Re: [Flightgear-devel] Linux convention

[Jim W. <ji...@ke...>]

Sounds very cool.  I had been working on my boss to send me out there 
to attend the show, but gave up when I realized that going there wasn't 
going to take me off the hook for the mountain of work I need to get done
by the end of September.  Good chance I can make it to the NY show though,
the airfare is cheaper and my work is usually slowed quite a bit by 
January.  Anyway, thanks for the run down.

Best,

Jim

"Curtis L. Olson" <cu...@fl...> said:

> BERNDT, JON S. (JON) (JSC-EX) (LM) writes:
> > Are you back, then, from SF? How did it go?
> 
> It went very well.  I got there right after everything was set up, and
> managed to leave before the show was over, managing to avoid any of
> the setup or take down work. :-)
> 
> Because of that I must first stand on the roof tops and shout a *HUGE*
> "THANK YOU!!!" to Alex, Trisha, and Jim for doing pretty much all the
> work of setting up the booth.  Also a big thanks to Sandra and Robert
> for paying my airfare out there and putting me up for both nights and
> a big thanks to Mark (hope I got the name right) for making a
> FlightGear video which we had playing 24/7.
> 
> We had two machines set up running FlightGear.  Jim brought his
> "heavy" yoke, rudder pedals, and throttle for one machine and we had a
> USB joystick for the other.  We had a third machine running the Atlas
> moving map which was synced to the second fgfs machine.  We also had a
> TV/VCR playing a video of various flightgear flying scenes.  And
> finally we had the walls covered in posters, pictures, and other
> information.
> 
> We literally had a steady stream of traffic from morning to evening
> with *very* few times when there wasn't at least one or two people
> there looking and flying.  Quite often we were approaching mob levels,
> and I found myself either getting stuck way in the back of the booth,
> or outside the booth unable to get back in.  The time flies by
> literally and it is quite fun to spend the entire day talking about
> FlightGear. :-)
> 
> I met lots of interesting people, and heard lots of interesting
> comments and questions.
> 
> Judging from questions and comments, many people would like to see a
> larger variety of well modeled aircraft.  I'd guess that the first
> question for more than 50% of the people was which aircraft we
> modeled.
> 
> People seemed very impressed:
> 
> a) That a flight simulator existed for linux
> 
> b) That we quite obviously have a serious stab at a quality flight
> simulator well in progress.
> 
> c) That it was free (this was probably the 2nd most often asked
> question ... how much does this cost/how do you make money on this.)
> We eventuall posted a sign that said, "Yes, it is free!"
> 
> d) For those that have seen flightgear at previous shows, many were
> impressed with the progress we have made in the last year.
> 
> e) Many who have experience with other PC simulators were impressed
> with the smoothness of our instrument motion.
> 
> f) Quite a few real pilots came along to try it out and it was fun to
> watch the ones that knew the area navigate around and find their way
> from place to place.
> 
> The compaq booth had a hang glider "hanging" from the ceiling.
> Another booth was giving away cheap balsa gliders with their logo on
> the wing.  Next year I think we need to have an X-15 hanging from the
> ceiling, and we need to be the one's giving away balsa gliders.  I
> think I also want one of those fancy 2 story booths.  I want to be
> able to fire up the X-15 engine a couple times a day as well.  Our
> booth definitely didn't make as much noise as some of the others so we
> didn't attract all the attention we otherwise could have.
> 
> Getting equipment in and out of the show was a significant problem.
> Given the schedule I could negotiate with my wife this time around, I
> was not helpful at all in this respect.  Next time, we *need* to have
> more hands to help with this, or probably live with less toys in the
> booth (which would be a shame.)
> 
> I survived two bouts with SFO public transportation, and if you plan
> ahead for airfare and hotel, you can do it pretty cheaply.  There's
> never a time to eat, so you don't have to worry about spending money
> on food.  Also, each project gets a few session passes so there are
> opportunities to do a couple of those for people that are interested.
> 
> I'm starting the negotiations with my wife to see if I can go to the
> NY show this winter ... we'll see how that goes. :-) I'm taking
> donations for the "Buy Curt's wife a really big diamond so she let's
> him go to NY for a week fund."
> 
> Curt.
> -- 
> Curtis Olson   Human Factors Research Lab       FlightGear Project
> Twin Cities    cu...@hf...                cu...@fl...
> Minnesota      http://www.menet.umn.edu/~curt   http://www.flightgear.org
> 
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