This WU is great, went flying around Ayers Rock in the early morning fog this afternoon (EST) and there were a lot of other planes trying to find the Rock, one can briefly be seen in this video from my Twin Otter.

This was just shot with an iPhone shooting the screen, so not the best quality. I just love the way it looks though.

Pretty spooky. I will have to check the rock again in better WX. My guess is it is great to get a bit of rain at the rock.

 

 

It has not been called "Ayers Rock" for years, most of the younger generation only know it as Uluru .

Rain on the rock in game would be cool but to get it right they would need to reproduce the myriad waterfalls that form at Uluru on the rare occasions it rains:

 

 

Edited February 2, 20224 yr by Glenn Fitzpatrick

When I went up the top, as the sun goes behind the clouds and the rock starts to cool, it starts to make a clicking/cracking sound, a bit like a tin roof. I'm guessing it's the surface layer splitting as it warps? I met someone who camped overnight on the top about 40 years ago and they said by late evening it was going off like a popcorn machine and very spooky.

2 hours ago, Glenn Fitzpatrick said:

It has not been called "Ayers Rock" for years, most of the younger generation only know it as Uluru .

 

It is officially gazetted as Uluru/Ayers Rock and either name is acceptable. 

38 minutes ago, Lord Farringdon said:

It is officially gazetted as Uluru/Ayers Rock and either name is acceptable. 

Interesting.

In the real world though, it is not commonly called Ayers Rock any more except by old codgers of my generation that were brought up with that name. 

I do not personally know any younger people that know it by any other name than Uluru.  I suppose there may be some among the alt-right that use the Colonial Name on some sort of strange anti-political-correctness principle but I suspect they are rare in the younger set. 

in the end it a bit like being in India and calling Mumbai by the old name Bombay,  or talking about Madras instead of Chennai. The old Colonial names are technically correct and still in use to some extent in India, but are not contemporary and fast fading.

A particularly silly example would be trying to call Istanbul in Turkey by the old Christian name of Constantinople, it has not been known as Constantinople for hundreds of years.  Another example might be St Petersburg which became Leningrad but is now back to St Petersburg again. One interesting Russian oddity is the city of Volgograd which reverts to its Soviet Era name of Stalingrad for 6 days a year. Regardless, times move on.

Edited February 2, 20224 yr by Glenn Fitzpatrick

1 hour ago, Glenn Fitzpatrick said:

Interesting.

In the real world though, it is not commonly called Ayers Rock any more except by old codgers of my generation that were brought up with that name. 

I do not personally know any younger people that know it by any other name than Uluru.  I suppose there may be some among the alt-right that use the Colonial Name on some sort of strange anti-political-correctness principle but I suspect they are rare in the younger set. 

in the end it a bit like being in India and calling Mumbai by the old name Bombay,  or talking about Madras instead of Chennai. The old Colonial names are technically correct and still in use to some extent in India, but are not contemporary and fast fading.

A particularly silly example would be trying to call Istanbul in Turkey by the old Christian name of Constantinople, it has not been known as Constantinople for hundreds of years.  Another example might be St Petersburg which became Leningrad but is now back to St Petersburg again. One interesting Russian oddity is the city of Volgograd which reverts to its Soviet Era name of Stalingrad for 6 days a year. Regardless, times move on.

I don't think Bombay or Madras are even technically correct.  Some locals still informally use the old names, but the cities are officially named Mumbai and Chennai and have been since the 90s.

This is unlike Uluru, which is officially dual-named as Ayers Rock to this day. Though you are correct that Uluru is the far more widely used name for it now.

2 hours ago, Glenn Fitzpatrick said:

A particularly silly example would be trying to call Istanbul in Turkey by the old Christian name of Constantinople, it has not been known as Constantinople for hundreds of years. 

Don't mean to be contrarian but it was Constantinople until 1930.

avsim posted it twice

Edited February 2, 20224 yr by Mace
avsim posted it twice

3 hours ago, Glenn Fitzpatrick said:

 

in the end it a bit like being in India and calling Mumbai by the old name Bombay,  or talking about Madras instead of Chennai. The old Colonial names are technically correct and still in use to some extent in India, but are not contemporary and fast fading.

 

You are of course discussing common usage, not official naming. 

The renaming of Bombay and Madras was quite politically loaded and was according to an Indian author I recently came across, " ...the rejection of the British styling and the return to Indian roots ..as a means of erasing some of the cosmopolitan pasts of those cities...It became an ideological statement to use one name over the other, a sort of linguistic version of planting your flag in the sand". 

However you might be surprised to find that an official rename does not necessarily consign its previous name to the history books.  Even though Calcutta was formally renamed Kolkata many of its citizens , according to the same author, " call it Kolkata in Bengali and Calcutta in English, and switch between both names with as much fluency as they switch between those two languages".

It will be evident that Ayers Rock has never been renamed but simply provided with another alternative name by which it may be officially called.  There are many examples of this dual naming in both Australia and New Zealand / Aotearoa and it is frankly a bit provocative to suggest "there may be some among the alt-right that use the Colonial Name on some sort of strange anti-political-correctness principle." 

WU Australia is a wonderful jewel that has been added to our hobby and may I say my nearby New Zealand offers a few more rubies to the setting!  As more of our worldwide simming community discover the beauty of our two nations, we don't need to confuse them with the nuances of our naming conventions which many of them will be entirely unaware of. 

So please, all of you are welcome to visit and enjoy the fabulous views of Mt Taranaki / Mt Egmont  in the Te Ika-a-Māui/ North Island of New Zealand / Aotearoa while you feast on the beautiful WU7 offerings that are Australia. You may even wish to visit Uluru/Ayers Rock. But please you are welcome to use which ever name you are most comfortable with. 🙂 

 

Cheers

Terry  

Edited February 2, 20224 yr by Lord Farringdon

2 hours ago, Mace said:

Don't mean to be contrarian but it was Constantinople until 1930.

 

19 minutes ago, Dominique_K said:

was Constantinople until 1930.

You don´t need to go that far back,

at Bing-Maps: Bratislava (Slovakia) is namend Preßburg until today 🤪

Many years ago I took a film crew out to Ayres Rock to do a commercial in a C310R - if I remember correctly it was for some kind of household gadget - anyhow we set up for a dawnshot away from the rock on the ground - less people about than at sunset so much better shooting

The interesting thing was that I was asked to fly round the rock & film the dawn from the air the next morning - well being young and game when the shoot was finished I set up for a run at low level pass over the rock - well did I get a comeuppance!! - the amount of stored heat in the rock was amazing - this was in winter time - going from a very smooth morning flight to having a beast of an aeroplane on my hands - the turbulance was simply amazing

needless to say I never did it again!!

10 hours ago, Lord Farringdon said:

It is officially gazetted as Uluru/Ayers Rock and either name is acceptable. 

Acceptable by who? White folk or indigenous folk? Official does not always = correct or respectful.

Nice video. 🙂

22 minutes ago, GaryK said:

Acceptable by who? White folk or indigenous folk? Official does not always = correct or respectful.

Nice video. 🙂

Acceptable to most rational thinking people who realise there are more important things in life to worry about. 

I live in the Agiocochook valley.

But most everyone knows it as the Mount Washington Valley. The Abenaki name is also used, but mostly for Motels and Tourist attraction places and goods.

In a way sad, but what can you do.

Agiocochook is a sacred mountain to the Abenakis, but we have built several buildings on top of this tallest mountain in NE USA, some have burned down. There is a road you can drive all the way up and a Cog Rail Road that pollutes like crazy burning coal also carrying tourists to the top by the score.

Every year there are quite a few "hikers, climbers, skiers" killed on the mountain, maybe the natives are correct that one should leave this mountain alone.

I was not trying to be disrespectful. I was just showing my ignorance. And I am sorry about that.

An interesting thing about Agiocochook is that a big part of it is not allowed to be flown over at low altitude. A small bit of respect I suppose.