Lost World: Angel Falls and the Tepuis of Venezuela

[MM 422]

Lost World: Angel Falls and the Tepuis of Venezuela

Today we fly somewhere that we do not normally visit. We shall fly over the Gran Sabana and the Tepuis of Venezuela's Canaima National Park, a region so remote and inaccessible that it was largely unexplored until the last century.

We start at Ciudad Bolívar (SVCB) where you can see Jimmie Angel's famous aircraft El Rio Caroní just streetside of the passenger terminal. We then fly quickly to Tocomita (SV76) near the huge Gurí Dam and then head south over the Gurí Reservoir (the world's 11th largest man-made lake) to land at Canaima village (SVCN), the gateway to the park. We take off over the lagoon's waterfalls and head to see Angel Falls (ANGEL). Approaching Auyán-tepui at 6,000 ft, heading slightly left of a direct path we enter Devil's Canyon to get a good look at the world's highest waterfall "discovered" by legendary American aviator Jimmie Angel in 1933. We then climb up over the remainder of the region's largest tepui and then quickly descend to the gravel runway at Kavak (SVKV), a luxury tourist camp for those wishing to explore the area more intimately. We shall pause here for a few minutes and admire the scenery.

Then off again over the Chimantá Massif (a fragmented complex of 11 tepuis) and enjoy the drama of the local terrain before landing at the Pemon village of Wonken (SVUQ). Then turning east for 56nm, we climb to an altitude of 9,000 ft to enjoy a view of Kukenán and Roraima, the tallest of the tepuis. (The quality of the view will depend on the quality of your mesh – and your imagination!) And then back to land at the "frontier" border town Santa Elena de Uairén (SVSE). Finally, we push further southwest to "Venezuela's Wild South" and finish at the dirt strip serving the gold rush town of Icabarú (SVIC).

At your discretion, you may wish to transport gold-mining equipment, bought and delivered via the informal economy, from Ciudad Bolívar to  Icabarú. No need to attract undue attention from the authorities.

The flightplans for Plan-G and FSX, along with a Pilots' Guide and more, can be found here.

Aircraft.
The route is 382nm. Any aircraft capable of a 170kts cruise will do nicely. We are operating in an underdeveloped region and several of the airports are short dirt or gravel strips. A relatively quick ship with some cargo capacity would suit the task. You might pick something appropriate. A Cessna 208, Piper Navajo, Quest Kodiak, Beech D-18, or DC-3. Pilots carrying delicate instruments might prefer a Cessna 337 or Aero Commander 500. As always, fly whatever you like. I shall be piloting the wonderful Manfred Jahn/Jan Visser C-47 v3.0 in the colors of Allas (painted by our Ron Attwood). Special thanks to the authors and team for the impressive aircraft.

 

Scenery
More than normal, you might want to augment your default setup to make the trip worthwhile. (Here the default airports and mesh will let you down.) Of course, you want the payware Orbx Global textures. And you might like Global Vector. This time, in addition, you will want some airport sceneries and also (possibly) a mesh enhancement.

You will likely want to install 4 packages by David Maldonado that will give us six airports that we use. You can download these separately or get the all-in-one package that I have assembled for your convenience. A tip of our caps to David Maldonado for his splendid work.

And you will surely need a good mesh package to see the spectacular terrain that brings us to this region. The default mesh is useless here. At a minimum, you can rely on your world package (FreeMeshX, Pilots Global Mesh or FSGenesis Mesh). If you have only default mesh, or would like a sharper representation, you might like to install the relevant mesh tile from FreeMeshX.

For more on these scenery additions, please download the Lost World Airport Scenery and Mesh (download and installation hints and tips) in the Lost World packet here.

If you have Global Vector, be sure to run the AEC "auto-configuration" facility after installing the new airports.

Particulars
Date and time: December 17, 2016, 1900 UTC
Where: AVSIM RTWR Teamspeak - Casual Flights Channel
Teamspeak Server Address: ts.teamavsim.com
Cross-Platform Multiplayer: JoinFS. Latest TEST version is here. (FSX, FSX-SE, and P3D)

If you want to help others enjoy the multiplayer experience, don't forget to enter your aircraft details on the multiplayer spreadsheet (linked here). Your courtesy will save others a lot of time and effort. Thanks!

Please set your own starting time. The sun sets quickly near the equator and the last airport is an unlighted dirt strip, so some caution is wise. I recommend that you set your initial clock at 1345 local time to account for flight time and the usual "faffing about" time.

[edpatino 1,960]

Very nice and welcome to Venezuela!. The region is well-known one by thousands of tourists visiting it every year.

As described, the sceneries from David Maldonado are excellent to take-off and landing in most of these airports.

Good luck. Regretfully I will not participate due to a travel next Saturday.

Cheers, Ed

[edpatino 1,960]

And, by the way, the Angel Falls are the highest waterfall of the world with 980 meters (aprox. 3,215 ft).

Enjoy the trip!.

Cheers, Ed

[MM 422]

A note on downloading the scenery for Saturday's flight through Venezuela's Canaima National Park.

First download here the "Lost World.zip" package that includes the flight plans, the pilots guide, the initial announcement,  and "Lost World. Airport Scenery and Mesh.pdf".

Open "Lost World. Airport Scenery and Mesh.pdf". There you will find details on the scenery. Included are the AVSIM locations for David Maldonado's scenery as well as that of Jose Vincente Andretta. And some discussions of mesh. For your convenience, I have included the all-in-one scenery package "Lost_World_Scenery_Pack. zip". The download location is indicated in the pdf.

If you don't care to read the scenery and mesh guide, then you can download the (318MB) Lost_World_Scenery_Pack from my DropBox location here.

Mike

[Ron Attwood 3,464]

I shall be bringing about 10-15 very attractive and willing women along with me. It must surely be lonesome in them thar hills!

[edpatino 1,960]

I shall be bringing about 10-15 very attractive and willing women along with me. It must surely be lonesome in them thar hills!

 

Can I join all of you?. I could be a tour guide.

Cheers, Ed

[Ron Attwood 3,464]

Can I join all of you?. I could be a tour guide.

Cheers, Ed

I'll put it to the committee. Yes. You'll be very welcome. :smile:

 

I've made a space for you on the multiplayer spreadsheet (linked here).

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

Mike, thanks for the great trip preparation!

 

Looking forward to the flight..  One more time, surrounded by a bunch of 60 year old aircraft  :wink:

 

I'll keep a polite distance..

[MM 422]

Bert, don't let the fragrance of oil on the tarmac spoil the fun.

[briansommers 74]

Zoolander64 put up a 24hr JoinFS server that is available to use anytime.

Yes, he gave me permission to post this here.

make sure you have the latest version

goto file/settings and add your nickname. Make sure to click show nickname

add a new bookmark:

Name: DigitalThemePark

IP address: aviator.digitalthemepark.com

Port: 6464

 

Fly in Free flight mode like usual

Lock your frame rates to 30 or less

You can set your in-game "label" by changing your sims aircraft "Tail Number"

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

Proper etiquette dictates that you then also use the DTP Teamspeak channel..  :wink:

[MM 422]

OK. Let's coordinate for Saturday, December 17, 2016.

For this week's flight, let's stay with our usual procedures. That is:

Where: AVSIM RTWR Teamspeak - Casual Flights Channel
Teamspeak Server Address: ts.teamavsim.com

We shall use the IP address for the common server that Ron will have up at our takeoff time. The URL is posted in the Teamspeak Casual Flights Channel. (And people online will help you get the right address for JoinFS.)

We can then discuss what to do in the future.  Zoo's offer to let us (and everyone) use his DTP facilities is wonderfully generous. We'll just have to come to an agreement about how we can best coordinate. But, again, for this week let's use the standard procedures.

[Ron Attwood 3,464]

Let us bear in mind that Eamonn kindly pays for a TS server for our use. It would seem rude to abandon it.

[Viking01 181]

I installed all of the scenery and it looks fine, no elevation problems. In FSX, however, the Mesh-Patch made the scenery look worse, the Angel Falls starts in mid air, high above the terrain. Elimination of the patched file and return to the original one solved the problem.

In P3D, I cannot get the Angel Fall to look right, with or without the patch, the water starts in mid air. But the rest of the scenery looks beautiful.

[briansommers 74]

I did not mean to cause confusion. I'm just the messenger. I just simply wanted people to know that it exists.