Over Utah, south of SLC

[John_Cillis 2,406]

Haven't posted here in  a while, here are some screenshots. 

 

Enjoy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[jcomm 5,890]

Amazing!!! Thank you very much for sharing!

[Snuffleupagus 327]

Awesome!! Those screenshots are actually the exact area I did all my flight training and more! Your very last shot is actually the area I live. Right on that road with the ball park straight down from the left edge of the elevator.

 

That tall mountain to the right is Mt Timpanogos. It's the second tallest in the Wasatch Mountain Range at 11,750'. I've hiked that a few times and more recently I hiked up the "face" of it (The side we are looking at). There is no maintained trail on the face so we just pointed in the direction we wanted to end up at and went. Almost everyone hikes it from the other side where there are 2 trails you can take. The locals here think we are nuts because the face is the more dangerous side with cliffs and loose rocks, and is really steep. We did it at night with a few flashlights and a few guns (we are home to Cougars and Bears where a number of people get attacked/killed each year in these mountains) Come to think of it, I've actually never hiked that mountain in the day time... More interesting for you guys, there is actually still wreckage on the face of the mountain from a B-25 which crashed in 1955. 

 

A little history to that crash:  The U.S. Air Force B-25 crashed on the afternoon of March 9, 1955. The day was stormy with the local mountains reporting 18" of new snow. The plane carried three crewmembers and two passengers. The plane began its fight in Great Falls, Montana, made a fuel stop at Hill Air Force Base in Ogden, Utah, and departed for March Air Force Base in Riverside, California. Sometime after 7:30 p.m. the B-25 became lost in the weather and crashed on the east side of Timpanogos. Killed in the crash was the pilot Major D.C. Holley, co-pilot 1st Lieutenant H. E. St. John, Airman 1st Class D. H. Dempsey, civilian crew chief M. J. McNalty and civilian D. R. Cubbage.

 

Ah heck, while I'm at it...

 

Shot #2 shows Provo Canyon which has "Bridal Veil Falls" which is a pretty neat double water fall that drops 607' into the Provo River. It is a hot spot for rock climbing and mostly freezes over in the winter for ice climbing. At the top of Provo Canyon there is a large reservoir (Deer Creek) that is also a hot spot for water sports. Next to that is another small airport (36U/Heber) that I've flown into a few times, once for a free breakfast and it had a lot of neat planes. Perhaps the most well known area up Provo Canyon is Sundance Resort. That is where I learned to ski and is actually owned/started by Robert Redford, which he has a vacation lodge at.

 

Shot #4 shows "State Street" very well which is the busiest road in the valley. Most everything you need is along that street.

 

Shot #5 shows I-15 which runs through Utah, Las Vegas, and into Los Angeles. More interesting is the area to the lower right. That used to be a steel plant named "Geneva Steel." My Grandpa worked there and at nights you could see the giant hills of slag light up like lava when they dumped the hot slag on top of them. Geneva was founded during WWII to increase national steel output. They chose this location because it was far enough inland from enemy reach. Geneva Steel was the largest steel mill west of the Mississippi River and produced 60 percent of the steel used in the Western United States. Several years ago they started demolishing it. Progress slowed when the economy took a hit and there is still a lot to be taken down.

 

Shot #10 you can see a bit of the Copper Mine, which if anyone has flown into SLC you've probably seen it. The mine has been there for 109 years. No other private sector operation has generated more production, exports, income and employment than this mine has. They are also the second-largest copper producer in the United States. The mine has produced more copper than any other mine currently at more than 19 million tons. And the one thing us locals are all aware of, the mine is the largest man made excavation on Earth and can be seen from space. In September this year, the mine suffered a large landslide due to days of rain. They are still currently trying to recover from that.

 

Anyways, there's your learning for the day! I hope it wasn't too boring Ha ha thanks for sharing these!

[jcomm 5,890]

Thank you for your description. Never been there, but it's just as if I had :-)

 

The ZL17 ortho photos ( free ) I run for the region of Lisbon and surrounding areas are also great. Together with the autogen, and even Urban MAXX, it's as plausible as I could ask :-)

[John_Cillis 2,406]

Awesome!! Those screenshots are actually the exact area I did all my flight training and more! Your very last shot is actually the area I live. Right on that road with the ball park straight down from the left edge of the elevator.......

 

.......Anyways, there's your learning for the day! I hope it wasn't too boring Ha ha thanks for sharing these!

 

Thanks for being my co-pilot on this one and sharing the sights with us.  I enjoyed your reply immensely!

 

John

[Phantom88 3,284]

Love them!!!

[N330DG 44]

Hi John,

 

Great shots!

 

What LOD_RADIUS do you have in you fsx.cfg?

 

The default is 4.5 but higher values are possible and lead to

a sharper view in the mid to long distance.

 

I would experiment with values from 5.5 to 9.5. It depends on your hardware.

If you go too high, you will again experience blurries.

[John_Cillis 2,406]

Hi John,

 

Great shots!

 

What LOD_RADIUS do you have in you fsx.cfg?

 

The default is 4.5 but higher values are possible and lead to

a sharper view in the mid to long distance.

 

I would experiment with values from 5.5 to 9.5. It depends on your hardware.

If you go too high, you will again experience blurries.

 

I just have it at the default and I am pretty happy with it.  It keeps the scenery moving fluidly with few stutters.  4 Gigs of my Ram went bad recently (along with a zapped power supply which I had to replace during a bad t-storm).  So I am only running the sim with 4 Gigs at the moment, so any tweaks to the LOD value might compromise performance until I get it replaced.

 

John

[N330DG 44]

Ouch !!

 

Never fly into t-storms

[IFR7700 228]

Very nice ... the slight deviations from "straight and level" give your images the feel of motion.