Eh, not a blockbuster, but probably good enough to make it worth Sci-Fi’s wire to use it while their other shows are on hiatus.

US Debut Ratings
(Shaun Lyon, Gallifrey One)

According to information from the programming department of the Sci-Fi Channel, Doctor Who did well its first night in broadcast. 1.58 million viewers tuned in to watch “Rose,” says the report, with 1.61 million viewers watching “The End of the World” and .78 million viewers each watching “Rose” and “The End of the World” in their 11pm and 12am repeat slots. These numbers are somewhat lower than the standard viewing the channel received for its broadcasts of its original series “Stargate: Atlantis” and “Battlestar Galactica” in the same time slots, but higher than any broadcast of syndicated series that evening (including repeats of “Firefly” and “John Doe”).

Now, renewing it to show the next season or two will depend on how it holds up over the next 13 weeks. If it is steady or up, they almost certainly will go for the next couple series. If it is down…

Of course, they are still going to be way behind. New episodes in the UK will be starting in just a few weeks.

When I got Cronus I also got X-Plane and I’ve been playing with it a few times a week ever since. I always have it set to have real time weather and real date and time. I started at SeaTac and while I have tried a whole bunch of planes from the Hindenberg (not really a plane, I know) to 747s, but rather than picking places to start each time, I have always let it start me back up at the closest airport to where I crashed. And there have been some nice crashes. Recently though I have nearly always managed to at least crash near airports. And even made a few “landings” that might have been survivable by those on board, cause, well, the plane only bounced a few times, ended up right side up, and not that far from the airport. Well, they would have survived if they were very very lucky.

Tonight though for the first time I was perfect. Took off smoothly. Did a nice figure eight pattern over Olympia, Washington and then made a perfect landing! Came in slowly all lined up with the runway. Touched down without bouncing. Applied the brakes and rolled to a stop while still on the runway. Woo! Go me! It was in a Robin DR400-120 as seen in the screenshot above which I took right after landing. I’d mostly been flying the Cessna 172SP lately but this time I decided to try the Robin for the first time. Don’t know if it was the plane, the weather tonight, or just more practice, but it was my best flight yet. Woo!

I did cheat slightly though. It is night time and off and on during the course of the flight I did use the night-vision goggles option to see rather than just relying on ground lights. (Thus the green in the picture.) But hey, I landed! A nice soft landing too!

I need to get a joystick though. Using the mouse has its problems. But I seem to have mostly gotten the hang of it.

Over all since I got the program, I started at SeaTac, went out toward the east over the mountains, then one hour in a 747 got way far south, then in a fighter plane got back to the Pacific, now I’ve been working my way back north in General aviation type planes. Not far left to go to get back to SeaTac. But I’ll try to do it in the daytime. Hopefully when there is a high ceiling. One time earlier this week I tried when there was only a 500 foot cloud ceiling, and since I am still only doing VFR stuff, that really sucked once I was in the cloud.

Anyway, I’m having fun. And unlike Chessmaster, when I crash this one, I only crash the plane, not the program.