Navigating the D-Day Assault Routes

[Guest PilotPete]

I would love to fly the C47 from England over the D-Day drop zones and back using the same routes and navigation aids the original pilots used. It would mean someone creating new scenery objects (light ships) and perhaps nav beacons. Anyone planning to try it?Here's an excerpt from a website (http://www.6juin1944.com/assaut/aeropus/en_9tcc.php) I posted info about here on June 2nd:"From their starting points to the English coast, aerial corridors are marked out in order to guide the planes until the gathering point 'ELKO' preceding the crossing of the Channel. Then, the planes head south-west and leave the English coast at the Portland Bill headland. From this moment their flight level will have to be 500 feet.Four minutes after having passed 'FLATBUSH' and the English coast, the navigation lights and the lights inside the planes are turned off, only formation lights and amber recognition lights remain. Heading is maintained for 57 miles to a point code named 'HOBOKEN' which was a ship in the North-west of Guernsey.Over 'HOBOKEN' the planes change their course and move now towards south-east, towards the coast of the Cotentin peninsula. Amber lights are turned off and formation lights are turned to the lowest practicable intensity, the last part of the crossing begin.The French coast is crossed over the point code named 'MULESHOE' for the 101st Airborne and over the point code named 'PEORIA' for the 82nd Airborne."Anyone have more details?Thanks,Peterhttp://home.earthlink.net/~pmhemm/Hemm_Signature.jpg

[rambow 0]

Ah, Peter, your wish is our command. Sam Kimpton, our team's Airborne and Troop Carrier historian, is working on that very thing. We will be putting up a package for you with all the charts and start-up flights and more. Sam was also involved in producing the paratrooper effects and that got priority so we could meet our D-Day, er, D-Day. :-) But look for it soon.Bill RambowMAAM-SIM http://www.fssupport.com/maam/maamsim_neon.gif

[Guest PilotPete]

EXCELLENT!!A big Thank You to the MAAM-SIM team for all the great products and support! You guys are a class act.Peterhttp://home.earthlink.net/~pmhemm/Hemm_Signature.jpg

[Guest gooneyrider]

For those of you who would be interested in flying routes the French 3 & 4SAS "used" before they were dropped over Brittany from June 5 thru June 18 1944, I have them (my gradfather was one of them).

[Guest africa]

I would be interested flying the routes - is it possible to e mail them to me. I bet your grandfather could tell some interesting stories about a very dangerous situation to be in. Where was he stationed in Southern England before he left for the invasion. Thank you in advance.Stephen Daysheila.day1@ntlworld.com

[Guest BobLee]

Any news on D-Day routes package? I am waiting for it with great anticipation. My uncle flew a glider into Normandy on D-Day and dropped paratroopers in Market Garden.

[Guest SWA2873]

Hi Bill;I need you to contact me by e-mail.My primary system has crashed (hardware failure) and I no longer have access to your e-mail or a link to the other forum.Right now I am running a P100 with windows 98. Everything is on hold until I can get the problem taken care of.:-(Sam

[rambow 0]

Bummer, Sam. We've all been there. Roger, wilco on the e-mail. Bill RambowMAAM-SIM http://www.fssupport.com/maam/maamsim_neon.gif

[Guest Zarzura]

I am currently quite obsessed with the new FsPassenger Add-On, which packs some very nice aspects of a commercial simulation into FS.There is an interesting little feature in FsPassenger, which I do not use for my virtual airline flying, but it might be of special interest for the MAAM C-47: the add-on simulates dangerouse zones, like war areas and the like.The danger zones are defined in a database and can be modified by the user from within FS. A Danger zone is a given latitude/longitude with a radius in km/miles and two percentage values. One of the percentage values modifies the reliability of your aircraft (meaning, the chance of a random failure gets greater). The other percentage is the chance, that the aircraft gets shot and damaged. The predefined areas include zones, where failure-rate increases (because the maintenance in this areas is bad), or real war zones (like Irak) or both. This feature plays together with FsPassengers feature of setting truly random failures to the aircraft. FsPassenger also enhances the failure behaviour of FS by making some failures develop slowly (so you have a chance to discover a problem by panning the gauges before all #### breaks loose). If you fly a war zone and you get shot at, you have war sounds, a copilot giving damage reports and if you have passengers with you, you can hear them scream. Your aircraft will behave according to the damages.I am quite sure, that the percentage values are the only means of decision of what is to happen, I guess there is no way to prevent being shot by flying any maneuvers or in low altitude. But I believe, this is very much the dependency of fortune that the pilots encountered in real life...For me this seems to be a great way to make flying the DDay assault routes with the MAAM C-47 a nailbiting venture, but of course first we need somebody to define the danger zones as close to history as possible. FsPassenger might also be a bit too expensive for only this feature (31 Euro), but I can recommend it for all the other features as well! A demo version is available, including the danger zones, but it is only possible to start from KSFO in the demo. There are demo-warzones near KSFO so it is possible to check out the feature without buying.The homepage is:http://www.fspassengers.comPapa Zulu