Lusekofte Posted March 15, 2021 Posted March 15, 2021 On 3/13/2021 at 7:57 PM, ZachariasX said: From Ashgabat to Teheran is next. You must spend a lot of time updating us about your trip. I want you to know, that you and Andy's updates are the reason I keep interest in this sim. Arthurs input is also most welcome. I tend to fly just after reading your post 27 minutes ago, AndyJWest said: The Bleriot shouldn't be on anyone's watchlist: everyone should own it already. ? It my GB version of PO 2. I simply must take it for a spin whenever I fire up tjis sim 1
Lusekofte Posted March 15, 2021 Posted March 15, 2021 LOL, now it ask me to put in my game disc. And as a solution they sayI should dl a x box app. I did and it do not find my install? Oh dear, patience is not my fortee
Monostripezebra Posted March 15, 2021 Posted March 15, 2021 (edited) 4 hours ago, SYN_Vander said: Excellent idea! Remind me again start of July. This aircraft is defo on my Wishlist... I will.. Basicly the idea for me is to take off at sunrise with live weather in the shakiest (but most fun) variants, the so-called "Rip edition" which is a bit more fragile and directionally unstable to be more realistic... and I would love to see a flock of bleriots doing the same! On the Bleriot: Overall, I can recomend the Bleriot addon.. you get 2 variants, a gnome engined one and the channel-crossing anzani engined variant (which comes in 2 subvariants: the RiP and a more tame version). I don´t think it is "perfect" but really reasonably good. FM wise allmost all models don´t really spin and stall very very benign (which I am a bit sceptical about..) but the directional instability and wing warping is very nice and very very fun in creating a believable early aircraft feel in normal flight regime. And since the weight of the engine is tweakable on the normal weight and balance page without any modding it allows for personalized fun settings quick. The 3D models have some minor issues here like weird cable movements, at night the top layer fabric glitches away, some wood lookes like driftwood and stuff like that.. but overall the cockpit feeling is great and subjectivly it is one of the better payware addons if not among the top for me, just fun wise. 4 hours ago, AndyJWest said: as for re enacting the Channel crossing, it would be fun to try a mass flight. Is the idea it to do it with live weather? That might be tricky, given how variable the Channel weather can be, even in July. I feel like that would definately be part of the fun and hence that is the plan (for me) I love your flight there.. i took the some distance flights like from the Dry Tortugas to Key West (very fun route..) and the distance flying over interesting terrain in the RiP version is definately very very fun for me.. and the problem with altitude is that you have to get down again, without overstressing. These long landing approaches with engine off are insanly fun! This is the landing (in the Gnome version) coming back from the dry tortugas.. took a lot less fuel then I thought I would need and the lights of Key West in the dark where really visible far out: Edited March 15, 2021 by Monostripezebra 1
DD_Arthur Posted March 16, 2021 Posted March 16, 2021 3 hours ago, 216th_LuseKofte said: LOL, now it ask me to put in my game disc. And as a solution they sayI should dl a x box app. I did and it do not find my install? Oh dear, patience is not my fortee There’s a message on the MSFS forum saying ‘Xbox services are limited at this time’. Try again tomorrow Luse. @Andy, good call; slightly altering the c of g did the trick?. 1
SYN_Vander Posted March 16, 2021 Posted March 16, 2021 14 hours ago, AndyJWest said: @SYN_Vander The Bleriot shouldn't be on anyone's watchlist: everyone should own it already. ? Unfortunately, between IL2, DCS and MSFS I have too many addons and not enough time to fly them with all the coding I do as well. Other reason to wait: I noticed a lot of MSFS addons are rushed, so some extra time to fix issues is good 2
Enceladus828 Posted March 17, 2021 Posted March 17, 2021 Had lots of fun with the CRJ700 on FSX back when I was a kid, so I'm really excited for it to be coming to MSFS 2020. BTW, my mom absolutely hated the Overspeed warning on the CRJ because of its super high pitched blaring, and would scream at me to shut it off. But hey, ignore it and you'll have a structural failure which will lead to the plane being snagged, or the plane will break apart and crash. Sadly, I am unable to play this game because 1. I don't have the time, and 2. I bought the game back in December but my graphics card wasn't powerful enough, and that or something else made flying an airplane like driving a car with a sticky steering wheel -- plane crashed every time. I hope that in the late spring/early summer when I have the time I'll get this game.
Monostripezebra Posted March 17, 2021 Posted March 17, 2021 (edited) I am still kind of amazed, that so few iconic oldies like DC3, Ju52, Storch, Beaver, Grumans etc. have not yet been done in multiple variations.. but hey, it all takes time. I just had a wonderfull first small distance glider flight, just used the Bleriot from Lukla to do ridge soaring to paplu.. an easy small jump that was fitting to the live weather wind, just some impressions: Take-off was a bit dicey with the wind.. but thankfully MSFS planes can be very forgiving. Edited March 17, 2021 by Monostripezebra 2
AndyJWest Posted March 17, 2021 Posted March 17, 2021 Dammit, I spend a rather fruitless hour trying to ridge-soar something sensible in New Zealand live weather (not enough wind), only to find that some deranged monochrome equid has out-done me in the worlds least-suitable glider. ? Did you actually manage to gain height at any point, my stripy friend? 2 1
Monostripezebra Posted March 18, 2021 Posted March 18, 2021 (edited) On 3/17/2021 at 11:02 AM, AndyJWest said: (..) the worlds least-suitable glider. ? Did you actually manage to gain height at any point, my stripy friend? I gotta say, the Bleriot is a lot easier to soar then it may seem.... I mean, yes, it has this fun directional instability, but it is probably way overoptimistic in stall and post stall behaviour as well as a very optimistc L/D or at least thats how I feel after flying it a lot. So with the light weight you can use the somewhat weird ridgelift in MSFS2020 really good as it climbs really well and with the low speed you can stay in small high lift spots and the drag penalty of flying faster forward is actually not bad (probably not realistic, it feels more like a Grunau Baby to be honest). Ok, the directional problems have gotten me killed 1-2 times, when I got too careless on the slopes but overall, it actually is working really well as a glider and I low key kinda plan to land it on Mt. Everest once I get live weather with enough wind and cloud gaps. Hight gain is not a problem in it, at all! Possibly due to overly benign slow speed handling, it does not really spin out or drop wings so you have a considerable safety margin getting slow when dealing with the directional quirks, as long as one turns always away from the slope (as one should). Also Lukla is a super neat starting point because of the sloped runway (engineless takeoff for most light planes) and the U-shaped mountains behind i mean that any wind from any front angle (+/-90° to the downhill runway direction both sides) gurantees an entry into a ridgelift area. Namche Bazaar, Kangel and Paplu are nearby airports that are enough of a challenge to soar to, but also really close, so you can keep flights like to 30-60min as short entertainment. I use the Y-key for positioning the RIP-Bleriot on the runway (the Anzani engine has not enough power to taxi at that alt, the gnome can take off under power but not climb without ridge lift) but you have to use the lower end of the runway to keep the plane from nosing over with the quick-translate key. in short: I can only recomend. Very fun mix of doable and challenge to go soaring with neat landscape and clouds, very relaxing. Edited March 18, 2021 by Monostripezebra
AndyJWest Posted March 18, 2021 Posted March 18, 2021 @Monostripezebra: I tried flying the Discus-2B out of Lukla. Not difficult, apart from the problem of starting on the flat part of the runway at the top. I soon figured out that I could set up Kinetic Assistant to give me a very slow 'winch launch' just far enough to get me onto the slope, so off I went. Not entirely successfully, since I'd not really got enough wind. And there aren't a lot of off-field landing spots available... Meanwhile, back in the XCub, more world trip screenshots: I've got as far as Luzon, Philippines, where I get a front seat view of the endless battle between rock and water. More geology lessons. Yay! First, the water. Which the Philippines seems to have in abundance. I'd been struggling for days further south, with rain and cloud making flying difficult or impossible. Somewhere through that murk is Legazpi airport. 'Fly left base' says the ATC. Fair enough, there's an obvious hazard on the far side, all 8,000 ft plus of it, but it is a long way off. No problem. 'Flying left base' only really works if you can see the runway though, and the rain was getting heavier. Taking me down to 500 ft or so as I fly parallel, just to keep it in view. Then this happens! Should have looked more closely at the map. The god of inconveniently-placed hills has found an ideal spot to plant a trap for the unwary. Not a problem under sensible VFR flying, but I gave up trying to be sensible miles back. Had to, or I'd still be in Fiji. Or possibly Lagos. Somehow I avoided face-planting the hill, and landed without hitting the high-rise buildings on approach either. The following day, conditions have much improved, and as I climb out of Legazpi, I get a good view of the hill that nearly did me in, along with the larger obstruction in the distance. The mighty Mayon: 8,081 ft of stratovolcanic perfection. You don't need to be a geologist to figure out that volcanoes don't get to stay that shape for long if they aren't being topped up regularly. Mayon seems last to have done significant topping-up in 2018, when it was apparently going through the entire volcanic repertoire: "phreatic explosions, steam-and-ash plumes, lava fountaining, and pyroclastic flows" I circle Mayon as I climb, admiring its near-perfect conical form, before heading towards Manila. Or at least, that was my intention. As it turned out, Manila was enveloped in rain as I got there. I diverted to a small strip to the east. Too busy landing before that got rained in too to get a screenshot. Diverting paid off though, as the following day Manila was still covered in rain when I set off north. Not an ideal day for flying, as I had to dodge over, under, and around the cloud, and gave up on trying to get a look at Mt Pinatubo, which would have been buried under the worst of it. Eventually, I found myself flying along the west coast of Luzon, peering intently ahead to see what the conditions were like below the cloud layer I couldn't fly over. Safer out over the water than inland where the mountains were pushing up through the clouds. San Fernando airport is on the isthmus behind me, a safe bolt-hole if conditions worsen. Ahead though, it seems to be clearing, as I follow the coast, and the linear mountain ridge beyond. I've seen enough of these by now to have a good idea what's going on. Got to be a fault line, where rock is fighting rock, and more rock gets pushed up out of the way... Up ahead, I reach Vigan, where another rocky ridge tells a tale. Or at least, I think it does. A sharp ridge, with a river cutting through it. This is the Vigan Gap, where the Abra River passes through almost as if the ridge wasn't there. I've seen this sort of thing before. Sharp (uneroded and therefore new) ridge, cut by a river that would surely have gone around it. "I'd bet good money the river was there first" I think to myself. A bit of Googling after I land confirms my suspicion. The Abra was there before the fault-line did its work, and cut its way through even as the ridge rose up. Water won this battle. My destination, Laoag airport, comes into view. Nice to be landing in good conditions for a change. My next leg will, if all goes to plan, take me to Taiwan. 5
ZachariasX Posted March 18, 2021 Posted March 18, 2021 Andy, I see you're getting weather resistant as well!
ZachariasX Posted March 19, 2021 Posted March 19, 2021 Ok, another leg on my trip around the world. From Airport Tbilisi Lochini (LGTB) in Georgia (not USA) to Ankara Esenboğa Airport (LTAC). This is the one where I froze up, couldn't make it, and then had to take to road to Ankara. From Georgia, I'm planning now to fly across Turkey to Greece, from there to Italy and back home. I expected the flight to Ankara to be rather boring. Like the flight to Tbilisi, just longer. Boy, how can one be wrong. There's just this bloody cloud in between, but on Windy, it doesn't look so bad. So here's my flight plan. The mountains are not that high, at 10'000 ft. I should easily make it. Man, it is bloody windy. Also those clouds.. ugh.. It is also rather cold outside. I can climb and fly around the clouds and make it to Stepanavan Airport (UDLS). but what I see on the horizon is NOT good. As I appoach those clouds, the crate freezes and sends me into a stall right away. I kick off the AP and dive to get some speed (getting used to that), but the mountain ridges rise above me quickly. The crate barely stays aloft and I make for the lowest pass. I make it across but this pice of crap refuses to taw. This is the worst. After I made it across, I soldier on to my next waypoint, Shirak (UDSG). The snowy mountain range look plain evil. I see the cloudbase dropping to the level of the mointain peaks. Maybe I find a way in between? I cannot climb above, the Cessna barely maintains level up here at 7'000 ft. Hopefully I took the right valley. My paper printout of the map is not too detailed. I have to fly manual now. Pleae, make this valley go through... It is incredibly bumpy, lots of downdrafts. i have to decide between making more altitide or more speed. Speed it is. In the mountains, always. Always. Yes, I made it... but 2/3rd of the fuel is spent and I am not even half way. There is a ver ystrong wind, It really tosses my crate around and flying level on average is about the best it can do. In the distance I can see the lights of Erzurum Airport. I have to land there to refuel. I have to fly at full power just to stay aloft and I have a lot of headwind. Landing here gives me an opportunity to taw the aircraft. Then again, I wonder how much good this will do in the long run. Still, I decide to press on. I mean, how much worse can it get? It can get *much* worse. And it even does so. I took off and soon was greeted with a cloud base reaching down in the valleys. But this is not the realy bad part, these clouds freeze me up at once. At tree top, temperatures are almost permissible and there is little (or: not so much) freezing. I climb 500 ft. more and the crate freezes over. Ther is no way I can do IFR. But how do you do VFR when you get about 100 - 200 m vision? Answer is easy, locomotion as nature intended, by car! State road D.100, from Iran via Istanbul to Bulgaria, this road is gonna be my saviour. I follow it from Erzincan westbound over the pass. It is a highway, I count on it being not to windy, enough to follow it by aircraft. In few instances, the clouds clear up a bit after sweating in almost zero vision this is like good weather. Sometimes I get tempted taking a wrong turn, but I manage to follow the highway. Straight is always the direction that keeps you on the main road. This is nothing but a ghost train. For half an hour or so I am skimming tree tops along the road. I am zooming over the pass, just to lose the road out of sight as it winds down the pass in tight serpentines. I lose sight of everything to to keep on running into tree tops that pop up from the fog. I lose all sense of direction, I can't read the whisky compass (it's pitch dark in there, they didn't model luminescence!!!) and the repeater compass is way off from the violent maneuvering. I just turn the aircarft around from shadows popping up in the grey. All I can do is keep the speed up. I seriously can't believe I am still airborne at this time. It has been about an hour of flying finding the road and losing it out of sight before I am completely lost now. I have no idea how far and where I went and where and how I would look for the highway again. Total desorientation. I give up. For some reason, the crate is not really frozen. I just level it, set it on auto pilot after I managed to set the repeater compass again and I know the direction I am going. I could run into a moutain any second. But I can't be fussed anymore. Yet I am still there. I take my chances and I keep flying low, knowing that more freezing will kill me 100%, as I have almost no alttude reserve. But down low, most scenery is above me and I will run into things. So, I have to choose between 100% death and 99% death. I keep low. And I just keep flying on course. Time passes. I chose wisely. Clouds open up and lift a bit. This still doesn't mend the freezing, I can barely keep her airborne at full power. Any bit more icing and that was it. Some small town. I try to triangulate but I get few stations. I must be west of Sivas. I keep on flying by the heading bug, going west until I receive Ankara. Anonther gram of ice and I will crash. There is the sun now, but my Cessna refuses to taw. It's getting evening and I am still alive. How unlikely. The crate is still iced, but it still flies somewhat. Finally I receice the beacons around Ankara. I dial in and annonce myself at LTAC tower. They assigned me RWY 21R. That's the small one without lights to the left. 21C and 21L both have ILS and lights. I use 21C ILS for approach and just switch runways in the final. Almost there. Frozen all the way. What a tunnel of horror. I park it behind the first shed I can find. I need a break. But how unlikely that this Hobbit made it that far. My kids just asked me "Why do you do these kinds of long flights, nothing is happening, it's dull!" And there I was, sweating for hours. Combat flying they say is hours of boredom followed by short moments of terror. Well, that was terror for a good hour and a half. But I do know, in his place, I would have thought the same. So, where did I actually go? On my first leg, my meandering through the mountain range make it obvious that when calculating with 10% reserve, I would never make it to Ankara. From then on, it was ok until about half way. After my stoppover near Erzurum, theings obviously went south and I had to follow the D.100. From where the dashed line goes straight again, there I was lost and I was flying blind until I got to a bearing of about 270°. Before that, I didn't dare to change course from which I thought it would distance me from the mountains and so far kept me alive. Hit the road Jack... You can see I took some wrong turns. I'm a lucky son-of-a-gun... Greece! 4
Monostripezebra Posted March 20, 2021 Posted March 20, 2021 (edited) On 3/18/2021 at 1:03 PM, AndyJWest said: @Monostripezebra: I tried flying the Discus-2B out of Lukla. Not difficult, apart from the problem of starting on the flat part of the runway at the top. I soon figured out that I could set up Kinetic Assistant to give me a very slow 'winch launch' just far enough to get me onto the slope, so off I went. Not entirely successfully, since I'd not really got enough wind. And there aren't a lot of off-field landing spots available... i really like your trip pics.. the vulcan is looking georgious! What I find even more cool is that the are working on the Albatross extension which would not only allow for glider races (I´d assume the name is a pun on condor, the soaring sim) but also air races in general.. that would be cool! Meanwhile I fight with the problem of landing in Lukla without brakes.. that is kinda dicey. Edited March 20, 2021 by Monostripezebra 2
AndyJWest Posted March 20, 2021 Posted March 20, 2021 I flew another leg of my XCub world trip, Taiwan to Okinawa, last night. Lots of low cloud to start with, which I flew over after finding a way up through it. Worth doing, since I had the benefit of a 20-kt tailwind when I got there, along with a splendid view of the Yaeyama Islands' atolls just as the cloud cleared. This is probably one result of the work Asobo have done on water masks recently.
scram77 Posted March 20, 2021 Posted March 20, 2021 22 hours ago, ZachariasX said: My kids just asked me "Why do you do these kinds of long flights, nothing is happening, it's dull!" And there I was, sweating for hours. Combat flying they say is hours of boredom followed by short moments of terror. Well, that was terror for a good hour and a half. But I do know, in his place, I would have thought the same. So, where did I actually go? On my first leg, my meandering through the mountain range make it obvious that when calculating with 10% reserve, I would never make it to Ankara. From then on, it was ok until about half way. After my stoppover near Erzurum, theings obviously went south and I had to follow the D.100. From where the dashed line goes straight again, there I was lost and I was flying blind until I got to a bearing of about 270°. Before that, I didn't dare to change course from which I thought it would distance me from the mountains and so far kept me alive. Hit the road Jack... You can see I took some wrong turns. I'm a lucky son-of-a-gun... Greece! What do you use to get your route planning?
ZachariasX Posted March 20, 2021 Posted March 20, 2021 6 minutes ago, scram77 said: What do you use to get your route planning? LittleNavMap https://albar965.github.io/littlenavmap.html It‘s free and the next best thing to sliced bread. 1 1 1
scram77 Posted March 20, 2021 Posted March 20, 2021 1 hour ago, ZachariasX said: LittleNavMap https://albar965.github.io/littlenavmap.html It‘s free and the next best thing to sliced bread. Lovely! Thanks for this - been looking for something like this for a while
Blooddawn1942 Posted March 20, 2021 Posted March 20, 2021 Just bought the T-45. What an awesome plane. I still prefer the Hawk though but nonetheless a great addition. I hope they make a DCS Version someday. 1
AndyJWest Posted March 21, 2021 Posted March 21, 2021 2 hours ago, Blooddawn1942 said: Just bought the T-45. What an awesome plane. I still prefer the Hawk though but nonetheless a great addition. I hope they make a DCS Version someday. https://forums.eagle.ru/topic/203816-vnao-t-45-goshawk/
Tektolnes Posted March 22, 2021 Posted March 22, 2021 After Entebbe it was off to Kigali. Just had my lunch hour for this so hopped into the CJ4 and after the Spitfire it's nice to be able to sit back with an AP and just fiddle with buttons. Flew down over Bugala Island in the northwestern edge of Lake Victoria and then straight on down to Kigali. After Kigali it was a short hop down to Bujumbura on the northern shore of Lake Tanganyika which is the 2nd largest lake in the world by volume. Tried out the new Piper Arrow III which was a great little buy. After that it was due north to Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The plan was to head straight up over the Nyungwe Forest National Park and then down over Lake Kivu until I hit Goma. The weather around Bujumbura was a bit shaky as I was taking off. And it got progressively worse as I started flying over the National Park to the point where I could hardly see a thing - at one point a ridge loomed up and I just managed to haul the plane over some trees to the sound of scraping leaves against the bottom of the plane. So decided to divert west to hit the shores of Lake Kivu as quickly as possible where it cleared up a bit and I was able to skim along over the water with decent visibility. It got socked in again though as I got near to Goma but the trusty Garmin 530 was able to get me close enough to eventually see the airport as I flew over it at 500' and was then able to circle around and come in for a landing and a beer. 4
DD_Arthur Posted March 27, 2021 Posted March 27, 2021 Downloaded and installed patch 1.14.6.0 this morning. Very nice performance upgrade on my system. Very smooth indeed and I've been able to increase some visual quality settings too. 1 1
DBFlyguy Posted March 27, 2021 Posted March 27, 2021 (edited) Who woud've guessed MSFS would be the first of the modern sims to actually get a good quality Corsair ? Looks like a solid addon aircraft! Edited March 27, 2021 by DBFlyguy 1
AndyJWest Posted March 27, 2021 Posted March 27, 2021 Corsair sure looks nice. I'm a bit reluctant to buy warbirds for MSFS though, just because I'll likely find the lack of dakka-dakka dakka-dakka kaboom frustrating. And a Corsair really needs an authentic carrier with realistic wire trapping physics to do it justice. 7
Tektolnes Posted March 27, 2021 Posted March 27, 2021 100% getting this. Was always one of my favourite planes as a kid and I've been waiting years for it to arrive to a modern sim. If nothing else it'll tide me over until it arrives to DCS at some point this decade. 1
Lusekofte Posted March 28, 2021 Posted March 28, 2021 (edited) 21 hours ago, AndyJWest said: Corsair sure looks nice. I'm a bit reluctant to buy warbirds for MSFS though, just because I'll likely find the lack of dakka-dakka dakka-dakka kaboom frustrating. And a Corsair really needs an authentic carrier with realistic wire trapping physics to do it justice. I agree it should have a carrier, but my thinking is different. As I see this, we have Spitfire in all cfs known to men , but it is 20 years since we got a Corsair none real ones operate from carrier today. This is why I buy this and not the Spit. For some vintage flying in the modern world. Edited March 28, 2021 by LuseKofte 1
busdriver Posted March 28, 2021 Posted March 28, 2021 (edited) Sorry for the OT question. Anybody having trouble taking screenshots since this latest update? I have a GeForce RTX 2080 GPU and for some odd reason after the latest MSFS update when I try to take a screenshot using GeForce's default [PrtScn] key the saved png file is black. I've checked in MSFS and there is nothing assigned to the key. I'm not having issues with anything but MSFS. GeForce experience records tracks just fine. This image was taken in cockpit...during daylight east of Spokane Washington...trust me. ? Edited March 28, 2021 by busdriver
AndyJWest Posted March 29, 2021 Posted March 29, 2021 16 hours ago, ZachariasX said: I just use Win + PrtScn. That works. That's fine if you are only using a single monitor. With more, you get a screenshot of all of them, rather than just the active one, which is usually what you want when screenshotting a game. @busdriver Screenshots via the NVidia software seem to be working for me (2080 Ti) after the update. THe only issue I have is that for some reason it saves the screenshots to either Videos/Microsoft Flight Simulator or Videos/Desktop, rather than to the Creenshots folder, but it has always done that with MSFS for some reason. 1
ZachariasX Posted March 29, 2021 Posted March 29, 2021 (edited) So... next leg on my around the world trip is to from Ankara to Greece, LGHL to be precise. Google has the airfield Porto Kheli Alexion pixellated, but at least it exists as a community addon. It is a nicely situated airfield. One shouldn't hide it. from then on to Bari, Italy. This is the one where I could finally leave this darn freezer clouds behind me. In terms of flying distance, it looks ok. I should even be able to extend the flight path a bit south for making a pass at Santorini. The weather doesn't look all too bad this time, less of those evil frozen clouds. I take off and fly over Ankara downtown. Definitely a big city, but one can see most of it grew very recently. The clouds are sill awful as ever, you get near and your plane freezes with little hope of it tawing again. also somehow I think I am rather slow. Near Afyonkarahisar, I decide to climb above the clouds, I might make it through this ceiling without freezing up. That was a good call. I doubt I would have made it far underneath these clouds. Arriving near the coast, it is clearing up. Bodrum Airport is just ahead to the left. It is also getting late though, I didn't really check the time when I departed. Kos. Has been a while since I was here last time. The airport is just underneath my left wing. Astypalaia. On toward Santorini. Sunset at Santorini. I am passing over the airport and fly up the western coast. The remains of one of the most impressive volcanoes. The Minoan eruption destroyed an entire civilization. One just has to visit here. After all this foul weather a beautiful sunset. Yet over the sea it can get very dark very quickly and I am running on fumes. I tune in to Milos for firection. I use the "From" radial from Milos to direct me through the darkness to LGHL. This way I have a distance indicator and I should know when I'm there, as there is no beacon present at my destination. It is easy to spot the light of the airfield. As suggested by Windy, I make for an easterly appproach. No way, I just get blown off course. Something is rotten here. The radio is no help as it does not have an ATIS. I eventually go for a westward approach and all works out. I must have done tailwind approaches before. Found the tower. Well hidden when sitting on the runway. After takeoff I had to deviate a bit from course in order to stay well below the clouds. But once I reached Bodrum, that trouble was behind me. Also those Islands are well covered with beacons, making navigation easy. Landing at Porto Cheli took a bit more gymnastics than anticipated. Thise bloody islands have some windy corners... -------------------------- The next morning, I decided to venture on, to Bari Karol Wojtyła Airport (LIBD). This is the one you could easily do in reality if it was not for just one thing. That is my planned route. I just gotta do some sightseeing in Athens. Off I go. Another one of there "airports on a cliff next to the sea". Rather scenic. On towards Athens. A huge city. But there's something specific I am looking for. Rather hard to hide. but they really made it nicely. Once we have a world update for greece, there must be ton of incredible POI's in these whereabouts. Going North West, I have to cross a mountain range, the Agrafa. But in fair weather not really a problem. Corfu. For your eyes only, of course. I should have brought a 2CV. Maybe Andy has one that flies. Crossing the Adriatic Sea I arrive in Lecce, Italy. Nobody races in circles better than the guys at Nardò. Taranto. I forgot my stringbag. One of the all time best pilot books of WW2. If there is ever a book that comes close to "The Big Show" in terms of drama and entertainment, then it is this one. With the upside of it being rather exact (as opposed to Pierres artistic writer liberties) in recounting as well as being often a very funny read. Only the English can write in such a way. I have no idea why this book so rarely mentioned. I have many books, but if I had to pick one to stand for all of the pilot stories, it is either this or The Big Show. In the meantime, I arrived on approach to Bari. I announce myself for landing, but the give me a "Negative, IFR only!". Same as I Dehli. Well, I am flying an ILS approach, don't I? Alora eccomi! Made it. Awful crosswinds. I must say, it is so relaxing flying in a place where the scenery is not outwardly there to kill you. It's just nice flying here. I took a little detour to inspect Taranto harbor. It is nice having a relaxing scenic flight. Next will be the way home, via Pisa to Birrfeld, Switzerland, where I started my journey. From Rome on, the area becomes very familiar and the utter lack of VOR's is of no concern. It is kind of amazing. When you fly around the world, the numbers type of beacons present tell you much about how evolved the aviation scene is. On the backside of the world, you have some NDB's, maybe some VOR. Then when the areas get more populated, you get more VOR stations and less NDB. As soon as you cross into Europe, they tore out most antennas as everyone seems to be flying by GPS. I like the old way of navigating. Edited March 29, 2021 by ZachariasX 6
busdriver Posted March 29, 2021 Posted March 29, 2021 (edited) 9 hours ago, AndyJWest said: @busdriver Screenshots via the NVidia software seem to be working for me (2080 Ti) after the update. THe only issue I have is that for some reason it saves the screenshots to either Videos/Microsoft Flight Simulator or Videos/Desktop, rather than to the Creenshots folder, but it has always done that with MSFS for some reason. Thanks...it started working for me after I fat fingered [Win] + [PrtScn]. Meaning I saw the NVidia message flash in the upper right corner (normal behavior) after fumbling. And yes, oddly NVidia screenshots show up in the Videos folder. Just had an entertaining mountain hop in the O-1 Birddog. Got ForeFlight on my iPad Mini paired to MSFS. The terrain map of North America in MSFS is superb, I got intermittent 500 foot warning whilst staying out of the clouds and rocks. The straight line flight was only 23 minutes with a tailwind. Actual time was 47 minutes. The FM for all the taildraggers I've tried is a bit off in regards to crosswind landings. But a professional never blames his tools. @ZachariasX I agree that Charles Lamb's book is excellent. Edited March 29, 2021 by busdriver 3
AndyJWest Posted March 30, 2021 Posted March 30, 2021 I fancied a bit of live-weather ridge soaring this morning. Took a bit of time to find a good spot on Windy.com, as most of my regular haunts from XPlane seemed to either have no wind, wind in the wrong direction, or too much cloud. Thought I'd give this a go - it should be familiar from IL-2 GB and DCS. It's a bit more built-up since the 1940s. This ridge was producing good lift, but it doesn't go that far either way, and the ridge behind, which looked a reasonable prospect from a distance, turned out not to be working well at all. It is less sharply defined (erosion due to it being older I'd guess) and there just wasn't enough wind for it to work. Spoilers out, wheel down, heading back to where I started after trying to find lift over the cliffs. Some there, but very local, and not much use. A bit frustrating, as I got little higher than where I'd started from the whole flight - with a magic invisible-winch ride up to 4,700 ft or so over the sea. I'd no doubt have done better further east, where the mountains come down to the coast, but there was more cloud there, and I've already learned the hazards of flying this thing into cloud when it's below freezing. The ASI isn't essential, but I'd rather have it working just the same. 4
Enceladus828 Posted March 30, 2021 Posted March 30, 2021 (edited) This brings back memories of the FSX Tutorials -- in of them you would be in a DG-808s, soaring near Reno and Lake Tahoe, Nevada; learning about thermals, ridge lift, and wave lift. That got me interested in gliders. There was another mission in the Deluxe Edition where one would soar over Austria. Those mountains and valleys sure looked impressive, and would look even more impressive in MSFS 2020. I'm hoping that by the middle of May I'll have this game and enjoy all of these sights (to be fair, I got the game last Christmas but because my graphics card was slightly out of date for this game, or something else, but anyway flying a plane was like driving a car with a sticky steering wheel. Also, the graphics card I needed wouldn't be out until the end of January, but by then I would not be available, so I refunded the game). Edited March 30, 2021 by Enceladus
ZachariasX Posted March 30, 2021 Posted March 30, 2021 (edited) So... this is the first part of last leg, from Bari via Pisa San Giusto (LIRP) back home to Birrfeld (LSZF) where I took off from two aircraft ago in direction to Biggin Hill. This is the last one, but in two parts. The second part of the trip in memoriam of HB-HOT. The plan is to go there via Naples, up the Amalfi coast to Rome. From there further up the coast past Grossetto and Elba, then up the Maremma coast passing Livorno to Pisa. I am venturing now in regions very familiar to me. The weather is ok and the scenery familiar enough to mainly fly by the heading bug westward, taking the localizers just for entertainment. It doesn't take long and I cross the Apennines far enough to get a glimpse of the Gulf of Salerno. Having past Salero, I fly along the coast of the peninsula to Sorrento at the tip. It is already getting dark. 40 years ago, in these whereabouts it could have gotten dark like inside a cow. Not today anymore. With this weather it is easy to navigate at night. Over Naples, looking back at the Vesuvio and Pompei in the picture just below the aircraft. I reach the eternal city at nightfall. Past Grosseto, I proceed up the Maremma coast, a popular holiday destibnation and one of Italies premier wine regions. Flying over the sea direction north, you can see the lights of the Strada Statale 1 Via Aurelia. What looks line piers into the sea are in fact two of the resort towns in on the beach, the lower Marina di Castagneto Carducci and Bibbona beting th one ahead. The beach is all dark as it is covered by forrest plantation that spans from Livorno to Grosseto, from where the tree coverage gets more scarce. Arriving over Livorno. Pisa San Giusto is below the wheels of the aircraft. An easy flight. Next day, part one of the final stint, from San Giustpo to Birrfeld. After having another look at the vine region around Bolgheri, I will proceed along a route you'd take by car or train to Milan. From there I will proceed to Locarno where HB-HOT took off for her last flight, then following her flight path, absent some pilot supidities. From there via Zurich to Birrfeld. After takeoff, a short detour over downtown Pisa, right next to the airport. It's about 10 min by car. As it was night when I arrived, I make anoher short pass the the wine region just south of Livorno. For this, just follow the E80 Highway that is an elevated highway over all these fields. I suppose the farmers would have killed the workers had they cut the fields in half. Here, at Collesalvetti is the intersection with the highway to Florence, the FiPiLi, as they would call it here (the SGC Firenze - Pisa - Livorno). An hour ten minutes to Florence by car from here. I follow the E80 south (to the right). You follow the new E80 highway, it leads you through poster book Tuscany. The sim delivers a rather bland redition of the true looks. Going some 20 km south, I turn back north over Castagneto Carducci. Everything below the aircraft left oth the town on the hill (C.C.) should either be wineyards or olive trees. From here... to Bolgheri. You can see that straight road to the sea, the Strada Provinciale Bolgherese or the Viale dei Cipressi how they call her. Teh longsest Cypress alley in the world, they say, some 5 kilometers, all straight to the via Aurelia (a roman road of course, that is why it is still usable). Trees are mosty planted here some 200 years ago, both the cypresses and the Pineta, the pine forest along the coast. There's some regret about neglecting maintenance i.e keep on planting new trees. Then again, moving their arse is not an alternative. The road leads to the Tenuta San Guido down at the Aurelia. if you are into wine, you know it. Almost all of this land (and a seizable part of Tuscany belonged to one single well known family. Everybody needs cash at some point, hence possession fragmented a bit. But enough of that, now, on homeward. This leads me all the way up the coast toward La Spezia. I am passing Massa here, with the white marble mountains of Carrara in the background. At La Spazia, I turn north passing the harbor. This will lead me across the Passo della Cisa to cross the Apeninnes. Not very high, the highway passing it has some spectacural bridges. (And I remember a lot of the most dreadful accidents happening there when the Highway was more of a windy road.) they also built a railroad tunnel there through the Apeninnes, and while it is not all contingeus, IIRC is is some 70 km tunnel! The high speed train is extremely efficient now and if they operate, then its usually better than taking the plane. And much faster than the car. (You can't really speed anymore in these parts. This is a good thing, trust me!) I climb as hard as I can just to make sure, now passing Aulla. All these vilages over the pass were gradually abandonned in the last century, but from 2000 on and with the highway built, any hipster with money could afford his own town and be in commuting distance to La Spezia. It looks different now than in 1980's. Crossing the pass brings me to Parma. From here, I can follow the Autostrada del Sole, the A1, to Milan in direction north west. Piacenza, roughly halfway to Milan from Parma. Crossing the river Po from Emilia-Romagna into Lombardy. Milan. I think this is way too clear of a weather here. usually you have not only smog but also humidity that put up a considerable haze. Now I need to make a short break, as I seem to exceed my upload quota. Crossing into Switzerland after passing Como is next. Edited March 30, 2021 by ZachariasX 2
AndyJWest Posted March 30, 2021 Posted March 30, 2021 Thought I'd try ridge soaring on the Rock of Gibralter today, as the weather looked good. The launch didn't go exactly as planned... 1 1
Hoots Posted March 31, 2021 Posted March 31, 2021 7 hours ago, AndyJWest said: Thought I'd try ridge soaring on the Rock of Gibralter today, as the weather looked good. The launch didn't go exactly as planned... Eventualities, "If I have a launch failure for any reason I will land ahead, unless there's a mahoosive rockface I might make it to" 1
ZachariasX Posted March 31, 2021 Posted March 31, 2021 7 hours ago, AndyJWest said: Thought I'd try ridge soaring on the Rock of Gibralter today, as the weather looked good. T That is one fantastic updraft. Up to 6 ms. On the back side -6 then... While I do think it is probably an optimistic reditition of how you can sail there, it is plausible and I am extremely happy with MSFS providing this. It is a huge component of flying in the mountains that... your engine just is not enough if you venture in bad places. On the other hand, you can use it to achieve what is not possible otherwise. I guess I will delete FSX and P3D from my rig. Although they are still home to my Accusim fleet, when weather is just shaking and horizontal displacement of the aircraft is just... boring. Despite occasional good looks and stellar 3rd party addons, there is just no way around the fact that this is a thing of the past. As much fun as we had with it.
AndyJWest Posted March 31, 2021 Posted March 31, 2021 4 hours ago, Hoots said: Eventualities, "If I have a launch failure for any reason I will land ahead, unless there's a mahoosive rockface I might make it to" ? By the time I'd figured out what had happened, and avoided face-planting the runway, it was probably too late to land ahead. This thing is slippery, and takes some stopping, even with spoilers out. I'd got a lot of energy, and if the lift wasn't there, there was a bit of flat ground below the corner of the rock. And if that didn't work, I had the option of deleting the video and pretending it didn't happen. ? 2 1
Bremspropeller Posted March 31, 2021 Posted March 31, 2021 11 hours ago, Hoots said: Eventualities, "If I have a launch failure for any reason I will land ahead, unless there's a mahoosive rockface I might make it to" Kinda waiting for the "monkeys throwing rocks at you" DLC. 1
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