Give Me A Reason To Fly To Australia (in the Kodiak)

[FrankPilot 123]

See some Australia here:

https://youtube.com/channel/UCqCzobOlQLeGycCFnavVrPg

Next weekly video will be cicumnavigating Australia with World Update 7 following Charles Kingsford Smith flight plan.

if these don’t get you going/flying in Australia, nothing will!

Cheers.

[Bobsk8 12,535]

3 hours ago, RW1 said:

I haven't checked out the default YBSU yet Bob. But i do use this payware which is great. https://orbxdirect.com/product/shunts-ybsu-msfs

I have only bought one piece of pay ware software airports  for MSFS, and that was Keywest, because I used to fly there many times in real life. Other than that, I am really happy with the default airports, and saving a ton of money.. 

Edited February 2, 2022 by Bobsk8

[Glenn Fitzpatrick 3,798]

57 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

I have only bought one piece of pay ware software airports  for MSFS, and that was Keywest, because I used to fly there many times in real life. Other than that, I am really happy with the default airports, and saving a ton of money.. 

 I used to be that way but realised eventually I was doing it on some sort of principle and losing out on a lot of good content just to make some sort of point that no-one else cared about.

I am still happy with the defaults in places I have never been to in real life like the US and neighbours. I have some Alaskan Airports, Key West and St Julianna, plus the St Maartens boats in North America, that is it. South America I have just two airports, Both were on super cheap special and one has hang gliders 😄

However in places I am familiar with, especially Australia and New Zealand, I find the aftermarket airports well worth investing in.  Even if I have never been to a particular airport the over-all feel of a custom one is more immersive for the country in question.  The buildings are more in character, the static aircaft have local liveries and the runways match the approach plates better.

For example running my pre-1960 virtual economy in New Zealand with Orbx Mesh, NZ vegetation mods (buggy but worth it) and a whole batch of NZA simulations airports (some free and some payware)  it actually feels like New Zealand. Pottering about the top part of the South Island in a c140 or Widgeon really feels like New Zealand.  Without the mods it is very pretty - but more like a generic Canada\Euro-Alps\where-ever mountain country mish mash.

In terms of Shunts YBSU, the game has you landing on what is now a taxiway near the beach that runs at almost 90 degrees to the real runway. YBSU was worth it just for an approach that matched the current charts  (that may be now fixed, I do hope so.) . The Sunshine Coast style architecture and very Queensland beach front hi-rise is just a bonus. 

That said, whether it is worth it will also depend on how much you play. If you are a casual flyer putting in maybe an hour or two a night and occasionally a longer session on the weekend I can see how it would be pretty hard to justify hundreds of dollars in addon airports.  If on the other hand you put in 20 or 30 hours a week, especially if you also use Navi graph and real world approach plates, you can potentially justify a new airport every week.

Edited February 2, 2022 by Glenn Fitzpatrick

[jarmstro 2,402]

Plenty of places I need to visit. Alice Springs for one having been legally tortured by Nevil Shiite at school. Oh and I must fly to Mount Macedon and find that weird rock outcrop. Maybe I'll land for a picnic....

Edited February 2, 2022 by jarmstro

[Holdit 551]

It's not worth it...

[Bobsk8 12,535]

8 hours ago, Glenn Fitzpatrick said:

 I used to be that way but realised eventually I was doing it on some sort of principle and losing out on a lot of good content just to make some sort of point that no-one else cared about.

I am still happy with the defaults in places I have never been to in real life like the US and neighbours. I have some Alaskan Airports, Key West and St Julianna, plus the St Maartens boats in North America, that is it. South America I have just two airports, Both were on super cheap special and one has hang gliders 😄

However in places I am familiar with, especially Australia and New Zealand, I find the aftermarket airports well worth investing in.  Even if I have never been to a particular airport the over-all feel of a custom one is more immersive for the country in question.  The buildings are more in character, the static aircaft have local liveries and the runways match the approach plates better.

For example running my pre-1960 virtual economy in New Zealand with Orbx Mesh, NZ vegetation mods (buggy but worth it) and a whole batch of NZA simulations airports (some free and some payware)  it actually feels like New Zealand. Pottering about the top part of the South Island in a c140 or Widgeon really feels like New Zealand.  Without the mods it is very pretty - but more like a generic Canada\Euro-Alps\where-ever mountain country mish mash.

In terms of Shunts YBSU, the game has you landing on what is now a taxiway near the beach that runs at almost 90 degrees to the real runway. YBSU was worth it just for an approach that matched the current charts  (that may be now fixed, I do hope so.) . The Sunshine Coast style architecture and very Queensland beach front hi-rise is just a bonus. 

That said, whether it is worth it will also depend on how much you play. If you are a casual flyer putting in maybe an hour or two a night and occasionally a longer session on the weekend I can see how it would be pretty hard to justify hundreds of dollars in addon airports.  If on the other hand you put in 20 or 30 hours a week, especially if you also use Navi graph and real world approach plates, you can potentially justify a new airport every week.

I fly about 16 hours a week or more, all IFR using EFB for approaches, and I almost never fly to the same airport twice. Not worth spending thousands of dollars on airports that I will land at and take off from once.   

[tup61 1,542]

9 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

I fly about 16 hours a week or more, all IFR using EFB for approaches, and I almost never fly to the same airport twice. Not worth spending thousands of dollars on airports that I will land at and take off from once.   

In MSFS I fly in places I've never flown before in previous sims, simply because out of the box MSFS is awesome all over the globe. I also see no use in spending money on airports. I do however fly quite regularly in a few places, like Norway, but even there I don't really care for addon airports because 1. I hardly know how the airports look in real life so I don't know what I am missing, and 2. I only spend a few minutes on airports and usually those minutes are spend looking at the whatever I have to do in the cockpit: most of the time I am flying. To me addon airports aren't worth the money. 30 bucks so things look a bit better during taxi...? Nah... Even for free I don't really care about them: I installed a few freeware Norwegian airports a week or so ago and MSFS CTD'ed during startup already...! I couldn't even get to the main screen! I immediately deleted the files from the community folder again. I like things simple and default in MSFS. 😉 The less addons the better.

[Bobsk8 12,535]

5 hours ago, tup61 said:

In MSFS I fly in places I've never flown before in previous sims, simply because out of the box MSFS is awesome all over the globe. I also see no use in spending money on airports. I do however fly quite regularly in a few places, like Norway, but even there I don't really care for addon airports because 1. I hardly know how the airports look in real life so I don't know what I am missing, and 2. I only spend a few minutes on airports and usually those minutes are spend looking at the whatever I have to do in the cockpit: most of the time I am flying. To me addon airports aren't worth the money. 30 bucks so things look a bit better during taxi...? Nah... Even for free I don't really care about them: I installed a few freeware Norwegian airports a week or so ago and MSFS CTD'ed during startup already...! I couldn't even get to the main screen! I immediately deleted the files from the community folder again. I like things simple and default in MSFS. 😉 The less addons the better.

Exactly the way I feel. I usually start flight from a Gate or ramp, get the aircraft started, get taxi instructions, taxi to the active and takeoff.  About the only thing I see is the taxi way surrounding area, and the scenery as I roll down the runway for takeoff. Almost never spend any time looking around at the airport scenery.  That's it. The default scenery looks fine to me. It's not like P3D or FSX where the scenery.  was usually a runway surrounded by nothing. 

With P3D or FSX i used to purchase those Orbx Regions like So Cal, Northern Cal, etc,  and then find myself only wanting to fly in those regions. Now I can fly anywhere in the world, and it all looks fine. 

[Dominique_K 10,133]

Just back from a spooky and lovely flight from Derby YDBY to Koolan Island YKLI in the North-West of Australia. The landscape is eerie and the weather was not so good (ominous low clouds with some rain). Saltwater crocs were snapping at my wheels as I was low flying. I swear !  

I say check it out, you know Sidney is not the alpha and omega of Aussie flying 😄.

 

Edited February 2, 2022 by Dominique_K

[andy1252 3,769]

On 2/1/2022 at 10:48 AM, Chock said:

You can fly there to see if this guy is correct 

Scary.

And hey, good to see you back here Chock. Hope your absence was nothing serious.

[Rene_Feijen 125]

Now Orbx has sales for Australia, but will it still improve on the scenery, because it is from pre-WU ?

[andy1252 3,769]

17 hours ago, Glenn Fitzpatrick said:

If you are a casual flyer putting in maybe an hour or two a night and occasionally a longer session on the weekend I can see how it would be pretty hard to justify hundreds of dollars in addon airports.  If on the other hand you put in 20 or 30 hours a week, especially if you also use Navi graph and real world approach plates, you can potentially justify a new airport every week.

Horses for courses. I don't put in those sort of hours, and I admit I probably suffer from SOCD (Scenery OCD), but I'll grab anything that takes my fancy. I've never flown anywhere for real (except as cattle class meat) so I only have marginal experience of actual airports, but I love to populate my sim world with interesting looking places. I wouldn't know real world navigation and other procedures from a hole in the wall, but I love exploring the world in MSFS. I've got airports I've bought and probably only visited a couple of times, and I'm a sucker for all the various little mods (free and payware both) that boost stuff like the coastlines, bridges etc.

And no, I'm not some rich git, just an old(er) guy who spends pretty much all his spare pennies on the sim. Never understood why anyone would pay money to eat out, for instance, and my car mileage really is measured in weeks per gallon (currently around three). Not to say the defaults are always unacceptable by any means - I actually removed my payware copy of KATL as I think the built in version is way better. Not all the available addons are good, by any means, but there is some impressive stuff out there, both free and pay.

I shall certainly be exploring Oz a bit more now, and may well pick up a couple of things in the Orbx sale that I've previously not bothered with up until now.

Whatever turns you on, enjoy this sim - it's a pretty impressive world model they've put together, even with its challenges.

[Glenn Fitzpatrick 3,798]

44 minutes ago, Rene_Feijen said:

Now Orbx has sales for Australia, but will it still improve on the scenery, because it is from pre-WU ?

This is what Orbx had to say about a few days ago - 

 

Quote

We're currently working on making the three city products compatible with the World Update. We needed to wait for MS to integrate their final changes and thus didn't get much of a head start. However, Landmarks Adelaide is already completed and ready for testing (see below).

 

Until our updates get released we'd suggest removing the packages from your Community Folder, especially if you have photogrammetry activated. In the meantime, enjoy the many new features and enhancements that WU Australia has to offer, not to mention the four custom airports and rural POIs, some of which aren't all that easy to find ;-). And make sure you check out the Fokker too - what a beauty!

As you can see from the list of POIs included with the World Update, only a handful of structures in each city will be duplicated making our Landmarks products by no means redundant. Besides, these Landmarks packages are much more than just a collection of buildings, they enhance the entire coverage areas, including vegetation, nightlighting, add helipads and "clutter", and fix issues typical for photogrammetry areas, like sunken or invisible features in water, bridges covered in water, trees where they shouldn't be, elevation steps, etc.

 

In regards to airports, our YBBN, YMEN, and YBMK appear to be fully functional with the World Update though there may be a few minor issues, like tree infringements or coastline steps, that we'll address in updates as needed.

 

[Tierborn 188]

On 1/31/2022 at 1:38 PM, Ricardo41 said:

I've never flown in Australia. 

But I'm open to new experiences.

Give me a route with the Kodiak 100 from, say, Munich, Germany, to Sydney. 

(Lol, I can see ORBX is already on it)

 Kodiak only has a range of 1000nm ... not sure where you would fly out of  

[ThrottleUp 617]

I tootled around Aus a lot during the FSX days (VOZ, OzYX) and found it boring - except for these areas:

• Northern area of the NWT
• Northern Queensland
• Tasmania

The forested areas and coasts are fun to bumble around in but I find the desert interior and cities a hyper-bore 😴

+1 on Papua NG, bush flight madness there and now that the game comes with a PC6 its even more fun.