:star: Don Hamilton - SOAR Director

:star: Karen Hamilton - Don's right hand

Mainly does all the site additions, maintenance, etc. Helps Don where needed.

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Updated 9th August 2019 - by Scott (sf4JC)

Hey all you FSX pilot's, Microsoft has some good news coming if I read
it right.  Sounds like Microsoft has regained control of FSX, and it may
continue for a while into the future.  More info on that shall be coming
soon from Microsoft.  Hey, again, I just want to reiterate to everyone,
I believe good things are coming ahead of us no matter if you are
flying FSX OR wanting to be a part of the new Flight Simulator title.
Please GOTO  https://www.flightsimulator.com  to keep up to date on
all the interactions between Microsoft AND the flight sim community.

That said, I want to encourage the real glider pilots in the community,
as well as you non-real life glider pilots to join the beta program if
you can to give feedback where at all possible.  I believe Microsoft
really wants this to be a huge success this time around.

More news to come, THANKS for dropping in!!

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ __ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

There you have it, head on over to the Microsoft Flight Simulator site for up to date news and findings.  Let's help Microsoft make this communication between them and the community successful!

Scott

And, if you haven't had a chance to pick up one of Aerosoft's gliders, I would suggest to do so, you won't be sorry you did. All I can say is ... it's a very rewarding experience.

Also, we want to again say Thank You!!, Aerosoft, for letting our forum be hosted here over the years.

Well, that's all for now, Happy SOARing to All of You!

Scott

Where is program Winch please

Hello folks, the discount version is now available from the following links, English Shop, American Shop.

As promised we are doing a discounted version for active members of SOAR. If you can show us a post in these SOAR forums dated before Sept 4th, we will give you 25% discount on your order. Ordering is not too complex.

1. First find a post you done before Sept 4 on these forums.
2. Now when you see that post on your screen you will also see small #1 (the number itself can differ) in the top right hand (see the image). Click that.
3. You will no see what is called a permalink, copy this for your order.
4. Now you can just go here and start the order. DO NOT USE any other link, only this one gives you the lower price
5. On the order page there is a COMMENTS field, copy the permalink you copied in there

Your order will now be on hold until we check the link, when all is okay we'll clear the order for you. Most of the time this happens in a few hours.

There will also be a special competition using the glider and Aerosoft will help with the publicity/advertising the event and will furnish prizes!! This is one competition that you will definitely want to participate it! Keep watching the SOAR board for more details!!

The files have been uploaded to Avsim. Please check there!

here is the download link - be sure you are logged in before going to it or you will get an error!

Uploads/Downloads

There are 6 catagories so please take care to put your upload in correct catagory. Remember not over 50mgs each file!

1. Sailplane Related

2. Utilities

3. FSX Missions

4. FS9 Flights

5. Video Clips

6. CCS Related

Important! When uploading a file, you are also giving SOAR permission to post your file on the main SOAR site (Download section) if we choose to do so, so please put a readme with each file including a blurb about the file, creator's name, etc.

If you do not want your file posted to the main SOAR site, please contact Don by email with your reasons before posting the file. Don's email

ENJOY!!

Scott, Please feel free to upload the CCS files whenever you can. Thanks so much for doing this for us - know it takes alot of time!! We appreciate all your help! :goodjob_s:

Peter, Please consider uploading your wench here!

1. SOAR site

2. SOAR Message board

They are located in different places. Due to problems with our message board, Aerosoft offered to help us by hosting our board, but the main SOAR site still remains where it was!

A big thank you to Aerosoft!!! We are very happy with the move and wish to extend our thanks for including us on the Aerosoft Forums!!

The main SOAR site is still active and located at http://www.virtualsoaring.org

As always it contains downloads, activities, etc. We are a repository for soaring related downloads that cannot usually be found elsewhere. Please visit us!!

As you know our Discus glider is close to delivery and we'll make a special deal for all registered (and active) users of the forum. This should be available in the next few weeks. If there is anything else we can do for you people, let me know at support@aerosoft.com.

This leaves us a couple of options:

1. Aerosoft has graciously offered to host our board and it would remain the same as now except it would be on their site along with their forum. There would be a clear notice that our board is not connected to Aerosoft as they are a commercial entity, rather that they are doing this as a favor to the soaring community! They would do this at no charge and their techs would do all the transfering/maintence. This would sure eliminate us going down and our existing problems!! It would also benefit SOAR by giving us more exposure/traffic!

2. We could install another free board and continue on. This would keep the board on our site and we would still control it. The problem so far has been finding one in which we could keep all our old posts and keep our membership intact. I do not even know if this is possible to find. If not, it would mean starting our board from scratch and losing all our old messages. This is not a situation that we want!

We welcome your comments on our options!

This move, we feel, is in the best interest of SOAR and will definitely give us more exposure and hopefully boost soaring to the general public. Don & I will still have control of the SOAR portion and will be able to add catagories as needed and will also do the moderation of the posting.

Scott brought up about losing the history and wealth of information contained in the old board. Mathijs has told us that there very possibly will be a problem with transfering the messages over, but that transfering the membership will not be a problem. I think we have a solution to losing our old posts. I am going to ask a certain SOAR member to install a free board on the SOAR site and transfer all of our posts as of 2 Mar 2009 to this "archive". We may lose a few days of posts, but at least we could save all our history. On this board, login would not be required and everyone would be able to read, but not post or upload anything. I realize this is not the perfect situation, but Don and I both feel this is the best option!

We need the help of IAN or any SOAR member that has knowleged about the board and hackers. I think I have figured out what is going on, but do not know how to fix it!

I filled out a test registration, filled out the form and input the alpha-numeric code from the security image. All went well and I received a message that I would receive a verification email which I needed to click on to verify my email. I NEVER received the email, so I decided to try to log in anyway and was SUCCESSFUL!! I think someone has hacked in to this portion and the email verification is being by passed!! Can anyone help solve this??? Also, I have a question as to whether even if the security image is being by passed as the look of these registrations is similar to when bots register!

We would appreciate any help anyone can offer!

Thanks! Don & Karen

If you registered legitimately and your membership has been deleted, please drop us an emal and we will restore your membership.

Unfortunately there has been a bunch of registrations each day with weird names and all originating from either a Russian domain or g-mail. Our normal traffic for new registrations is one or two every few days/week. We are trying to determine if this is an attack on our board or something completely innocent and just a coincidence.

Ian, could you offer your opinion and check out the board settings to see if they can be improved for more security? Thanks!

In the past we, had hoped to have a virtual soaring community including the various sim users, but apparently that did not work out well! We are sorry that it was not accepted in the "spirit of SOAR", so have decided to move on. Since it's origin SOAR had always been primarily Microsoft, so we are returning to that being the main focus of the virtual soaring aspect. For now we will leave the Condor forum intact, but if there is no posting in the near future we will assume there is no interest from SOAR Condor users and will delete it.

Because of the dissappointment with FSX and the seemingly loss of interest in SOAR we will be cutting back drastically on the main SOAR site until we can see if FSX is going to gain a group of users. We have hopes that Microsoft will make the changes necessary, so in this spirit we do NOT want to say goodbye to SOAR just yet. Thus, we will keep the forum and a portion of the main SOAR site active until we can determine if the interest will return. Hopefully it will, then we can make further decisions on how to give the main SOAR site a facelift and make it an active, interesting place to visit and be a part of!

Don & Karen

:funkychick: :boingy: :funkychick:

I simply dont have the time anymore to devote to the position that it deserves, i will be around here from time to time, I wish everyone involved in SOAR all the best and hope to catch a few of you online in the Condor Sky's

Best wishes

tom

SOAR seems to be entering a period of severe slumber. I have decided to make some changes. Sense Karen and I are paying for this site we are going to have some fun with it. We have shut down the X-Plane and SotS forum due to the complete lack of activity on these forums. We will keep the Microsoft FS2004, FSX, and the Condor forums.

I was hoping that the pilots involved with Condor would take hold of the reins of that facet of virtual soaring and plan some online races and activities. I can't really handle this project as I don't have the internet connection necessary to persue online soaring in Condor. This has not happened for some reason, and sense it is mid March I think it is probably too late in the season to put anything together until next Fall.

Soaring in MS seems to be in slumber. Soaring in FS2004 seems to be the best option for MSFS users at the moment even though it is a past generation sim. I think FSX has some obsticles to overcome before it becomes a popular soaring sim. A significient portion of the flight sim community has to upgrade to high end computers in order to take full advantage of FSX performance capabilities. Also, FSX users need to upgrade to Vista to achieve optimum performance which will be costly and not without its own share of fustrations. Almost all of old SOAR members have abandoned ship for one reason or another. Many members have left because of Microsoft's seemingly insenitivity to the virtual soaring pilot's needs and wishes over the years and the fact that everone has to reinvent the wheel everytime a new version comes out.

It will take time for new members with the necessary resources to come into the fold and rejuivinate SOAR. I have noticed third party addons for FSX (especially scenery) has been very lethargic in coming forth. FSX has been out almost six months and not much is available for it yet.

I will not tolerate any more bashing of flight sims here. If you feel you must do this please go elsewhere.

You will notice we have added a new forum on this board: Radio Control Soaring. Yes, I know it is real and not virtual. That is okay. I like the idea. It is something you can touch and feel, do in reality, get fresh air and exercise, and maybe make some friends. A lot of new members have expressed an interest in the this form of aeromodeling. It also happens to be my hobby. :smiles:

Lets get off our butts and have some fun.

Cheers, :big_boss:

Don

Chris had frozen the memberships before he resigned due to working on automating the membership process. The new admins have chosen to continue this until we could redo the forum and update the site with some pages related to Condor, X-Plane, etc.

Although we now have a great looking expanded forum, we still have work to do on the web pages and due to the holidays and having to be out of town a lot, it is necessary to extend the freeze until the beginning of the new year. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause!

NOTE: The freeze only applies to actual SOAR memberships! SOAR Forum memberships are OPEN!!!

:star: :star: :star: These are the positions we have in mind:

:star: Technical Director

Deals with all the technical/programming issues. Moderates several forums and also steps in wherever he/she sees a need. This person needs to be a team player that enjoys sharing ideas with other team members and has a good positive outlook. He/She should be a user of Microsoft Flight Sim (preferably FSX) but is without prejudice against other flight sim platforms.

:star: Public Relations Director

We need someone that is interested in promoting and telling others about SOAR, writing some articles for magazines, etc. Just basically letting others know we exist.

:star: Liason (for each flight sim)

This person would moderate the appropriate forum and spread the word about our forum to other soaring pilots in the other sims. (have noticed for example that the soaring posts just get lost at the x-plane forum, but there are definitely folks interested in soaring, perhaps they would want to join SOAR) Also, this person would keep us updated on news, downloads, events, etc. related to his specific sim so we could update our web pages.

:star: Event Director (for each flight sim)

This person would organize and manage events.

It is with both great sadness and a smattering of pride that I must formally announce my resignation as the Director of SOAR.

It's been about 5 years or so since I accepted the directorship from SOAR's founder, Len Wagner and his partner, Colin Grahm. We've seen truly remarkable changes- not just evolutions, but veritable revolutions in virtual soaring, and we've gained about 1200 new members during that time, many of whom have contributed directly to this amazing growth in the technology and the sport of virtual soaring. I am indeed proud of the growth and accomplishments that we've achieved together, and it has been a pleasure to get to know so many of you. No, I'm not "leaving"...I'll be around to help when I can, and maybe even fly a race once in a while :-)

Don and Karen Hamilton have agreed to take the reigns. As many of you know, they have been handling so much of the SOAR functions already, that it's almost difficult to outline what their additional duties will be (LOL)! All kidding aside, it really has been their hard work and selfless dedication that has made much of what we all enjoy possible. My sincerest thanks go to them. You two are THE BEST!!

Let me close by saying that it has been an honor and a privilege to have served as SOAR's Director. Thank you, all!

Sincerely,

Chris

A new virtual soaring season is upon us.

This season we will finish that wonderful Southern Alps Race created by Andrew Torrance, Fly the Max Roodveldt Cup Race, Schedule some informal online races in Condor, explore soaring in X-Plane and once again attempt to get soaring to work in the upcoming new release of FSX (we go through this trauma every two or three years). SOAR needs some new soaring experiences and some new blood to stimulate activity so we are going after it.

The Southern Alps Race is offocially reopened and the closing date is Sun. Oct. 8, 2400 hr. GMT

The Max Roodveldt Cup is scheduled to run from Nov. 2006 thru Feb 2007. There will be three races to the event and each race will last one month with no extensions (we ran the Southern Alps Race over too long a period). I am scheduling this event as late as possible in the season to give Peter Franke every opportunity to release the ASW-22. This sailplane would give virtual soaring in MSFS and SOAR a much needed boost. Promotional and race Information will be uploaded to the SOAR site sometime in early October.

Stay tuned for more information on upcoming events.

Cheers, :AA: :smiles: :cheers2:

Don

As per a request The forum' have been slightly (ok major) restructured.

Several new forums have been added and some have been moved.

each sim now has its own sub forums. Hopefully this will make things a bit easier in future. Anyone have and suggestions about it drop a line here..

Tom

Thanks,

Don

please do it when u have the time and i can add you back to the staff group

tom