defaid

May I respectfully point out that you've posted in the FS9 screenshots forum? D

That tractor driver has bigger balls than the pilot.

Through Orbx scenery? Some years ago when I had P3d, I installed the Orbx Pacific northwest scenery and it was unarguably the best thing in the sim.

Competitions are a lot of fun but in between them, this is the ideal type for me: moderately challenging route & flying, good scenery and short enough that I didn't have to work at a storyline. Yesterday I checked it out on a map and downloaded an addon Milford Sound. Today I just got in and flew. D

Try this:

The Auster AOP-9 doesn't fly quite like some of those STOL that can arrive & depart across the runway but it's pretty good. It's also a good plane for sightseeing -- high wing, low speed and good visibility -- as you's expect in an army Air Observation Post. I can't do better than to quote Mr Summers, Alex Kimbell's instructor in his autobiographical Think Like A Bird: "You'll find her light on the controls and very agile. Look; see these droop when you lower the flaps, to decrease the aspect ratio of the wing. That's quite neat and you'll find you'll be able to fly in and out of the most impossible places... Most aeroplanes are designed to fly in the air, but this one was designed to fly near the ground. But she takes such a time to get anywhere." It's the only slow plane I really enjoy flying and honestly I don't know why. It's probably through association with the book and possibly because it has its own clattery engine sounds with an explosive cartridge start. In my mind I'd planned a route very similar to the one @PhrogPhlyer took but leaving Lake Wakatipu by the next valley north and skirting the south side of Mount Bonpland, rejoining his line over Lake McKellar and following highway 94 to Milford Sound. I hadn't checked but expected MS to have drawn the Homer Tunnel overland as they have with the Mont Blanc tunnel in the European Alps. The tunnel had collapsed. I fixed a few cumulus for interest and chose to fly early morning in the winter, in the hope the mountains would have some snow on them, and the snow some low sunlight. 0700 hrs local. Awaiting my turn. Climbing out of Queenstown. About to turn over Pig Island. This looks like fun. Rejoining PhrogPhlyer's route. The valleys are still waking up. Following the improbably located Milford Highway. Mount Christina on the right? Just when I thought all was lost... ... I spotted some extraordinary NZ civil engineering and flew through it. It should have been the Homer Tunnel. Then it was all downhill. They might be Mount Tutoko and Mount Madeline. Yeah. I don't think so. I turned around for another lower, slower approach. There's a very soft stall at around 37 kt. Landing long with a 5 kt headwind. Good enough. Full stop. Parked in time for breakfast. 57 minute flight.

FSX General Discussion forum

Thank you. I did see it. I know these screenshots seem to tell a different tale but I do spend most of a flight in the VC and Tim's was one of those that didn't convince. That 21 does fly a fair bit faster and higher than the 9 though. D

d j is still otherwise engaged and I too have been rather overburdened for the last couple of months. The lorry's crew in reality include couple of friends with a passing interest in aviation. The collusion referred to below was -- again in reality -- the success they had in discovering that Iris's Pilatus PC-9 for FS9 is still for sale and then informing me of the link. The FS9 version is, I think, freeware that was (and still is) bundled in with the full FSX version so does have some minor omissions (starter switch...) but it's a detailed model, flies well and has a good VC. It also has a good paintkit. The original ZM331 is based, I think, at RAF Valley. If I haven't misunderstood, it belongs to 72 Squadron, whose badge is a swift, which - in turn - finally made it from North Africa to overhead my home last weekend, around a fortnight later than usual. It's a comfort to have friends who know the Texan ii is really a PC-9 by another name. I'd been wanting a Texan ii for some time: they are often in the sky where I work, but never for very long... I'd tried a few freeware sevens and nines but none convinced and recently I'd all but given up the search. The boys had gone looking on my behalf-- they must have got tired of my whinging. So now, in addition to catching up in Air Hauler, possibly visiting the other Cleddau and planning (and completing) the next RtW stage, which will take me as far as Florida, I have a new plane to learn. *** *** Sometimes life is quite uncooperative. Back in mid-February, at the end of the southern section of the Australian, d j and I had laid over at the William Inglis. She'd done her homework, choosing the hotel partly for its luxury and partly because it was home to the counterpart to Corryong's Man from Snowy River. Here was Tanya Bartlett's Yearling and Leader, although strapper might be more correct (that's groom and stablehand to us in the rest of the world). Ms Bartlett also sculpted (is that the right word?) the now retired thoroughbred Winx, whose only living foal sold last month for Australian $10 million. Yearling and Leader. d j and I'd had 26 hours in the Arrow and a few more coming over in the C-130 but given long enough the real world was bound to intrude so the following morning, after a somewhat subdued breakfast, we took a taxi back to the airport to collect Smallfry. The crew were getting restless and had offered d j a lift back to work, saying they'd return in a few days. They'd found friends among the like-minded at RAAF Base Richmond, home to 37 Sqn's C-130Js so we quietly flew the 25 miles over from Bankstown before parting. They all went off to greet the spring and I sat in Smallfry for a while, feeling somewhat forlorn. It's not something I can keep up for long though and thoughts of Port of Spain and the Caribbean were getting the upper hand so I wandered back indoors in search of caffeine. I needed something new and mentioned this to a few likely-looking OD overalls who shared my mess table for an AAFCANS coffee. "Ahh mate, we've got just the thing. That is, if you want to trade and can make up what might be a bit of a shortfall..." When I saw it, I immediately thought of Melo's Chipmunk. Pedestrian barely begins to describe little Pipers so I returned to Bankstown and, enjoying the peace of the hotel's ornamental garden, plugged in some Floyd and got down to financial and logistical planning. Repayments on the C-130 are still costing me over a hundred grand a month. No nav with whom to talk things over left me feeling a little uncertain but I couldn't see any reason for keeping Smallfry any longer. In any case, I'd just seen at least one very good reason for disposing of it. The crew returned for me and Smallfry and, far from being surprised (which in turn surprised me), arrived fully equipped for pulling apart a different aircraft. I strongly suspect some major collusion between the crew and those overalls. After all, it's what they're paid for. We drove the lorry back to Cardiff and offloaded our new machine, piecemeal. The crew did their spanner and screwdriver magic and added a few bits & pieces, including GPS and autopilot. It is perhaps not as elegant as the Mosquito but it does around the same speed and, with external tanks, has a good range. Also, its functionality makes it intrinsically beautiful. Now it just needed re-registration and a lick of paint... New duds. d j is still not around so I imagined her in the back seat, remembering the Arrow and complaining. "I like the plane but... really, what is there for me to do? Point this thing at the destination and it's already there." This is so much more fun than granny's golf cart. "How about the Lakes? That's where the Hawks from Valley go to play when the Mach Loop is fully booked." "Ok. Brecon VOR first, then. 117.45 and about 015°. We can visit Snowdon and Valley on the way." Planning the route on the back of the mental cigarette packet, she added "If we're going to the Lakes we can do the highest hill in Wales, England and Scotland before stopping somewhere on the north west coast." Now that's a long itinerary but this thing really shifts, as you'd expect of a basic fast jet trainer. "Let's see how long it takes." Appropriately, FS9 ATC's spoken version of "Pilatus" sounds like Gwladys. I think I may change it to Dragon. Chautauqua flying Cardiff to Ronaldsway? I really must investigate this one. Definitely another Ultimate Traffic mistake. "... living the dream and we are outta here." On approaching my local I discovered exactly how slick this plane is: approach and final (even with full flaps and gear down) both took an unexpected amount of air braking. My turn onto base was rather wider than was comfortable because I wasn't sure how slowly I could go... Jumping the queue. I thought they'd got stuck. Away northwest to Snowdonia and Valley where we behaved disgracefully, overflying the field at about 50 feet before turning tail for the English Lakes. Not landing there. Tal y Bont farm strip on the way to RAF Valley. Wales' highest, Yr Wyddfa aka Snowdon. The addition is a definite improvement. Gategill Fell, Blencathra and Hall's Fell in the Lakes. Approaching Scafell, England's highest. Somewhere over Strathclyde. I ran out of RW time so elected to stop overnight at Glasgow. Just about to enter left downwind and this happened. No matter: the photoscenery around Glasgow was never finished and isn't particularly attractive. Third stage tomorrow. Oh **** ** Back to earth in Glasgow. The approach et c. reconstructed. 0630Z and bright, low VFR sunshine. We were intending to head north west with the sun behind our right shoulders. The Caledonian DC-10 on the apron was a bit of a treat. Taxiing into the morning. Don't need much runway when you don't have much fuel... Over the Clyde to Dumbarton, Loch Linnhe, Tyndrum and Rannoch Moor, keeping an eye out for the Buachaille and blasting over the top of Glen Coe with the Ben dead ahead. On then over the CMD arete and down the other side past Observatory Buttress and any number of Gullies with a capital G, over the CIC hut to Fort William in the Great Glen. Buachaille Etive Mor. The Ben. The plan had been to fly to Plockton just south of Torridon and over the water from Skye but as ever, 1) I ran out of time and 2) realised too late that I hadn't reinstated photoscenery textures that I'd been modifying so opted for North Connel instead. It's awkwardly located for a straight in from the north, tucked away immediately behind a steep little hill, so gear down and full flaps long before the runway finally appears as you part the heather on the hilltop. North Connel dead ahead. Look closely: it is there. The unfinished phototextures are extremely drab but give a very good impression of the colour of the hills on a clear and frosty spring morning. Snow lingers on the Ben throughout the summer, disappearing in the autumn. It's said that were it a couple of hundred feet higher there'd be a glacier. I've only been up there once. It rained. When the rain dried up, the cloud came down. I wandered up the tourist route from the Nevis campsite with a retired sergeant who in his past life was an ACE Mobile forward artillery controller. He'd spent years between Germany, the UK and Norway before retiring to repair electronic stuff. Sgt Owen on Crib Goch when we were, well, not as old. The real ZM331 in the Mach Loop. I downloaded this photo a long time ago and have no idea who took it. I think one of these came from the RAF's pages.

Did you ever have a reply? I see Club Chachapoya (CCCP!?) is alive and well and mooting a short challenge in NZ but there's still nothing in the club pages. Is that because members still can't post? Inadvertently giving this a bit of a bump... D

Human/drone hybrid? Personally, I think it looks rather sleek but a 100 mile range wouldn't cut it. Where do the other four people sit? It doesn't look big enough for more than the pilot or does riders mean they're on the outside? Could be draughty.

My point concerning 60 Hz refresh rate and 30 FPS was that locking a game's framerate to a factor of the refresh rate will ensure that the game frame changes at the same moment as the monitor updates. It reduces tearing of images when panning. It can also reduce the flicker that is more easily perceived by peripheral vision. If vertical sync is turned on (or whatever identical function other graphics software implements) then the game's fps should automatically switch between various factors of ther monitor's refresh rate. Although at that rate and with a good game FPS it probably won't make any difference, your 144 Hz monitor might give a better image if you lock to 36 FPS (i. e.144 / 4) or 24 (144 / 6). I suspect that the vertical sync equivalent won't be noticed as it's likely to drop the FPS to 28.8 (144 / 5). I also think that 24 fps is very flickery in peripheral vision and a bit laggy on approaches et c. It is hopeless in first person shooters. If you are in a complex scene where the game could only manage 27 FPS then vsync would drop the game FPS to 24 (next lowest factor of 144). I wonder what Logie Baird would make of today's monitor refresh rates... D

Thank you! to both of you. I really appreciate the responses. The model is Iris's freeware FS9 version of the PC-9 that is bundled in with the retail FSX version. I have leading edges, wings. horizontal stabilisers and errors and omissions left to do, and then learning how to fly it... The wording will be much too small to be clear but not knowing is frustrating, especially as everything else in the reference photos is perfectly clear. D

It never occurred to me to consider the ac supply frequency: the monitor runs on a low voltage dc supply. Here are my monitor's native settings: 2560 × 1440 at 60 Hz (though Windows 10 insists that it's 59 Hz). I'm not sure about TVs, though I believe the old tubes were tied to the ac frequency. If your TV refresh rate is 60 Hz then locking your framerate to 30 should work well, reducing flicker and reducing tearing when you pan your view, because frame and screen will always change at the same moment. D

Catchy title, huh? I've found some free time and am busy priddying the new acquisition. I guess there'll be more on that when it's fully priddied. Meanwhile, do any of you real aviators (I know you're here) know what is surrounded by the yellow ring in this photo of a Texan ii. There are two on the left of the fuselage and one on each upper & lower wing surface. Six total but none on the right of the fuselage. Here's a bonus question for a fudge sundae. Any idea what the legend might say below the two white circles between Z and M? There's a matching pair on the right side and they all seem to have the same words. And for a candle on the dessert, any Beechcraft pilots know what info is on the riveted plate over on the right? It's just under the leading edge of the horizontal stabiliser. Is it manufacturer's serial number etc? Snip of a photo by Taffevans, who has taken some outstanding reference photos.