Rupert

Yes, I agree some ideas are better than others. A couple of years Jan, AKA Peer01, disappeared for awhile and we went searching for him over many waterways of Western Europe. That expedition worked out very well! We never found Jan but several of us drank at bars in various countries on Jan's tab!!! ;):p Despite our best efforts, Jan showed back up on his own!!:o Something about computer issues. (Doesn't he always have an excuse?) ;) Michael

+1!! I think there are many, many people in that same boat until we get more information!!:o

On the home page of FlightSim.com I just saw a link called Fly with That One Pilot Chick. It's complete with RW pictures and routing of a young woman who's working on her ratings. The poster's idea was to do a series to show where she's flying so we can sim there as well. Considering the first flight at least, is in Oregon, there's some beautiful scenery to see. I just "flew" the legs she flew using RW weather. Finding the wind and visibility were obviously both different from his RW shots, I asked the original poster if he could post weather conditions with each new flight he posts. MY POINT IS. I think it'd be fun for some of us, as many as care to, simulate her RW flying and post our screenies here. In that way we'll really have others' points of view of the same route. BTW: I didn't take any shots on my trial trip because it was obvious the weather was different. So I plan to try it again with similar weather to what they experienced. Then I'll take some shots. Does that sound like a good idea? Michael

I agree with the excellent scernery part. I have it too. Where I fail is in the presentation, great job!! And unlike some of our noted aviators around here, you even missed the water!! :D Michael

Great approach and final Jan!! I'm sure your trusty crew chief, who obviously did the preflightt inspection, missed something. The floats. Sorry to say, it's hard to get good help these days here as well. :mad: ;) Michael

Hey Bob, Love that Yellow Submarine!! Hey, it obviously flies over some beautiful scenery!!;) Thanks so much!! Michael

Hey Bob, Judging by your first shot, several planes look eager to be taken as well! In fact they're already jumping off the ground!?;):p BTW: Speaking of that first shot, where'd you find that Saturn SUV? If I remember correctly they only sold a dozen or so of them!:o Michael

Well said! A sim has to correctly simulate RW actions to be a successful tool. Otherwise it has no value. IMHO VR as it's presently used is nothing but a game. Maybe a decade or so out, VR might evolve into a sim tool as well. Michael

IMHO: Functional Accuracy in a "sim" must be the defining issue of any "sim." And that is where the time and money is best spent. Don't misunderstand me, I love pretty pictures and scenery as much as anyone. Having said that, if my aircraft doesn't "fly" correctly I don't care how pretty the scenery is. I'm not looking for a travelog. As an old, disabled pilot, I'm looking for an accurate simulation of RW time so I can be in the cockpit once again! Anything more, like pretty scenery is just a bonus. ;) Rupert

That's not truly different from some RW flights I've been on! Little scared me more than to wake up with the sun shining on the bubble of my Marine chopper with no A/C on a long cross country than to see the other pilot next to me was still asleep!! In fact, I lost two good friends back in the 60's exactly that way! They were apparently flying about 1,000' AGL heading north in California until they hit a mountain! Michael

Hey Pat, Last time I looked it was going to your waist as well! Thankfully here we only get a few inches of snow here in Kentucky a year! Some years not even that. Funny thing though, when it snows people here drive faster than when it rains!!?? It's raining this morning and people were acting like we had ice on the road!:mad: Luckily I can pretty much spend the day inside and not have to worry about the nuts behind the wheel! No I take that back, it's nuts in front of their phones!! Sure wish we'd pass hands free laws here!! Happy Holidays to all!! Michael Michael

Beautiful!! Thanks, Michael

Just did!! The scenery is wonderful!! I made the trip at 7,500' ASL. Had to follow the valleys to do that. But as an old chopper guy, that's what I used to doing anyway.;) I really loved some of those switchback roads!! If I were still working in Munich I'd probably do some RW driving on that route! Thanks so much for pointing the area out!! ;);) Michael

Well said David! WELL DONE JOHN!!!! Now I gotta do that too! ;) Michael

I agree! In fact in the 60's when flying in choppers, you often couldn't receive even the VOR signal when very far from the station. We didn't fly high enough to beat the curvature of the earth and those high frequency signals don't "bend" like low freq. ones do! However we did use the NDB a lot, especially at night. Those "Clear Channel" radio stations, which transmitted very low frequency, long range AM radio signals like WLS, WHAS, etc would wind around all the hills and hollows. You just dial in and catch your angle from say Chicago, then Louisville, New Orleans, or wherever you could get a signal and do your triangulation. It worked pretty darn accurately!;) Give or take several mies of course!!:rolleyes: During daytime when the AM radio airwaves are full of low power stations and Clear Channel stations are on low power as well, it was much tougher. For one thing, who knows where most of those low power stations are!!?? That's when your M1A eyeball came into play. You'd check your VFR Supplement, then find obvious highways and/or rail lines and follow them. (That was the chopper version of IFR! "I Fly Roads!") Another route info source was the local water towers!! I can't tell you how many times we've flown around water towers to find a town name on them, then tried to find a town with that name on our charts!! Sadly, even the best sim software I've bought doesn't provide the water towers we could find all over the US back in the day. Good luck with your efforts!! It's doing something different than just letting the machine fly itself that makes simming so interesting to me!! Michael

Hey David, Funny you'd mention Memphis. I was just down there for my brother in law's retirement party. He worked for Fed Ex there and gives me hell every time I mention Big brown!. Michael

Nice shots! Though seeing no sudden water landings, I have to assume someone has hacked Jan's account!!!:mad::mad::mad: ;) Michael

Great shots again David! As to the sudden appearance of another plane in the windscreen, that's hot hugely uncommon RW in some non-ATC regulated GA airfields. :eek::eek: Thankfully a Cessna 150 doesn't stir the air up too much Michael

Beautiful as always David! ;) I live near SDF and therefore see a bunch of "Brown" (UPS) aircraft. In fact several pilots who fly for Brown and DHL live near me. In fact, we just got some exciting news from UPS yesterday. They flew a 747 into SDF full of Pablo Picasso art work in to Louisville for a several month exhibition here! Most of that art has, they claim, never been out of Europe before! Michael

In a very small part of South Eastern Canada, that is true. Michael

Hey Bob, If you really want to go low you might choose to land at Bar Yehuda in Israel which is about 1,240' below sea level. They might have some wine. But beer or ham, probably not!! (Additional info, if you're trying the for highest, lowest, etc. airport award in your flight sim. Bar Yehuda is shown and yes, that's the lowest.);) Michael

Hey Bob, IMO, sometimes a bridge isn't the best idea. For example, I'm not at all thrilled they built that bridge to the Isle Of Skye! Michael

Nice shots as always Jan!! And, other than a trip to Israel, I agree the Netherlands are pretty low. ;) Michael

I sim flew through the big old blimp hanger at the Moffett Air Facility near Alameda a couple of times and posted pictures here a few years ago. I'll have to do that again. You might want to try it as well. ;) BTW: Speaking of blimp hangers, I was mostly stationed at the Santa Ana Marine Corps Air Facility between trips to Vietnam. The Air Facility had two blimp hangers as well. Being almost right by the freeway, those hangers were considered a huge and visible landmark on the automobile trips from LA to San Diego. The last time I was in the area both hangers had been torn down and replaced with boring office buildings. Though the empty field is still in the FSX scenery of the area. Come to think of it, I haven't checked to see if it shows in P3D or not. Sadly the Santa Ana facility was near the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station. Why sad? The El Toro guys liked to fly A-4s and F-4s through one of the hangers. That stunt got to be so bad we had to post a Notice To Airmen that as of such and such a date both hangers would have the doors closed on at least one end 24/7. The ventilation wasn't nearly as good with one set of doors closed but it sure was a lot quieter than having jet jockeys flying through!!! :mad::mad: And yes, when I mentioned we got away with stuff back then because they needed us for cannon fodder, stunts like hanger fly-throughs is one of the things I had in mind. Michael

Actually G'erard, just above the tree tops was our normal flying altitude real world with choppers in Vietnam. The CH-34, which was lucky to maintain 90 knots straight and level was a huge target. Even a CH-46 was lucky to maintain 135. So flying at treetop level meant there was a very short period of time for the enemy to shoot at you!! Helped keep me alive!!;) Michael BTW: There were almost no power lines to be an issue in Vietnam.