Bossspecops

Hmm, I think I may give up on going home and head for Colorado! I'm hungry just LOOKING at that menu!

Yes, it surprised me too. I couldn't zoom in close enough from the Tower View to see exactly what the type was, but it had the right proportions for a K-28. It may have been 'imported' from a traffic file from a scenery add-on somewhere that I'd not noticed before.

Because my Sealand doesn't like flying in very low temps, ref. my problems in the Aleutians earlier on my homeward trek, I'm reluctant to fly Melo's route in reverse across Greenland and Iceland, so I'm going via a southern route, hence my jog down to North Carolina. From KRDU I'm heading out across the Atlantic to Bermuda first of all, that little island Overseas Territory of the UK, well known for its idyllic life style and its Triangle, but we won't think of the latter on this flight! Having restored my AI traffic by 'borrowing' Melo's traffic.bgl file for the 2nd time, I was quite pleased to see this A320 on its take-off run as I was taxying out. And I know the tower at KRDU is tall, but nowhere near as tall as the 'Tower View' makes out in FSX! Some people have no idea how to write an AFCAD file................ It was rather good seeing airliners and GA stuff back on the ramp after the barren look of the place when I arrived! Soon I was climbing away from Raleigh-Durham and turning to the north east toward the coast. Very soon the North Carolina I knew from the 90s became visible, miles and miles and MILES of trees, millions of them from horizon to horizon! As I neared the coast I had to dog leg north a bit to clear some MilOps areas, and the entry to those areas was marked by a couple of almost circular lakes, Phelps and Pungo Lakes. I couldn't help but wonder if they were ancient asteroid strikes. Turning further northward I crossed Albemarle Sound, a VAST amount of water leading out to the Atlantic from deep in NC. Eastward of the Sound is a long chain of sandbars, hundreds of miles long, that sit off the NC and Virginia coastlines, and are wide enough to have complete towns and even airfields on them! This one's Dare Co. Regional. Having realised where I was the previous night I made a special dog leg north to fly over a VERY significant spot in the aviation world, the site of the Wright Bros. inaugural powered flight in 1903, on the Kill Devil Hills. Nowadays the site even has its own airstrip right alongside the Wright's first ever airfield. The green area to the left of the paved strip is that most famous site. From here onwards, for about 2.5 - 3 hrs, there was nothing more to see apart from the sea, and the odd cloud of course. Looking from the Tower View at First Flight Field I noticed that there was an AI airship flying down the coast! I wish I'd been just a little later as I'd have loved to have taken an air-air pic of one! Eventually Bermuda hove into view, aided by a couple of NDBs and a VOR on the island and I started my descent for a water landing there. They have a water runway just south of the airport that's almost surrounded by the island itself so there's little chance of any rough water. With a westerly wind I had go east of the islands and make a 180 to the south to male my approach. As I was on my approach ATC warned me of traffic to my north and sure enough a 737-800 came whining down on its approach to the main runway. I bet the pax were surprised to see a flying boat on a parallel approach alongside them! You can see what I mean about the water runway being almost completely enclosed, I LOVE it like that. Throttling back I eased 'Austral Rose' down onto that lovely lagoon and headed for the slipway to the extended ramp to my north. That ramp was HUGE and there was lots of space for me, so I parked alongside a Dash 8 that had just taxied in. I figured there'd be NO shortage of hotels or restaurants here so I may hang around for a day or so until the wind direction is friendly for my next leg.

That's great, thanks so much, I've download it now. I agree about the search function here, it's like wading through treacle sometimes!

Which particular 'Hover Gauge' works best for helicopters? Rob Barendregt does a whole heap of such gauges, most for VSTOL fixed wing aircraft or V-22 tilt rotors and I'm not sure which would be best for a chopper. I've had lots of success with his stuff, particularly with FS9 Harrier GR5s and Sea Harriers, so I'd like to see what he can do with chopper flight.

Heading ever eastward on my way home, my Leg 15 is a lot southward as well as eastward from the Windy City as I flew to Raleigh-Durham KRDU in NC om Friday after meeting all the guys at Meigs, a momentous occasion if ever there was one. I'd thought this leg would be fairly barren from the pics of scenery point of view as it was diagonally across the centre of the US, but actually not so, all sorts of interesting places passed under my wings en route. Here I am in a familiar place, how many screenies have been taken of this ramp over the whole life of the FS world? Got to be in the BILLIONS! There was a hefty crosswind when I wanted to fly, so I used the Sealand's dual capability and opted for a water take off, so taxied to the south end of the field where there's a shallow beach down to Lake Michigan, but en route spied a MOST unlikely item parked up on the ramp! What's a sailplane and trailer doing at Meigs of all places? I can't think of a less likely place for thermal or slope lift! Slipping into the lake was an easy task down that nice gentle beach and I was soon able to chose a take-off run directly into wind, so long as I avoided the vast number of boats out there! Turning on course toward the south side of the lake I waved bye-bye to Meigs, our spiritual home, and that well remembered skyline. I'd chosen a cruise altitude of 10000 ft as I wasn't sure how high the hills were nearer to KRDU, but it meant I had no chance to observe the scenery as I was IMC pretty well right away! After a while the clouds got got boring so I asked for a descent down to 5000 ft as that was nicely below the local cloud base. The first place I clearly observed was Muncie IN, and that's Delaware Regional Airport there just astern of me as I passed o'head. My flight path dodged to the east a bit to clear one of the numerous 'Military Operations Areas' in these parts, and soon I passed Dayton OH, and that's Cox-Dayton Int. below me, a pretty impressive place, but I was expecting an even more impressive field to come into view soon. Well, it was impressive when I was there in the mid 90s, but seemingly not so in the FSX world. That's Wright Patterson AFB, the home of the USAF Museum, a place where I achieved THREE lifetime ambitions on the same day! I saw the XB-70 Valkyrie, the F-82 Twin Mustang Betty Jo and an X-15, along with a whole load of other mind bending stuff. Sadly FSX seems to think that the base has just a few sheds, not the MASSIVE hangars that are there in the RW. Further on the clouds cleared and a vast expanse of flat America came into view, a bit like the mid-West we saw during the Route 66 Rally but somewhat greener. I flew over a very large and tempting lake crossing Ohio, which turned out to be Deer Creek Lake. For some reason the whole area is apparently owned by the US Army Corps of Engineers. Very son afterwards I crossed the Ohio River, a pretty large chunk of water, and it connected with the Kanawha River at a T junction. My flight followed the Kanawha for quite long way, leading south east into West Virginia. A bit further on I came to the first large range of hills or mountains in these parts, the Blue Ridge section of the Appalachians, and pretty impressive they were too, being almost totally covered in forestry. The next major place was Roanoke, with an equally major airport too. Onwards and ever onwards took me over a couple of very large water areas, by now in North Carolina, the first being Smith Mountain Lake, that stretched for EVER across my flight line. And further on there was Falls Lake as I started my descent for KRDU. The whole US seems to be dotted with lakes everywhere, I'm used to them in Minnesota, but didn't realise there were so many elsewhere too. Raleigh-Durham Int. was soon in view over to my right and I started to turn onto the ILS for their 23L runway. For reasons best known to itself my VOR indicator didn't seem to want to read the ILS altitude although it guided me nicely in azimuth, so I reverted to the mark 1 eyeball and lined up properly. Landing on that massive length of tarmac, 7500 ft on 23L, and 23R is even longer, wasn't a problem and I turned off and headed to the FBO at the northeast end. Sadly there was NO traffic at all in sight, just like before, it seems something keeps on messing with my traffic files. And here I am at the empty FBO. I know the area quite well having stayed around here 4-5 times and there's this really good Italian restaurant I know. The next leg isn't one you'd imagine for my flight back, but it'll still be homeward bound.................

Made it to Raleigh-Durham KRDU yesterday, but the PIREP will have to wait till tomorrow as it's a BUSY day for me today.

This one's files are 2007, but your description fits it exactly.

After a lengthy search around the Net I think I found an enhanced edition of it on Simviation, filename '1HC412_AB412.zip Looks like a few more added on versions and repaints all based on the original model.

Yes, Rob Barengredt did some wonderful software, lots of it to do with getting VTOL FS types to fly properly in the V mode. But he also did other things as well, like a demon package for getting on and off a carrier and surviving, always a good idea.

Looks a good place, so that sounds like a plan. I'll be off to Raleigh-Durham tomorrow with luck, another place I've been to a few times in the RW.

I'm AMAZED you managed to get a pic of a lightning flash Melo!! I've tried numerous times and only succeeded once, and that was a puny little flash that wasn't all that bright. Yours looks as if it was in close formation with PL965! And it's great you finally made it here too, I wasn't leaving until you did. Where will we go for dinner?

That makes SO much engineering sense, and I'm appalled at myself that I never figured it out. Thanks very much.

No chance, it's all river meadow land there. I chose the site very carefully, it's even got a railway station about 200 yds from the terminal.

I once had the undeniable privilege of being on the flightdeck of a BA 767 while landing at Milan Linate Airport, pre 9/11 of course. The Captain flew a full Cat III autolanding to demonstrate the procedure for his quite new First Officer, and I noted that the aircraft was quite low according to the PAPI lights. I mentioned this when we parked at the gate and the Captain said he reckoned the people who did the auto-land software didn't know about PAPI lights. But he also said it never failed and flared nicely at the right time.

There wasn't a 'home field' near to me in the UK. The Airbus factory field at Filton is 30 miles away, and is HUGE, and Staverton nr Gloucester is 23 miles away in the opposite direction. So I invented my own. That's Dean Forest Regional (EGDF) that Melo and I have mentioned a few times in here. I did the original version in FS2000 I think, and it was VERY basic, but Melo updated it superbly it for FSX and it works a treat. Just a pity no-one in the RW didn't take up the idea and BUILD it, there's plenty of room where we put it in the FS world, and it even has a slipway into the river for amphibians.

Hehehe. I went there 3-4 times/yr for 30 yrs. I know Minneapolis a LOT better than I know London in the UK. It was just like flying home coming in over Crystal with Anoka County on my left. Yeah, weird isn't it? But all sorts of things happen when you try and get FS9 scenery to work in FSX. I'm afraid I think FSX was a big step backward actually, FS9 was pretty night bullet-proof, it didn't need 'fixing'.

My lost Leg 13 PIREP now. I started off from Missoula Int. in Montana after flying down from Sproat Lake via Melo's home base at Bremerton. I suspect the ATC at Bremerton are still recovering from my 'low pass' there, I know I certainly am! I apologise in advance that this PIREP is so pic heavy, but my target airfield is the only one I really know well in the USA as I've flown in to and out of it a number of times. After a night in sunny (?) Missoula (It's 2 ft deep in snow actually....) I taxied out from my FBO base, past the skeletal Neptunes, and headed for the threshold. While wanting to fly pretty well due east, the SID from Missoula went waaaaaay south at first and I couldn't figure out why. All those hills to my left should have given me a clue.... My flightplan shows the sharp turn to the east at the south end of the SID. Having got to the end it was obvious why. There was no way I could have climbed high enough to clear the hills flying due east, I'd have needed to orbit a few times and the south facing SID was down an obvious valley. When I got to the end I was high enough to clear the hills of course. I was flying in an out of cloud once I'd reached my cruise altitude, and much of the scenery consisted of snow capped hills, and high ones too. Now and again I could spot somewhere interesting en route, this being one. It's a tiny airfield right at the side of a major highway and railroad pass, right in the middle of some hefty hills. It's called Elliot Field. The hills got rougher but less snow capped as I headed east and I could eventually see some flatter lands ahead of me, but I was STILL in Montana, it goes on for EVER! That city with an airfield in the distance turned out to be Helena, and the airfield was quite sizeable, as was Helena itself. A short distance past Helena was what seemed to be an ENORMOUS lake stretching from north to south, but a quick look at the map revealed it to be the Missouri River! It sure was wide, and it looked frozen solid too! Montana just went on and on and ON, but it got flatter the further east I flew, more like the mid-West that I knew from visiting it many times, Again the cloud socked in and I was unable to see anything below for quite some time, and during that time I passed all the way across North Dakota so I have no idea what it looked like. My GPS told me I was over Minnesota, and a view though some gaps in the cloud proved it. Where else in the US could you see SO many lakes spread out below? This was the US state that I knew best. Angling more south east toward Twin Cities I soon passed another major river, maybe THE major river in the whole USA, the mighty Mississippi. And in a very short while I knew EXACTLY where I was. I could see downtown Minneapolis in the distance with the major Minneapolis-St Paul International Airport to the south of it. That small field down on my right is Crystal, a place I've flown into a few times in the RW. And from the same position, looking over my left shoulder, I could see Anoka County Airfield where there used to be a superb aviation museum containing a good number of British aircraft. When visiting I found I knew more about them than the museum staff did. Almost o'head downtown, with the Mississippi still on my left, it was time to turn west to approach Flying Clouds field in the south west corner of the area. Passing over Hopkins and other cities I know quite well, I could see Flying Clouds in the distance. Once again the entire cityscape is interrupted by lots and LOTS of lakes, many with water runways and I was SO tempted................ Turning over Eden Prairie itself, got me onto the approach for Flying Clouds 18R runway, and it brought the lovely Lake Riley into view, a place I know very well. Lake Riley has 2-3 water runways and one is used by a workmate of mine from my employers there, Ray Lewis, as he has a Lake LA-4 amphibian. I've been aboard it, but sadly never flown in it, yet anyway. That's the site of Ray's house arrowed. Soon I was on finals, with a very familiar look through the windscreen as this was one of the very few places I've landed an aircraft in the RW. And as I should do, having had experience of the place, I put 'Austral Rose' down right on the numbers and on the centre line too. After a lengthy taxi, Flying Clouds was a training base for B-24 crews in WWII, I parked up at the FBO on the south end of the field and headed for a hotel and a burger at the Lions Tap diner. NOT to be missed if you're in Eden Prairie. Tomorrow I should be off en route to Meigs for the mini-rally and our club's first AGM.

OK here goes with my answers to the questions, as well as I can anyway. (Why am I the first to answer? Maybe as I'm a few hours ahead of most of you over the Pond? How can the Club best serve you? As a (sim) pilot? To teach me to fly better and more realistically through watching how other members fly. As a creator (writer)? To read how others write, to see their styles and methods. As a person? To relate to a very varied and talented bunch of people better than I can now. Events: Majors: General parameters (length, scoring, reporting, participation by routemakers)? I liked both the Route 66 and the Oz event, but I found the Oz event, while very interesting geographically, to be hard work keeping up with everyone else, even though I was often a front runner. The aggregate duration based scoring we used on the Oz Rally worked very well I feel, and I'm not sure if it could be improved. I felt the reporting of both the Route 66 Rally and the Oz Rally worked very well too. Why shouldn't the route makers participate if they want to? The tasks are the same for everyone and prior knowledge wouldn't be any advantage for the time based scoring system. How many per year? 3 would be ideal for me, but they're not compulsory of course anyway. Timing? It matters little to me. The rest of my life will go on as usual, and I'll be able to fly some events and not others in reality. Minors: General parameters? The Mini-Meigs was good, and fitted in nicely with my homeward bound ferry flight from the Oz Rally, Others like that would be good, just not too many of them. Frequency? See above, maybe one between each major Rally? Branding and Publicity: [Club Chachapoya] as visual tag in all Club thread titles. Thread structure? I think that works, and eventually will get well known through the FS.com community, hopefully anyway. How can we increase our popularity and membership roll? Get the word out in the FS.com world. I'm not sure how it would go down if we advertised on other sites, like Avsim for example, their operators may think we're poaching. In reality most simmers frequent ALL the sites there are! How can we leverage our strengths to get flightsim.com to make accommodations for us? Good question, but I don't know FS.com works internally to be able to answer it. Club Bylaws, Duties, and Staff: A basic rules/conflict resolution/disciplinary process set? Maybe, maybe not, Having too strict a rule base may put some people off. I've had experience of running and starting clubs in the UK, mainly in the classic car field, and while we HAVE to have firm rules for clubs like that here, it's the law, I found that too many rules and regulations didn't keep the membership on-side properly. What needs to be done? Produce a basic set of rules etc, and see what members think? Who's going to do it throughout 2024 (primaries and alternates)? THE question of the event, I'm sure! I'm not sure I'm up to it, but there are obvious guys I've met during the two Rallies I flew to say they're doing fine so far. That'd be Tom, PhrogPhlyer and VP2 of course.

Ah, I seem to have missed posting one of my Return Home legs, that was the one from Missoula to Flying Cloud. But I've ALREADY posted the Flying Cloud to Meigs leg on the Mini-Meig's thread, so I've got a time warp running here. It's late in the UK now so I'll post my Leg 13 report here tomorrow.

As luck would have, the Mini Meigs rally fitted in just perfectly with my looooooong flight home in 'Austral Rose' from the Oz Rally. I'd dropped into my old stamping ground of Minneapolis, I worked for a company based there for 30 yrs, and was there 3-4 times each year all though that period, so I knew the area well. I'd spent the night in an Eden Prairie hotel after eating at the Lions Tap , and was ready to head for Meigs the next day. That would have been a mere 300 nms or so, but I planned a little 'diversion' to a few places of interest, and it was nearly 400 nms eventually. Here I am starting up at the FBO on the north ramp at Flying Cloud Airfield (KFCM) with the big VOR aerial right in the foreground. The wind was almost directly from the north, which meant a long taxi, but handy for my first 'place of interest'. Traffic was low (non-existent in fact, for some reason my FS traffic wasn't working around Twin Cities. ) And I was soon tail-up and on my way. Soon I was crossing Staring Lake and turning slightly north east as I waved good bye to Flying Cloud. My intent was to pass over my old employers' offices, that's MTS Systems Corporation, and to take pics of the place, but it seems that FSX has totally ignored their existence as there's nothing where they should be at all! Of course if my Minnesota MegaScenery package had worked I should have been able to carry out my plans, but so far the only 'support' I've had from them is to ask for my order number and to give me a list of FAQs, the usual cop-out with such companies I find. Anyway, this is where MTS SHOULD have been, but wasn't. Turning on track to the south east I skirted west of Minneapolis-St Paul International and could clearly see The Mall of the Americas to the south, at one time the LARGEST shopping mall in the world! It was so large it had had theme park park rides in the middle! Does it still hold that record? All the time I was climbing up to my 10000 ft cruise altitude, and it was a good thing too as the cloud was thick and heavy at around 2500 ft all the way up to 8000 ft, so there was very little scenery to see. I did manage to spot the Mississippi curving away to the south before the cloud socked back in again. I wanted to spot Wisconsin Dells, an inland resort city I'd visited a couple of times in the 80s and 90s, and on one occasion had a ride there in an WWII amphibious DUKW, which was great fun. Luckily there was a hole in the cloud at just the right spot and I could see the Dells below me. From then on it was solid cloud almost the whole way, and it reached way up above me for quite some distance. I had to keep a close watch on my track as there was huge MilOps area to the north of me and it would never have done to have a couple of F-16s on each wing tip! You can see the extent of the area in my flight plan map. My original plan was to drop in at Oshkosh en route to Meigs as I'd been there a couple of times and found it a fascinating place. The ATC there were less than enthusiastic about my ideas as it seems they had some sort of event running and reckoned there wouldn't be enough ramp room even for my little 'boat, but they agreed to let me make a fly-by down their active, so I did. Passing Oshkosh to the west and preparing to make a sharp 180 onto their 18 active. And is the sharp 180! That place sure looked BUSY! Passing directly down the 18, there were all sorts of types parked all over the place, including a couple of B-52s and a BA Concorde of all things! After that I resumed my 10k ft cruise and headed direct for the Windy City, passing the US beer capital to my left, Milwaukee. It wasn't long before I was on my descent, except I was delayed by TWO CTDs!!!! Thank goodness I had got FSXSave to work or my temper would have been sorely tried. Coming down through 2500 ft I was soon in familiar FS territory with Meigs over to my left with Lake Michigan temptingly further east, my thinking being that if I mess up the approach I'll pull the gear back up and splash down on the lake! But it was looking OK and I was soon 'in that Meigs groove' that we all learned to love (?) The old routines were still there in my head and I managed to line the Sealand up nicely on the 36 approach. And just as I eventually managed in the C172, I put her down almost right on the numbers and almost on centre line too! The familiar routines of 'flaps up, landing lights off, throttle back and turn in' and I was on the ramp again, for the UMPTEENTH time of course, but my first time in the Sealand. Maybe the first time a Sealand had EVER been to Meigs? I'll be hanging around here for a few days a) to meet the rest of you guys coming in for the event, and b) as I've some 'domestic duties' to attend to for a few days, but then I'll be off east and headed back to the UK eventually, after some days flying I'm sure.

I had to check in my FS hangar to see if this was the same K-ship that I've had for AGES, and it is! A fabulous piece of FS modelling at all levels, and I can remember I loved flying it way back when. Needless to say I'll have to re-inflate mine and fly her again, there's nothing quite so relaxing as flying an airship. Heading out of Twin Cities later on and expect to be at Meigs in 2-3 hrs.

I'm still miles away, in Minneapolis at present, and old stamping ground of mine, and intend heading to Meigs tomorrow, via some interesting places. I may make a water landing at Meigs if the current 90 degree crosswind still obtains!

As my next leg home would have me flying across most of Minnesota I looked for some scenery on here of the area I knew quite well, with no success. So I looked at getting some payware stuff and came up with MEGAscenery for the whole state. It's a MONSTER download in about 25 parts, but it wasn't badly priced so I bought it. The download instructions run to PAGES of text and require two more utilities to be downloaded first, so I did all that and installes the utils, and started of downloading it all. Did it work? NO! I could download the manual and all the charts for the entire state but NONE of the scenery files would download, every one saying 'Internal Server Error'. I've emailed a VERY rude note back to the suppliers!

Small World time again, the Bay of Fundy is the only place in the whole WORLD with a higher tide rise and fall than EGDF. For real, I'm not joking. Love that pic BTW.