Have you seen this?

I have known for a long time that there is a community out there just dying to have a good tower simulator. This means that this community is actually pretty sizable, and is great news for everyone! Raising awareness about tower simulations is only one of the good things this software will do.

I like the following features, besides the basic stuff that needs to be in a tower simulator:

- Career mode
- Real-world airline schedules
- Service vehicles

The visuals look quite good, but I am more interested in how realistic it will be. Maybe a demo will be out soon? Here's to hoping.

New airport being considered

As you have probably noticed from the poll on this site, there were some major airports I was considering including in Tower Simulator. After watching a very well-done documentary on Van Nuys, this airport became a very strong candidate, perhaps even number one!

This airport has everything to make a tower simulation interesting. Beautiful scenery with some pretty high terrain close by, varied traffic (small pistons, flight training, business jets, news helicopters). OK, there are no airlines, but we can fix that by having another airport in this release. Not to mention it is the world's third busiest general aviation airport, as well as the 25th busiest among all world airports, with 1,200 operations per day. That should keep everyone pretty busy :).

Another interesting point is its proximity to LAX and Burbank, which means lots of coordinating between the three facilities. This would allow me to develop the intra-airport communication system that I have been thinking about including. This, of course, exists in real life, and I think adds a lot to a controller's responsibilities and overall perception of realism.

It's tower is pretty interesting looking too, and should be fun to model.

If you have some words on this idea, leave me a comment.

We have arrived!

Uhuuuuuuu, after a lot of planning and effort, we have arrived in Columbus, OH!!! The good news, as it relates to Tower Simulator, is that I will now be able to resume development, as the dust settles down. Stay tuned.

Eco-house

So we have decided to build a new house in Columbus, and while this is totally off topic, since it is affecting my work on Tower Simulator, I thought it fair game.

In going over all the deatils you need to pick and choose when buying a house I am finding out a lot about being environmentally sensitive while at it. Here are some really cool solutions:

- Solar water heater
- SunTunnel skylight
- Green roofs
- Geothermal power
- Great reference for all parts of the house: Energy Star

There are so many inexpensive ways to make a house considerably greener, and it will only cost an overall addition of 2 to 3% compared to a "normal" home. Pretty cool, huh?

Back to Columbus

Flying back to Columbus this Saturday to work on getting a house once again. Workload at the moment is severe, so development has slowed down. Hopefully I'll move soon and be able to resume work.