Blurries and more BLURRRRRIES

[geolpilot 88]

37 minutes ago, ErichB said:

A small city in Africa will not be an exception.

 

OOOOH, careful calling Cape Town a small city in Africa! It is actually a large metropolis if you include the rapidly merging areas around it (Somerset West, Paarl, Bellville, Stellenbosch, right out north to Blaauwberg. Many people around the world have a really soft spot in their hearts for this place!

As far as simmers in others lands I think that is one place they would love to pay a virtual visit to, if it only had realistic scenery.

Johannesburg is much larger, but certainly not nearly as attractive (spoken as one born and raised there). Lived in Cape Town for 12 years, but Capetonians do not lightly bestow that honored title on anyone! So I remain a "Vaalie"

[ErichB 3,638]

11 minutes ago, geolpilot said:

OOOOH, careful calling Cape Town a small city in Africa! It is actually a large metropolis if you include the rapidly merging areas around it (Somerset West, Paarl, Bellville, Stellenbosch, right out north to Blaauwberg. Many people around the world have a really soft spot in their hearts for this place!

Johannesburg is much larger, but certainly not nearly as attractive (spoken as one born and raised there). Lived in Cape Town for 12 years, but Capetonians do not lightly bestow that honored title on anyone! So I remain a "Vaalie"

I'm from Cape Town - was a Matie.  But still, the aftermarket will have to provide for it.

Orbx vector, LC and Global don't do a bad job - and Topomesh does a decent job of Table Mountain.    NMG airport scenery is very outdated. .  I hope someone does CT airport soon.

[Terblanche 28]

1 hour ago, ErichB said:

I'm from Cape Town - was a Matie.  But still, the aftermarket will have to provide for it.

Yip, with 3.8 million people it is the size of Berlin and twice the size of Paris or Rome 

I'm using FS_Global_NG_FTX and the mesh for Table Mountain and the Hottentotsholland mountains and Helderberge are as close as it could get in FlightSim world for the moment. But even with FTX Global and Vector the coastline is at places completely wrong and the LC for city and harbour has buildings in the water and as I said before, there is a whole village on Signal Hill and a whole town on top of Table Mountain. Well, at least on my rig with no NMG scenery installed. With all do respect to Nico Visagie and his team at NMG but after Aerosoft, FlyTampa, Taxi2Gate, FSDT, 29Palms, ORBX and FSDG it is very hard not to feel a little ashamed for the main airports in South Africa that look like something pre-FS9.

Hopefully one day, ORBX will reach South Africa with its diverse landscape from Karoo to tropical KwaZulu-Natal, from the Highlands of Mpumalanga to the Bushveld, from the rain forests of Southern Cape all the way to the Namib Desert. And who knows, maybe a FlyTampa or Aerosoft Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg sceneries ... I mean, if ORBX can do Southern Alaska where there is not even a million people in the whole of Alaska, then surely the beautiful, mind-blowing, exquisite landscape of South Africa should be a possibility. Not a priority but definitely a possibility. People bought Alaska and Norway simply because it is so beautiful to fly around.

Note, I haven't said anything about Australia (LOL) 

[ErichB 3,638]

13 minutes ago, Terblanche said:

. People bought Alaska and Norway simply because it is so beautiful to fly around.

 

SA may be a popular tourist destination, but I'm not sure that will necessarily be reflected in the flightsim community.  Modern versions of FAOR and FACT with modern design techniques would however be welcome.  They would make popular destinations if some company like Flytampa did it.

Mountainous areas are generally more appealing from a flightsim perspective. That's one of the reasons why Alaska and Norway are obvious sellers.  South Africa may be diverse,  but apart from the Southern Cape and Drakensburg areas, it's fairly flat. 

Orbx is doing African LC as I understand it, so that may add more to the diversity of the landscape.  SA  is only appealing to me because I'm originally from there but I wouldn't necessarily choose to fly anywhere else in Africa.  I'd like to see more VATSIM coverage in SA though.  

[Terblanche 28]

1 minute ago, ErichB said:

Orbx is doing African LC as I understand it, so that may add more to the diversity of the landscape. 

I've read that too ... will be a step in the right direction. And now that you mention flying in Africa, in my younger years (LMAO) I was a CPL pilot who flew King200s all over Africa, mainly North-Africa but I have to say, not even in those years was there ATC available and most of the times you flew for hours listening to Airline traffic 10,000" above you reporting positions. I remember once when approaching Kilimanjaro Intl the guy in the tower responding to a question from another pilot about the RVR that he (in the tower) "can see the mountains"  

[ErichB 3,638]

1 hour ago, Terblanche said:

I've read that too ... will be a step in the right direction. And now that you mention flying in Africa, in my younger years (LMAO) I was a CPL pilot who flew King200s all over Africa, mainly North-Africa but I have to say, not even in those years was there ATC available and most of the times you flew for hours listening to Airline traffic 10,000" above you reporting positions. I remember once when approaching Kilimanjaro Intl the guy in the tower responding to a question from another pilot about the RVR that he (in the tower) "can see the mountains"  

In my younger days (LMAO) I worked at Air Cape during uni vacs .  That was in 1988 -1990.  Got to know many B200 guys

[Terblanche 28]

1 hour ago, ErichB said:

That was in 1988 -1990

Oeps, a little before my time ... my flight training started in George (1994) where I did my PPL and IF Rating. Then FTS Grand Central for CPL and then NAC at Lanseria. A couple of years later for Denel and various other companies in Africa. Boy-oh-boy that was mega good years and a life experience that is worth more than any degree at any university. Not something my profs will necessary agree with ... but then again, what do they know about tracking radial, crab crawl, or sectional maps  

[ErichB 3,638]

1 hour ago, Terblanche said:

Oeps, a little before my time ... my flight training started in George (1994) where I did my PPL and IF Rating. Then FTS Grand Central for CPL and then NAC at Lanseria. A couple of years later for Denel and various other companies in Africa. Boy-oh-boy that was mega good years and a life experience that is worth more than any degree at any university. Not something my profs will necessary agree with ... but then again, what do they know about tracking radial, crab crawl, or sectional maps  

So you trained with Jim Davis?

[Peter Webber 339]

4 hours ago, Terblanche said:

Yip, with 3.8 million people it is the size of Berlin and twice the size of Paris or Rome 

I'm using FS_Global_NG_FTX and the mesh for Table Mountain and the Hottentotsholland mountains and Helderberge are as close as it could get in FlightSim world for the moment. But even with FTX Global and Vector the coastline is at places completely wrong and the LC for city and harbour has buildings in the water and as I said before, there is a whole village on Signal Hill and a whole town on top of Table Mountain. Well, at least on my rig with no NMG scenery installed. With all do respect to Nico Visagie and his team at NMG but after Aerosoft, FlyTampa, Taxi2Gate, FSDT, 29Palms, ORBX and FSDG it is very hard not to feel a little ashamed for the main airports in South Africa that look like something pre-FS9.

Hopefully one day, ORBX will reach South Africa with its diverse landscape from Karoo to tropical KwaZulu-Natal, from the Highlands of Mpumalanga to the Bushveld, from the rain forests of Southern Cape all the way to the Namib Desert. And who knows, maybe a FlyTampa or Aerosoft Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg sceneries ... I mean, if ORBX can do Southern Alaska where there is not even a million people in the whole of Alaska, then surely the beautiful, mind-blowing, exquisite landscape of South Africa should be a possibility. Not a priority but definitely a possibility. People bought Alaska and Norway simply because it is so beautiful to fly around.

Note, I haven't said anything about Australia (LOL) 

Yep...Hopefully developers will realize there's a world outside of USA, Europe and Australia! An "untapped" market waiting with open wallets!

[Terblanche 28]

2 hours ago, ErichB said:

So you trained with Jim Davis?

The name sounds very familiar but no, my IF instructor was Wallie Waldeck, with different instructors for different ratings. The King200 instructor was first Wessel Basson (x-airforce) and later a very windgat Kay (and now I forgot his surname, he was from original from Mauritius) but he could fly a King with only one prop and one blade spinning and land in a 500 kts crosswind while playing the harmonica. He really helped me a lot because many times while still building hours he would phone me to fly right seat to do radios, flaps and gear and the occasional t/o and landing in order to lock the hours.

[Terblanche 28]

2 hours ago, Peter Webber said:

Hopefully developers will realize there's a world outside of USA, Europe and Australia!

Hear hear to that !!

[AnkH 2,233]

17 hours ago, ErichB said:

SA may be a popular tourist destination, but I'm not sure that will necessarily be reflected in the flightsim community.  Modern versions of FAOR and FACT with modern design techniques would however be welcome.  They would make popular destinations if some company like Flytampa did it.

I think there are several other aspects playing a role in how a region is selected for sceneries to be developed for. The "problem" of SA is the distance to all other sceneries, making it only attractive for regional flights within SA or long haul flights. I mean, there are some sceneries available for top tourist destinations, but they are usually reachable with short to medium haul flights or they offer a complete area such as Seychelles etc. Norway and other more remote sceneries would not have been developed if they would be equally far away from topsellers as SA is... Means: while it would be nice to see a up-to date scenery of FAOR or FACT, it would not sell very well due to the distance to other sceneries. FTX South Africa including FAOR and FACT would be sold probably better, but this is not an easy project done in short time.

[geolpilot 88]

14 hours ago, ErichB said:

So you trained with Jim Davis?

Wasn't Jim Davis a chief instructor at 43 Air School in Port Alfred, in the 90s. I seem to re-call the name and having many chats with him in Grahamstown. Last I hear he had emigrated to Australia, if it is the same chap.

56 minutes ago, AnkH said:

The "problem" of SA is the distance to all other sceneries, making it only attractive for regional flights within SA or long haul flights

You have a point, but then again consider Aus. Far away from anywhere else, yet there are good ORBX payware airports for down-under. Sure there is probably a much bigger market (many more Wallaby simmers compared to Springboks), but I am sure many fly into Aus from all over. I often do Bangkok - Melbourne.

The main plus of flying to Aus is that you have ORBX AU, and that makes it far less boring overflying the country on long legs, and obviously also makes domestic flights interesting, which in turn boosts the local market for payware airports. Long hauls or even short hauls and domestic routes in Africa are just plain unpleasant because of the base scenery. I would imagine there would be a lot more simmers coming in/out of and flying around Africa if this was fixed up. Only then would it make sense to develop quality payware airports for the main centers around Africa.

I am currently doing a tour around the coastline of Africa in the PMDG DC6, 2hr legs at a time (done Cape Town up the East coast to Alexandria in Egypt so far), and keep thinking as I go along how amazing that adventure would be if only the scenery was more realistic. There are some freeware airports to use along the way that make it a bit better, but the rest is all pretty repetitive and dull.

Rob

[ErichB 3,638]

1 hour ago, geolpilot said:

Wasn't Jim Davis a chief instructor at 43 Air School in Port Alfred, in the 90s. I seem to re-call the name and having many chats with him in Grahamstown. Last I hear he had emigrated to Australia, if it is the same chap.

 

You are right.  He was yes. 

[Terblanche 28]

1 hour ago, geolpilot said:

Jim Davis a chief instructor at 43 Air School

That's it .... that's where I heard the name.