Parties in the Phoenix Station Bar

The GFC's gorgeous looking Phoenix Station Bar saw plenty of action this Saturdays as two events were held over the day.

First between 12am to around 2:30pm the AAC (academy air corp has a party).

AAC Dance

Diabetes event in action

Later in the evening starting a 6pm and finishing at 9pm the place was rocketed to it cores as an event to bring some awareness to Diabetes was held by Social Events division.

We were glad to see those who come along and bothered to show up for such a good cause, especially those from other trek and sci-fi groups who came to celebrate a common cause and to dance the night away, you compassion and generosity were all appreciated.

This was a celebration for paying off a $25 million Diabetes Research Facility and this year invested over $900,000 in research, every little helps.

More fun from the Diabetes event

The dance was linked with a RL event which was happening simultaneously in the US at Sandpoint Eagles Club #589 Sandpoint Idaho in association with the diabetes charity JDRF.

Slideshow picture video of event

 Pictures from SL Diabetes Event - https://goo.gl/photos/Qn3DxbyGY7WVwPjf9

GFC Memorial Day 2015 Air show

The GFC celebrate a variety of events throughout the year, some related to the group itself, some sci-fi based and others associated with real life events. Today was commemorate fallen American during the countries many wars as Memorial day.

A GFC member standing at the memorial for passed members

The GFC celebrated the event starting on Sunday at noon when members of the group were invited to stand in honor at the GFC memorial area where we remember our members who have passed on. The vigil lasted until 12 monday when am air show had been arranged.

AAC Pilots, master of ceremonies and the on looking crowd

A podium had been at the AAC airport where I as the master of ceremony talked a little about memorial day  (link HERE) before the Air Corps took flight in a air display. Members watch as the AAC pilots lit the sky up with their coloured smoke trails in a sortie of formation flying display.

Air show in action

Hopefully we all took time the think about those who perished to make a better world for all of us.

Pictures of the event are available from a variety of sources

My pictures          --> HERE
Songlord Pictures --> HERE
Falatapus             --> HERE

I’d like to thank all those who have attended this Memorial Day air show and wish all Americans a happy anniversary.

New GFC Gryphon/Firebird Teaser Poster Unveiled

A teaser poster for the latest GFC ship has just been unveiled by Engineering and Research division, fully made in mesh with a cockpit to die for....which you may do if you get shot down. More details of the ship, how its made and what it can do will be available at a later date, but for now lets just drool at the pictures....I'm already putting granny up for sale for one.

Of course like other products in the group this should be available for members depending on whatever task they will be required to get one.

The Crimson Sidewider

This week we got to name one of the Red Squadrons exclusive ships in the AAC which was built and scripted by Jin Tao, each squadron which includes  the beginners Sigma (Green) squad and advanced Nova (Blue) squad will get their own line of exclusive ships, but this Sunday in the AAC event people were given the opportunity to fly an early version of the ship to help see how people thought it would handle. The general consensus was it handled extremely well.

The ship boasted a handful of popular combats systems so it could  dogfight against other ships, this included vice and pcs. In addition is also been equipped with JCS which is a system richardjm Weatherwax has developed and is used in a variety of systems already in the group, the advantage of using something like this is that its easier to change aspects of the system to fit the groups needs as its essentially built in house.

Also by including a API it will allow other scripters (programmers) the ability to use the code in their products for the group without needing direct read access to the core script.

These ships look fantastic and have some cool features like the ability to teleport through the sims wormholes plus an awesome explosion effect.

At the WAM (Weekly AAC Meeting) members got the chance to pick and vote on their favourite name for the ship, the only stipulation being it needed to be named after an animal. After throwing a few names out, a little deliberation, the name "Crimson Sidewinder" was considered the most popular.

Members of Red Squadron I'm sure will look forward to tearing up the skies with this little ship, so hold onto your helmet and reach for the stars.

Mini Space

With space in any sim a premium due to the price, prim usage and size area anything which can help that has to be welcome. One such project is called Mini Space and which is something that has been discussed in one form or other over the last few years. Richardjrn Weatherwax started major work on the project this week.

The idea is how do you maximize the space you have in a sim particularly when flying. The problem being that with a ship fly at a reasonable speed it wont take too long to get from one side of a sim to another and the fact most flying is done in open area's you'd get a distinctive feeling your flying around in a box.

Mini Space looks at reducing the device your flying  in and also encouraging placing obstacles, sets  and objects so your not just flying into open space.

Sundays AAC event was the first mass user test of the early system. To get into mini space required you to fly a specially modified ship and enter the wormhole outside phoenix station where you where given a selection of locations you can be teleported to.

Its when you select mini space the magic happens as your sent to a specially made area and your ship is automatically modified in flight to take advantage of the area giving you a 50% increase in perceived land mass.

We took the opportunity to fly through specially made tunnels into open areas to see if users felt they were flying in a bigger expanse. The general consensus was there was an increase feel of space and we look forward to adding some challenging and innovative space scenes for people to fly round and interact with.

Mini Space is still in early development, but from the tests so far could be something special.

Battles, Satellites, Missles & Coloured Trails

You know when you have those days when things just happen one after the other. This Wednesday was a bit like that. first the CWC Wolverine ship a regular visitor to GFC sovereigns airspace requested permission to approach the space station.

There were a few mumbles from pilots hanging around the station, maybe they had a bit to much synth ale. Permission was granted but it wasn't long before we felt the station shake from a shelling.

On looking outside a modified mig like fighter with space flight capabilities were firing on the the CWC ship, bombarding it with missiles. Not to be a total sitting target and to their surprise the Wolverine put up its shield and prepared for battle.

Ops officers on the station were monitoring communication and were able to get a copy of the intercepts which you can read HERE.

After the conflict and though damaged with repairs under the way, the captain of the CWC offer those who wantedt to watch nasa launch its Tracking and Data Relay Satellite-K, TDRS-K on the big screen he had in one of the compartments in his ship. Its always fun to sit back and watch a bit of real life trek like sci-fi being a reality.

View video link HERE

A few minutes after the launch it was time to goto the regular wednesday AAC event. Damian flew his large ship down towards the USS Paris and we taxied our way across the flight deck in one of his shuttles.

The AAC event this week was in two parts, first flying in a fighter but only being allowed to use missiles so you had to wait for your plane to get a lock on a target before firing as you watched your missile try to follow the movement of the ship your aimed at hoping the pilot wasn't able to shake them off. It was a fun event and a nice way to do combat.

The next event was more relaxing and it was flying an acrobat plane around the airbase. The jets had the capability of creating different coloured smoke trails so it was suggested we choose the colour associated with our AAC squadron and lit up the sky in a myriad of colors.

AAC & Tactical Event: Land To Air Battle Returns

About a year ago trials were done to test out a specially made combat system for the gfc called JCS. The idea being it could be placed in a variety of differing devices and still work with each other.

With recent updates made to the system it was the perfect opportunity for two GFC divisions the AAC and Tactical to join forces for an event. Two teams where selected in a land to air battle, ground troops were deployed to spread themselves around the ground area of sovereign Sim. Land turrets were added to help with shooting down air attacks.

 The air team flew Gryphon's, their task was to pick out ground troops. On paper you would have banked probably on the planes being victorious, but with the ground troops ability to take more cover and the advantage of a slightly easier aiming system. though they did have to reload their rifles after a number of shots was a a definite disadvantage.

The editions of the turrets proved more of a distraction as it drew the pilots into attacking them leaving their planes exposed and easy pickings for the ground troops. Suffice to say even when the teams swapped roles, those playing land troops prevailed both times.

We all had a great time and look forward to more joint divisional ventures in 2013

New Bj Ship Join The Fleet

Two new ships from the Bj fleet got a public airing this week. Firstly was the black sleek Bj interceptor which appeared in a variety of events in the last 7 days. Its initial showing was on wednesday's AAC event when it stood up well against a handful of GFC planes and again on the friday's AAC event defending the DS19 station from attack giving it its first proper exposure to the group.

The other ship is the bajoran raider a transport ship which holds 4 people and has a canopy which opens and closes. These ships were originally made a year ago, but didn't really find a home, but with the new emphasis on races with ships and accessories associated with them being created plus new updated scripts, the planes are a welcome addition to the fleet and come just in time for when the Cardassian fleet of ships start making an appearance.

If you want to fly one of these ships come to the hanger bay in DS19 and click the ship rezzer button to fly a guest version. These ships and more will be rolling out across various locations in the sims over the next few days and weeks, so keep your eye open and reach for the skies.

AAC: Crate Stacking Returns

One of the features of the GFC's custom Gryphon plane is it's ability to stack boxes. By using specially scripted boxes you can fly over one, type "lift" in the chat window and it will be attached to your ship. To drop simply type "drop".

Sigma squadron now host a weekly event on Fridays at 11am SLT, last week it was using the gliding feature of the gryphon to turn off the engine and try to direct your decent on inertia alone, which was a fun and challenging event.

This week it was the turn of crate stacking.The attending pilots all gave it a try, the host of the event Sigma Squad Leader Richardjrn Weatherwax laid down tons of crates and we flew over picking them up one at and time to see how many we could stack.

On average people were stacking around 4 crates before gravity took a hold and it all came crashing down to the ground. Snapper Desade that super pilot of the skies (in his permanent deluded state) managed the incredible feat of placing 17 crate boxes on top of each other before they were sent sprawling to the floor.

I'm sure stacking will be brought back as a fun activity for pilots and I'm sure various records will be attempted.

AAC Events Times

Sunday 9am SLT

Wednesday 6pm SLT

Friday 3.30pm SLT 

* SLT = Secondlife Time/PDT

More Pictures HERE

NewsFlash: "Admiral Shot Down Over Airbase" - DEBBYLEAKS

Pictures Courtesty of Thomas Aker

There aren't many organisations out there where you can shoot your admirals down in a flaming ball of fire without a court martial but this is the GFC and an AAC Event so nicities were suspended for an hour or so.

Thomas Aker snapped a few pictures of Admiral Cobramax Mechanique's plane being shot down over the airbase.We thought it was our duty in the spirit of freedom of information or what some have called DebbyLeaks to make these telling pictures known to the world.

Getting The Scores On The Boards

Just when you thought it was safe to enter Sovereign Air space Dolamite Giffen, Dustin Sunflower and Debbydo decided to take to the air and try their hand at the flight school course. The last time Dolamite took to the air the contraption he used flapped, but he geared up and after taking a few test runs got an excellent score of 38 seconds in the Delta Flyer.

Debbydo who is to piloting to what a crash test dummy is to car safety tried to see if she could at least hit red squadron requirements. Once she got use to the craft (realizing it actually is suppose to fly and not skate along the ground) she achieved the lofty heights of doing the course in the flyer in 99 seconds.

Dustin took his turn and got round in 106 seconds, so it wont be long now before he'll be donning that red squadron outfit, just 6 seconds away from glory.

As a wing leader I thought it was time to get some decent scores on the board, so got in the gryphon, powered up her burners and headed for the gates, I wasn't after doing the course in the late 30's, I wanted to shave a good few seconds of that by using the hyperspeed mode. Its as good as impossible to fly the whole course in hyperspeed so you have to toggle between that and around 100%, punching extra speed just at the right time through the gates and hitting the circular sensors bang in the middle.

It took a few tries but I got round in 29 seconds, no misses. There's probably room for improvement, but that score is not too shabby.

So the challenge for those crack pilots out there is lets see what scores you can get this week and we'll try and post then on the blog, maybe even having an online leaderboard, so watch this space, keep an eye on the sky and scores on the boards.


People are always welcome to fly with the GFC Aircorps (AAC), there are impromptu events like this one and scheduled events as listed below.

AAC scheduled events are

Wednesday 6pm SLT*

Sunday 9am SLT* 

AAC flight school course

One way of proving your piloting skills is to try out the AAC flight school course which consists of flying through a number of gates which steadily gets higher as you fly further up the course. With a bit of practice pilots should be able to do the course in a round 40 seconds, top pilots in around 36 seconds. If you would like a try or think you can challenge those times either attend one of the AAC events or ask one of the senior AAC staff if they can rezz the area for you.

AAC scheduled events are

Wednesday 6pm SLT*

Sunday 9am SLT*
Friday 3.30pm SLT*

* SLT is the equivalent of PDT time or  GMT minus  8 

Driving Round The New Racing Track

Sundays AAC event had us back at the new racing track but this time in formula 1 cars, nicer steering and gear changes were the order of the day. But, decisions decisions, do you pelt round at full wack or shift down in 3rd so not to fly headlong into the wall. In the event we raced 8 heats over two laps each and the winners were.

Heat      Drivers

 1          snapper Desade
 2          Gokyu Ugajin
 3          snapper Desade
 4          katie Zwilling
 5          Sodak Xeltentat
 6          Sodak Xeltentat
 7          snapper Desade
 8          Perfecto Convair

To get a feel of the track in action view the video below.

Get car in video for free HERE

AAC Gryphon Parachute, P40 Dogfight and Racing Track Catch Up Events

Over the last few weeks the AAC have been trying  few new events out and we thought we'd catch up on them.

Gryphon Parachute Jump

First was the "Gryphon Parachute Jump" the idea here was to fly your gryphon from the USS Paris and when you get to 500 meters you and or passenger to bail out and fall to the ground deploying your parachute and guiding yourself to the bullseye which has been erected near the RP Centre in Sovereign.

P40 DOGFIGHT

You may have noticed the ships rezzer near the hangers over at the AAC flight box area. When clicked that rezzed a variation of the P40 plane which can be used by anyone or if you had one of those P40 style planes (they come in more than one variation) you could also use that in the event which was a full on dog fight, though before we had to learn to fly properly off the runway adhering to all the rules, taxiing your craft and following the signs, waiting for commands issued from the tower before you could progress to the runway, once in the air we circled around following those in front of us and a few meters distance and mentaining the same hight. Once every one was in the air, it was time for an all out dog fight fest. Who's plane could last the longest, well the answer to that question was  Kaori Juliesse  who was in a long battle with Gokyu Ugajin who dispatched the rest of us pilots and battled it out between themselves....for ages, weaving in and out of each others target before Kaori peppers Gokyu's plane with a triade of metal which saw it crashing unceremoniously to the ground.

RACE TRACK

AAC pilots are known for their need for speed, so when a racing track was rezzed there was much excitement and beating of chests. Though that demised quickly when they realised it wasn't so easy flying round the track on a AAC hover bike, especially when it was place in flight mode which required all the skills a person could muster just to control. There were 3 races in 2 different vehicles, the hover bike in hover and flight mode and a Nascar which was a little bit over sensitive for my liking, one tap and it went speeding off like a hare in a hurry..

Events winners

Hover Bike (hover mode) = Michel Rosenstrauch
Hover Bike (Flight Mode) = snapper Desade
Nascar = Thomas Aker

We would like to thank all those who have participated in the AAC events, they are fun so come down, all are welcome.

AAC Events

Sunday 9am SLT*

Wednesday 6pm SLT*
Friday 3.30pm SLT*

Back to the Blake Sea.

Earlier in the week the AAC had an event to fly over the blake sea area which is a humongous collection of sims which creates a massive waterway network for planes and ships to navigate through. Considering the event was held at 6pm secondl life time (PDT) its a bit early in the morning for most Europeans so the event was repeated at a more eurocentric time.

The idea was to use the same course as chosen on Wednesday starting at Honah Lee Field, but when the group of us got down there the lag was so bad it was like we were moving in the the Matrix's Bullet Time so it was decided to transfer to Hollywood airport which was just a few sims from one of the locations we had to fly through.

We rezzed our planes, helicopters or whatever physical ships we pulled out of our inventory. An  updated route was handed out and we were back on course for the event.

At Hollywood Airport and flying over the Blake Sea

I jumped in my MD 5000 helicopter and debbydo thoughts she'd hitch a lift, you'd understand if you've ever seen her pilot a plane, where her definition of landing is hitting her plane into the tarmac at high velocity without the wheels touching the ground...well, the rest of us call that crashing, she insists its called landing.

Its always challenging flying across the blake sea as you find not all sims are made equal and can be lagger than others. fortunately if we crashed out on the course Sodak had a landing runway near were we could rezz our aircrafts  without the need to go all the way back to hollywood airport.

Unlike wednesday's event, all but one person made it to Second Life International Airport and landed their crafts, even if we had to re-rezz our aircrafts afew times along the way.

Left: Sodak's Runway Right: Second Life Airport from the Sky

As with all the Blake Sea events i've attended its always fun, a bit of a challenge and is increasing in popularity, so if you haven't tried follow the route below and see if you can make it all the way to Second Life international Airport.


Start:              Hollywood  Click for location
Destination:   Second life international airport (SLIA)

Altitude                   : 100m AMSL
Speed                      :40-50 % Throttle
Distance                  : 30 approx sims
Fuel Consumption  : 50%
Duration                  : 30 min (less depending on speed)

take off, ascend to 100m

Start Here Click for location

1S to BS-China
6W BS - Lanyard
7N to Siracusa
1E    to Ziyad
6N   to Arezzo
4W  to Looming
2S   to Ishmael ... begin to descend to 20m...head west
2W  to Ahab's Haunt ... descend and if your up to it, fly through the dinosaur bones. Afterwards circle the bones once before continuing.  Ascend to 50m...head north
2N   to Red Snapper
2E   to Looming
2N   to Antilaghi (SLIA) ... land and park near the runway.

End of Patrol.

Earlier Blake Sea story CLICK HERE

New AAC and Tactical Uniforms Revealed

Uniforms are a bit like buses, you wait around, twiddle your thumbs and then 3 all come at once. The lucky divisions to receive an apparel facelife are the AAC and Tactical.

Kendra Mollsen ( Koreeah Resident) has created a Jumpsuit for the AAC and  Standard Uniform for Tactical personnel..

Katie Zwilling has been busy finalizing the armored gear for Tactical which will only be available to those members who have achieve certain tasks in Tactical. No free lunch here, you want it, you gonna have to earn that armored bad boy which also comes in 3 colours.

Contact the AAC and Tactical leads for the latest information and distribution regarding these cool new uniforms.

AAC Jumpsuit

Standard Tactical Uniform

Tactical Armored Gear

AAC's The Lost Fire Fighting Pictures

Browsing through my computers directories I noticed I had pictures of an event Gokyu wrote about a few weeks ago. The AAC Fire Fighting Event had us pilots climbing into helicopters, filling them up with water and putting out fires.  In that article there were some fantastic photos taken and I thought since I have a few more just sitting here on my PC why not share them to remind us about that fantastic event, so click the link below to view a few more pictures.

More Pictures Here

What a Crate Event

One of the features added to the latest GFC fighter plane the gryphon was the ability to pick up and carry items like a crate. So this weeks AAC event had members jumping into their ships from the USS Paris deck, attaching the crate to the bottom of the plane and flying it up to DS19's cargo bay area, placing it down and returning back to the Paris to collect another one.

Since most of us hadn't done this with the new ship a comedy of errors ensued, for me certainly, my first foray  into tethering went something like this:

Me  "how do you pick up the crate". 

Ship Engineer "read the manual"

Me "how do you get the manual"

Ship Engineer "Strike me down with a lazer bolt, type "manual" "

Me "ah...Manual"

After reading that section in the manual it was now time to attach the crate an mosey up to DS19 with the crate of probably nuclear waste swinging behind me. It wasn't long before DS19 looked like the back of a stolen goods warehouse. But it was a fun event and expect to see more events transporting items around the sims, maybe as an out and out race, definitely looking forward to that. We mentioned in the last article about what SL groups had to offer with Star Trek online going free, I think in some respect todays event answered that, creativity, innovation, user content, fun.....What more could you ask for on a Sunday.

More Pictures HERE

AAC Fire Fighting Event

Greetings all

G-Man here

Well on Sunday 1/15/12 we held an event that was new to AAC. We've done alot from dog-fighting to parachuting. From rescuing hostages, to capturing starships. But today we fought fires! Not in the contemporary 24th century way. But taking our cue from our ancestors from the 21st century, we flew in antique machines called Helicopters. Our brave ancestors actually flew these machines over a body of water, dropped a hose into it, thus filling a water tank. Then they flew to the fire and dropped the water on it, hopefully putting it out.
So today, in the interests of training in all types of aircraft, and just because it is really fun! *smiles* We gave our pilots these helicopter machines, gave a few instructions on how to use it, and sent them off to fight some fires.
Truthfully I was a bit worried with this event. Learning to fly a new machine is hard enough, but having to also put fires out in a timely manner, I thought might be too much for some of our pilots. But in true AAC spirit, our pilots rose to the occasion, and it turned out to be a fantastic fun event. Just watching all the birds in the air was enjoyable, but then watching the pilots jostle for position as they tried to fill their water tanks, and then make a run on the fires was priceless. I definitely want to thank all of the pilots who showed up today to make this a wonderful event. Below are some pictures of the event. Enjoy!

as always

Lt. Gokyu Ugajin
Red Squadron Leader

How many choppers in a Gaggle?

1 filling, 1 making a run on a fire

Showing off, doing it backwards!

One Pilot wanted to be a submarine

ooopsy, but pilot got out safely

Working Hard!

Trying hard to drain Sov Lake

Bullseye!

 

We did get Wet!

Anyone need a used Helicopter...Cheap!

The Awesome Pilots of today's Event!