Sometimes you just get curious about stuff don't you? Y'know, like how many scoops of ice cream it would take to fill up the Albert Hall, or, Would a DC-8 fit through the lower archway of the Eiffel Tower? Well fortunately with a flight sim, you can at least answer the second one of those questions.

Now of course it will physically fit if it is on the ground, since the archway is two hundred and forty three and a half feet wide at the very bottom and a DC-8's wingspan is one hundred and forty one feet, which theoretically gives you just over fifty feet clearance either side if you go low enough, but it is an arch, so flying through it means there's less room if you are at a reasonable height above the ground. The approach seemed a bit tricky, there are plenty of tall buildings nearby, but I figured if I came at it over the Place Joffre then flew down the park in between the Avenue Charles Floquet and the Avenue Emile Deschanel, passing through the arch with a bit of speed on, I could pull up over the Pont d'Iéna and firewall the throttles as I passed over the Avenue de New York on the other side of the Seine, it should mean I would be able to just about fit between the gap in the two halves of the Cité de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine gallery building at the Trocadéro if I couldn't pull up fast enough. It'd be like the world's fastest sightseeing tour or Paris and a lot less messy than filling the Albert Hall with ice cream lol.

It's not easy, but if you like a challenge...

Et Voila! It actually fits. Now I wonder if you timed an aileron roll right, if you could fit a 737 through the archway above the first tier...? 

 

Alan, just curious as to what scenery your using here. When I fly Paris with ORBX Global and OpenLC Eu, Paris doesn't look like that. Is this a photoreal scenery?

13 minutes ago, cmpbellsjc said:

Alan, just curious as to what scenery your using here. When I fly Paris with ORBX Global and OpenLC Eu, Paris doesn't look like that. Is this a photoreal scenery?

I think its XP

OK Alan, what license did you say you're flying with, full details are necessary to revoke it... And we'll need a blood sample as well... Please!

Dont even think of trying any airplane under the Arc de Triomphe, we shall put a mosquito net!

Well Chock, you've finally answered one of life's little wonders, could one fly an DC8 under the Eiffel Tower. I can now sleep knowing the answer to this question

I'd call it fake.

What is the clean maneuvering speed of a DC-8 configured as shown? Sorry, but I'm leaning toward a very clever fake.

Don't try this at home!

1 hour ago, sascha said:

Don't try this at home!

No, try it in Paris 

On 9/21/2017 at 7:11 AM, cmpbellsjc said:

Alan, just curious as to what scenery your using here. When I fly Paris with ORBX Global and OpenLC Eu, Paris doesn't look like that. Is this a photoreal scenery?

That's VFR France's Ile de France payware add on for FSX/P3D, which is about 40 quid, but actually that's not bad price-wise if you consider all it includes, i.e. about 20 airfields, most of which have been tarted up a bit, the scenery covers about 5,000 square miles of phototerrain and there is realistic autogen over the top of that, hence all the buildings looking like they should do in Paris. So it is a pretty big download, about 10Gb, but the installation is split into seven zip files, so it isn't too bad to download it:

http://www.francevfr.com/product_vfridfx.htm

It's a bit of a showstopper for FPS with all of that stuff going on, I get about 20-25 fps there in P3D, but if you like Paris scenery and all the airports around it, then it's worth having.

On 9/21/2017 at 10:57 AM, silverheels2 said:

What is the clean maneuvering speed of a DC-8 configured as shown? Sorry, but I'm leaning toward a very clever fake.

Nope, it wasn't a fake, I really did get it through there. Just checked a screenshot I took with the sim info on screen which confirms I was flying at 239 knots when about a quarter of a mile from the tower which is round about where the first screenshot on this thread depicts. The aircraft wasn't completely clean, I did have the first  stage of flaps lowered. I don't know how accurate the Just Flight DC-8 flight model is, it's probably pretty close purely numbers-wise but there aren't too many DC-8s flying these days, so I doubt they had access to a real one to actually check stuff, I do know it's no fighter jet when it comes to manueverability though lol.

Because of that sluggish handling, the right wingtip was really close to the Eiffel Tower as I passed through it, it missed the structure by maybe two feet because I could only just manage to get the thing roughly lined up. This is because I used a dark bronze coloured circular tower block building to the south east of the run in to help me line up quite a long way out, which is pretty much unavoidable because the DC-8 turns about as quickly as the Queen Mary lol. Thus I had to pass to the right of that building and then try to line up quickly with the tower and the park which is why you can see I'm off to the right on the run in. I think that building which I used for orientation might be the Unesco headquarters, but not sure about that, whatever it is, if you have that scenery you will know the building I mean because it really stands out, being much taller and a very different colour to all those pale stone buildings typical of Paris, which surround it.

 

How do you know that the tower is dimensioned properly? It's been a long time, but I don't remember it  being that wide, wide enough for a dc8 with some room to spare.

tony

Sorry about the off topic but how's the DC-8 after the latest update, Alan? 

On 9/21/2017 at 4:13 PM, pedrotrindade said:

Sorry about the off topic but how's the DC-8 after the latest update, Alan? 

Well, not flown it much to be honest, since it is only just released for P3D V4, but, it works okay for me (most of the time). Some people are reporting CTDs on the JF forum, but of course that could be user error, although I have had one CTD in P3D V4 myself right after take off when it was intercepting the magenta line for the flight plan. JF have said they couldn't reproduce it on their test computers but would look into it anyway, but it looks to me like it might still have some issues. there is some suggestion it might be a gauge which is causing the problems, and certainly there is something amiss with the FMC, as the fonts are a bit screwed up on it, apparently their L-1011 Tristar (now also allegedly P3D V4 compatible) is also having similar issues.

The first thing that came to my mind after readi g the title........."that's what she said."

Alan - you sir are a bloody hooligan! Long may you continue to be so!