Tootfinder

So, completed the first flight with the new controls. They are _significantly_ different than the setup that I have for _Elite: Dangerous_ which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Once I managed to get used to the control scheme the flight was pretty smooth.
Unfortunately I'm gonna need to practice landing and using the rudder pedals a lot because the landing was one of the absolute worst yet. The passengers were not amused, but since we all lived they should be grateful.
…

Went ahead and wrote up a quick post about Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, Linux, HOTAS, and `udev` which explains how to get everything working and running under Linux.
https://blog.jamesthebard.net/posts/microsoft-flight-simulator/

Pigeon: I just flew in from Minneapolis and my wings aren't tired at all! 😉
#news

An Improved Grey Wolf Optimizer Inspired by Advanced Cooperative Predation for UAV Shortest Path Planning
Zuhao Teng, Qian Dong, Ze Zhang, Shuangyao Huang, Wenzhang Zhang, Jingchen Wang, Ji Li, Xi Chen
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.03663

An Improved Grey Wolf Optimizer Inspired by Advanced Cooperative Predation for UAV Shortest Path Planning
With the widespread application of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in domains like military reconnaissance, emergency rescue, and logistics delivery, efficiently planning the shortest flight path has become a critical challenge. Traditional heuristic-based methods often suffer from the inability to escape from local optima, which limits their effectiveness in finding the shortest path. To address these issues, a novel Improved Grey Wolf Optimizer (IGWO) is presented in this study. The proposed …

"This is a very precarious situation we’re in."
This interview with the Starliner astronauts got my adrenaline pumping, even though I knew the ending.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/04/the-…

I've gone through exactly what Ellen Pompeo did at LAX. I was headed to Italy & the TSA detected something on my shoes. Sirens went off & before I could say anything, I got detained.
A guy with military gear & a rifle appears & I got to play 20 Qs for an hour. I'm showing my plane ticket, itinerary, passport, driver's license, business card, Academy of Magical Arts membership card, Disney D23 card... not kidding.
Almost missed by flight. A tad unsett…

This https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.04241 has been replaced.
initial toot: https://mastoxiv.page/@arXiv_hepe…

Search for hadronic decays of feebly-interacting particles at NA62
The NA62 experiment at CERN has the capability to collect data in a beam-dump mode, where 400 GeV protons are dumped on an absorber. In this configuration, New Physics particles, including dark photons, dark scalars, and axion-like particles, may be produced in the absorber and decay in the instrumented volume beginning approximately 80 m downstream of the dump. A search for these particles decaying in flight to hadronic final states is reported, based on an analysis of a sample of $1.4 \times …

LoL-NMPC: Low-Level Dynamics Integration in Nonlinear Model Predictive Control for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
Parakh M. Gupta, Ond\v{r}ej Proch\'azka, Jan H\v{r}ebec, Matej Novosad, Robert P\v{e}ni\v{c}ka, Martin Saska
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.02169

LoL-NMPC: Low-Level Dynamics Integration in Nonlinear Model Predictive Control for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
In this paper, we address the problem of tracking high-speed agile trajectories for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles(UAVs), where model inaccuracies can lead to large tracking errors. Existing Nonlinear Model Predictive Controller(NMPC) methods typically neglect the dynamics of the low-level flight controllers such as underlying PID controller present in many flight stacks, and this results in sub-optimal tracking performance at high speeds and accelerations. To this end, we propose a novel NMPC formul…

Thanks to @… for finding this needle to getting the Charlie Rudder Pedals working! I've updated the blog as well to hopefully make it a bit easier to track down.
https://

Series A, Episode 09 - Project Avalon
ZEN: Liberator has resumed original position and status.
AVON: You'd better switch on the communication channel. [Gan crosses flight deck and switches it on.]
https://blake.torpidity.net/m/109/314 B7B5

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"Terry Virts’ maiden Space Shuttle mission was the final assembly flight for the International Space Station (ISS), a historic milestone in post-Cold War collaboration with Russia. Now he’s calling for NASA to scale back its cooperation with Moscow, due to Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine."
Retired US Astronaut Calls For Reduced ISS Cooperation With Russia
https://www.rferl.org/a/iss-russia-nasa-ukraine/33427545.html

Particle-in-Cell Simulations of Burning ICF Capsule Implosions
Johannes J. van de Wetering, Justin R. Angus, W. Farmer, V. Geyko, D. Ghosh, D. Grote, C. Weber, G. Zimmerman
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.02273

Particle-in-Cell Simulations of Burning ICF Capsule Implosions
Anomalies observed in the neutron spectral shift of high-yield shots at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) suggest the presence of suprathermal ions, implying that kinetic effects play a significant role in burning inertial confinement fusion (ICF) plasmas. Furthermore, recent measurements of reaction-in-flight (RIF) neutrons offer a direct probe of the stopping power in the burning fuel region of high energy alpha particles and up-scattered fuel ions. We have developed the particle-in-cell c…

Prediction of the SVOM MXT camera end of life spectral performance based onproton irradiation results
Clara Plasse, Diego G\"otz, Aline Meuris, Miguel Fernandez Moita, Philippe Ferrando, Leo Favier, Francesco Ceraudo
#toXiv_bot_toot

Characterization of the Combined Effective Radiation Pattern of UAV-Mounted Antennas and Ground Station
Mushfiqur Rahman, Ismail Guvenc, Jason A. Abrahamson, Amitabh Mishra, Arupjyoti Bhuyan
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.01925

Characterization of the Combined Effective Radiation Pattern of UAV-Mounted Antennas and Ground Station
An Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)-based communication typically involves a link between a UAV-mounted antenna and a ground station. The radiation pattern of both antennas is influenced by nearby reflecting surfaces and scatterers, such as the UAV body and the ground. Experimentally characterizing the effective radiation patterns of both antennas is challenging, as the received power depends on their interaction. In this study, we learn a combined radiation pattern from experimental UAV flight da…

iRonCub 3: The Jet-Powered Flying Humanoid Robot
Davide Gorbani, Hosameldin Awadalla Omer Mohamed, Giuseppe L'Erario, Gabriele Nava, Punith Reddy Vanteddu, Shabarish Purushothaman Pillai, Antonello Paolino, Fabio Bergonti, Saverio Taliani, Alessandro Croci, Nicholas James Tremaroli, Silvio Traversaro, Bruno Vittorio Trombetta, Daniele Pucci
https…

iRonCub 3: The Jet-Powered Flying Humanoid Robot
This article presents iRonCub 3, a jet-powered humanoid robot, and its first flight experiments. Unlike traditional aerial vehicles, iRonCub 3 aims to achieve flight using a full-body humanoid form, which poses unique challenges in control, estimation, and system integration. We highlight the robot's current mechanical and software architecture, including its propulsion system, control framework, and experimental infrastructure. The control and estimation framework is first validated in simulat…

The comet-style end of flight test 9 of the #Starship as seen from Namibia: https://www.youtube.com/live/mrsEfkeczT4#t=3h43m16s (from 3:43:16) - and at the very end of this webcast there is also a still photo with much higher resolution, screenshot in https://x.com/NicosPanoptikum/status/1927534707258102063

Series A, Episode 09 - Project Avalon
ZEN: Liberator has resumed original position and status.
AVON: You'd better switch on the communication channel. [Gan crosses flight deck and switches it on.]
https://blake.torpidity.net/m/109/314 B7B5

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Goals for today: finish up the coffee and grab my private pilots license (PPL) in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. First landing went well enough though a little rough on touch down. Definitely glad I picked up pedals though because having the rudder on the flight sticks rotation axis is not ideal...
#msfs #gaming

Went for a wander through the woods and heathland around Eyeworth pond in the New Forest yesterday. Even at 10 in the morning the birdsong was stunning: mostly song thrush, wren, blackcap, chaffinch. A single common redstart was my 1st of the year (male, singing), and at least 2 cuckoos, 1 seen in flight. Also 2 common lizards darted away into the bracken. Crab apples in bloom and alive with droning bees.

Reactive Aerobatic Flight via Reinforcement Learning
Zhichao Han, Xijie Huang, Zhuxiu Xu, Jiarui Zhang, Yuze Wu, Mingyang Wang, Tianyue Wu, Fei Gao
https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.24396

Reactive Aerobatic Flight via Reinforcement Learning
Quadrotors have demonstrated remarkable versatility, yet their full aerobatic potential remains largely untapped due to inherent underactuation and the complexity of aggressive maneuvers. Traditional approaches, separating trajectory optimization and tracking control, suffer from tracking inaccuracies, computational latency, and sensitivity to initial conditions, limiting their effectiveness in dynamic, high-agility scenarios. Inspired by recent breakthroughs in data-driven methods, we propose …

Lots of things going wrong now with flight test nine of the #Starship: first the payload doors didn't open and dummy satellites couldn't be deployed, then it sprung a leak, attitude control has been lost and the reentry in about 10 minutes will be at a radom angle and lead to a likely early loss of the vehicle. Which is still sending live video of its crazy ride over the Indian Ocean, though, thanks to Starlink ...

Lift augmentation by incorporating bend twist coupled composites in flapping wing
Rahul Kumar, Devranjan Samanta, Srikant S. Padhee
https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.23372

Lift augmentation by incorporating bend twist coupled composites in flapping wing
Drawing inspiration from the adaptive wing shape of birds in flight, this study introduces a bio-inspired concept for shape adaptation utilizing bend-twist coupling (BTC) in composite laminates. The primary aim of the design optimization is to identify the optimal fibre orientation angles needed to produce the required bending and twisting deformations, which directly contribute to the design's goal of maximizing lift without relying on external mechanisms for twisting. This novel technique inc…

Welp, got another device to get working under Linux. The new rudder pedals came in: Honeycomb Aeronautical Charlie Rudder Pedal. I can see inputs coming in from the device, the `/dev/hidraw` permissions are perfect, but outside of that there is nothing.
Verified the registry settings in MSFS 24 but MSFS also doesn't see the pedals unfortunately. Very frustrating.
#linux

This https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.06483 has been replaced.
initial toot: https://mastoxiv.page/@arXiv_…

Sunrise III: Overview of Observatory and Instruments
In July 2024, Sunrise completed its third successful science flight. The Sunrise III observatory had been upgraded significantly after the two previous successful flights in 2009 and 2013. Three completely new instruments focus on the small-scale physical processes and their complex interaction from the deepest observable layers in the photosphere up to chromospheric heights. Previously poorly explored spectral regions and lines are exploited to paint a three-dimensional picture of the solar at…

So far the 9th #Starship flight test is going close to nominal - the SuperHeavy booster was lost a bit early before its planned ditching, the Starship reach its suborbital trajectory without problems.

Series A, Episode 10 - Breakdown
CALLY: So?
BLAKE: So on the flight deck he tried to kill ME. The limiter didn't even slow him down.
CALLY: Well, among my people such things are considered barbarous.
https://blake.torpidity.net/m/110/32 B7B6

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Think I'm done for today. Got to level 4, only killed a couple of passengers, and now I can go for my CPL. I'm going to wait for the new sim gear to come in because my space sim setup doesn't translate well to flight sim duties. However, MSFS has great so far.
#linux #gaming …

Pilot on flight this morning sounds like Les Claypool

And finally SpaceX's own #Starship flight test 9 webcast has begun: https://x.com/i/broadcasts/1OwxWXMRAXmKQ - with the confirmation that launch will be tried right at the beginning of the 1-hour window from 23:30 UTC.

Series A, Episode 10 - Breakdown
CALLY: So?
BLAKE: So on the flight deck he tried to kill ME. The limiter didn't even slow him down.
CALLY: Well, among my people such things are considered barbarous.
https://blake.torpidity.net/m/110/32 B7B6

Blakes7Bot | Search
Companion site to the Blakes7Bot Twitter, Mastodon, and Bluesky accounts. Automated lines of Blakes 7 dialog. Includes a script search facility.

So, tracked down the issue with Microsoft Flight Simulator (MSFS) 2024. The default permissions for the HOTAS `/dev/hidraw` devices is too restrictive. This is why neither MSFS 2024 or Elite: Dangerous saw the devices. I added new entries into the `udev` rules to relax the permissions and both games immediately saw the HOTAS.
```
KERNEL=="hidraw*", ATTRS{idVendor}=="231d", ATTRS{idProduct}=="0126", MODE="0666"
KERNEL=="hidraw*&q…

PSA: In case you run #Ubuntu 24.10 with #ZFS on Root, DO NOT TRY TO UPGRADE YET! You are very likely to run into a #Linux kernel deadlock mid-flight during the upgrade which leaves you with a broken system. …

System deadlock during Ubuntu upgrade 24.10→25.04 with ZFS root due to update-grub calling `ls /.zfs/snapshot/…` via `10_linux_zfs` causing kernel lock at mount.zfs · Issue #17337 · openzfs/zfs
System information Type Version/Name Distribution Name Ubuntu Distribution Version 24.10 Kernel Version 6.11.0-25-generic Architecture x86_64 OpenZFS Version zfs-2.2.6-1ubuntu1.1, zfs-kmod-2.2.6-1u...

At t-2 1/2 hours one independent #Starship flight 9 webcast has already been on for a while at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAdLlG9Rfd4 - others will start at 21:30 UTC on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hgDhgTaV5s (they also have cameras on the Bahamas, just in case ...) and at 22:50 UTC at https://x.com/i/broadcasts/1OwxWXMRAXmKQ from SpaceX themselves. Meanwhile "The Road to Making Life Multiplanetary" has vanished there completely ... so it's "A Road not Taken" now, Robert Frost would approve of that. ;-)

Ah, current plans for today: find some way to get Microsoft Flight Sim 2024 running on my computer. So far I've managed to select my starting airport/airfield and then the game hangs. It's progress, but I have a feeling this fight is going to go on for awhile considering the game hangs immediately afterwards.
#linux

Series A, Episode 06 - Seek-Locate-Destroy
BLAKE: Those interceptors will be lifting off any minute now. Let's get on with it. [into comm] Gan, get the ship moving. Full interceptor evasion.
[Flight deck. Gan is at the controls.]
https://blake.torpidity.net/m/106/464 B7B2…

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TAP Air Portugal flight 211 descending into St John Newfoundland CA with an emergency.
#squawk7700 #TAP211 #TP211 #YYT

Series A, Episode 06 - Seek-Locate-Destroy
BLAKE: Those interceptors will be lifting off any minute now. Let's get on with it. [into comm] Gan, get the ship moving. Full interceptor evasion.
[Flight deck. Gan is at the controls.]
https://blake.torpidity.net/m/106/464 B7B2…

Blakes7Bot | Search
Companion site to the Blakes7Bot Twitter, Mastodon, and Bluesky accounts. Automated lines of Blakes 7 dialog. Includes a script search facility.

#Blakes7 Series D, Episode 11 - Orbit
VILA: I think so. Try it now.
AVON: Switching to manual. Maximum power on all drives.
[Biodome]
PINDER: Egrorian.
EGRORIAN: They've broken the autocontrol and switched to manual. We've allowed for that.

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Companion site to the Blakes7Bot Twitter, Mastodon, and Bluesky accounts. Automated lines of Blakes 7 dialog. Includes a script search facility.

#Blakes7 Series D, Episode 11 - Orbit
VILA: I think so. Try it now.
AVON: Switching to manual. Maximum power on all drives.
[Biodome]
PINDER: Egrorian.
EGRORIAN: They've broken the autocontrol and switched to manual. We've allowed for that.

Blakes7Bot | Search
Companion site to the Blakes7Bot Twitter, Mastodon, and Bluesky accounts. Automated lines of Blakes 7 dialog. Includes a script search facility.

#NYCbirds #nyc #bird
A great white #egret takes flight from the shore of a salt marsh on a misty morning.