Aviatrix :: Zoe Connolly

Skyboarding back...

2009-11-21T14:37:00.001-08:00

I'm happy to report I'm not leaving SL or SL Social Media.

Mind you... I'm not going crazy with it either.

But I feel great after meeting some like-minded aviation friends at the aerodrome today, and by-golly it just might all work out for the best!

I'll see you around the Grid and the SL Social Media Bubble.

So long... farewell... to you my friend...

2009-10-18T18:28:00.000-07:00

IL-2 Sturmovik 1946 [P-38 Defense]

2009-09-18T19:53:00.000-07:00

Video Captured within the Combat Flight Simulator Game IL-2 Sturmovik 1946, with music from the 2nd Season of Battlestar Galactica "Prelude to War" by composer Bear McCreary.

1968 (excerpts from episode 4 of "From The Earth To The Moon")

2009-09-18T18:12:00.000-07:00

Gusty Winds

2009-09-05T12:00:00.000-07:00

For now, this pilot is grounded....

In the past few weeks I've encountered unusually strong and distracting sim-cross effects that make flying and navigation impossible. The effect lasts anywhere from 5 to 20 seconds.

I wondered if other SL Pilots have had this experience as well. Please let me know in the comments

RCAF Command Promotion - Vickster Kuhn

2009-08-29T11:23:00.000-07:00

I'm pleased and honored to annouce the promotion of ace pilot Vickster Kuhn to the rank of Air Vice Marshal (AVM) of the Royal Caledon Air Force. AVM Kuhn has demonstrated not only great piloting skills, but command skills in several aviation/combat related SL Groups. Our new AVM will be responsible for RCAF events - including dogfights - following our summer hiatus. Please join me in congratulating her on her new promotion.

~ Zoe Connolly, RCAF Air Marshal

Do ALTS have more fun?

2009-08-25T13:45:00.000-07:00

Consider this, thinking aloud...

I'm a moody-sort sometimes. It runs deep in my family.

Second Life is a fun and enjoyable pastime... sharing fun, exciting, and at times sexy activities with good friends. But what do you do when your alt has more fun than your main account?

The avatar Zoe Connolly has become an administrator for groups, offgrid social media accounts, and a manager of land and Linden Dollars. Zoe has become The Banker. Ugh!

This was not supposed to happen. This is what alts are for, yes? Zoe should be the exciting girl, the adventurous girl. The hawt Girl with Guns who does amazing things. She flies across sims to defeat evil, and is soon back home to kiss her favorite avatar of the month.

I created an alt to do the heavy lifting. Immediately, I ran into the irresistible urge to make her...well...fabulous! In a short time, I logged into my alt more often. I savored the anonymity that an alt allows, but then a funny thing happens... Your alt becomes popular too, with her own experiences, friends, and loves. You find logging into your main account an absolute chore, and you LOVE being your alt. You want to be your alt like the early days when you wanted to be your first avatar morning, noon, and night. Savoring those same feelings you had when you were happy in your main account. It's almost like falling in love. In a way, you ARE in love.

Yes, it's true. In this strange world of Virtual Identity, I've found myself in love with my avatar creations.

But what of Zoe? I still love her. She's a part of me. She IS me! I want to be happy being Zoe, again.

RL lives evolve in ways never expected. SL lives are more planned but on occasion go in unexpected directions. Zoe will continue her journey in the metaverse and prosper. She will love and be loved. But the direction she takes will change soon. It's a normal part of life in both Universes.

I'll soon decide what to do with my land in Caledon Penzance (Connolly Aerodrome) and my Royal Caledon Air Force group, with more changes to follow.

********************************************************************

What about you? How do you feel about your main avatar vs your alt(s)?

Do alts have more fun?

Mr Miles Chomondley-Warner

2009-08-11T11:20:00.000-07:00

A few skits from Harry Enfield's Television Programme, Mr Chomondley-Warner was a snobbish, upper-crust early 20th century television presenter, (played by Jon Glover) who, with his manservant Greyson (Enfield), would expound on various issues of the day and attempt to uphold the British Empire's values.

1884: Yesterday’s Future

2009-08-09T11:50:00.000-07:00

from the YouTube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/adamhowe2409:

A film by Peculiar Pictures
Description taken from their website:
A story of outstanding heroism in the face of deception, subterfuge and treachery. Conjuring up the belief that it was made forty years before film was even invented, 1884: Yesterday’s Future tells of a future that might have been but never was. Directed by Tim Ollive, the film is a mix of animation, puppetry and two dimensional and three dimensional computer generated imagery (CGI) set against backgrounds created using stunning artwork, model sets and period photographs from the Hulton Picture Library division of Getty Images. Combine these idiosyncratic production techniques with a script of mind boggling ingenuity and you have a hilarious comedy film the like of which you will not have seen before. So, put your tongue firmly in your cheek, stiffen your upper lip and prepare to be shaken and stirred by 1884: Yesterday’s Future.

Future Dogfights (Part 5)

2009-08-01T06:00:00.000-07:00

Future Dogfights (Part 4)

2009-07-31T06:00:00.000-07:00

Future Dogfights (Part 3)

2009-07-30T06:00:00.000-07:00

Future Dogfights (Part 2)

2009-07-29T06:00:00.000-07:00

Future Dogfights (Part 1)

2009-07-28T06:00:00.000-07:00

Tinkeratrix: Happy Rezday to Me

2009-07-20T11:26:00.000-07:00

A wonderful personal story of Apollo 11 from a fellow Caledonian ;)

Tinkeratrix: Happy Rezday to Me

"Happy Rezday to Me

Meh. One thing my typist and I both share is an appalling lack of concern over our respective birthdays. But today's date is important.

20 July, 1969 is when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon.

Roll the words around in your head a moment. Landed. On. The moon.

It's important to me because that's where I grew up. Not the moon but more or less right next door. My father was one of thousands of civilian contractors who worked at KSC, or as it's more popularly known, Cape Kennedy. Merritt Island, Florida was essentially the on ramp that lead to the moon. Many of you watched the launch on television, I watched from the roof of out house about 17 miles from Launch Complex 39A...."

Read the rest of her post here...

Tinkeratrix: Happy Rezday to Me

From The Earth To The Moon - Apollo 11 Landing

2009-07-20T08:00:00.000-07:00

In honor of the 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11 [July 16 - 24, 1969], here are two excerpts from episode 6 of the HBO mini-series "From The Earth To The Moon"

(This is excerpt part 1 of 2)

(excerpt part 2 of 2)

Walter Cronkite and the Space Program

2009-07-18T14:00:00.000-07:00

Project Gemini - NASA's bridge to Apollo

2009-07-18T09:00:00.000-07:00

APOLLO 11 Lunar Lander in Second Life

2009-07-16T05:00:00.000-07:00

While visiting the Space Frontier sim for the Apollo-Saturn V adventure on Monday July 13th, I had the pleasure of meeting builder Ryder Spearmann.

I knew his name from Trek Works building various sci-fi related items such as the very detailed Classic Enterprise Bridge from Star Trek.

Lately, Ryder is using his fantastic building skills creating RL spacecraft in SL such as this beautifully built Lunar Module. I think a Command/Service Module may be next on his agenda.

I promptly setup my own LEM and placed it on display at my aerodrome...after a quick announcement in the Royal Caledon Air Force group I soon had visitors, including Samantha Poindexter, seen here next to me in an appropriate outfit...

Meanwhile, I continue to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of this great achievement through the 24th of July...

"Two of you will be first"

2009-07-16T03:00:00.000-07:00

In honor of the 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11. [July 16 - 24, 1969]. Here is an excerpt from episode 1 of the HBO mini-series "From The Earth To The Moon"

[All-Hands meeting of astronauts with Deke Slayton, Director of Flight Crew Operations.]

"...I do know that the first man to walk on the moon walked into this room today and he's looking at me right now..."

Gemini 8 flight from episode 1 of "From The Earth To The Moon"

2009-07-16T01:00:00.000-07:00

In honor of the 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11. [July 16 - 24, 1969]. Here is an excerpt from episode 1 of the HBO mini-series "From The Earth To The Moon"

[The Gemini 8 flight with Astronauts Neil Armstrong and David Scott, March 16, 1966.]

Gemini 4 flight from episode 1 of "From The Earth To The Moon"

2009-07-15T23:00:00.000-07:00

In honor of the 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11. [July 16 - 24, 1969]. Here is an excerpt from episode 1 of the HBO mini-series "From The Earth To The Moon"

[The Gemini 4 flight with Astronauts Jim McDivitt and Ed White June 3, 1965.]

Freedom 7 flight from episode 1 of "From The Earth To The Moon"

2009-07-15T21:00:00.000-07:00

In honor of the 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11. [July 16 - 24, 1969]. Here is an excerpt from episode 1 of the HBO mini-series "From The Earth To The Moon"

[The Mercury-Redstone Freedom 7 flight with Astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr., May 5, 1961.]

John F. Kennedy's "Moon Speech" - Rice Stadium

2009-07-13T07:00:00.000-07:00

John F. Kennedy:

"President Pitzer, Mr. Vice President, Governor, Congressman Thomas, Senator Wiley, and Congressman Miller, Mr. Webb, Mr. Bell, scientists, distinguished guests, and ladies and gentlemen:

I appreciate your president having made me an honorary visiting professor, and I will assure you that my first lecture will be very brief.

I am delighted to be here, and I'm particularly delighted to be here on this occasion.

We meet at a college noted for knowledge, in a city noted for progress, in a State noted for strength, and we stand in need of all three, for we meet in an hour of change and challenge, in a decade of hope and fear, in an age of both knowledge and ignorance. The greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds.

Despite the striking fact that most of the scientists that the world has ever known are alive and working today, despite the fact that this Nation¹s own scientific manpower is doubling every 12 years in a rate of growth more than three times that of our population as a whole, despite that, the vast stretches of the unknown and the unanswered and the unfinished still far outstrip our collective comprehension.

No man can fully grasp how far and how fast we have come, but condense, if you will, the 50,000 years of man¹s recorded history in a time span of but a half-century. Stated in these terms, we know very little about the first 40 years, except at the end of them advanced man had learned to use the skins of animals to cover them. Then about 10 years ago, under this standard, man emerged from his caves to construct other kinds of shelter. Only five years ago man learned to write and use a cart with wheels. Christianity began less than two years ago. The printing press came this year, and then less than two months ago, during this whole 50-year span of human history, the steam engine provided a new source of power.

Newton explored the meaning of gravity. Last month electric lights and telephones and automobiles and airplanes became available. Only last week did we develop penicillin and television and nuclear power, and now if America's new spacecraft succeeds in reaching Venus, we will have literally reached the stars before midnight tonight.

This is a breathtaking pace, and such a pace cannot help but create new ills as it dispels old, new ignorance, new problems, new dangers. Surely the opening vistas of space promise high costs and hardships, as well as high reward.

So it is not surprising that some would have us stay where we are a little longer to rest, to wait. But this city of Houston, this State of Texas, this country of the United States was not built by those who waited and rested and wished to look behind them. This country was conquered by those who moved forward--and so will space.

William Bradford, speaking in 1630 of the founding of the Plymouth Bay Colony, said that all great and honorable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and both must be enterprised and overcome with answerable courage.

If this capsule history of our progress teaches us anything, it is that man, in his quest for knowledge and progress, is determined and cannot be deterred. The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join in it or not, and it is one of the great adventures of all time, and no nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in the race for space.

Those who came before us made certain that this country rode the first waves of the industrial revolutions, the first waves of modern invention, and the first wave of nuclear power, and this generation does not intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age of space. We mean to be a part of it--we mean to lead it. For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond, and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace. We have vowed that we shall not see space filled with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding.

Yet the vows of this Nation can only be fulfilled if we in this Nation are first, and, therefore, we intend to be first. In short, our leadership in science and in industry, our hopes for peace and security, our obligations to ourselves as well as others, all require us to make this effort, to solve these mysteries, to solve them for the good of all men, and to become the world's leading space-faring nation.

We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war. I do not say the we should or will go unprotected against the hostile misuse of space any more than we go unprotected against the hostile use of land or sea, but I do say that space can be explored and mastered without feeding the fires of war, without repeating the mistakes that man has made in extending his writ around this globe of ours.

There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation many never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

It is for these reasons that I regard the decision last year to shift our efforts in space from low to high gear as among the most important decisions that will be made during my incumbency in the office of the Presidency.

In the last 24 hours we have seen facilities now being created for the greatest and most complex exploration in man's history. We have felt the ground shake and the air shattered by the testing of a Saturn C-1 booster rocket, many times as powerful as the Atlas which launched John Glenn, generating power equivalent to 10,000 automobiles with their accelerators on the floor. We have seen the site where the F-1 rocket engines, each one as powerful as all eight engines of the Saturn combined, will be clustered together to make the advanced Saturn missile, assembled in a new building to be built at Cape Canaveral as tall as a 48 story structure, as wide as a city block, and as long as two lengths of this field.

Within these last 19 months at least 45 satellites have circled the earth. Some 40 of them were "made in the United States of America" and they were far more sophisticated and supplied far more knowledge to the people of the world than those of the Soviet Union.

The Mariner spacecraft now on its way to Venus is the most intricate instrument in the history of space science. The accuracy of that shot is comparable to firing a missile from Cape Canaveral and dropping it in this stadium between the the 40-yard lines.

Transit satellites are helping our ships at sea to steer a safer course. Tiros satellites have given us unprecedented warnings of hurricanes and storms, and will do the same for forest fires and icebergs.

We have had our failures, but so have others, even if they do not admit them. And they may be less public.

To be sure, we are behind, and will be behind for some time in manned flight. But we do not intend to stay behind, and in this decade, we shall make up and move ahead.

The growth of our science and education will be enriched by new knowledge of our universe and environment, by new techniques of learning and mapping and observation, by new tools and computers for industry, medicine, the home as well as the school. Technical institutions, such as Rice, will reap the harvest of these gains.

And finally, the space effort itself, while still in its infancy, has already created a great number of new companies, and tens of thousands of new jobs. Space and related industries are generating new demands in investment and skilled personnel, and this city and this State, and this region, will share greatly in this growth. What was once the furthest outpost on the old frontier of the West will be the furthest outpost on the new frontier of science and space. Houston, your City of Houston, with its Manned Spacecraft Center, will become the heart of a large scientific and engineering community. During the next 5 years the National Aeronautics and Space Administration expects to double the number of scientists and engineers in this area, to increase its outlays for salaries and expenses to $60 million a year; to invest some $200 million in plant and laboratory facilities; and to direct or contract for new space efforts over $1 billion from this Center in this City.

To be sure, all this costs us all a good deal of money. This year¹s space budget is three times what it was in January 1961, and it is greater than the space budget of the previous eight years combined. That budget now stands at $5,400 million a year--a staggering sum, though somewhat less than we pay for cigarettes and cigars every year. Space expenditures will soon rise some more, from 40 cents per person per week to more than 50 cents a week for every man, woman and child in the United Stated, for we have given this program a high national priority--even though I realize that this is in some measure an act of faith and vision, for we do not now know what benefits await us.

But if I were to say, my fellow citizens, that we shall send to the moon, 240,000 miles away from the control station in Houston, a giant rocket more than 300 feet tall, the length of this football field, made of new metal alloys, some of which have not yet been invented, capable of standing heat and stresses several times more than have ever been experienced, fitted together with a precision better than the finest watch, carrying all the equipment needed for propulsion, guidance, control, communications, food and survival, on an untried mission, to an unknown celestial body, and then return it safely to earth, re-entering the atmosphere at speeds of over 25,000 miles per hour, causing heat about half that of the temperature of the sun--almost as hot as it is here today--and do all this, and do it right, and do it first before this decade is out--then we must be bold.

I'm the one who is doing all the work, so we just want you to stay cool for a minute. [laughter]

However, I think we're going to do it, and I think that we must pay what needs to be paid. I don't think we ought to waste any money, but I think we ought to do the job. And this will be done in the decade of the sixties. It may be done while some of you are still here at school at this college and university. It will be done during the term of office of some of the people who sit here on this platform. But it will be done. And it will be done before the end of this decade.

I am delighted that this university is playing a part in putting a man on the moon as part of a great national effort of the United States of America.

Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, "Because it is there."

Well, space is there, and we're going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.

Thank you."

Yuneec Chinese Electric Airplane Info & First Flight

2009-07-12T09:00:00.000-07:00