vol 2 num 7


from VizMAP – letting you see where you stand…

Volume 2 – Number 7 
Contents

About VizMAP

VizMAP Pty Ltd, is a leading supplier of terrain Visualisation and related services to the defence, GIS, environmental, mapping, mining and exploration industries, engineering and construction firms, developers and planners, as well as government administration departments dealing with land, transportation and the environment. 

VizMAP‘s products are designed to be run on reasonably to highly configured graphics computers (PC, Linux and Unix) for public display, group training, mission rehearsal, environmental monitoring, etc. and to enhance management decision making. 

VizMAP is headquartered on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast (Australia) with affiliation in Asia, Europe, Africa and the USA and thereby provides support and services to customers worldwide. 

If you need to visualise anything geographic, e-mail VizMAP here with the details. 

For more information about VizMAP visit the VizMAP Web site at http://www.vizmap.com.au.

VirtualGeography
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A Moment’s Notice
"I almost had a psychic girlfriend but she left me before we met." — Steven Wright
This is funny too ;-)

VirtualGeography – the newsletter

G’Day… and Welcome to VirtualGeography
from VizMAP
Welcome to another free VirtualGeography from VizMAP Pty Ltd. 

Woops. Seems that I missed sending out a VirtualGeography in July – that’d be due to my coming back from my three month gig with AusAID in the Solomons and vegetating. Better luck next month. Hey – it’s free!

VirtualGeography is a collection of interesting snippets from all over the shop, dealing with industry issues concerning the computer based visualisation of geography and a few other associated (or otherwise) interesting bits and pieces. You are receiving this either because you subscribed to VirtualGeography or you have had recent dealings with VizMAP Pty Ltd. If you do not wish to receive further instalments of VirtualGeography, just click on the unsubscribe link at the bottom of this e-mail. 

A new VirtualGeography is pushed out about once per month, towards the end of the month, which shouldn’t be too big a drain on your mailbox if you’re not already subscribed (of course it won’t be a drain on your mailbox if you ARE subscribed, either This is funny ;-)). If you know of anyone who might like to get VirtualGeography, feel free to forward this to them and ask them to subscribe. By the way, subscription and unsubscription details are at the bottom (click here).

So, g’day to all you enthusiasts requiring to visualise and simulate both urban and rural geographic information (GIS), cartography, photogrammetry, remote sensing, digital elevation modelling (DEM) and general mapping.

By the spelling of "Visualisation" you may have already guessed that we’re not US based – that’s a good thing, or at least not a bad thing. This comes to you from Mooloolaba on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland, Australia, where it’s beautiful one day and perfect the next.

The link between visualisation and mapping may seem a little esoteric if this is your first encounter with this sort of stuff, but let me tell you, the bond is significant… but enough of that: on with the show… I hope you like it. Any feedback you might have is highly appreciated. E-mail me hereto make your comments.

Enjoy…

Graeme Brooke
VizMAP Pty Ltd

P.S. You’ll need an active internet connection to view any images that are in the content. We’ve done it this way to keep the size of the e-mail to a minimum.

 
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The Industry’s Two Cents Worth…

TerraSim, Inc. Receives MOUT FACT Contract 
from TerraSim Inc.
TerraSim, Inc. was recently competitively selected for a U.S. Army MOUT-FACT contract award entitled "Rapid Generation of Synthetic Urban Environments and Infrastructure". Focusing on the development of next generation tools for Military Operations in Urban Terrain (MOUT) and the rapid construction of urban environments for modelling and simulation, TerraSim will provide U.S. Army PEOSTRI, Orlando, Fl with sample urban databases for test and engineering applications. These 3D visualizations include the development of automated building interiors, underground structures, and integration with Urban Terrain Zone (UTZ) models previously developed by the U.S. Army.

Challenges to be addressed include the use and integration of current world-wide construction practices databases with automatic building interior generation to support the rapid generation of geotypical urban environments from minimal amounts of existing cartographic or CAD source data.

Read that full story here
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TerraSim, Inc. Completes Phase I SBIR on DEM Fusion Technology 
from TerraSim Inc.
TerraSim, Inc. has recently completed a Phase I SBIR contract funded by U.S. Army entitled: "DEM fusion to support improved geospatial visualization". Under this SBIR, TerraSim developed a prototype of a Digital Elevation Map (DEM) fusion system that enables users to input DEMs in a variety of formats, perform noise filtering and coordinate and unit conversion, and combine the individual DEMs into one that is more accurate and consistent than its component parts. 

Rapid visualization, particularly in urban areas, requires the ability to merge together various DEM sources derived from completely different methods, often unknown to the end user. Typically this includes the combination of multiple DEMs with varying coverages, resolutions, and accuracies to produce a product which covers a larger area with consistent resolution and improved accuracy. Therefore, any successful method for DEM fusion must take into account the derivation as well as the coordinate system and data quality for the source DEMs.

Motivated by the availability of DEMs from traditional sources, such as USGS DEMs and custom commercial compilation from aerial and satellite imagery using traditional automated methods, and elevation models compiled from newer sensors such as LIDAR and IFSAR, this prototype was successfully demonstrated using TerraTools 2.0 to automatically construct several complex DEM fusion examples.

Read that full story here
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Hardcore Stuff (hardware bits)…

Silicon Graphics Onyx4 UltimateVision 
from SGI
New Levels of Affordability–Bringing Advanced Visualization to Your Desk

The new Silicon Graphics Onyx4 UltimateVision family redefines the boundaries of visualization, transforming your workflow and productivity at affordable price points. With price/performance improvements of up to 40 times that of previous systems, visualization power previously only accessible to major facilities can now be routinely deployed to companies and small labs, accelerating time to market. And, finally, advanced visual computing is within the reach of individuals and small teams traditionally limited to workstation or PC solutions, delivering an affordable competitive edge. 

Unparalleled Capability–Improving Productivity

Boundaries disappear as 32 tightly coupled best-of-class graphics processors focus on a single problem. Combining the power of the unique SGI® high-bandwidth, scalable, shared-memory architecture with best-of-breed, industry-standard, graphics components, the Onyx4 UltimateVision family delivers the most powerful visualization solution on the planet. These systems will enable you to visualize larger data sets with greater complexity at higher interactivity, all with configurations to empower individuals, transform team productivity, and tackle the most extreme problems. 

Onyx4 UltimateVision solutions are based on the award-winning SGI® NUMAflexTM architecture, which provides independent scaling for all of the major system components including CPU, memory, storage, I/O, and graphics. As you add these components, Onyx4 automatically scales bandwidth, maintaining a balanced system and transparently maximizing application throughput and performance for any size problem.

Read that full story here
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Softcore Stuff (software and data bits)…

OpenSceneGraph-0.9.5 released
from OpenSceneGraph
The Open Scene Graph is a open source high peformance 3D graphics toolkit, used by application developers in fields such as visual simulation, games, virtual reality, scientific visualization and modelling.  Written entirely in Standard C++ and OpenGL it runs on all Windows platforms, OSX, Linux, IRIX, Solaris and FreeBSD operating systems.

Support added for OpenGL2.0 shaders, native multi-threaded Database paging, high peformance binary format reading and writing,  .dds compressed image loader and ARB_fragment_program and ARB_vertex_buffer_object extensions, improvements to the Terrex .txp and OpenFlight .flt loaders.

Read that full story here
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A Recent Outing…

New Guinea Bush 
from VizMAP
A couple of databases were created with orthorectified aerial photography and DEM’s from New Guinea for Brisbane based Airesearch Mapping (now Fugro). The data was to help gain a contract for an engineering project. Previously in VirtualGeography, one of the databases was featured (click here to view it). This is the other one.

Sample still images from the completed dynamic visualisation database are displayed here. An active internet connection is required to be able to view these scenes.
 

Click on these small resampled images to view the full screen images on the VizMAP website. Bear in mind that these are just screen dumps from a dynamic, interactive, 3D "flythrough". 

 If you have a need to dynamically visualise your geographic data, let VizMAP knowyour requirements…
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OK, That’s Different…

SOPAC installs first Internet Map Server in the Pacific Islands 
from DirectionsMag
Under European Union funding (EDF8), the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission (SOPAC) has initiated a project for the benefit of 8 Pacific ACP countries (Fiji, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu). Entitled Reducing Vulnerability of Pacific ACP States, the project aims to improve decision making in three sectors that are of particular relevance to Pacific Islands: aggregates for construction (sand being a coastal resource, any extraction of it may permanently damage the coastline, the lagoonor the reef), hazard mitigation and risk assessment, and water resources, supply and sanitation.

To help meet the project objectives of improved planning and better decision making based on factual and accurate information shared amongst all categories of the population, geographical information will be available as maps and reports to all stakeholders though the Internet.

To give access to maps, a map server based on OpenSource software is currently being established as a demonstration unit in SOPAC. The use of OpenSource software reduces software costs as well as allowing the application to be tailor-made to individual country needs. It provides a system that is open to all Pacific Islander specialists to study and modify via the Internet. The OpenSource software suite is composed of GNU/Linux Mandrake for the server platform with the Mapserver from the University of Minnesota bundled inside Tikiwiki for better multi-stakeholder collaboration.

During a recently completed training workshop, held from the 28th to 30th July, stakeholders from Fiji contributed directly to the map server. Workshop participants from Mineral Resources Department, Public Works Department, Telecom Fiji and Forestry added important data layers of geographical information from each of their respective agencies. 

This information is freely accessible on the Internet at http://map.sopac.org/ and it allows individuals and professionals to analyse, from their home or office, information that was sometimes cumbersome and time consuming to acquire. 

Read that full story here
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Whazzup Next – with 20/20 Foresight…

Stuff to look out for in August, September & October
 

Legend
Included in last issue…
Updated since last issue…
New since last issue…

This calendar of events has been collated from:

August 2003
July 28 – August 8 The Vespucci Initiative – Summer School on Geographic Information Science Pratolino (Florence), Italy
3 – 5 Aug  Digital Library for Earth System Education (DLESE) Annual Meeting Boulder, Colorado USA
4 – 5 August Imagery is the Future of Every GIS – Turning Imagery Into Information Chicago, IL, USA 
4 – 7 August Linux World Conference & Expo San Francisco, CA
5 – 8 Aug  National Collegiate CADD Conference College Park, MD, USA 
5 – 12 Aug Online FME Demo  WWW
6 Aug  Web Mapping Technology Breakfast Seminar in Perth  Perth, Western Australia, Australia
8-10 Aug  ISPRS IC WG II/IV 4th Joint ICA/ISPRS/EuroGeographics Workshop on Incremental Updating and Versioning of Spatial Data Bases  Durban, South Africa
August 10 – 16 21st International Cartographic Conference & 12th General Assembly of the International Cartographic Association Durban, South Africa
August 11 – 12 FME Training Victoria  Victoria, BC, Canada
August 11 – 13 Arizona Geographic Information Council Education and Training Symposium 2003 Prescott, AZ USA
August 11 – 15 Advanced Spatial Analysis Workshop for Public Health Olympia, WA, USA 
12-13 August OZRI 2003 – GIS@Work (ESRI User Conference) Adelaide, South Australia
14-19 August GI in Land Management – International Summer School Szekesfehervar, Hungary
15 August The 7th annual Symposium on Precision Agricultural Research in Australasia; Adelaide; jointly organised by the Australian Centre for Precision Agriculture and the Southern Precision Agriculture Association Adelaide, South Australia
August 16 – 20 URISA: GIS in Addressing Conference: Street Smart and Address Savvy  Providence, RI USA
16-23 Aug  ISPRS Joint meeting and Council Meeting  Istanbul, Turkey
17 – 20 Aug  5th Annual Street Smart & Address Savvy Conference Providence, Rhode Island USA
18-20 August GITA 2003 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
18-20 August 4th Across-the-Strait Geomatics Conference POSTPONED to 2004 due to SARS Changchun,  China
18-21 August Leica Geosystems GIS & Mapping’s Annual User Group Meeting Denver, CO, USA
18-21 August 2003 Space & Missile Defense Conference and Exhibition – Evolution or Revolution? Huntsville, AL USA
18-21 August Kentucky’s 2003 GIS Conference… "10 Years of Discovery" Louisville KY USA
19 August TUC 2003 – Thai Geomatics User Conference  Bangkok, Thailand
19 – 22 August GIS BRASIL 2003 & COMDEX Brasil 2003 São Paulo, Brazil
19 – 22 August ISPRS TC IV & WG VI/4 Seminar "The Educational & Geoprocessing Activities in ISPRS TCIV & TCVI/WG4" Sao Paulo,  Brazil
August 20 Using MapGuide 6.3 and TTI”s Rapid Integration Toolkit (RIT) WWW
August 20 New Autodesk GIS Solutions Kingsford, MI, USA
20-22 August  MMT ‘2003 – The 4th International Symposium on Mobile Mapping Technology Kunming, China
24 – 27 August  3rd International Workshop: "Basement Volcanoes Interplay and Human Activities" Kamchatka, Russia
24 – 27 August APWA International Public Works Congress San Diego, CA USA
24 -28 August IPWEA (Institute of Public Works Engineering Australia) National Conference 2003 Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
25 – 26 August  FME Training Course Edmonton, Alberta, Canada 
25-27 Aug The 4th International Symposium on Mobile Mapping Technology "MMT 2004" POSTPONED to 29-31 Mar 2004 due to SARS Kunming, China
27 August  GITA Webinar… On the Move: What’s New in Mobile Technology  WWW
28 August Free ESRI Seminar – Working with Map Topology in ArcMap  WWW
29 – 30 August  4th ISPRS Workshop on Dynamic and Multi-dimensional GIS 2003 (DMGIS 2003) Merged to 2-3 Oct 2003 Enschede, 
The Netherlands
September 2003
1 – 5 September 49th Photogrammetric Week Stuttgart, Germany 
2 – 4 September Mobile Commerce Work Australasia 2003 Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
2 – 5 September Arkansas GIS Users Forum Eureka Springs, AR USA
4th September SmartCard Teleconference Events WWW
4 – 5 September 2003 South Florida GIS Expo West Palm Beach, FL USA
5th September Lustrum Conference Soesterberg, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
5th September Western Pennsylvania GIS Conference 2003 Southpointe, Pennsylvania USA
5-11 Sept United Nations/Austria/European Space Agency Symposium on the Use of Space Technology in Sustainable Development Graz, 
Austria
September 7 – 10 International Map Trade Association Americas Annual Conference & Trade Show  Santa Barbara, CA USA
September 7 – 11 OracleWorld San Francisco, CA USA
8-9 Sept Joint Workshop of ISPRS WG IV/3, 6 & 7 "Challenges in Geospatial Analysis, Integration and Visualization II" Stuttgart, 
GERMANY
8-12 September SPIE’s Remote Sensing Europe Barcelona, Spain
8-12 September Twelfth United Nations/European Space Agency Workshop on Basic Space Science Beijing, China
9-11 Sept Asian Conference on Application of Remote Sensing and Related Technologies for Precision Farming Putrajaya,  Malaysia
9-12 Sept ION GPS/GNSS 2003 Portland, Oregon 
USA
11 Sept National 9-1-1 Day USA
10 Sept 2003 Carolina GITA Annual Fall Conference Columbia, SC USA
10-11 Sept VII Annual FAGIS Conference (FAGIS = Free State Association for GIS users) Spatial Solutions for Africa Bloemfontein, Republic of South Africa
10-12 Sept The Annual Conference of the Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Society "Scales and Dynamics in Observing the Environment" Nottingham, 
UK
10-12 Sept International PROGIS Partner and VIP Conference  Egg am Faaker 
Austria
11-12 Sept FME Training Surrey BC, Canada
12 September DSC-Europe Motion Cueing Workshop and demonstration of Renault’s ULTIMATE simulator  Guyancourt, France 
14 – 17 September IAAO’s 69th Annual International Conference on Assessment Administration  Nashville, TN USA
14-20 Sept 6th International Symposium on Tropospheric Profiling "ISTP 2003: Needs & Technologies" Leipzig, 
Germany
15-17 September National States Geographic Information Council 2003 Annual Conference Nashville, TN USA
15-19 September GTC East 2003 Albany, NY USA
16-17 September WALIS Forum 2003: ‘Connecting Community and Spatial Information’ Perth, Western Australia, Australia
16-18 September GEO Solutions 2003 Earls Court 2, London, England
16-18 September AGI Conference at GeoSolutions 2003 Earls Court 1
London, United Kingdom
17-18 Sept 2nd International Congress of the Geographers of the Islamic World Tehran,  Iran
17-19 September INTERGEO 2003 Hamburg, Germany
17-19 September Photogrammetric Image Analysis, ISPRS WG II/IV, III/4, III/5, III/6 Munich, Germany
17-20 September Association of Pacific Coast Geographers 2003 Annual Meeting Portland, OR USA
18-19 September 802.11 Planet Conference and Expo Australia 2003 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia 
18-19 September Avenza Systems Training Chicago, IL USA
19-21 September Mapping and Surveying History International’s FIG World Mapping Colloquium Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
21-24 September PortablePower2003  San Francisco, CA USA
21-24 September 2003 ICMA Annual Conference Charlotte, NC USA
21-25 September Digital Earth 2003 – Information Resources for Global Sustainability Knowledge Brno, Czech Republic
21-27 September XII International ISM Congress Fuxin & Beijing, China
22-23 September ISPRS: Theory, Technology & Realities of Inertial / GPS Sensor Orientation Barcelona, Spain
22-23 September FME Training Calgary  Calgary, AB, Canada
22-24 September 2003 Midwest Arc Users Group Conference Omaha, Nebraska, USA 
22-25 September The 6th Conference on Optical 3D Measurement Techniques Conference Zurich, Switzerland
22-26 September GIS SILESIA 2003 Sosnowiec & Katowice, Poland
22-27 September Spatial Sciences Coalition Conference Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
22-27 September The European Academy of Forensic Science – Third Triennial Meeting Istanbul,  Turkey
24-25 September GIS Conferentie 2003 Rotterdam, The Netherlands 
24-26 Sept IX Iberoamerican Conference of GIS  Caceres, Spain 
24-26 Sept Ohio GIS Conference & Trade Show Columbus, Ohio USA
25-27 Sept  United Nations/International Astronautical Federation Workshop on the Use of Space Technology for the Benefit of Developing Countries  Bremen, Germany
28 September – 2 October Highway Engineering Exchange Program (HEEP) International Meeting Cheyenne, WY USA
29-30 Sept  CEE Insurance Market Warsaw, Poland 
29 September – 1 October The Geospatial Information & Technology Associations (GITA) 12th Annual GIS for Oil & Gas Conference Houston, Texas, USA
29 September – 1 October StatGIS 2003 – Interfacing (Geo)Statistics, GIS and Spatial Data Bases Poertschach, Austria
29 September – 2 October Kansas Assocation of Mappers (KAM)  Wichita, KS USA
29 September – 3 October 54th International Astronautical Congress Bremen, Germany
29 September – 3 October XXI Brazilian Cartographic Congress(CBC) Belo Horizonte, Brazil
30 September Fourth United Nations/International Academy of Aastronautics Workshop on Small Satellites at the Service of Developing Countries: A Contribution to Sustainable Development Bremen, Germany
30 September – 4 October CIPA Symposium "New Perspectives to Save Cultural Heritage" Antalya, Turkey
October 2003
TBA October ISPRS Workshop Monitoring and Modelling of Global Environmental Change Tokyo, Japan
TBA October United Nations/Saudi Arabia Regional Workshop on the Use of Space Technology for Disaster Management  TBA, Saudi Arabia
1-2 October  19th Annual New York State GIS Conference  Albany, NY, USA 
1-3 October  16th Annual GIS in the Rockies – "Geospatial Integration Today for Tomorrow" Denver, Colorado USA
1-4 October  Oil & Gas Technology Indonesia 2003, the 4th International Oil & Gas Exploration and Production Exhibition Jakarta 10310, Indonesia 
2-3 October WG IV/1 workshop "Spatial and Temporal Data Modelling: specifications, standards, formalisms and other system design issues" Quebec, Canada
2-3 October 4th ISPRS Workshop on Dynamic and Multi-dimensional GIS 2003 (DMGIS 2003) Quebec, Canada
4-8 October PDMA 2003 Annual International Conference Boston, MA USA
5 – 17 October Seminar for Senior Executives in Oil & Gas Industry Dallas, TX USA
6-7 October FME Training Chicago  Chicago, IL USA
6-8 October ISPRS Workshop High Resolution Mapping from Space 2003 Hanover, Germany
6-10 October 4th International Conference on 3-D Digital Imaging and Modeling Banff, Alberta, Canada
7-11 October  MEDCOAST 03 – The Sixth International Conference on the Mediterranean Coastal Environment  Pala De Andre in Ravenna, Italy 
8-10 October ISPRS Workshop WG III/3, 3-D Reconstruction from Airborne Laserscanner and InSAR data Dresden, Germany
8-10 October Driving Simulation Conference North America 2003 Dearborn, Michigan
United States
8-11 October North American Cartographic Information Society XXIII Jacksonville, FL, USA 
9-10 October Storm Water Conference & Trade Show Columbus, Ohio USA
9-11 October ISPRS WG V/5 Workshop GeoSensor Networks (GSN’03) Portland, Oregon, USA
9-11 October GEA’2003 IX International Geodesy Fair and Spatial Information Technologies  Warsaw,Poland
11-15 October 41st Annual URISA Conference Atlanta, Georgia USA
13-15 October Map Asia 2003 Tun Ismail, 50480, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
14-15 October Oilfield Services Market in Russia and the CIS London, UK
14-16 October 3rd International Symposium on Geophysics Tanta, Egypt
14-17 October The First Annual Geospatial-Intelligence Symposium, GEOINTEL 2003 New Orleans, CA USA
14-18 October International Meeting on Applied Physics (APHYS-2003) Badajoz, Spain
15-16 October Confrencia ESRI 2003 Madrid, Spain 
15-18 October GeoInformation for Practice Zagreb, Croatia
16th October 50th Anniversary Seminar of Honour "From OEEPE to EuroSDR, 50 years of European Spatial Data Research and beyond" Munich, Germany
16th -18th October CoastGIS 2003 – Fifth International Symposium on GIS and Computer Cartography for Coastal Zone Management Genova, Italy
16th -18th October 96th Annual Conference of the Canadian Institute of Geomatics "Geomatics for Industry – Micro to Macro" Calgary, Canada
18th – 22nd October Workshop "Innovatory Methodologies for Satellite Image Processing and Analysis" Manama, Bahrain
19-21 Oct  ISPRS WG IV/5 Workshop "Next Generation Geospatial Information" (NG2I 2003) Boston, USA
20-21 Oct  GITA Pacific Northwest Regional Chapter 4th Annual Conference Glenede Beach, OR USA
20-23 October OracleWorld-Paris Paris, France
20-23 October 10th Intelligent Transport Systems World Congress and Exhibition Madrid, Spain
20-23 October Pipes Wagga Wagga 2003 — Back To Basics, Design and Innovation Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia
21 – 22 Oct ISPRS WG VII/6 Workshop Monitoring and Modelling of Global Environmental Change Kyoto, Japan
21 – 24 Oct 11th IAIN World Congress Berlin, Germany
21-24 October  Intl. Association of Institutes of Navigation IAIN 11th World Congress Berlin, Germany
22-24 October 22nd Geodesia Congress Utrecht, the Netherlands
22-24 October Mobile Games Madrid, Spain
22-24 October Mississippi Gulf Coast Geospatial Conference Biloxi, MO USA
25-30 Oct  ASPRS Workshop "Terrain Data: Applications and Visualization Making the Connection" Charleston, USA
26-28 Oct  Ascential Software User’s Conference Miami, FL, USA 
26-29 Oct  American Field Services Management International-Business Education Summit & Expo Reno, NV 
27-28 Oct  EEE Workshop on Advances in Techniques for Analysis of Remotely Sensed Data Washington DC, USA
27-28 Oct LBS WORLD FORUM 2003 San Francisco, CA, USA 
27-30 Oct 2003 IACA Conference Kansas City, Missouri USA
October 28 – 29 Product Lifecycle Management Road Map 2003 Dearborn, MI USA
30-31 October  Huntsville Simulation Conference Huntsville, AL USA
 
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A Parting Gesture…Don't take this too seriously...

QANTAS Gripe Sheet
From Tom
After every flight, QANTAS pilots fill out a form called a gripe sheet, which conveys to the mechanics problems encountered with the aircraft during the flight that need repair or correction. The engineers read and correct the problem, and then respond in writing on the lower half of the form what remedial action was taken, and the pilot reviews the gripe sheets before the next flight.

Never let it be said that ground crews and engineers lack a sense of humor. Here are some actual logged maintenance complaints and problems as submitted by QANTAS pilots and the solution recorded by maintenance engineers. By the way, QANTAS is the only major airline that has never had an accident.

(P = The problem logged by the pilot)
(S = The solution and action taken by the engineers)

P: Left inside main tire almost needs replacement.
S: Almost replaced left inside main tire.

P: Test flight OK, except auto-land very rough.
S: Auto-land not installed on this aircraft.

P: Something loose in cockpit.
S: Something tightened in cockpit.

P: Autopilot in altitude-hold mode produces a 200 feet per minute descent.
S: Cannot reproduce problem on ground.

P: Evidence of leak on right main landing gear.
S: Evidence removed.

P: DME volume unbelievably loud.
S: DME volume set to more believable level.

P: Friction locks cause throttle levers to stick.
S: That’s what they’re there for.

P: IFF inoperative.
S: IFF always inoperative in OFF mode.

P: Suspected crack in windshield.
S: Suspect you’re right.

P: Number 3 engine missing.
S: Engine found on right wing after brief search.

P: Aircraft handles funny.
S: Aircraft warned to straighten up, fly right, and be serious.

P: Target radar hums.
S: Reprogrammed target radar with lyrics.

P: Mouse in cockpit.
S: Cat installed.

P: Noise coming from under instrument panel. Sounds like a midget pounding on something with a hammer.
S: Took hammer away from midget.

Smile... it's free.
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…that’s all, folks! (for now).