Xplane11 Xplane11, Sedona to Glendale Arizona, Photoreal

[John_Cillis 2,406]

Liked the Baron flight so much I decided to take a 45 minute flight from Sedona to Glendale Arizona, again over my Ortho4XP scenery.  You'll see shots of Phoenix, Arrowhead Mall, Sun City, I-17, Loop 101 and the rim country.

Enjoy!

John

[John_Cillis 2,406]

I should mention, I flew an Allegro 2000 out of Glendale with my flight instructor up towards Wickenburg, up to 7000 ft. MSL.  He then took my daughter up for a brief flight in the pattern who was watching along with my wife.  She described it like flying in a helicopter since the Allegro had floor to ceiling side windows.  I had considered buying the Allegro on a loan, had even arranged insurance and financing, but once I weighed in the cost of everything I decided to end my GA instruction and fly trikes instead.  With the money I did not spend I bought a new home for my now ex-wife, where she lives today.  I go there on Sunday to take my daughter out to dinner for a belated eighteenth birthday celebration and to celebrate her college scholarship for Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff.

John

[HLJames 2,568]

#14 looks like Lake Pleasant....great looking shots of Arizona!

HLJAMES

[John_Cillis 2,406]

2 hours ago, HLJames said:

#14 looks like Lake Pleasant....great looking shots of Arizona!

HLJAMES

Yes, that was Lake Pleasant.  My ex-wife and I after our divorce took a trip up there with my daughter, I lived with her for a year after the divorce until I found a place of my own with my best friend.  My wife and daughter were in heaven, she was soaking her feet in the water on the west shore.  Then we drove up to Dillons restaurant and took the funicular down to the lake to look at the boats docked there.  Dillons is a great restaurant, I go to the one at Wildlife World Zoo where I am an annual member.  The Zoo is on Northern Ave, same street I live on.

Now I live in my own apartment about twenty minutes due east from where I used to live and same distance from the Zoo, which is five minutes from my wife and daughter's house.  I had a blast on this flight (I did not complete the Baron flight).  Climbed using the autopilot to my 10,000 foot altitude at a 500fpm cruise climb to clear the Bradshaw mountains south of Prescott.  At cruise I leaned the mixture and had a 120mph ground speed according to the GPS.

Had to initiate a steep descent into Glendale, got lazy admiring the scenery LOL!  Had a nice landing in Glendale then taxied to parking.  If you look at the parking shot you'll see an Avanti parked there, too bad Xplane doesn't let you fly it.  Even with all that AI (A Baron was taxiing for takeoff), fps is still in the high 40's.  Wish P3D AI took as little bandwidth as Xplane, there I have AI set at 25 pct so I at least get some traffic.  I think the textures are too large in P3d.

John

[John_Cillis 2,406]

I forgot to mention, you can also see the new loop 303 which extends from I-17 to a recently completed interchange on I-10.  You can also spot the Lake Pleasant ultralight/gliderport where one of my flight instructors flew his experimental aircraft out of.

Later he had a forced landing with a passenger near the airport when his engine failed.  I called him immediately when I saw the crash on the news, I recognized the plane immediately.  He landed on Lake Pleasant highway, also in my picture of the UL airport, but ran into a road sign and his wing crumpled, the ultralight was a total loss.  He invited me to fly in it for a free lesson sometime earlier but I was nervous since it was an open air aircraft, even though I have flown trikes which are also open air aircraft, I was not bothered by those since I had complete control of the trikes.

Fortunately he and his passenger were unhurt.  I knew the engine had problems, I mentioned it here before in another post, I could just tell by the vibration of the engine that it was straining when I watched him fly at Copper State.

John