Let us introduce ourselves....

[nickblack423]

I thought that it might be jolly nice if some of the Staff and Contributors at MAIW introduced a little bit about themselves and how we got involved in, firstly FlightSim and secondly MAIW, as there are still alot of guys here I dont know alot about. Maybe to give a more personal feel to our dealings with those of you who download our packages.

Staff and Contributors please post whenever you get a spare moment.

[nickblack423]

I'll start the ball rolling.

Nick Black

Im 27 at the moment, born in North Yorkshire, UK. I am currently serving in the British Royal Air Force as a Movements Controller, which means I control, plan and organise the movement of equipment and personnel on Operations and Exercises.
I first got involved in FlightSim while in the Air Cadets at age about 18 I think. I got FS98 and started to look at it towards developing a scheme to teach the younger cadets how to fly. I stumbled across flightsim.com and discovered that the FS world was not limited to what came in the box. I started to venture into Scenery design programs and Repainting textures to make what was then a limited market of add-on aircraft available for use with what I had planned. This led me to tinkering with FS Scenery Creator, trying to make my own base to fly from. From this I went on to develop my first release which was a highly detailed scenery of my home base at the time, RAF Brize Norton for then FS2002. This file was extremely popular and I was featured in an online FS magazine that is now no longer publishing, and the file was included as a free download in PCPilot Magazine twice over the years, in both FS2002 and FS2004 formats. The Brize Scenery was updated many times, and included in its last version very detailed and accurate AI flighplans, AFCADs etc. I had expanded my interests to AI but I was not very happy with the lack of AI aircraft around the military areas.
When I moved to my current base RAF Coningsby, I had discovered the work of Rysiek Winawer and his AI A-10 through the FSGateway forums. His indepth and superb walkthrough of the development of this model led me to fancy a go at it myself. And so I bought FSDS and set about creating an AI model of the Eurofighter Typhoon, the aircraft at my current base. It was met with great interest and alot of help from various sources and in August 2006 I was invited to become a part of a new group setting itself up to make Military AI. Hence I came here to MAIW.
I am currently set to leave the RAF in a few months time, and so am trying to find myself a new career. Fingers crossed it will be one that will give me still some time to work on providing you with low-poly, detailed AI models to fill up your FlightSim skies.

Nick

[Weescotty]

Kevin "Weescotty" Reed

Too old to rememeber how old I am, born in Edinburgh, now back in Scotland after a very enjoyable 7 years or so in the States.
Late starter with FS2000 but got bored flying around all by my lonesome. Came across PAI and suddenly the skies were full of other aircraft.
Got into Military AI just to populate military bases. Came across a game called Aces High ( www.flyaceshigh.com ) and got into skinning (re-paints).
Had done a few paints for the Osan F-16s / A-10s, and was approached to join MAIW.
Thought I'd have a crack at doing the actual models, and the rest is history.

Kev

[aerogator]

aerogator

I am older than most of you guys (born before the Korean War began, barely). I grew up building plastic models and flying models and have always been an aviation nut. I live in the Southeast US near Ft Benning.

I've been simming since FS98 and like Kev, was glad to see the advent of AI. MS's combat simulations were amazing to me. Until MAIW came along, I had never seriously considered contributing anything being the bashful guy that I am . However, I purchased FSDS and started working on the Orion which I gave up on because I couldn't get the nacelles to look right. Then I took on an even more daunting project with the Talon and if Kev hadn't come along and bailed me out, it would not be finished yet. Along the way I have also learned some about texturing (thanks to Kev and Graham K.) but only enough to let me see what the thing will look like. I went back to the Orion and was finally able to finish it (with a lot of help from a lot of people).

I, of course, worshipped the Aardvarks and hope someday to be able to model close to their level.

I think the modelling appeals to me because I'm a frustrated artist and have always liked to draw airplanes. I have found that modelling requires you to see the plane almost like you are drawing it. The three-views will get you started, but you have to be able to figure out all of the other shapes involved as well.

I have to say that the MAIW staff (and you know who you are) have advanced this hobby more than any other group. Their hospitality, helpfulness, and patience along with a lot of hard work have given much pleasure to many people. Thanks guys!

[f14driver]

Nice introductions guys

[Calvin Gwin]

Calvin Gwin

I am seventeen and I live in western New York... not the city.... I live in the country... lol
I have been a wing nut for a long time, probably ever since I saw a pristine L-4 Grasshopper fly parallel to my parents car eight or so years ago.

I got into FS with FS2002 and I got into AI with FS2004. I have always been into military aviation and was around on both the old FSGateway Forums and the ANCIENT PAI Mil AI forums. I signed on for MAIW at the FSGateway forums as operational staff and have been here ever since.

Up to now I havnt done any packages for the team, but I am now readying myself for the task. I have released several independent sceneries and flightplans, including my scenery of the local GA airport in Corning NY, which I am updating. I also do a little bit of AFCAD to facilitate my sceneries.

[KevinJarvis]

Kevin Jarvis

I was born and raised in Indiana but moved to Illinois almost 15 years ago. I'm a baby boomer too.

My first introduction to the world of flight was when my parents used to take me to the local airport, KCFJ, where they had a small diner. We would order lunch, sit outside on the grass and watch the aircraft come and go. Boy those were the days.

I then started building models when I was a teen. I have almost every P51 in 1/48th that was ever made. Only a few of them have actually made it out of the box and onto my display shelf.

Then my uncle, who is a pilot, would come to visit and that always meant a plane ride. Man that Navion was a good ole bird. I miss it.

I have many friends who are pilots, including my daughters boyfriend who flys for a small company. So I get air time quite often.

I started flight simming way back when.
Really haven't had that much fun with it until FS9 came out.

I joined Frank and Mitch when they resurrected ProjectAI and I was the V.P. of Operations for them for a couple of years. I was lucky enough to be part of the PAI team that beta tested FS9 for Microsoft. I tried to start a military branch at PAI, but someone just didn't seem to think it would catch on...LOL.

I took some time off as my other computer hobby is Nascar racing. I paint cars and design other bits for them. I also like taking my Jeep off-road and playing with my grandson. The other thing in my computer room is about 5million feet of Thomas the Tank Engine track....lol.

Getting back into flight simming a while back, I found MAIW.
I joind the forums, downloaded all the files and went flying again.

A couple of months ago Des contacted me about joining the beta team. I jumped at the chance. I studied hard to pass his rigorous testing procedure, , but I guess I fooled him and here I am. Possibly the newest member of the MAIW team.

I look forward to learning more and meeting everyone.

[reconmercs]

Desmond "reconmercs" Burrell

Born and raised in North Carolina. Been here all my life except for the four years I lived in Florida attending college. I graduated from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University about 2 years ago. Besides that well..hmm well my parents claim that my first word was "airplane" and I've had the bug ever since. I'm a private pilot working on an instrument rating and also trained as an air traffic controller. I recently turned down a job with the FAA to be an air traffic controller to pursue my true dream of being a professional pilot.
As far as simming goes, I've been using microsoft flight sim since it was on the old atari computers. I got into designing addons for FS9 about 4 years ago, my first public release was helping one of the first military ai guru's, Dave"Top Gun" O'Brien with his KC-135 package then I released the VERY outdated HT F-16 AI CONUS package. From there got to know a couple great guys over at the flightsimmer forums and helped formed this lil unknown group called Military AI Works There is just something completely satisfying about seeing the community enjoy something you've personally spent so much time working on. I also think I'm one of the few MAIW Staff members that still actually manages to FLY flight sim ever once in awhile

[Firebird]

Steve Holland

Born in Essex in 1960, and life went fairly downhill from there until I joined the RAF straight from school on the day that I was 16 and a half, back when the RAF still had bombers.

Spent several glorious years working in Coninsgby Ops, and running the Ops on 41, 29, 228OCU and 56 sqns, all flying the mighty 'Toom. Oh yeah, in the middle of that had 18 fruitless and pointless months in LATCC(Mil). Only excitement really was the little thing known generically as 'The Falklands Conflict' and the much lesser known 'Beirut Situation' (will maybe tell you a funny Red Arrows story one day).

The RAF left me in '84 when we had the all too familiar 'You chaps have done a splendid job, but now we have to pay for it' speech from HM Government and they reduced the head count.

Joined British Airways in their IM department, where I still reside, as a Systems Analyst but currently masquerading as a Service Controller. This basically means that I am one of 5 people that is responsible for the whole of BA's IT operation worldwide, on a 24x7 basis. Which if put like that is both impressive and scary at the same time .

First got into FS when FS2000 came free with the PC I got for the Missus, saw that there was quite a bit for Military flying and got hooked on it. Got started on AI through PAI packages for FS2K4. Stumbled across the military forum on FSGateway found it outstanding and followed the logical path and joined MAIW on its inception. Where I have learnt so much from so many people.

Oh yeah, forgot, when not doing FS9 AI stuff, well I am a season ticket holder at Chelsea FC and the Dallas Cowboys.

[RipPipPip]

Let it be:

Rysiek Winawer "RipPipPip"

I'm almost as old as some of you here as I even remember Neil Armstrong stepping on the Moon on July 20, 1969,
when I was glaring at in my primary school first class TV.
I live in Poland (a small country between Russia and Germany ).
I graduated as a car body engineer but quickly switched to some IT stuff. Nowadays I serve as an IT auditor in a bank.

I always loved computer games, starting from ZX Spectrum based ones, then approached Wolfenstein 3D and Doom on a PC platform.
I was even in a group preparing a start engine simulator, with some ZX Spectrum road graphics involved, for T-55 tank some time ago (just before the Iron Curtain was broken).

Soooo ... then I played various simulators, mostly armored and air ones (IL 2 for example).
I looked at FS2000 but this stuff was not enough fluent on my PCs. FS2002 came here and was much better
- it bring some AI home to me
During my one week trip to Frankfurt I spotted quite a bunch of C-17s sitting there (at EDDF). I no way could recreate these in my FS as there was no AI model ...
so I made one (after 9 month blood, sweat and tears battle ...). Great help of Adam 'sirecks' I got there ...
The plane is called PAI C17 nowadays
Then guys missed AI A-10 much, so I started to design the one, in FSGateway days ....
You know the rest.
Now there's MAIW, Nick Black and ALL other talented guys successfully carrying on Military AI torch (is "carry on" a proper wording? ).

I know that I still have An-2s and F-18 to do but I currently fight with some "FS burn out" disease, quietly shooting at FSX DX10 and watching beautifully fluent AI movement in FS9 on my new quad-core config ...

PS. And if you ever wondered what a hell does 'RipPipPip' mean then it should resemble the sound of braking aircraft on a runway ...

[Psuls]

OK, my turn

Pascal Suls

Hi everyone

I was born in Belgium in 1969. I use to say I was born in jet fuel, as my dad is a retired fighter pilot in the Belgian air Force, at EBLG.
He flew SV-4, Fouga magister, T-33, F-84, RF-84 and finished in 1987 on Mirage 5.

I have been walking around in the airbases since I could walk
I even had the chance to taxi in a Mirage 5, but this is top secret

My first contact with the flight sim world was back in 1982, with the Sublogic Flight sim on Commodore 64 !!!! It's an understatement to say that it was very basic as a flight sim, but you could already make the trip from Champaign, il to O'Hare intl Airport! By night it was (already) much more funny.
I successively "flyed" on FS4 and FS5.1, then took a more or less 10 years break (with no PC at all - at home), to rediscover lately FS2002 and FS2004!
I was soon attracted by the AI thing and installed all PAI packages, then all WoAI packages, making sometimes my own FP's.

Last year I enrolled in the MAIW contributors group at the beginning of the story. I just decided to begin modelling the PSAI T-37 when the group split from FSGateway's forum, and Rysiek, Des and Danny encouraged me to join, which I am happy I did. The next bird was the PSAI A-37, in parallel with the development of a C5, which is much on hold for the moment, unfortunately, due to too little time.

I still "fly" from time to time in FS, trying to finish my round-the-world trip. But most of the time I'm a virtual spotter.

Personnally speaking, I am a maried man with two little boys (3,5 and 1,5 y.o.) and we just bought a new house (which is not going to help me in finding free time... )
I am a mechanical engineer, specialized in designing automated machines (in 3D, yes yes ) and I manage projects for a few years now.

When I don't flight sim, I like TV series and movies. I also wait for the hunting season
I still have in my parents garage a few RC aircraft, which have not flown for almost 20 years now! But I surely take them to the skies soon enough when my kids grow up.

Hope this will help you knowing me a little more

Cheers all

[Graham King]

Graham King

I am 48 years old and have worked for over 30 years as an Aircraft Maintenance Engineer at various levels at Heathrow Airport, London. I am also considered an "expert", for someone who comes from a generation that did not grow up with PC's. The first computer I worked on used a language called Fotran and required punch cards. 2 years later it was a revelation to sit in front of a keyboard and a screen.

The first time I flew Flight Simulator was with one of the wire frame model versions and I think I have owned every version since 4 or 5. I was a late comer with the Internet so I only started to see the possibilities of what could be done with FS 10 years ago, I used to download the files at work on night shift and bring them home on floppy disks.

I discovered AI with FS2002 and after downloading loads of civil flight plans and aircraft I then found Military AI and migrated to the FSGateway forum. At first I just painted a new squadron scheme over other people's paints for my own use but with encouragement from Dave O'Brien I started making them from scratch and posting them on the forum before taking the big step in July 2004 and publishing them on AVSIM. I now have over a quarter of million downloads, a figure that still fills me with disbelief.

I joined MAIW as a contributor when we first set it up. I think it was also about this time I first started my automated process of producing paints. Having started with just one paint per squadron I then moved on to about 4 registrations with fading to try and break up the lines of parked aircraft. Now I can produce every registration for a squadron from an Excel spreadsheet which I have programmed to produce each registration from a Paint Shop Pro template before compiling it with DXTBmp. I am not fast just smart

As you might have noticed I hardly ever upload paints to AVSIM since MAIW was formed. I find it more satisfying to produce paints for packages rather than publishing them and hoping they will get used. I also spend a lot of time producing paint kits for models. It is very gratifying that modellers think enough of my paints that they ask me to produce them and help with the design of the model from the painters point of view. I cannot tell what a surprise and honour I felt when Henry Tomkiewicz approached me to make a paint kit for his F-16 models. They were leading edge technology then and still stand up very well 3 years later. These and his C-130’s are still standard models in our packages.

I cannot tell you the last time I flew in FS. The closest I get is following the AI models when testing them or checking my paints. I guess the reason I am in Military AI it is close enough that I understand it but far enough from civil aircraft that it is not like bringing work home.

[CrazyDunc]

Duncan "CrazyDunc" MacKellar

Im 16, I live in Gloucester UK, I caught the "Bug" when i was bout 5 and a RAF Harrier buzzed my house tree top level and made my little brother deaf again. (It was the pilots last mission before going to Bosnia - My lil Bro is okay now) Since then ive been mad about it. Ive gotten in to Aviation Photography too and i have had a couple of Photoshoots with some local Heli Firms.

As my Bebo Says "Flying is my Dream: School is my Reality" bout sums it up really. Ive started my PPL course at Staverton Airport in a PA28.

Ive just returned to playing rugby after being out for a year after a serious knee dislocation. It was when i dislocated my knee i got invloved in MAIW. After a while i became a contributor and have done a some afacds here and there. I have also done 1 package with MAIW which was the USN & USMC Herks.

I was going to be making a third party F-14 package based of a series of carriers with the creator of the F-14D for FS9: Steve Hinson, but unfortuantly steve passed away in october and his expertise was cruital to the package.


MAIW Rules

Dunc

[delbydoo]

Daryl Payne

Aged 41 (just!!), I am a bus driver at the moment, but actually a cinema projectionist by trade. I live not a stone's throw from RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire, a county where I was born, but not bred! And as my wife would say, I am like a pig in the proverbial being so close to not only the UK's premiere fighter station, but also home to the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight.
My interest in aviation probably started when I was ten, when I tried to join the Air Training Corps - unfortunately the minimum age was thirteen, and as a double blow, my father, who was serving in the Royal Air Force at the time, was posted to (West) Germany, and there being no ATC squadrons out there (then), had to wait until I came back to the UK; but my time in Germany came at the height of the cold war and there was some serious metal that I saw almost on a daily basis - F-4's, F-15's, F-104's, and my enthusiasm just grew from there.
My first simulator was on the ZX Spectrum - and thanks to the emulator people, I still go back to fly it every now and then, but serious simming didn't start until I separated from my first wife back in 2001; FS2000 was all the rage and I've been hooked ever since, and like most others here, was building up the military side of things slowly - I think the first package I used was one for PACAF forces using, of all things, Kirk Olsson's F-16 and A-10, so you can imagine what the frame rates were like. Slowly and surely things started to go our way - PAI kicked it off ( a little at least) and we had frame-rate friendly, military aircraft.
I have done a few repaints here and there - again, mostly military and I was one of the BETA testers for DSB's first commercial project, the BAe Hawk, an aircraft that I hold dear to my heart and have just completed the first batch of repaints for (plug over).
Now MAIW is on the scene, and despite several absences, have been a BETA tester almost since it was started; I feel very humble to be able to look at and test these packages and can only gog at the patience that people like Nick and Rip and GK have when they put that amount of work into things, and still hold down a job.
We are a great team - we all work well together and produce a good quality product for nothing, except the knowledge that somewhere on this planet, someone is enjoying our work.

Cheers all

[Cianofranc]

CIANOFRANC

Hi to all!
I'm Luciano, from Italy.
I'm 45 (sigh!) and i live near LIPX (Villafranca) airport, in Italy.
I'm environmental engineer, with the "bug" of flight!
I knew FS with FS95 (intel 80286!) but i discovered sim with FS2k2, and AI traffic with FS9.
MAIW is my home... i like toooo much this kind of stuff.
MAIW is my way to forget every BAD things (work's problems... family stuffs... heartbreaks... LOL)
I could contribute with some AFCAD of italian mil bases only (Tornadoes pack), and I released Ghedi AFB scenery (LIPL) on avsim.
I'm here for helping everybody (if i'll be able to do!).
CHEERS

LUCIANO

PS: Thanks to all for your fantastic job!

[Superbuggz]

Ruud van Haaster

Hi all!
My name is Ruud van Haaster, 43 years of age, born and raised in the Netherlands and I am currently responsible for an airfreightoperation with one of the many airfreight forwarders at Amsterdam Airport, a location where I have been working for the last 23 years, ever since I left the Army.
I got the plastic modelling bug at around 7, when one of my brothers was so kind to buy me a 1/72 scale Fokker Dr1 of Airfix, which in that time, still came in a plastic bag.
Build quite a few models since then, swapped to R/C modelling but seriously ran out of space and time when I got married and in time became dad of 3 wonderfull daughters.
My work and family life hardly allow me the time I'd like to spend on my hobby: aviation. This partially comes in the form of plane spotting and formost plane photography (strictly Military) together with my buddy Arjan "Thud". (btw, seeing so many people from around Coningsby; we've been there too about a year and a half too, approx 2 weeks before they retired the Jaguar - great airfield !! I envy you guys....) The other part is flightsimming. Initially just the casual guy, started out with fs98, the occasional CFS adventures, but now mainly running FS9 besides the occasional sidestep towards FSX. I got introduced to MAIW by Greg (keep forgetting his nickname over here )
Started repainting about 7 or 8 months ago and it just got to me. Am basically repainting every day, working on own projects together with Arjan, but also contributing to new products and performing Beta Tests as well.
As for MAIW; great team, great guys with a great attitude. Love the wonderfull cooperation with and between a number of you guys (and you know who you are) and hopefully you get to see and enjoy a lot more of my contributions..
Meanwhile also carefully making my first steps on FSDS as the Military AI is still lacking a number of my favourite aircraft which might never arrive if not for me

To all of you MAIW guys (are there any girls present btw?? ) keep up the good work !!

[james84]

James84

I'm not a contributor, but let me get this chance to let you know a bit more about me!
I am 24, living in Rome, Italy. Currently student in Economics for the second level courses, should get my final degree in Nov 2009 (I hope).
My passion for aircrafts started in 1990 or so, when paying a visit to some family friends, one of whom had a room full of scale models. Soon after I got my first ever model (a Tornado) at the Italian AF museum, close to Rome, and started getting aviation related books and magazines!
Modelling and flying seemed to vanish but when I got a new PC with an internet connection and FS2004 the whole story changed and here I am!
I love flying (both as a virtual pilot and a real passenger) and I love travelling to European cities and taking lots of photos!

[Boubou69]

Boubou69

Hi everybody!

I am almost 24 years old & I come from Lyon, France.
I am in the French Air Force logistic since 4 years. I really like flying FS2004, doing sports, travelling in foreign countries,...

I recently learned how to realize flightplans and I really enjoy doing such files

Well, I hope that I wasn't too boring!

[Firebird]

Welcome Boubou,
Its good to have you with us.

[MIKE JG]

Bienvenue!