto the Pi. If you haven't already connected the Pi to your network, now's the time. Once you've done that, you'll need to install an app called PyDNG, which creates a "digital negative" DNG file from the raw JPG. This post is a great resource, and is how I got this working myself. Instead of trying to rewrite their instructions, just read their post and examine the GitHub linked in the post for further info. If there are any specific issues that crop up, feel free to let me know and I can see if I can help.

Okay, at this point you should have PyDNG installed, and have followed the information in the post to extract a DNG file from the raw JPG you took earlier. We've just got to get the DNG file to your main computer to do some final adjustments. If you're using a screen, it might be easiest to use a USB drive to transfer the files. If you're using SSH, you'll probably want to use FTP - file transfer protocol. If you search for "Raspberry Pi FTP", you should find some detailed tutorials. But in short, you'll want to install something like WinSCP, then use the Pi's IP address and credentials to connect and log in. Once you're in, just find the file on the Pi that you want to transfer and drag it to your computer.

7. Photo editing:

We're getting there! You've taken the photo, converted it, and transferred it. It's just down to editing it now! If you already have Adobe's Lightroom, you know what to do to get this in there. But assuming you don't, I highly recommend RawTherapee! It's free, open source, cross platform, and does almost everything that Lightroom does. Install it, then use it to open your DNG file. I'll put a couple of pp3 preset files here - you can use them to automatically set everything to what worked for me.

Aerochrome.pp3Aerochrome_denoised.pp3

Save this somewhere you can remember, then go back to RawTherapee. If you've selected your file, the software should look somewhat like this. Click on the circled area to open the pp3 file.

Navigate to where you saved the downloaded file, then select it. You should be greeted with vibrant reddish pink plants, dark blue sky, and everything in-between! Play around with various settings from here to get the image to where you want it, then click on the save icon on the left of the bottom bar. You've done it! You read through this monstrously long post, and you might even have a color infrared image to boot!

For the photo experts out there who didn't want to use RawTherapee or my pp3 file, I can explain what is otherwise saved in the pp3. Use the white balance picker to select what you want to be white (clouds, sky, etc), that should make the whole image way less pink. Adjust exposure, contrast, and saturation to your liking. Now adjust the luminance according to hue so that the blue of the sky is somewhat darkened. Adjust the chromacity according to hue so that the blue of the sky is a tad more saturated. And adjust hue according to hue so that the cotton candy pink of the plants becomes a more Aerochrome-like orange-red-pink. Finally, there may be some fairly rough noise as a result of the cheap-ish camera module and heavy edits. Just use a de-noise filter and adjust things until it looks decent. That should do the trick!

8. Bonus experiments and video:

By adjusting white balance, you can get half-decent video in the style of Aerochrome out of this thing! This whole section is very experimental and I can't offer much detail, so I'm putting it all in spoilers to save space. But feel free to experiment. Also note that the sample video below is rather compressed to fit in the post, so it should look marginally better if you try it.

python3 pivid.py

sudo python3 picam.py

9. Conclusion:

Is this a smooth experience? Admittedly, not really. Will it take a significant investment of time to set up? Yes, probably best to do as a weekend project. Do you get beautiful results for much less money than other infrared camera solutions? For me, yes! For you, maybe! If you've already got some or all of the materials like I did, I'd say go for it. I don't know that I could have justified spending nearly as much as $100+ on this, but everyone is different, so it's really up to you. I was simply infected with the bug of infrared images and I wanted to take some with what I had, so I did this. If you do end up doing this or something like it, please share your results! Also, while I can't be a tech support agent on this, if you get seriously stuck on something, feel free to reach out and I'll see if I can help.

For now, I'll leave you with my favorite shots made with this method!

I've been in a Jacob Collier mood. One of the best.

8 hours ago, homeap5 said:

I don't understand why you complicate things like that. Use bootable Ubuntu and copy files from your C to any other drive you have. You don't need to use laptop or remove any of your drivers for that.

 

Second - if you modified registry and you know that is the reason of your bootloop, then you can find bootable registry editor and just revert changes you made. Or, if you have laptop, you can load hive from your pc to registry editor, made changes, unload hive and that's it (but it's probably more complicated than bootable registry editor).

Good point about copying stuff from C to another drive. Would have saved some time. I did use the bootable registry editor, and attempted to use a backup I had made of the registry, but I got an error and wasn't able to fix it that way.

6 hours ago, TheGrandMaster said:

2. I dont know what you're talking about i said bootable drive lol it doesnt matter what you put it on its a bootable drive

3. He was asking if it was highly recommended

For your question: Its unplugging a sata cable once and then plugging it in a different pc. It's just like downloading a document on a computer then putting it on a usb and plugging it into a printer, its not really that hard haha. Also the connectors are always the same SATA is universal but as you go down the generations it is merely slower. You would be able to put any drive size in the computer temporarily regardless if the second pc would only fit a 2.5 drive, this is because you can put it on the side of the pc as it is temporary not for long term use. You do not have to re-screw the drive to the bay every time you take it out, its like plugging a usb into a port. 

Well, having got everything going again, I'm glad I didn't make a backup of the other three drives then and there. I've got several terabytes of data across the three drives, and since I don't have multiple terabytes of storage on my laptop or currently available in the cloud, I'd have to use spare hard drives. That would take 2-3 days if I were to transfer data 24 hours straight, not accounting for switching drives. It would take longer in practice. Also, while the SATA connector is standard, my adapter is in the form of an external drive enclosure, so the rest of it physically cannot fit a 3.5" drive. I could've hacked off the rest of the enclosure, but I was very happy to be able to keep it as is. All that to say, while I would have backed the data up then if there was a good chance it would be lost, it was a relief to hear that wasn't likely.

Of course, I know data backups are very very handy, but it was nice to get it up and running so I can now do cloud backups from this machine when I get the chance. Plus, my one experience doesn't make a study. It's an anecdote. So, if anyone in the future reads this, I can't say whether you'll have the same luck and circumstance as myself.

Thanks again for the help and advice everyone!

Thanks everyone! I really appreciate the help!

@Master Disaster

Sounds good. I'm planning on just copying all the files on the drive to my laptop storage, so I don't see why I couldn't copy them back after reinstalling Windows. Thanks for the detailed answer!

Hello,

I did something stupid. I followed a guide to fix a disk drive error, modified the registry, and now my Windows 10 PC is in a boot loop. I get a blue screen with the error inaccessible boot device. I did make a backup of the registry, but I wasn't able to successfully restore it from the advanced options command line. I've decided it's probably best if I reinstall Windows at this point, but I wanted to check a few things so that I keep my photos and documents. Oh, and I was especially stupid because I don't have a backup of all the data. (I'm doing that the minute I get things working again, that's for sure.)

I'm running 4 drives in my computer. None of them are in RAID. My most important data isn't on the Windows SSD, so I'm planning on physically disconnecting all the drives except that Windows SSD. I do have some data on the SSD though. I also have a SATA-USB connector, so I'm planning on making a backup of the whole SSD on my laptop.

Three questions:

1. If I disconnect the three other drives, re-install Windows on the SSD, then reconnect the other drives, they will show up correctly in Windows and I can access the data on them, right?
2. If something goes wrong with the Windows re-install, I'd be able to do a completely fresh install on the SSD, then restore the data from a backup, right?
3. Would it be highly recommended to also back up the data on the other three drives before attempting the reinstall? My SATA-USB connector only fits 2.5" drives though, so that would delay my process by quite a bit, and you can imagine I'm anxious to get things back to normal.

Can anyone see issues with this plan that I haven't seen, or know of a better solution? Once again, this was 100% my fault, and I've already learned several lessons about backing up data and editing the registry.

Thank you all in advance!!

2 hours ago, greenhorn said:

I like seeing that "outdated" look in planes, I feel it is like a glimpse into a time when aviation was  more something for wealthy people. I like those planes with seats still from the 70s (rectangular shaped, quite thick), the old fonts used for all the labels. I am thinking of planes of the like of the old 747s (-100, -200 and the SP), the MD80 series.

On the other hand, some "old" planes can look rather modern even by today's standards. Once in a while, I like to go to a local flight sim center, they have a fixed baseA320 sim made out of an old plane formerly owned by Air France and the cockpit still looks and feels modern (even though it is lacking the fancy gadgets found in the B787 and A350 for example).

This A340 interior was sort of like a car from the mid 2000s to me. A little too old to be current, a little too young to be retro. Still cooler than, say, a 737-800's cabin, but less cool than a 787, or--I imagine-- a MD-80 or old 747. I'm glad I flew it, but the inside was not very interesting.

As fun as it is to geek out over planes, when I fly on them, it's just a flight after the first hour or two. I'm still just burning hours away by playing on a phone or browsing the infotainment system. So, it's a great thing to have a good infotainment system or in-flight wifi, or the comfort of a higher cabin pressure because of carbon fiber strength. That said, I'd rather book a flight on a 747 than a 787 just for the cool factor.

3 hours ago, Kaloob said:

Doubt ANA will retire the A380s anytime soon.

I'm quite sad about the A340s going because I'm quite a fan of them.

I flew on a Virgin Atlantic A340-600 last year. It was amazingly long, though a little outdated feeling inside.

I don't suppose this applies to older, already released ThinkPads? I'm running Ubuntu on my ThinkPad E455, but there are some WiFi driver issues, I wonder if this means they'll bring support for that sort of thing.

7 minutes ago, Nowak said:

Something I noticed is the MD-90 is the first McDonnell Douglas jet to be retired.

 

The DC-8 isn't retired yet. The DC-9 isn't. The DC-10, MD-11, MD-80 and, if you want to count it, Boeing 717 aren't. Just the MD-90.

That's fascinating! If I were to be super pedantic, the C-9 military variant of the DC 9 is entirely retired. But, that's as close as you can get to a prior retirement. Even all the McDonnell Douglas fighters still see some limited use.

20 minutes ago, pinksnowbirdie said:

Still maintain that Straight through trijets are better than S ducted trijets even if the S duct has some benefits

Hmm. I don't know about that. But to each their own

1 minute ago, GDRRiley said:

no. the F4 gets that award

Agreed if you add 18 to that and actually mean F22

14 minutes ago, vf1000ride said:

From the Dayton Airforce Museum. Lots of historic "X" planes.

That's awesome! When I visited, most of the X-planes were away from the main museum, on the base. It was pretty cool to be able to see all those weird planes up close! Is that black plane near the center (below the "U.S. AIR FORCE" on the XB-70) the supersonic drone tested on the SR-71? I forget the name, but I remember hearing about it.

43 minutes ago, TempestCatto said:

Daddy Trump visited my town today. Love or hate him, he has great taste in aircraft. He owns a 757 and used the "Air Force One" 757 today. Our airport can support a 747, in fact Barack Obama made a visit here during his first term. He used the 747.

 

 

Just thought I'd share.

KABE is a cool airport. A little busy for my tastes though. Probably the busiest I've flown at. I agree that as for tastes in planes, the president is doing pretty well. I don't know that his tastes in liveries agree with mine so much though. The classic blue Air Force One is very nice, I think better than the new design. Reminds me of the classiness of the '60s airline designs: United, Delta, TWA, Pan Am. All had beautiful liveries, and I think the current Air Force One livery is still classically beautiful in the same way.

10 minutes ago, pinksnowbirdie said:

the Zibo 737 for Xplane 11 is great but because of trying to learn the FMS/MCDU on the A320 family I've forgotten what I'd learned on how to program the FMS in the 737 on at least XPlane.

 

I can't wait for XP11 to get a good 717 and A220.

 

I was about to say that XP11 already has a 717, but then I remembered it's an MD-80. I might as well say it has a DC-9 if I'm gonna be that lax about the differences.

1 minute ago, pinksnowbirdie said:

any of you guys play Xplane 11? What's your favorite type to fly in that? (Doesn't have to be XP11)
I love ToLISS's A321.

I enjoy flying the B737, just because I've learned how to use the autopilot and FMS and can fly between large airports easily. I also like zooming about in a F22 or smashing bugs in the C172. Haven't got any really good 3rd party planes.

19 hours ago, vf1000ride said:

There is a museum rebuilding a P-61 from the ground up here in the states.  They eventually hope to have it airworthy.  http://www.maam.org/p61.html

I just realized that I know that airport. I've actually flown there before on cross-countries, though I didn't know they were rebuilding a P61! I'll have to check it out sometime.

If the C130 and C17 seem massive, which they are, just imagine witnessing a C5 in person! I was able to walk through the cargo section at Oshkosh 2018, unfortunately no pictures from that close. Still impressive from afar though. T-6s in front for scale.