Great White North

[Guest depot_haldol]

I started a flight at Alert, Northwest Territories (CYLT) just for fun. 82.31 degrees north, pretty barren up there. The problem is that when I took off and looked behing the aircraft, the terrain was doing really funny things. The aircraft stayed (appropriately) lined up on the extended centerline of the runway, and the runway itself looked (and behaved) perfectly fine. But the terrain itself was sliding quickly from right to left. The aircraft stayed on the extended cenerline, like I said, but the airport went from being surrounded by grass, to being surrounded by ice, as the terrain slid by underneath it. It was obviously quite strange, and obviously not intended. (At least I hope not.)It looked like the airport and aircraft stayed anchored in one coordinate system while the underlying terrain graphics were on some other system. I could reproduce this on every flight. Before and after going to Alert, I tried essentially the same procedure from other more southerly airports and there was no problem. Is this something that's well-known? Do others see this? Thanks.Oh, this is FS9. No 3rd party scenery. Thanks.

[N60JBravo 27]

If you take the peel off an orange in one piece and try to lay it out flat on a table you will have to distort it to get it to lay flat. I think you are seeing this distortion when you fly out of Alert (I saw it too). If you want to see some really weird stuff try flying over the Pole.

[january 19]

Your post re Alert is remarkably appropriate this Remembrance Day weekend. On Nov 2 1991, a Canadian Air Force Hercules- tail #130322, on a supply run from Thule Greenland, clipped the top of a snow covered rocky ridge on the approach into Alert. Most of of the crew and passengers survived the initial impact, but in the 24 hour darkness, high winds and blizard prevented ground rescuers reaching them from Alert. Ultimately, a Canadian Forces SAR team from Edmonton parachuted onto the site, in darkness & near hurricane winds, to aid survivors and await ultimate rescue. 13 were finally rescued nearly 2 days later. There were 5 fatalities. Cause of the accident was attempting a visual approach in total darkness with no reference points other than airport runway lighting.This is now known as the "black hole" effect- the result of which tends to cause the pilot to fly a low arc on the approach rather than a straight line.------------I just tried this with the DF Baron- and yes, FS9/Alert is VERY dark at this time of year. My setup is triple mon/triple views with a 48" Field of View. The scenery caused no unusual problems and behaved normally- except it is totally black as in real world. There was a pale illuminaton to the sky so I had a visual horizon. I experienced the same phenomena as the Herc- it is almost impossible to convince yourself that you are flying a low arc- but knowing about it did allow me a safe if somewhat ragged landing. Thanks for the reminder.Alex Reid CYYJ