Well after 3 years of pretty hard work I've finally qualified as a marine engineer officer, I've just got an advanced firefighting course to do next week and that's it! I'm heading home for 5 weeks to visit family and enjoy the summer, and I plan to get some serious flight simming done - time to get my money's worth out of all the stuff I've bought over the last couple of years!Anyway, I'm thinking about doing some touring in the FS world, visiting Canada, US (including Alaska), as well as Australia and New Zealand. I'm looking for help from people familiar with these areas:What I'm looking for is ideas for some kind of itinerary of interesting places to fly to, taking in the scenery on the way...Any help or ideas are appreciated!

Not really close to those areas mentioned, but Norway with good mesh and a bunch of freeware AP scenery availaible is incredible...as is Finland.Welcome home!

South central British Colombia. Most most of Alberta, Manatoba and Saskatchewan are boring, but northern and south western Ontario, western Quebec and the Gasp

Queenstown (NZQN) in New Zealand is a very interestingapproach if you download the New Zealand Mesh, PhotorealScenery and relevant airports. All freeware. Suggest shortflight NZCH-NZQNNZQN scenery filename nzqnv1.0.zip (Avsim)NZCH scenery filename nzch04v1.zip (Avsim)Andy Weir's New Zealand Mesh files: nzsrtm1.zip, nzsrtm2.zip,and s45e167_fix_v2.zip.Enjoy

Could you kindly point to some good mesh and the free AP package? And posibly some VFR charts?Appreciate it.Jason

>Could you kindly point to some good mesh and the free AP>package? And posibly some VFR charts?>>Appreciate it.>>Jasonhttp://walhalla.mine.nu/fs2004.phpEverything you could ever want is there.Cheersshad

Oh, by the way... the south pacific is stunning.There are some incredible vistas. Fly from indonesia south east and hop eastward along all the islands to the north of Australia and see if you can make it back up to Hawaii. I made it in a Beech 18 - takes a lot of forethought and planning but it can be done with out cheating in a plane with at least 1k nm range. It is a long way but the scenery is stunning up till the last hop to Hawaii (lots of water). This will take you a very long time. I did it while I was working on the my Beech Model 18 project as part of the testing.PS, you will need an AC that can fly at least fl20 for a short period as the mountains in Papua New Guinnea are huge.While flying over an area, I like to read about the local history and peoples, so I can imagine what I would experience when I land for fuel and so on. With FS in a window, I can work while its on auopilot and I can monitor progress. Work and play at the same time. :)CheersShad

The second link in my signature has lots of ideas.

I read a lot of raves about the "Misty Fjords" Alaska scenery from FSAddon (fsaddon.com).

>I read a lot of raves about the "Misty Fjords" Alaska scenery>from FSAddon (fsaddon.com).MF is one of the best scenery addons available. If however you just want someplace to just fly into and then out of it's probably more than you'd want to pay. The best of Misty Fjords is the detail and you'll need to fly around there a bit to see everything. Now if you want a good scenery to base flights out of or just plan to fly around a small area then MF is perfect.

Why not go around the world? You could easily take in all those places mentioned, and you'll get to see some extremes of climate and scenery.For example, if you start by exploring the US, work your way out to the west coast, then cross the Pacific to Hawaii, south across the equator, island hopping to New Zealand, (get at least a 75m mesh and visit Queenstown and Milford Sound if you do nothing else), hop to Australia via Lord Howe island and Norfolk island, VOZ your way across Australia and into Indonesia and Malaysia, work your way across the Sub Continent, stopping perhaps to explore the Himalayas, then maybe follow the Khyber Pass into Afghanistan, then to the Middle East, Europe - Cyprus, Greece, Italy France (compare some of the French Altiports in the Alps to the high Himalayan airports...), UK, Iceland, Greenland, Canada and home!Of course, there's nothing special about that route, so why not make up your own...As someone else mentioned, googling the places and countries you visit helps enrich the experience. :-)

Hmmm, guess I have a couple suggestions;First, if ya gon' fly around Alaska then NOW is the time. It's summer up there and summer does NOT last long. Then, if'en yeh still want some excitement in ya life go down the western "coastal" region of South America. I guarantee if you use Active Sky and real weather flying down the Andes is a very hairy experience.Don't break ya nose on them rocks now.:D

Congratulations on your engineers graduation. I finished my engineer exams in Dec 94 and hve been sailing since.cheersPeter

>>Could you kindly point to some good mesh and the free AP>>package? And posibly some VFR charts?>>>>Appreciate it.>>>>Jason>>http://walhalla.mine.nu/fs2004.php>>Everything you could ever want is there.>>Cheers>shadMuch appreciated!

On my flights around the world, always visited areas of interest. Flying around the coastline of Islands, etc. Many times switching to a 182 or Bill Lyons Waco to do so. The Waco flies -slow- so you can really do the "tourist" view. Flying around Australia takes days, and I'd not even bother to look for an airfield as the Waco can land on most any farm, or country road, etc... Then flew inland, where much of it looks like areas of Southern CA., criss crossing the country on different headings.