The Tapini Experience

[CavalierDuck 106]

This week we'll tour the Goilala region, starting at Tapini and visiting a number of small bush strips before concluding at Girua. As always you can fly what you like but be aware that the route includes some challenging approaches into short sloping high altitude mountainside landing strips so you might want to take something appropriate.  I will fly the DHC-2 Beaver, other good choices could include a Cessna 185 or Pilatus PC-6.

Flight plan (.PLN format) available here.

Scenery

The flight plan will be based around Orbx's Tapini package, for which FTX Global BASE Pack and the freeware Orbx PNG mesh are also required.  Girua has been upgraded as part of the AYPY Jacksons package, which will be needed next week anyway for our return to the Kokoda Trail.

Additonal: you also probably want the freeware Orbx Emo Mission, which will be our penultimate stop.

Here is what Orbx has to say about the Tapini package airports:

TAP - Tapini is the main airport in the Goilala area and also bears the name of the project, nestled into a large mountain and within a tight valley, the one-way runway is sloped with a steep cliff off the end which all conspires to make this bushstrip a tricky one to operate in and around, for precision landings it features the infamous "Tapini ILS", to use this one must line up the right-hand wing with the goat track following the opposite hillside to the bushstrip, it will place you in roughly the correct position and attitude to turn 90 degrees left onto the runway, but miss this point and you'll have to follow the valley for a while to reach an open spot to turn around

WTP - Woitape is nestled in an open valley on some flat ground next to a river and services the nearby Fatima Mission, it features a soft rolling one-way runway sloping downwards gently, but dont be fooled by all this.... its also a notorious place to take off from due to the altitude and because it lacks a handy cliff at the end with which to drop off and gain speed, many an aircraft has struggled to get out of here, so pay attention to your cargo loads and fuel mix on this one

FNE - Fane is an infamous one-way bushstrip perched on top of a mountain ridge servicing a small mission station, with a sloping 12 degree runway, and lots of unpredictable crosswinds and updrafts combining to make it a terrifying place to land and take off, and with a very tight parking area take extra care to watch your wingtips when turning around, when taking off there is a cliff at the end so make sure to runup the engine and do all necessary pre-flight checks before releasing the brakes and heading over the crest and into the valley

ONB - Ononge is another one-way ridge-top bushstrip servicing a mission station, with a low approach over a little village, this ones a bit more bumpy and unkempt and has a dogleg forcing the pilot to make a ten degree turn halfway along the strip, very tight turning at the end with plenty of vegetation

KSP - Koispe services a mission station and it situated in a wide open valley next to a river with ample airspace to operate an aircraft, it was originally a lot longer but has since fallen into disrepair, the remaining part of the runway is maintained but it is quite a bit shorter making it yet another tricky strip to operate on, watch out for soft ground and due to the high altitude/length of the strip be very careful with weights, weather and fuel mix

ASB - Asimba is a small village situated in Oro province next to the Chirma river, and features a very short runway cut into the dense forest, pilots should watch wingtips carefully when turning, and all take offs and landings are out over the river

KGH - Yongai is cut into the hillside and services a mission station, with a short sloping bumpy one-way runway pilots should approach as slowly as possible and with great care, and dont forget to pay attention to the crosswinds

Particulars

Date and time: Saturday 10th June 2017, 1800 UTC

Where: AVSIM RTWR Teamspeak - Casual Flights Channel

Teamspeak Server Address: ts.teamavsim.com

Cross-Platform Multiplayer: JoinFS (latest version recommended).

[Bert Pieke 7,585]

Looks exciting - although without the Tapini scenery package, I may be circling overhead a lot, or "lost in the trees"..

[spokes2112 179]

If I can make it (90% now) will stick to the Twin Otter. Just happened to have a lot of practice lately (feeling like a FS pro) and the paint kind of suits me.  (Practice has started)
Looking forward as always.

 

[MM 426]

Note that the penultimate stop (EMO) is a splendid freeware by Tim Harris and Ken Hall. It is available as "AYEO Emo Mission" from Orbx under their freeware page here. This scenery is beautiful…and the landing will capture your attention.

[Bert Pieke 7,585]

OK - got that one..

[CavalierDuck 106]

9 hours ago, MM said:

Note that the penultimate stop (EMO) is a splendid freeware by Tim Harris and Ken Hall. It is available as "AYEO Emo Mission" from Orbx under their freeware page here. This scenery is beautiful…and the landing will capture your attention.

Thanks Mike - I remembered overnight that I had forgotten to list it.  I've added it to my OP now as well.

 

10 hours ago, spokes2112 said:

If I can make it (90% now) will stick to the Twin Otter. Just happened to have a lot of practice lately (feeling like a FS pro) and the paint kind of suits me.  (Practice has started)
Looking forward as always.

 

The Twin Otter should be OK for most of the bush strips, there are just one or two where it might be a bit big.  But then, you've had plenty of practice....

 

[jt_williams 291]

Snapshot of the lads having some fun at Fane.   Nick and I have already landed

How many aircraft did you find in this screenshot?

[spokes2112 179]

6? I remember that landing - a nightmare! Barn doors out completely, throttle cut and blades already in some, but not all beta, holding ~70 knots while diving to field. The pull up for the "runway" (ha!) had to be perfectly timed with the stall occurring right at touchdown. It worked but in hindsight should've gone around. 

[spokes2112 179]

Some screenshots are here. Didn't want to post these nasty things in the forum. CAUTION!!! Do not stare directly into the pictures, you may risk eye damage. On my first OOM all I did is reduce the max texture slider, of course that didn't work. Only after manually resizing over 100 textures did the OOM go away.. Guess what? Forgot to put the slider back to full right for the rest of the flight. After some brief testing this morning the resized textures look very good with the slider to the right, good enough for a MP session. Pic #7 of Ron's paint reflects this. (sent them to Nick, if interested PM or email me ~0.5 GB) Jeff's 185 looked like #### too :-(. What I found is that my default texture fallback folder was renamed, UGGH! My fault, probably during some modifying session LOL!

RANT - The global texture size slider doesn't do squat :-) except make the sim look ugly. Reason? The original sized bitmap must be read in whole (all the bytes) then resized internally taking more memory during the conversion. It is unknown the resulting resize flushes out the original full size read. It seems not because I got my second OOM after putting the slider only half way. It was only after resizing the textures manually that the OOM went away.