Oh, what a Wonderful Day!!

[CLS447]

January 3, 2004 in Pennsylvania, who would have thought. Beautiful day. Shar and I took the Harley for a ride to Larry B.'s to get pictures of his keel modification, then Larry took us to the airport, where I got my first flight in HIS Raf. Felt like a spring day. Here are some pics.

[CLS447]

Another pic of his FULL HOUSE

[CLS447]

This cabin fits a bit better than that new gyro with the cord end.

[Echo]

A picture says a thousand words! Sure looks like you had a good day - what flying is all about.
Cheers Echo ;D

[ToddP]

Its nice to hear someone has nice weather right now. I was just out and the temperature was between 0 and -10 depending on where I was. I just checked our weather on Yahoo and they are reporting -10. Its supposed to get better this week...but not gyro weather. :'(

[CLS447]

Well yesterday and today, we got rain but it sure beats snow. I think the weather is going to start going downhill. It's supposed to get a lot colder soon so don't feel bad. THINK SPRING!!!

[donshoebridge]

In the Ft. Wayne/Huntington area, it started out as rain, changed to sleet, then freezing rain, then snow, then back to freezing rain. Coming to work this morning was a bit tricky. Even though the roads had been plowed/salted, the last dose of freezing rain covered everything over. You couldn't tell what part of the road was clear, and what was ice. Nasty!

Don

[GyroRon]

Mid 70's yesterday and today here in the Charlotte N.C. area. If it could be like this every day year round - 70's low humidity - It would be heaven!

Tomorrow winter is due back here with a high of mid 40's. :'(

[CLS447]

Happiness is a warm gun!

[Udi]

70 degrees??? Rain? Man... Today was the coldest day of the year here in Colorado. It was sub zero F, or -20 C. Even my gyro was freezing inside my garage...

Udi-

[donshoebridge]

What are we going to do with you, Chris?!?! ;) I always thought the bumper sticker read "have you hugged your machine gun lately?", or "happiness is a belt fed weapon". Your choice.

Don

[ToddP]

Things finally warmed up a little here in the great northwest. We reached 40 degrees today, so it was time to fly. I haven't been up in probably a month and a half and really needed to get in the air. I spent an hour or so cleaning and fiddling around then got in the air for about half an hour. Couldn't take much more cold than that. It was great to get out flying. It just kind of reinvigorates the flying bug and makes me want to spend time at the airport. Hopefully spring is around the corner and the days will only get better.

[GyroRon]

I flew the pattern too today in my new gyro. NO POD SUCKS! It was barely above freezing today. IT was COLD!!!!!!! But worth it!

Got my check ride scheduled for sometime around the 20th. Hope to be a " Real " pilot soon!

[Echo]

We had a nice day here in Parkes last Thurs.( 1/01/04) 50 deg,then four days of 48 - that's celsius ! Whats that in F.? , about 122 deg ? A bit of that snow would be nice.
Cheers Eric 8)

[barnstorm2]

Decided to try out the new hanger and Airport this weekend. Flew Friday and Today.

Friday was great. No traffic at all. I did not see another aircraft from the time I arrived to the time I left. The snow was fresh and the temp 22F

Today was good. Traffic was back to busy and wind gusts were from 10 to 20mph. Temp was up to 35F.

Cold air really helps the performance of the 447.

I will try and post some picts.

[barnstorm2]

Hey, can we up the photo size to say...280 or 300k?

[barnstorm2]

Seems alittle blue. I don't think the camera likes the wind-chill...

[twistair]

Geeee, somebody else flies open chair in winter! What a sparkling feeling...
I've attached an old photo (late 60's) of a pilot in Riga who tested the device designed by aeronautical students. It's snow and the gyro is towed on floats (note the life vest)...

[ToddP]

There are 3 reasons the file size is limited to 150K.

1. On this page there are 3 pictures that are about 135k each. This page will take someone with a dial up connection about 2-3 minutes to load. Just imagine if they were 300k.

2. A larger file size will also allow people to post even larger pictures...that require more scrolling to the right. Pictures posted should be resized and no larger than 700 pixels wide.

3. Bandwidth is not a problem at this time, but if we start having page after page at 500k because of huge pictures, then it becomes a problem.

Would anyone like to give a little tutorial on resizing photos and using .jpg compression to get the size down?

Attached is the picture from above. It has been resized to 700 pixels wide, and used 40% .jpg compression to get the file size from 135k down to 61k

[barnstorm2]

Todd,

No tutor needed. I have been working with graphics since the Apple ][+ was cutting edge and I ran a Hermies BBS with blazingly fast 300bps acoustic modems from the same. I used to be able to go get a cup of coffee while the text came down.

The reason I requested to have the limit raised is because this is now a very standard size used by many 1 megapixel cameras. I for one have always been willing to wait a spell for a larger better quality Picture and as an accomplished slacker I tend to be quite lazy.

The first picture is under full JPeg compression and the others should be 30% through 60%.

I would be happy to post instructions on how to raise the resolution of monitors should anyone’s video card support it and they want to try.


Sorry for any inconvience

[ToddP]

Wow,

You go back even further than I do. My first modem was a blazing fast 2400. I remember being amazed by the number of local dial-up BBS boards. Things have changed alot.

Unfortunately I don't think any of the built in windows tools work very well for re-sizing or compression. Its tough to explain when everyone is using different software. If you want to put together a tutorial, that would be great.

Thanks,

Todd

[GyroRon]

I am clueless on how to make a picture smaller. My digital camera is a cheap add on to my vhs-c camcorder and the pictures I take with it are always under 100 kb no problem.

The scanner I use to get my old pictures scans them as a size too large but somehow I figured out a way to scan them and have them come out under the 150 kb limit.

But I also find a lot of pictures on other places on the internet and I have figured out how to download them into my pictures on my computer, but most of these pictures are way over the 150 kb size and I am clueless on how to shrink them down.

So any hints would be great. Make it easy for a non computer type like me understand would be even better.

[barnstorm2]

Quickie graphics primer:

Terms:

Resolution - number of pixels in the image. This dictates how clear the image appears and the amount of the screen it takes up when you view it in the forum. Resolution is expressed in number of horizontal and vertical pixels. Example 640x480, 800x600, and1024x768 are popular screen (monitor) resolutions. If your monitor has a resolution of 640x480 and your picture has a resolution of 640x480 the picture will take up your whole screen. If your monitor has a resolution of 640x480 and your picture has a resolution of 800x600 your picture will be larger than the display size and you will have to scroll around to see the whole picture.

File size ( kb or meg ) – this dictates amount of space the picture takes up on your hard disk and the amount of time it takes to download from the internet. You can compress an image with a high resolution down to a small file size but this comes at the cost of some image quality. Resolution has no effect on download size only file size does. Example: A 100kb image at 640x480 takes exactly the same amount of time as a 1024x768 so long as it has a 100kb file size.

To change the display resolution of your monitor – Right click on your desktop and choose PROPERTIES from the pop-up menu. Click on the SETTINGS tab and move the slider to the right to select a higher resolution. How far you can slide depend on the kind of video card you have and perhaps your monitor.

To change the resolution or file size of your picture – You will need a image editing program. If your operating system is Windows XP then you should be fine just use Microsoft Photo Editor which is included with XP. If you don’t have Microsoft Photo Editor then you will need to buy or download a shareware one. Each will have it’s own instructions. I recommend www.tucows.com for all windows, mac and unix users.

Using Microsoft Photo Editor – To change file size load your image then choose SAVE AS. On the save as window click the MORE button then move the JPEG compression slider to the LEFT to reduce file size. – To change resolution, load your image then from the IMAGE menu choose resize.

Good luck. If you still have problems email me the image. So long as my mail box has room for it I will shrink it and mail it back to you.

[donshoebridge]

Here you go guys! It's cheep (FREE!), easy and small. This does just about everything you'll ever need. Check it out.

http://www.irfanview.com/