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"Crater Field" A Great Default FS2002 Anomaly
By David Walker (23 September 2002)
reetings, fellow flight
simmers, my name is David and this is my first article written for
FlightSim.Com. I began my flight simulator experiences back in the early
1980's with the tiny marvel called the Timex-Sinclair computer and its
crude but fun flightsim, the program being loaded with a tape recorder! I
was soon to progress to Sublogic's Flight Simulator program and an Apple
IIe 64K on which I spent many, many happy hours flying numerous
Chicago-to-Champaign RTs while waiting for Greyhound Bus Lines to call me
into work as an extra driver while I lived in Indianapolis. The advances of
flight simulator since then are truly amazing in these last nearly 20 years
... can you imagine what flight simulator will be in another 20? (Big
smile.) The following is a true story of mine of a wonderful surprise
fairly recently while flying on FS2002. Please excuse the quality of my
screen shots here as, at the time, I only had my built-in 11 MB video
card.
It happened one beautiful August afternoon as I flew the Saab 340 to
Denver. Many times I have flown from my current home port of Scottsbluff,
Nebraska to Denver International round trips, making frequent quick stops
in Cheyenne, Wyoming and Loveland, Colorado, usually flying over Cheyenne "on
the route". This time was different and I had altered my course about 10
extra degrees more southward. As Wyoming's capital passed by my starboard
window in the distance, while still around 20 miles NNE of Fort Collins, I
began to notice what looked like a crater out on the plains. At least it
looked like a crater. What I discovered next simply amazed me: there were
two crossed sod runways inside of this depression! "Yikes!", I thought,
"That is wild!" Flew along for about another minute or so before temptation
won out. Couldn't help myself, turning back towards this just discovered
anomaly I was soon to name "Crater Field". Just had to test the waters and
investigate this phenomenon further.
Dropped the flaps and gear while slowing down, all the while thinking about this impromptu adventure ahead of me and determined to take the Saab down close to the runway just to check out the situation first. Upon entering I began to pick up speed a lot faster than anticipated and it hit me that these sloping walls were much steeper and deeper than first thought. I cruised over the runway at about 20 feet altitude and 160 knots, way too fast to try to land, the plane not slowing down all that much over the fairly short runway ... and the opposite wall was growing larger in a hurry. Gear up, full power and rocketed back up the other side. What an intense experience! Actually broke a light sweat over it! Circled around and successfully repeated another low flyover of one of the runways. Knew not when I'd succeed at it but was already determined to land in there, convinced that the Saab had more than enough push to get me out after I landed ... that is to say: if I landed!
Whoever said "The third time is the charm" sure knew his/her stuff, as on try #3 I came in banking as I dropped along the rim and this helped to ease the velocity gains a lot as the descent continued. Bobbled the flair a bit and then landed, stopping just short of the wall. Whew! Depending from where you measure it the rim height is some 300 to 400 feet above the runways ... and a river runs through it (grin) as well as a road! The takeoff was sweet and easy, the 340 lifting us up and out of Crater field with its power and grace.
Can only believe that this default FS2002 marvel must be intentional, as there is even a large antenna tower to the SE which is lined up perfectly with one of the runways (as we find here and there throughout FS2002). Thanks, "Uncle Bill", for hiring the personnel to create this way challenging and fun set of runways! BTW, the coordinates are: N40° 53.90', W104° 50.00', for the strong of heart and crazed of mind. Whatever else, it is a lot of fun and I cannot imagine anyone being disappointed with trying it out.
It wasn't long before I began to imagine what it would be like to add-on to
this marvel sunk down into the high plains country. Make it into the
"Emma's Field" of Colorado with picnic tables with umbrellas, people,
hamburger stand playing good tunes on the PA system, string a power line or
two, a D8 Cat to push away all the wrecked planes and an ambulance and crew
for the (hopefully) survivors, a souvenir stand selling, among other
things, those stoopid looking "jackalopes" you see out west everywhere it
seems ... ah, yes - big plans were being dreamed of and the imagined list
continued to grow ...
I landed there fine another two times consecutive in the next few days,
even managing to stop on the runway both times, but then it happened
shortly after finding it. I had purchased the RealScene 38 M terrain mesh
from Vmax Flight Systems, as I am a dead-reckoning, seat-of-the-pants, VFR
flyboy who loves to have the earth look like it should as I fly. Outside of
some minor, easy-to-live-with glitches, this product has been an
outstanding improvement over the default FS2002 terrain mesh. After
installing this into my system what it did to Crater Field was to sink it
into a deep cross pattern, perhaps to "mark the graves" of any dare-devils
who would have the anatomical ellipses to try it now. Hence, I renamed this
newer aberration "Cross Field". I will admit to taking a couple of dips
inside so far and can't even imagine a way to land there now--sniff,
sniff--aybe this is a job for the Hang Club ... as long as they carry some
climbing gear to get themselves extracted from what has now become an
airfield canyon of beyond intense proportions. No way anyone is ever going
to land there if they are running a good add-on terrain mesh in their
system!
But then again, I'll never get it out of there, but if I try to do it just right in a 172 with full flaps ...
David Walker
circleagle@actcom.net
Technical Information
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