Coronavirus 2019-2020 thread (no unsubstantiated rumours!)

[plawolf]

A firearm is of very limited use when going out in social settings, but a rifle like a M4 etc could be useful for home defence.

You don’t really understand gun culture in America if you think people will even look twice when they see a person open carry even in normal times in many places.

There is also a massive conceal carry culture and market of firearms and accessories to allow you to carry a handgun without anyone else realising.

As for the earlier question on why you would need firearms during a pandemic, well I’m a realist and have little faith in the ability of society to remain operating during times of extreme fear and shortage.

If/when law and order breaks down, guns will become the ‘credit cards’ of the unscrupulous who want the provisions and supplies others have managed to amass, while OTOH, the only protection from being preyed upon by such people are guns in your own hands.

During the LA riots, Korean shop owners were able to very effectively protect their property and themselves by taking to the roofs of their buildings with firearms.

If you don’t live in the middle of a major city, a firearm could also be a tool to supply you with fresh meat through hunting in the event of major social unrest and/or prolonged supply problems. Although a PCP air rifle is far superior to firearms for that for small to medium sized quarry depending on power levels.

 

[dratsabknihcllik]

Nice to see European solidarity at work here. The latest of an increasing line of shipments being diverted, intercepted and confiscated by one country over another. You better believe it, its every country for themselves now.

Turkey seizes 150 respirators from China bound for Spain.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Didn't the Turks run propaganda against Chinese masks as late as last weekend?

 

[hydrogenpi]

You don’t really understand gun culture in America if you think people will even look twice when they see a person open carry even in normal times in many places.

There is also a massive conceal carry culture and market of firearms and accessories to allow you to carry a handgun without anyone else realising.

As for the earlier question on why you would need firearms during a pandemic, well I’m a realist and have little faith in the ability of society to remain operating during times of extreme fear and shortage.

If/when law and order breaks down, guns will become the ‘credit cards’ of the unscrupulous who want the provisions and supplies others have managed to amass, while OTOH, the only protection from being preyed upon by such people are guns in your own hands.

During the LA riots, Korean shop owners were able to very effectively protect their property and themselves by taking to the roofs of their buildings with firearms.

If you don’t live in the middle of a major city, a firearm could also be a tool to supply you with fresh meat through hunting in the event of major social unrest and/or prolonged supply problems. Although a PCP air rifle is far superior to firearms for that for small to medium sized quarry depending on power levels.

I am Chinese living in Dallas area, had a CHL for five years let it expire recently. Never once did I actually carry anything, and it wasn't until a few years ago that in Texas they allowed open carry, for the longest time "printing" was illegal. Even getting pulled over a speeding ticket was a pain because you are required to show both ID's and inform the LEO that you have a gun with you etc and most of the time they get very suspicious and defensive and assume you are going to do something bad. Unless you are very skilled and/or practice a lot to keep proficient or spend thousands of bucks to take one of those training courses like at Front Sight at Las Vegas, etc small handguns are very hard to shoot accurately especially at any respectable range in the the heat of real battle when your life is on the line and its not just target practice at gun range. Larger handguns are just too bulky and inconvenient to carry on your every day just in case something happens. Rifles with the appropriate accessories and in a home perimeter defence scenario might make more sense though, but even when you do shoot in self defense you probably are going to get charged and will need to lawyer up, potentially losing years of your life and/or your life savings and if convicted will never be able to find a job again. The one and only time I got held at gunpoint was when jogging with my dad at night at the local high school track by a bunch of teenagers, most people don't go packing heat for self defence when jogging and don't expect to get robbed on a school track. Home defence with rifle is a good idea, but using a handgun to protect yourself is of limited use. Keeping one in the car is a good idea. But carrying one on your person unless you are ex military or ex law enforcement will more often than not be more trouble than its worth.

 

[hydrogenpi]

So flight simulator has always been a hobby of mine, and after Microsoft stopped making newer versions the Lockheed Martin bought the source code from Microsoft and revamped it with DirectX11 and converted it to 64bit application and a lot of the quality addon third party like the famed PMDG jumped on the Prepar3D bandwagon...

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

For many years PMDG offered quality addons of the Boeing variants for the FSX and P3D platforms and they have never offered a discount and stated they will never offer 'sales' or coupons etc.

Now the irony of ironies, because of COVID and its impact on the aviation industry, it hit the industry so hard that it even trickled down to the virtual world and forced the esteemed PMDG to start offering discounts on virtual sims of Boeing aircraft directly because of COVID....

Late last year Microsoft finally decided to get back in the Flight Simulator game yet once again and started developing a brand new Flight Simulator that is cloud based and streams live from their Azure platform and it was contracted to a French gaming dev team. I signed up for the pre-Alpha testing and was selected for helping them test and sent out notices for the second rounds but then that was withdrawn due to the team getting affected by the COVID situation and now even they are faced with delays...

Flight Simulator 2020 delayed

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Finally before this COVID thing, there had been more and more flight attendants who started YouTube channels (most of them are on instagram and aspiring to be instagram "influencers" etc) and it seemed everyone was doing their own flight /travel channel....

Now it is sad to see all of these people are getting laid off, furloughed or at best having their flights reduced or canceled to almost nothing...

So soon they have will no content for their videos/channels and even if they switch to non-flight related content, given how COVID has impacted so many industries and companies, the ad revenue is going to run dry and YouTube business model won't really be making them money anymore as more and more former flight attendants start flocking to YouTube to try to make a name for themselves and establish a new income stream at the worst possible moment for that when there is too many people wanting to jump on the influencer/YouTube career bandwagon and not enough big businesses propping up the advertising dollars for that to be sustainable.

 

[SteelBird]

You don’t really understand gun culture in America if you think people will even look twice when they see a person open carry even in normal times in many places.

There is also a massive conceal carry culture and market of firearms and accessories to allow you to carry a handgun without anyone else realising.

As for the earlier question on why you would need firearms during a pandemic, well I’m a realist and have little faith in the ability of society to remain operating during times of extreme fear and shortage.

If/when law and order breaks down, guns will become the ‘credit cards’ of the unscrupulous who want the provisions and supplies others have managed to amass, while OTOH, the only protection from being preyed upon by such people are guns in your own hands.

During the LA riots, Korean shop owners were able to very effectively protect their property and themselves by taking to the roofs of their buildings with firearms.

If you don’t live in the middle of a major city, a firearm could also be a tool to supply you with fresh meat through hunting in the event of major social unrest and/or prolonged supply problems. Although a PCP air rifle is far superior to firearms for that for small to medium sized quarry depending on power levels.

I do understand the gun culture in the US. Actually, my post was just a joke with AFB and I consider his post was a joke too.

 

[hydrogenpi]

I sure do miss the Golden Age of Flight.... back then everything was so nice, luxurious and spacious... compared to the herding of cattle that airlines do these days

COVID-19 will have way more of an impact than even 9/11 ever did...

I fear that after this flying will become once again something reserved for the super rich...

 

[AssassinsMace]

I was watching CNN early morning hours where they tend to be more international news and it seems more and more scientists are open to coronavirus could have been possibly been in humans for years and could've easily mutated at anytime on its own to be what it is now.

 

[Air Force Brat]

The sky is not falling. There's no evidence that this new virus is anymore dangerous than the dozen or so existing flu strains already out there.

This is where we all were 2 months ago. Its been a very steep learning curve with this prolific killer!

 

[Air Force Brat]

What kind of firearm are you looking for?

I recently purchased an S&W M&P .40 5 inch for around the farm, my first plastic fantastic,, but my taste actually runs to 98 Mausers, the most beautiful sporting rifles ever built were the German guild guns built on the model 98 action! We are off topic, but you should start a firarms thread...

 

[Air Force Brat]

So flight simulator has always been a hobby of mine, and after Microsoft stopped making newer versions the Lockheed Martin bought the source code from Microsoft and revamped it with DirectX11 and converted it to 64bit application and a lot of the quality addon third party like the famed PMDG jumped on the Prepar3D bandwagon...

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

For many years PMDG offered quality addons of the Boeing variants for the FSX and P3D platforms and they have never offered a discount and stated they will never offer 'sales' or coupons etc.

Now the irony of ironies, because of COVID and its impact on the aviation industry, it hit the industry so hard that it even trickled down to the virtual world and forced the esteemed PMDG to start offering discounts on virtual sims of Boeing aircraft directly because of COVID....

Late last year Microsoft finally decided to get back in the Flight Simulator game yet once again and started developing a brand new Flight Simulator that is cloud based and streams live from their Azure platform and it was contracted to a French gaming dev team. I signed up for the pre-Alpha testing and was selected for helping them test and sent out notices for the second rounds but then that was withdrawn due to the team getting affected by the COVID situation and now even they are faced with delays...

Flight Simulator 2020 delayed

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Finally before this COVID thing, there had been more and more flight attendants who started YouTube channels (most of them are on instagram and aspiring to be instagram "influencers" etc) and it seemed everyone was doing their own flight /travel channel....

Now it is sad to see all of these people are getting laid off, furloughed or at best having their flights reduced or canceled to almost nothing...

So soon they have will no content for their videos/channels and even if they switch to non-flight related content, given how COVID has impacted so many industries and companies, the ad revenue is going to run dry and YouTube business model won't really be making them money anymore as more and more former flight attendants start flocking to YouTube to try to make a name for themselves and establish a new income stream at the worst possible moment for that when there is too many people wanting to jump on the influencer/YouTube career bandwagon and not enough big businesses propping up the advertising dollars for that to be sustainable.

Somewhere in the attic at SDF, we have a flight sim thread, I've got the old Microsoft Flight Sim X with the acceleration pack, why don't you don't you go look in the attic and open that up again, or conversely, start a new thread on flight sim, I'm wanting to upgrade my simulator, or at least add some new aircraft. I've got an F-22 and YF-23, a C-130, but I just "mess around" with them. Anyway, I'm getting ready to leave, but that is your second new assignment today.... so I'll let you get to it, LOL. again we are off topic, but lets move this discussion to an appropriate thread....