12 hours ago, Novation said:

I must have been lucky in my flights there so far, as I only saw one major anomaly.

You have been lucky. There are many elevated lakes, rivers and airports in Norway, Sweden and Finland. You will have different experience if you will fly for example from Sandane to Orsta-Volda, not to mention the parking in the latter... I am sure all these anomalities will be fixed later. Or I should hope so.

Gradussan(ENEN) - Lofoten - Bodo(ENBO)

This trip visited the Lofoten, which I noticed are right across the huge bay in which Gradussan is located, and had some interesting geography on offer. After I crossed the large bay, the first stretch led me to visit Henningsvaer Stadion, probably the most weather exposed stadion in the world. In trying to recreate a photo, it became obvious what the next 20 years of graphics development will be spent on. But that's another topic. Returning to main land norway and heading towards Bodo, I could not help to notice that there are tons of stretched islands, much more than in other areas. So I started researching a bit. Here is what I found, which may be common knowledge to others. In a nutshell, during the last ice age, Norway was essentially covered by a thick sheet of ice. As the ice melted, it basically led to erosion on a giant scale. As a result, we now have the Fjords, but on a smaller scale, on the end of the erosion lines, we have those really long stretched and flowy islands. They are especially pronounced in this bay, because it is bascially a giant mountain valley with most parts now underwater. To my knowledge, such island shapes can not be found anywhere else in the world, especially not below the arctic line, because nothing there was enough ice covered during the last ice age. The islands basically turn Norway into the ideal landscape for airports with the stretched appearance. If only there were enough people living there to be served by all the airports.

Lofoten

Henningsvaer Stadion and recreated shot (we will laugh about these graphics in 20 years, same as we laugh now about FS2000 graphics)

Ice age induced island shapes and Bodo+airport (Location on Google Maps)

The next leg will me take to further down south and into the airport of Rossvol.

   

Edited September 5, 20205 yr by M-Air Bush Deliveries Ltd

51 minutes ago, kiki said:

You have been lucky. There are many elevated lakes, rivers and airports in Norway, Sweden and Finland. You will have different experience if you will fly for example from Sandane to Orsta-Volda, not to mention the parking in the latter... I am sure all these anomalities will be fixed later. Or I should hope so.

Actually true. I always look the other way. I wonder where the lake elevation comes from, ie how the topomaps pick something like that up.

Bodo(ENBO) - Terrain Bugs - Mo I Rana(ENRA) - Mosjoen(ENMS)

Going towards the half way mark of my trip, I started from Bodo to Mo I Rana. Bodo as it turned out was the officially most destroyed city during World War 2 due to massive german air strikes. On the way to Mo I Rana the norwegian terrain displayed features I never saw before. Every lake was eleveated and hugh pillars arose from the terrain only to tower deep holes everywhere. What a magical country, I mumbled to myself! In sheer disbelief, I immediatetely booked tickets to Bodo after my flight. I have to see them in real life! After a quick touch down in Mo I Rana I noticed that I had 6GL of my 10GL left, so I decided to just fly on to Mosjen. Crossing a really nice valley, Drevja is nearby, I got my screenshot of dreams. Not as exciting as the pillars of Mo I Rana, but you can not win every day. Arrival in Mosjen was now due and landing there. Mosjen is an industry region pretty much like Navik was before. The airport is really nice to land on though since it is embedded in nice landscape towering over it.

 

The spectacular pillars and elevated lakes between Bodo and Mo I Rana. Pure magic.

I also saw shoreline waves where there was no wind at all. What a magic country.

After Mo I Rana, the terrain got back to its boring self.

Mosjien with airport in the distance

 

Edited September 5, 20205 yr by M-Air Bush Deliveries Ltd

Mosjoen(ENMS) - Absolute Disappointment Trondheim (ENVA)

I followed the European Route E6 for the entire trip to make some milage through rather moderate landscapes. This route is the equivalent to the Route 66 in the US. After a very long flight, where I also magically turned day into night to check night VFR, I arrived in Trondheim. I was very excited because I saw the city is in very high resolution and even photogrammetry. To my disappointment, nothing of it was there when I arrived. Upon checking again I noticed I zoomed in in Google Maps where I prepare my trips. In Bing maps, which I use for flying because it is 1:1 with FS2020, the city was a low-res show and absolutely disappointing. Not sure, I mean I got the game on 1 buck gamepass, but this is just bad. Maybe they should not have done the entire world. Anyways. let's hope the trip gets better.

 

European Route 6 and in FS2020

 

Trondheim in Google Maps

...even photogrammetry

and in Bing maps with max zoom. Nit sure if that 1 Euro for the gamepass ever turns in 69 Euros. This is just horrible.

 

 

 

Loving the reports and the prep you put into the flights. I have been doing the same thing - reading up on smaller airports and their history before flights.

 

Having a ball.

Because they did the entire world, of course we have to expect some bugs and things that aren't perfect. The world is too big for a team to have it all purrrfect by launch. What I do is laugh (mostly) at the quirks in the scenery, and fly on. There are sooo many places to visit.

Can you tell me what mapping software you used to lay out the path for the trips? Is it just google maps or something else?

11 hours ago, Andreas Stangenes said:

Because they did the entire world, of course we have to expect some bugs and things that aren't perfect. The world is too big for a team to have it all purrrfect by launch. What I do is laugh (mostly) at the quirks in the scenery, and fly on. There are sooo many places to visit.

It is more a matter of what map material is fed into FS2020 has the host platform. Bing maps is just much more low res and Google maps in most places. Considering how MS holds the money back for high res imagery, I would bet the same goes for topo LiDAR maps.

11 hours ago, Steffi said:

Can you tell me what mapping software you used to lay out the path for the trips? Is it just google maps or something else?

Google maps. I plan everything there. Then I go to Bing maps and fly by it. I Alt+Tab between Bing Maps and FS2020 to do landmark flying. No compass or GPS.

Trondheim (ENVA) - Kristiansund(ENKB)

This visit to Kristiansund took 1.5h of flying and my 10GL of fuel barely were enough. In principle a short flight, I got caught by a large field of low hanging broken clouds and had to travel blind through the soup for ages. Add to this equation large stretches with nothing but brown landscape and your getting-lost fuel budget will know its purpose. What saved me was the little own of Kyrksæterøra. Located on a piece of land that cuts off a large bay, it was a very grateful landmark to be recognized on the map. Eventually I made my way to Kristiansund. The reason why I went there is soccer. Apparently the town is only inhabited by ~25k people and is a fishing town. That did not hold them back though to build an staggering amount of six full scale soccer pitches, you know, the big ones. I am not sure, but I believe this is the highest soccer pitch/people ratio in the world. As a result, the wikipedia page under famous people lists bascially only soccer players. The most famous of them being Ole Gunnar Solskjær, the now manager of Manchester United. When I was a boy, this guy was still an active player and his nick name was the baby face assassin. Being one the slippiest and cheakiest strikers of his time, his playing style was composed of 10% physicality and 90% of intelligence. One particular scene stuck with the little boy I was back then. The opponents goalie was bascially about to do a kick off when Solskjær casually walked past him like a lamb. Goalie throws the ball in the air to have it fall down and kick it, and in this split second where the ball is in the air, the lamb tries to kick it away from him to score a goal. The scene stuck with me and basically taught me to never trust anyone. Now when looking at the shape of the island of Kristiansund, I noticed a dagger-like shape. Not sure if there is any connection.

 

On the way

 

The town of Kyrksæterøra. This geographical bay constellation saved me from being completey lost. I do not pause the sim when looking at Bing maps to find where I am, which makes it challenging.

 

Kristiansund. Notice the dagger like shape. You could stab someone with that island. Which brings me to the most famous citizen...

.. the Baby Face Assassin, aka Ole Gunnar Solskjær. Here depicted in his playing years with Alex Ferguson. These days he manages Manchester United.

Edited September 6, 20205 yr by M-Air Bush Deliveries Ltd

Love reading the detailed logs - keep it up!

I quickly gave up Norway due to the awful mesh glitches.Been discovering so many other places that I've never seen in a sim. In particular I like South Amerika with the Andes mountains and the rainforests. 

Kristiansund(ENKB) - Sandane(ENSD)

This was basically a preliminary leg for the big entrance into Bergen that is to follow. Leaving Kristiansund though, it took only about 3 mins for me to completely loose track. Never come back home exhausted from sports and hop into your plane for a landmark-VFR flight without compass and GPS. After emptying almost half my fuel, I was lucky enough to see airport lights in some bay. I knew it would not be Sandane. Trying to study Bing maps in detail and at the same time avoiding a crash was too much. So I decided to do a water landing, switch everything off and take a deep breath. Finally some time to study the map without panick attacks! It turned out the airport lights belonged to the airport of Malmo. Everything matched, the bridges, the bay shape, the islands in the bay, what a relief. You may have heard of Malmo, soccer time again. The baby face assassin from the previous leg took his first steps as first team coach there. Eventually I took off again and paid more attention to landmarks. You know, the usual mountain tops counting, the lake and bay shape matching to the map and so on. After about 2/3 of the leg I had to cross a final mountain range before I could descend into Sandane. Now, this flight was big! Big in a sense of spectacularly big! As in irresponsibly big because I could have ended up in a mountain face easily. You can see the mountain range in the map, and recognize it by its snow top. The entire thing was soaked in almighty broken clouds and it was like rolling a dice whether I would make it over the peaks or not. When the clouds occasionally openend up, I was greeted with jaw dropping sights. That was one to remember. Not so much Sandane, which is just a forgettable little settlement in the middle of Norway. Stryn is close by though which is a skiing resort. One way or another, into Bergen tomorrow!

 

Big mountains soaked in big clouds

 

Questions over questions. I know there is a snow capped peak in that cloud. How high is it? Will I make it? Will I be in the news for the wrong reason?

 

Sandane aiport. Not much to say. Maybe that it is pretty short with water at the end. Perfect for the Icon A5.

 

 

 

Edited September 6, 20205 yr by M-Air Bush Deliveries Ltd

Sandane(ENSD) - Bergen(SNBR)

This leg was all about my big entrance into Bergen. The journey from Sandane to Bergen was an eventless piece of cake because I did it at real time, which was from 3-4pm, and as a result that sun was perfectly lined up with my route. This helped a lot with the usual landmark counting and shape matching to Bing maps. So much for that. When I arrived in Bergen, which is a large city, I was surprised by how scattered it is over many smaller bays and water bodies. From what I saw, it is the exact opposite of a dense and stinking city, which is how they usually come at a population of ~300k people. Bergen however is more interesting for its history, which involves one of the largest maritime trading unions in European history - the Hanseatic League. Now when you look at the map, you notice a lot of water between northern mainland Europe (Germany,..) and Scandinavia. Essentially hosting a lot of trading by ship, this body of water was dominatede by the league. And one of its northern most enclaves was Bergen. Following the trading interests, the scandinavian region was also fully mapped in a somewhat accurate way for the first time. The result of this 12 years long mapping effort was the Carta Mariana, which even had a 10 year copyright issued by Pope Paul the 3rd. So yes, lots of interesting Wikipedia reading following a simple one hour flight in FS2020. Anyways, nothing is forever, and after the a big economic crisis in the 15th century which was basically triggered by Europe selling all its valuable metals to China, the decline of the league began. The decline was however substantially accelerated by Sweden, who woke up and suddenly felt the wish to do trade on those large water bodies themselves. After lots of friendly talks and nice meetings where everyone was nice, but which led to nothing, this interest culminated in the Northern Seven Years War. In the end, the Hanseatic League was in noticable existence between the 12th-17th century. Another noticable event happened in 2020 when I arrived with my IconA5 in Bergen and delivered another clean landing. I am sure the chaps from the Hanseatic League would have also loved four bright lights on final and some good parking. Although I really do not know what I am talking about since I got all this from Squirrel's videos and really just fly for sight seeing and navigation excercise.

 

About 1/5th of the city of Bergen. It stretches on and on towards the horizon.

 

Entrance of IconA5 in Bergen, anno 2020.

 

A new record in messed up landscapes was also set. On top, every smaller water body in Bergen was messed up (elevated to some height above ground)

 

 

Edited September 7, 20205 yr by M-Air Bush Deliveries Ltd

13 minutes ago, M-Air Bush Deliveries Ltd said:

new record in messed up landscapes was also set. On top, every smaller water body in Bergen was messed up (elevated to some height above ground)

I believe someone may have posted a fix for this that you drop in to the community folder.