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hamlinsw

MSFS Bush Missions - Finding the landing area.

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I am currently flying the bush mission in the Sierra Nevada.  Many times, the landing area is not obvious.  The runways are often grass or dirt, and MS's pictures don't clearly indicate which of the many possible landing areas are the runway.  For example, a runway may have a dirt road that runs parallel to it for about the same length, and the "runway for credit" is actually the narrower of the two.  If you don't stop the plane on the correct one, the mission does not end successfully.  In another leg of the trip, there is, believe it or not, actually an arrow on the screen capture of the landing area that MS-Asobo provides that points to the runway, and there is an actual arrow on the ground in the sim.  Simple, right?  Nope.  The actual finish of the leg is a parallel dirt track to the side a few yards.  I have no doubt that the arrow indicates the intended (by the owner of the airfield) landing area, but MS-Asobo doesn't stop the leg and give credit until you are on a parallel dirt track a few yards away.  Given the lack of documentation in the simulation, it is unclear exactly where you have to stop to get credit.  So, here is what I plan to do from now on.

Setup a free flight departing from the destination airfield in the leg you are about to fly.  Zoom out and look around.  Find your landmarks, and then fly the mission.  Simple, but hopefully this extra step will save a lot of frustration, and "driving" the airplane around the area trying to finish the flight.  I'll report back after trying it a few times.  If anyone has a better idea, please respond.

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I'm with you, it's sometimes challenging to find the landing strip. But somehow that's part of why I'm enjoying those bush trips way more than I expected. I must be a masochist 🙂

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Yeah, some of those legs can be quite challenging to find the actual "Completed" spot. If I recall, that one you are talking about (with the arrow) has what looks to be a box in the middle of the runway. I had to stop in there in order for it to give me credit. 

 

I also found that there are a TON of inaccuracies in some of the NAVLOG descriptions. Sometimes it say "Head West" when in fact you should head due-North. Also found a few of the clues were out of place. There was one (you may not have gotten to it yet) where it takes you to some Dams, then later on it's like "go to the so-and-so Dam", which was like 3 legs ago. Just out of correct order. I found that using skyvector.com helped a TON, and I didn't feel like I was cheating because using a VFR map is something you would realistically do. 

Also, did you happen to figure out how to refuel? I ended up having to bind "Repair and Refuel" command to a keyboard key as none of the airport fueling stations seem to work in Bush flights. 

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We've been spoiled with previous sims where the runways were practically jumping up and down and yelling "here I am!" 

Beyond the overly-visible runway textures, another sure sign of what the runway actually was is that the terrain under and around the runway was perfectly flat even if it was surrounded by rolling hills.

I like the better realism of actually having to look for runways rather than having them announce themselves unrealistically obviously.  But the arrow pointing to the "wrong" runway is, I agree, annoying.

 

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I am only running on low graphics so i struggle to find them, but are you guys struggling with high graphics?

 

Once i find them they seem to be exactly where they describe

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Great tips all around.

I hope more bush trips will get added down the road, either by Asobo/MS or third-party developers.

What I think would be awesome is a narrated bush trip, along the lines of these Gypsy Guide apps that you can use on road trips (absolutely loved the Banff/Jasper one). Passing by a POI would trigger a pre-recorded narration pointing out some specific POIs ("To the east you can see a power dam that was built in 1956. At the bottom of the reservoir that it created, and that you can also notice a little further, lie the former towns of X and Y") or geological information ("The darker curved lines you notice in the rock formation are witnesses to movements in the underlying plates over the last X millions of years. 10 million years ago, this area used to be covered by water.")

Probably won't ever happen, but it's always nice to dream a little.

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I agree, I had to repeat some of them because of that. But it's part of the fun 🙂


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I know the main objective of the Bush trips is sightseeing, but I think it would be cool to throw in an occasion challenge too, specifically relating to weather. After 9 sunny perfect legs, perhaps throw a leg where a quick front blows through reducing visibility where we had to take additional action in order to avoid missing our waypoint. For instance, what should have been a straight flight over the hills is now suddenly hampered by the low ceiling that now exists. I feel between the Bush trips and the landing challenges, they are not utilizing weather in the challenges enough (not all all besides the "windy" landing challenges). Look how many FSX missions there were that used weather and visibility (lack of) as the primary obstacle of the mission. Hopefully we'll see more of that as time goes on. (I am just assuming that the "Activites" will be changed\refreshed on a semi-regular basis). 

Edited by Trubicon
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Good point @Trubicon. Talk to old Alaskan bush pilots and they'll tell you how you could be flying along fat dumb and happy in perfect VFR conditions with a high ceiling, and all of a sudden the clouds slam to the ground and you're inside a ping pong ball. That'd be fun if replicated in the sim.

 

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Still looking for a solution.

I'm working on the Rijeka-Santorini bush trip.  I just landed at Mostar.  I stopped on the runway, on the taxiway, and at parking.  The sim never recognized that I completed the trip.  In this case, the runway is paved, so there is no question of maybe being a little off, or on a nearby path, as with the grass fields.  I "drove" all over trying to get a completion, but never found it.  I even did a complete shutdown in parking - no joy.  The aircraft, in this trip, has a G1000, so it's not much of a navigation challenge.  And, there is no chance of being at the wrong airport.  Also, I used the "smart camera" view to see the objective.  In this scenario, it's right at the beginning of RW33.   Putting the ac right there didn't work, either.

Does anyone know what I might have done wrong to cause this?  Or, is it a "feature"?

Edited by hamlinsw

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1 hour ago, hamlinsw said:

And, there is no chance of being at the wrong airport.  Also, I used the "smart camera" view to see the objective.  In this scenario, it's right at the beginning of RW33.   Putting the ac right there didn't work, either.

Does anyone know what I might have done wrong to cause this?  Or, is it a "feature"?

All I'd say is that I had the same issue in the Yosemite bush flights, took off again and spent an AGE looking till I found the actual strip, less than half a mile away - almost invisible (and I only really spotted it by referencing the overhead picture in the directions).  So maybe worth a double-check that you were at the right spot?


Paul Skol

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Patch (1.8.3.0) appears to have broken leg completions in the bush trips.  There are a number of posts about it on the official forums.  Sounds like you can start over a trip from leg one, but any trips started before Patch (1.8.3.0) will no longer register legs as complete when reaching the destination airport.

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/no-bush-trip-landing-detection-after-patch2/273770/142

Edited by SnowGoAK
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On 9/18/2020 at 2:32 PM, SnowGoAK said:

Patch (1.8.3.0) appears to have broken leg completions in the bush trips.  There are a number of posts about it on the official forums.  Sounds like you can start over a trip from leg one, but any trips started before Patch (1.8.3.0) will no longer register legs as complete when reaching the destination airport.

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/no-bush-trip-landing-detection-after-patch2/273770/142

Thanks. Guess I'll just start the trip over.

 

Steve

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4 hours ago, hamlinsw said:

Thanks. Guess I'll just start the trip over.

 

Steve

I created a new topic detailing the work around that worked for me.

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