! JUST DAYS TO GO ! (RTWC FS v AVSIM OFFICIAL THREAD)

[capn_sonic]

Ok folks, This is the official thread for the up-coming Round the World race between Flightsim.com and Avsim.com.
Austin ( salt_air )will be gathering information posted in this thread in preparation for the race in February 2005. If you have been part of this race in the past years then you can help Austin out by giving him as much information as possible on previous races.

Any 'secret' tips that you may have to help us win this race can be sent by private IM to Austin.

Good luck.

[salt_air]

Thanks Geoff,

For "kicking-off" this new thread for us to gather up input of any
sort from all the folks who think they might want to participate in
the event as well as those who just have an idea to share with the
FlightSim Team.

Any and all info that you folks would want to share would be greatly
appreciated. It doesn't have to be from the past RTW events. It could
be from some small impromtu events between friends or maybe we've got
some real pioneers in our midst who have done it by themselves or
even tried to and succeeded a good part of the way.

I'm sure we can bring the trophy to it's new home if we all get our
heads together. Please fell free to send any tips (you feel need to
be brought out in a private manner) to my attention in a private IM.

Thanks All

Austin

[JohnMueller]

Hi Austin
Ist there a FAQ to the race somewhere? Who sets the rules, gives the starting place? Is there a private forum for the FlightSim-Group somewhere (without avsim-access :-))?

Also, I never completely understood: is the whole race done on VATSIM? or are private servers (like here) possible as well?

Ah, so many questions + lots of ideas (will put them together and IM you). I'm looking foreward to a goooood race!!

cheers,
John

[salt_air]

Hey John,

Glad to have you with us ,questions and all. Haven't mentioned it to
this point yet, but questions are just as welcomed as ideas. A lot of
time looking for answers will cause you to find things in addition to
what you set out for in the first place.

Ask your questions right here. It's a bit of a nusiance at this point
that the answers to a lot of your questions are scattered over two
websites. According to the first thread (#52 started by Tornado
Wilkes) and re's to same, Avisim will be announcing (a short time
before the race) where the starting points are as well as what
direction each will be traveling. At least that's how I take so far.
Explore that thread (if you haven't already) including all the links.
Not having participated in past events I don't have the "working
knoledge" to spit out needed info without looking it up myself. If
that doesn't get it then we'll go to the source and find out just what
you need to know.

Gonna skip to the question on servers and give you a simple I don't
know. Maybe someone in the know could jump in here and explain that.
If not ( a few days) I'll be glad to check it out for you.

Now as far as a private forum , we have one "in the works" and will
advise when it's ready. Untill then you can certainly send a private
message to me here.

We appreciate and welcome your questions and any input you want to
share whether it's on the forum here or in private.

Looking forward to hearing from you and thanks again John.

Best regards,

Austin

[TornadoWilkes]

Six months to go? Ah you've got plenty of time. Can I suggest at this point before you begin setting things up, that you seriously consider the things you'll need and find an expert in that field?

For instance you've mentioned that you may need a banner maker, perhaps some other experts may be useful [ul]
[li]team manager
[li]map maker
[li]meteorlogist
[li]scout
[li]navigator
[li]journalist (historian)
[li]recruiter
[li]test pilot
[/ul]

Each one is fully responsible for liasing and monitoring their own area. This doesn't mean they must do all of the work exclusiely, simply that they must ensure that the work gets done. What other jobs can you think of that will need doing?

Look for volunteers now, to start thinking how they will do their role, the manager needs to work out how to bring the team together and must set out his/her vision for success. In addition, the manager must have contingencies for when things dont happen to plan.

As the key to this working is the team manager, it may well be worth getting Nels involved in selecting this person if he so wishes???

Good luck.

[salt_air]

Thanks Tornado,

Some fine points from someone who's "been there".
Be nice to hear from others who've been there as well.

Do we have any volunteers for the jobs that Tornado
has listed at this time?

See you in 6 months ;-).

Best regards,

Austin

[apollosmith]

The rules for last year can be found at:
http://www.flightsim.com/cgi/dcforum...um=DCForumID21

As far as servers, you can fly online on any server if you want, but you don't have to. You only have to document that you completed a leg. With the flightsim.com server up and running, I imagine we could probably use it - though we'll have to deal with outsiders joining and asking where the aircraft carriers are :-)

I'm in the process of building a flight planning and logging tool that we can use if we'd like to. It currently does the following:
- Displays a real-time baton locator map.
- Displays a real-time progress map for all legs.
- Displays # of legs and miles flown.
- Shows a real-time day/night world map.
- Allows administrator posting of event rules, instructions, and news. You can also update the IP address for multiplayer connections.
- Administrator posting of a recommended flightplan.
- If FSHost is used as the multiplayer server, it will display a real-time map of pilot locations.
- It will allow the logging of individual legs. As soon as one pilot completes a leg, another pilot can easily add a new leg beginning at the current baton location. Just enter the new destination airport code, hit a button, and you have the baton. When you're done, hit a button to indicate you're done and the baton becomes available for the next leg.
- Flight planning capabilities. You can get standard flight plans for major airports, lookup airports at certain ranges (e.g., show me all airports between 300 and 500 miles in an eastern direction from my current location and order them by runway length), get heading and distance information for legs (e.g., KPDX is 724.71 nm @ 345.9° from KLAX), view a map of the current or any previous leg, and more.
- A simple forum structure that allows you to post updates and request a future leg.
- Full world airport information is displayed, allowing you to get airport elevation, operating hours (no more landing on non-lit runways at night), full real-time weather information, coordinates, runway details (length, width, altitude, surface type, heading), communication frequencies (too bad ATIS only works at some airports in multiplayer), and nearby navigation aids.
- Full logbook capabilities for posting a flight journal for each leg, including screenshots.

I've got a few other ideas that I'd like to incorporate also. Everything is Web-based, so it is easy to access and updates in real-time. As soon as I work out a few kinks, I'll post the URL to get feedback and ideas for changes.

Here's a few recommendations I'd have for this year:
- Fly to the East. We went West this year and our constant headwind was "the other team's" constant tailwind.
- We need a better description of which planes are legal and which are not. There were several questionable aircraft flown. Perhaps we need a list of those allowed.
- We need more pilots. Most of the flights were done by a few people. Not only did this limit the number of people involved, but it also led to some exhaustion - I recall someone falling asleep at the yoke and having to refly a leg. Getting more international pilots involved will make it a lot easier.
- From looking at the past threads and from memory, it seems like the P51 was the fastest, but only good for around 400 miles on a tank of fuel, so there is some overhead in passing the baton more often. The P38 was slightly slower but had a range of 550 miles. The ATR-72 had probably the longest range of around 700 miles, but took an entire 2-hour leg to do it. The small planes work best for short trips, but only if there's someone there for a quick hand-off. The ATR (or similar) was better when longer hops were necessary (i.e., Africa), when pilots were sparse, and didn't involve as much downtime for the baton handoffs. In the long run, I think the planes were equally efficient in covering ground.
- We need to do some testing of aircraft to see what is most efficient under certain circumstances.

-Smitty

[TornadoWilkes]

Smitty,

That sounds fantastic, many thanks for all your hard work. As a database designer myself, I know how intricate these things are but yours sounds really well thought out.

[salt_air]

Smitty,

This sounds like "just what the doctor ordered" for this or any
long distance event that might come up in the future. I've been
anxious to give this a try since I first heard about it a few
months ago. Would be a pleasure to help out with any of the testing
if needed.

As far as the FlightSim.com server I suppose we could ask Geoff to
lock it down with a password (for a few hours, maybe a day) for an
"impromtu" practice session or for testing out what you've done so
far. There are several other forum members who can host as well and
have offered to do so.

I don't think we'll be faced with the pilot shortaged that obviously
was a problem in past events. Looking to see most of the "veterans"
back for another go at it as well as that many more who have said
that are ready to go.

Of all the issues in an event like this one I can't understand why
allowed aircraft should be questionable. Weather, direction of flight,
routings,where do we cross the oceans,etc. , yeah. There could be a
large but specific list of planes from which to choose. But I suppose
the host of the party gets to do what ever they want...lol.

There are a bunch of us currently testing a myriad of aircraft under
all different types of weather for next years event. At some point in
the future we will all get together and share notes.

Best regards

Austin

[xiphanopoulous]

I'll be back again, this time with the Cessna 441 (I have to try it out some more, but that thing absolutely hauls).

Speaking as the person who fell asleep on a leg last year (embarrassing :(), some more people would be much appreciated.

The rules for the planes are:
-no jets
-turboprops can be twins or singles only
-anything else

The debate last year was over the XF-84, which was an experimental plane that had a prop that flew at very high speeds. However, there was controversy over whether the prop actually provided the thrust, or whether a jet engine provided the thrust, and the prop was just for researching supersonic blade tip physics. Both sides had good points, and I'm not sure what the result is, but I'd be happy to leave it on the illegal list this time and save the headache.

I'd be happy to do some flight planning and flight support (winds aloft, weather, etc), but not knowing where we'll start makes it kind of hard to do now.

And smitty, all that stuff looks great! Thanks for the effort!

Cheers,

xiphanopoulous