Sorry I couldn't make it in the end on Sat night Jimmy, the plan was for my kids to be picked up but I had to take them in the end and got waylaid.
BTW I am thinking about getting ready for next years RTW (Round The World) race between Avsim, Flightsim.com and Sim Outhouse that is held starting the 1st Sunday after Valentines day (Mon Morn for us) and took 5 days last year but will most likely be a bit quicker this year.
Each pilot flies a leg of no more than 2 hours at a time.
You must fly a prop plane,the ATR is a favourite, I also like the freeware P38 by David Copley.
I fly for Flightsim.com. Avsim beat us last year in a tight race and took the Tornado Trophy back off us, we are determined to get it back this year which is why we're starting to get together soon for practise.
You don't have to fly, you can just spectate or scout airfields or give weather reports and help with planning, most do all of that and fly.
Luckly there was me and 2 Aussies to step up as it is good if your team is on different time zones for when the real world calls.
I won't miss it for anything, it is a great event and very well organized and exciting as anything, last year we started with everyone doing the Berlin airlift in the dark and horrible wind and rain, (you must use real weather and time) and complete that before one of your team grabs the baton and starts the first leg around the world. Crashing is not the end of the world but costs your team time so any pilots from NZFF need to rate themselves to be of assistance if they want to fly for us. Avsim have a huge team and alot of their pilots didn't even get a flight while we were a good size tight outfit but probably more tired than them because most of our side stayed with it and didn't sleep much.
The talent is top notch and I learnt so much and met some great people on teamspeak so will return this year a bit wiser and familiar with it all and I can't wait!
So far it looks like it will be a FS2004 event and don't let only having dial up scare you off,there are ways around the problems, you don't have to fly online you have a small piece of software called the Duenna to validate your flight and you use that for all flights whether on or offline flying.
So I'd best start practising night flying in storms and all sorts of other scenarios that I'd rather not be up in!
Codge