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Stingray release date: Saturday July 25th!

Almost two months ago, I settled my avatar into a scriptless prototype of an amphibious plane. That’s when I decided that I had to make it fly. And float. And… uh… submarine. Is that a verb? It is now.

This week, it’s ready for the world. The stage is set quite literally: there’s a stage in Abbotts with the display model that in about five days will offer up demo flights and sell Stingrays to virtual pilots.

Add this date to your calendar: Saturday, July 25 at 9:00am (Pacific) at Abbotts Aerodrome.

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Stingray in beta testing

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQVthNe7Qt4]

It’s official. Today the Terra Stingray enters final beta testing, in which a crack team of testers puts the plane through its paces and uncovers those little bugs that I missed in development. Since I last blogged about the Stingray, I added five more paint schemes, a selection of tail decals, a passenger seat, a glowy heads-up display, as well as a few other less visible details.

I don’t think I’ll release Stingray this weekend, since this weekend is the annual SL Relay for Life event. The folks at SLRFL are raising hundreds of thousands for The American Cancer Society (that’s US dollars, too!), so keep an eye on the official Linden blog and the SLRFL site for info about that event.

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Terra Combat System is now open source

What’s the single most common question that aircraft makers ask me about the Terra Combat System? “Does it do bombs and missiles?”

The answer is, not yet. But now is your chance to do something about that. As of today, I’m releasing the TCS source to the public under a CC license. This means that you can take TCS — the long-established sensor-based combat standard — and make it better. Adapt it to your bombs, missiles, mines, exploding penguins… whatever.

In return, all you have to do is share your updates with everyone. (I’ll provide a link to a place to do that shortly.)

Let’s work together to make TCS even better, and establish a single sensor-based combat system that we can all share.

Get the full-permission TCS 2.5.4 at Abbotts Aerodrome or at Xstreet SL (click here).

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Taking the new paint for a spin

Unlike real life paint, virtual paint doesn’t get all over your clothes and stain your hands for days. And I very much appreciate that because for the past couple of days I have been slathering the paint onto the soon-to-be completed Stingray amphibious jet. It’s funny how a new paint job can make a plane feel faster.

Incidentally, a great place to test marine vehicles, like ampibious planes, boat, and submarines, is Gulliver Airport in Zatzai. Not only does it have a runway and boat launch, but it’s also part of the of Second Life’s sailing sims — a truly ginormous body of water that’s dotted with attractive islands.