South Coast of England

This week's flight will take us along the south coast of England.  We'll start at Southampton (EGHI) and head down Southampton water past the docks before turning along the Solent towards the Needles, a group of chalk stacks heading out into the sea from the western tip of the Isle of Wight.  From the Needles we'll cross the isle of Wight to land at Bembridge (EGHJ).  Next we fly north across the eastern Solent to Portsmouth, with the naval dockyard and the landmark Spinnaker tower, followed by a turn east to cross Hayling Island and Chichester harbour on our way to Goodwood (EGHR). We then follow the South Downs to Shoreham (EGKA), the oldest purpose-built commercial airport in the world.  Leaving Shoreham we continue along the coast past Brighton's piers and marina before turning inland to visit the small airfield at Deanland (EGKL).  Then it's back to the coast to Beachy Head (lighthouse included) after which we head east past the seaside towns of Eastbourne, Bexhill and Hastings to land at Lydd (EGMD). For a period in the late 1950's/early 1960's this was one of the busiest airports in the UK due to cross-channel traffic, heading mostly to the resort town of Le Touquet (LFAT).  This is still a popular route with private pilots in the south of England, so we're going to make it the conclusion of our flight.

 

Flight plans

Download here in PLN and GFP formats.

 

Aircraft

This plan has been designed with biplanes in mind - so An-2s, Tiger Moths, Avro Tutors (freeware), or any slower GA aircraft (C172, Cherokee) would also work well.  The route isn't long at 181nm so if you pick a speed machine you'll spend a lot of time waiting for the rest of us.

 

Timing

I imagine this as a flight for a summer evening.  So my suggestion is to set both sim and weather to 21st June 2020 with a start at 1630 local time.  This puts us into Le Touquet at 2030 local which is dusk (it's lit). Just in time to walk into town to find a restaurant for dinner.

Real world note: the clocks have changed in Europe but not yet in North America, so for this week we keep the UTC start time the same.  For Europeans, the flight starts an hour earlier (Ron: that means 6pm, have your dinner early! 😜).  For North Americans, it's same time as last week.  After the clocks change in North America we'll move the UTC flight time to preserve sanity.

Scenery

The flight has been tested with Orbx England.  I dare say the True Earth version will also work well.  There are Orbx payware airports available for Southampton, Goodwood and Shoreham but they are not needed.

 

Multiplayer particulars

Date and time: October 31st 2020, 1800 UTC
Where: AVSIM RTWR Teamspeak - Casual Flights Channel
Teamspeak Server Address: ts.teamavsim.com
Cross-Platform Multiplayer: JoinFS. Latest version is here. (FSX, FSX-SE, P3D).

If you want to help others enjoy the multiplayer experience, don't forget to enter your aircraft details on the multiplayer spreadsheet (linked here). Your courtesy will save others a lot of time and effort. Thanks!

 

 

7 minutes ago, CavalierDuck said:

Cross-Platform Multiplayer: JoinFS. Latest version is here. (FSX, FSX-SE, P3D).

+ MSFS  Latest JoinFS HERE

Thanks Ron 👍, I did wonder about that but wasn't sure what the current state of play was.

 

'State of play' is somewhat tentative at the moment but it definitely has legs.

Just noted:

X-Plane

The following requirements are necessary for successful networking with X-Plane.

Connecting to X-Plane requires the installation of a small JoinFS plugin. The plugin can be installed from the JoinFS settings window. Run JoinFS, from the menu select 'File|Settings', and click 'Install Plugin'.

If the plugin does not show in X-Plane then you might need the correct C++ libraries. From Microsoft, Click 'Download' and select 'vcredist_x64.exe'.

You may need to disable other plugins that also try to access the X-Plane aircraft in order for JoinFS to work correctly. From the X-Plane plugin menu you can enable/disable plugins as required.

The number of network aircraft in the session is determined by the AI Aircraft specified in the Flight Configuration settings of X-Plane.

If no AI aircraft are configured then you will not see any network aircraft in the session.

If you add three AI aircraft then you will only see up to three network aircraft at any time. The closest network aircraft will be injected into X-Plane.

The maximum number of AI aircraft allowed in X-Plane is currently 19. This is the maximum number of network aircraft that can be injected into X-Plane.

JoinFS will only connect to X-Plane after loading of the flight has completed. It will not connect if X-Plane is still in the main start menu.

To remove the plugin, use Windows File Explorer and navigate to the X-Plane installation folder. Inside 'Resources/plugins', delete the JoinFS folder.

_____________________________________________________

Now this is interesting!

While I haven't joined you folks in a long long time, I would be intrigued to try with XP.  Wondering, would I see the other participants flying with the other sim(s), would folks see me if I was in XP? Is it actually possible to cross pollinate sims into a flight, IE P3D and MSFS and XP?  Or does everyone need to be on the same sim?

I have P3D4.5 (not upgraded to 5 or 5.1) and XP11.4+ soon to upgrade to 11.51.

 

23 hours ago, CavalierDuck said:

Date and time: October 31st 2020, 1800 UTC

Are you sure Nick? I think our transatlantic cousins have gone back now. If not, hush mah mout'

30 minutes ago, 1st fltsimguy said:

While I haven't joined you folks in a long long time, I would be intrigued to try with XP.  Wondering, would I see the other participants flying with the other sim(s), would folks see me if I was in XP? Is it actually possible to cross pollinate sims into a flight, IE P3D and MSFS and XP?  Or does everyone need to be on the same sim?

I have P3D4.5 (not upgraded to 5 or 5.1) and XP11.4+ soon to upgrade to 11.51.

I'll see about adding XP11 to the server. I guess if you can join JoinFS i.e. your client recognises XP then you'd be good to go.....I think. 😏

 

EDIT: Taken a look at the server side settings and it seems happy to accept any old sim. It's up to the client to install the plugin in etc.

 

Edited October 30, 20205 yr by Ron Attwood
Back from mission

1 hour ago, Ron Attwood said:

Are you sure Nick? I think our transatlantic cousins have gone back now. If not, hush mah mout'

In that case, hush! 😛  Time change in North America is on Sunday morning, Nov 1st.

 

Dang!

8 minutes ago, CavalierDuck said:

In that case, hush! 😛  Time change in North America is on Sunday morning, Nov 1st.

 

We do so with great resistance!  But resistance is futile!  I've heard that somewhere!

I will NOT turn the clocks back 1 hour! It's all we need, 1 extra hour of 2020.
It's like getting a bonus track on a Yoko Ono album.
😁 😂

17 minutes ago, spokes2112 said:

1 extra hour of 2020.
It's like getting a bonus track on a Yoko Ono album.

🤣🤣🤣 !!

Very excited for this flight as I have actually walked along The South Downs way.  Lovely pub at Cuckmere haven. 

50 minutes ago, buzzbee said:

 Lovely pub at Cuckmere haven. 

Excellent! You might have noticed that the route crosses Cuckmere Haven and the Seven Sisters, the line of chalk hills/cliffs.

 

21 hours ago, 1st fltsimguy said:

While I haven't joined you folks in a long long time, I would be intrigued to try with XP.  Wondering, would I see the other participants flying with the other sim(s), would folks see me if I was in XP?

We've had XPlane pilots join us before.. it worked just fine.

I am tempted to try MSFS!