Kronzky

The OP may have been joking, but I'm sure he (and many other simmers) was considering ways of making his flights more "consequential" beneath the joking. After all, why worry about getting lost, running out of fuel, or doing a crash landing, if you can just redo it right away, without any penalties? I once worked on a military simulator -JCOVE Lite- that actually uninstalled itself if you killed one of your own guys! That may have been taking things a bit too far though — especially since nobody expected it. But for FS, my way of making my actions matter more is by recording my flights on FS Duenna. It logs your route, and anything else you do on a flight. The thing that makes it unique is that you can't hide your mistakes. Once you screw up, it's out there in your record, for everybody to see... You cannot delete your logs, and even if you abort a flight (in order to bail out of an unrecoverable situation), it will still show up in your record. With this permanent log in your mind everything you do in that plane all of a sudden DOES have consequences, and you start taking things a lot more seriously. It really puts a whole new dimension of realism in therer that I never felt when I just flew "hidden away" on my desktop...

I don't have GEX, but I have some comparisons on my site between default, FTX-Global, UTX, Prepar3d and the appropriate view in Google Earth: * Default vs. FTX Global vs. Prepar3D vs. Google Earth * Default vs. UTX vs. FTX Global + UTX vs. Prepar3D vs. Google Earth Here's one (typical) example for the city of Chihuahua, Mexico: FSX Default: FTX-Global: P3D: Google Earth:

Your best bet is probably to record the landing with something like FSRecorder, and then import and analyze the data in a spreadsheet.

The August race is now open! It's taking place in the backwoods of Vancouver, BC (so if you have Orbx's Pacific Northwest region this is an opportunity to put it to good use). The track leads through some steep and scenic valleys, and has a few challenges thrown in for good measure. There are two off-airport landings, a "how low can you go" leg, and a STOL landing (both optional, and can improve your race times). The route is set up to allow the use of sea-planes, and is about 150nm long (split into 5 segments). https://sites.google.com/site/fsebprl/august-2013-race

There's some "complicated math" happening for the scoring, in order to level the playing field a bit. :wink: It's not perfect, but it does move the different aircraft a bit closer together. Basically, we determine how long it should take you theoretically, in your particular plane, to finish each leg. Then we compare that ideal time with what you actually achieved when flying it, and the difference is your "race time". So — the closer you get to the theoretical limit, the better your score will be. As far as the An-2 is concerned, I guess if we go "by the book" it wouldn't qualify, as it's a radial engine. But you should come over to our forum, and we'll have a look. It's a unique plane, and definitely used in bush-flying, so we'll see if we can squeeze it in!

Yes, it's basically a time trial. You have one month to complete the five legs, and you can do it whenever you feel like it. The results are validated via FS-Duenna (so you have to be online when flying), and in the end the one with the fastest time (adjusted for the aircraft handicaps) will win. Which particular model are you planning to use? The rules for allowed aircraft are "Single engine fixed-wing aircraft with piston-driven, naturally aspirated engines. No turbochargers.". So, if your model matches that, you (or we, if it's a free model) do a test flight to determine the actual top speed (for the handicap system), and then you're ready to go.

The Bush Pilot's Racing League (BPRL) has just started its fourth race of the season, so if you like your flying "low and fast", and away from airports, you should check it out. This month's race leaves Kodiak island (where the last race happened), and continues on at the souther tip of Alaska. It consists of five legs, and the overall length is about 225nm. Four of the five stops are off-airport, so you have to be creative (and careful) when picking a landing spot. There are also altitude limitations in place, so finding a way through a mountain range can be a bit of a challenge. But even if you're just looking for a nice scenic ride in gorgeous environments (instead of bare-knuckle racing), feel free to join. The race got some unique routes and challenges, that should appeal to all kinds of bushpilots! Here are some of the spots that you'll have to land at: Further details about the race, and the signup forms are here: https://sites.google.com/site/fsebprl/jimmy-memorial-run

Try <Ctrl>Q and <Ctrl><Shift>Q. Keep them down for a while, as it takes a bit before things start to move.

Looks like the forum software somehow swallowed up the Google Map links to some of the segments, so here they are all in plaintext once more: http://maps.google.com/?q=http://www.kronzky.info/fs/DC3_WorldTour1.kml http://maps.google.com/?q=http://www.kronzky.info/fs/DC3_WorldTour2.kml http://maps.google.com/?q=http://www.kronzky.info/fs/DC3_WorldTour3.kml

I know you mentioned using your QW Avro plane, but if you have a soft spot for DC-3s (and who hasn't!?) I would suggest joining Buffalo Airways, and participating in their DC-3 World Tour. The legs are about 300-600nm each, can be done via traditional navigation (if you're so inclined), go to some really unique airports, and thei're definitely taking the "scenic route" (as opposed to the shortest possible way, like most RTW tours do). It's a massive project, with over 100 hops, and will take nearly a year to complete. But, since you're not flying by yourself (you can do the legs offline or online with others), at least you got some company to share your experiences with. It is split into three parts, and here are some GM overlays for the routes (click on the title for the description, or the images for the detailed maps): Segment One Segment Two Segment Three

If you do fly a lot in these areas, and you don't mind putting some work in, to make the airports usable, then I would suggest to rather go the manual route, instead of using the generic flattening meshes, as with those a lot of the airports will lose their "character". You may also want to look into the free meshes by Taburet (e.g. here). I tried them as well, and they looked just as good as the commercial ones from FS Global, but, unfortunately, also had the same issues. I guess everybody will be using the same base public-domain data for meshes anyway (after all, nobody's gonna send up their own satellite to take "exclusive" elevation pictures), so unless some commercial outfit can offer good fixes for the airports, I don't really see the point in paying for meshes that have to be fixed anyway.

Yeah, if it were so easy to fix airports, to align with updated meshes, then I'm sure somebody would've come up with an automated way already, and fixed all the ones that don't align anymore. But the fact that even PILOT'S (the FS Global creators) were only able to come up with some very generic solution (that I find rather unsatisfying) let me to believe fixing airports is not an easy or straightforward procedure. (And definitely not something you want to do if you're only visiting some far-off airport once in a while.)

Unless you're willing to spend a lot of time fixing airports that will become unusable due to the new mesh, I wouldn't recommend FS Global, or any other mesh. I've recently tried it in South America, and the results were pretty disappointing. Yes, the terrain looks more realistic, but at some point you gotta land, and when half the airports are screwed up, due to the discrepancy in data from FSX and the new mesh, then all you're left with is pretty, but unusable scenery. Sure, if you're flying in areas that are already covered fairly exact by FSX then you probably will have fewer of these problems, but in that case there's really no need for a third-party mesh in the first place. Only for areas that were a bit "neglegted" by FSX would you need a new mesh, and then you end up with these endless issues. Here's an example for a typical "obscure" airport in South America (SPPY - Chachapoyas), which lies on a ragged plateau. This is how it looks in Google Earth: The default scenery in FSX looks pretty flat and bland, but at least the airport is usable: Once you apply the FSGlobal mesh, you end up with an airport a mile deep in the ground, and rivers that flow alongside the edges of mountains: If you then apply their flattening mesh, the airport is usable again, but you lose the ruggedness of the terrain: Their flattening meshes are advertised as the fix for all these problems, but first of all, you will have to apply them yourself to the airports that are broken (so no flying into "new" airports — you will always have to check first whether they need fixing), and secondly, since they were created via a generic algorithm which flattens a circular area around the airport, you just end up with another fake terrain — one that doesn't have much more resemblence to the real thing than the original FSX one does. Here, for example, is the terrain view of another flattened airport in South America (SPLN). As you can see, the meshes created a perfect circle around the airport, and I wouldn't really call that an improvement:

If you're looking for challenges, and enjoy bush flying, you might want to look into the Bush Pilots Racing League. It's got some pretty challenging courses (with altitude limitations, off-airport landings, and mountain-hugging paths to follow). Plus, of course, you have to do it all as fast as possible, and with online tracking, so there are no second chances! The league just started, and is still a bit of work-in-progress, but if it's challenges in the bush you're looking for, you should check them out!

And, if you like to fly DC-3s, then DC-3 Airways is, of course, an excellent place to look: http://www.dc3airways.com/