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Post by Allen Peterson on Oct 13, 2008 13:44:04 GMT -5
Yesterday I flew from Echo Bay to Boulder City, did a touch and go, then flew around downtown Las Vegas , then over to Lake Meade and down the river over Hoover Dam to Bullhead City. After clearing Black Canyon, a nice easy flight down the river at about 500' over the water, no AP, just a nudge or two on the wheel to stay on course. I'm thinking of changing from the Red and Cream Apache to the Blue Apache on Floats for the rest of the flight. I've always wanted to land on the Salton Sea.
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Post by flaminghotsauce on Oct 15, 2008 21:43:52 GMT -5
I'm not too far behind. I launched in the "morning" light and enjoyed watching the sunshine crawl down the mountain sides. I took the Baron down to Boulder city and was going to tour the city, but I wanted to land first. When I landed I flew over a really nice golf course. I changed planes and did a few circles over the golf course just enjoying the view. Very nicely done. The town there was kind of a nice diversion itself after all the light vegetation covered brown land. I decided to forgo for now the Vegas Temptation. I poked around a bit more over the dam before proceeding down river, but I had to pause and save. Our kids were unable to get the DVD player to go, and my HP has an HDMI output, so I had to become the DVD player for the night.
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Post by Allen Peterson on Oct 15, 2008 22:49:21 GMT -5
Last night I changed to the PA-23 on floats and flew down to Lake Havasu City. On the way I was tempted to fly under the bridge by P20, but at the last minute I saw what looked like a railroad bridge just beyond the highway bridge and lower, and decided against it. At Lake Havasu City I looked for London Bridge but couldn't find it. I went on Google Earth and found where the bridge was supposed to be, and then back to the sim. On the sim map I could see a slight "valley" on the river shoreline where the man-made channel is that the bridge crosses. I flew back along the shoreline and could see the "valley" and the highway but no bridge. Oh, well. I flew down river, over the Imperial Dam and, staying clear of Laguna AFB, on to Yuma. I did a tour around the city and then headed north to the Salton Sea.
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Post by Tom Goodrick on Oct 16, 2008 9:43:34 GMT -5
Flaming, that golf course was probably "The Falls" near Henderson, NV. It is one of the neatest courses in the Woods'08 for the Wii. Several holes have elevation changes on the order of 100 feet.
I finally got back to flying the Grand Canyon and finished the leg to Echo Bay (Overton, NV). Neat scenery but no surprises. The distance scale on the GPS map gave me plenty of warning for starting the climb from the river level to the upper deck for the Grand Canyon West airport. The trick was then getting back down for Echo Bay at 500 fpm (no pressure in the Mooney Bravo).
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Post by jerryluke on Oct 16, 2008 19:40:46 GMT -5
I'm a bit behind most of the others. I'm almost to Bullfrog Basin, around the Canyonlands National Park area. Mostly brown scenery so far, but great fun following the river and dodging hillsides.
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Post by flaminghotsauce on Oct 16, 2008 20:17:32 GMT -5
The Falls Golf Course, yes. I went to look at it on the satellite maps. I really liked the dam modeling there as well. I had a closeup view of the real one and it's very convincing.
Allen, I'm going to have a look for the bridge in FSX here in just a bit. We just finished dinner and I'm off for the flight for a bit.
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Post by hanspetter on Oct 17, 2008 18:06:15 GMT -5
I've made it to the Grand Canyon in Tom G's turbocharged Baron. Since there were some complaints about scenery anomalies I searched Avsim for anything Arizona, Colorado and Utah. There's quite a lot of freeware scenery packages, most notably mesh files for entire states. Since my bandwidth is excellent I went for them all + ortho-photo textures and relevant airport upgrades. I'm quite sure that some anomalies remain unfixed but the overall scenery impression is great. Some airports are still on mesas. This happens due to FS being instructed to flatten a large (rectangular) area rather than limiting it to the runway.
I've seen a lot of desert so far. The wind is manageable and all landings have been fine.
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Post by ben on Oct 18, 2008 6:42:30 GMT -5
been very busy the past few weeks but I've tried to get in some of the fall fling - my fp - using default ms plus the two files recommended in the b58p heading. good fun - Is this what everybody's seeing?
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Post by hanspetter on Oct 18, 2008 8:13:40 GMT -5
Yes, that panel is what I'm seeing and the terrain with reddish brown rocks, arroyos and canyons looks familiar. However, the exact location may look different depending on the mesh resolution. I would expect a more accurate mesh to fix the river that is running uphill down in the canyon. That is, unless the elevation profile is correct and the river is slightly misplaced. Remember, we'll never notice inaccurate features in an unfamiliar area unless we spot rivers running uphill and other oddities. Moreover, for a flat region with some rolling hills a high resolution mesh makes little difference anyway. The kind of region that benefits from a hi-res mesh is the kind with steep walls and dramatic features. In other words, elevation that changes abruptly over short distances.
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Post by Tom Goodrick on Oct 18, 2008 10:39:45 GMT -5
Ben there is a problem with your panel design that is cutting off the control buttons on the bottom edge of the GPS map. One button there is vital to this sort of flying - the TERR buttone that turns on the terrain relief map showing all the mountains and valleys.
Others have complained about not seeing much scenery because of the high panel. Tap W for a better view when you have the aircraft trimmed and level. This is equivalent to having a camera mounted in the nose of a twin that shows a great view for use in making a travelog. There would be a monitor in the cockpit you could be looking at (when you press W).
Last night I finished the Fling with a flight from Echo Bay to Boulder City and then a direct flight to Yuma. (I did deviate to the right to avoid the blue restricted area for the US Army Yuma Proving Ground where they throw things out of airplanes at high altitudes and shoot artillery shells to 30 miles. They also work on laser weapons there.
My clock said 14:37 pm when I landed at Yuma in my Mooney Bravo. I started at 8 am in Granby and stopped just a few times. I made the last part of the flight on autopilot at 4500 ft because it was rather boring. I only had poor visibility the last 30 miles where I came down to 2500 ft and watched the terrain on the GPS closely. I came within 1200 ft of a couple bumps.
The only thing wrong with this Fling is that, to have fun and fly low over the river, we are all violating the law which specifies we must stay 3000 ft above the edge of the Grand Canyon (which would keep us at 9,000 - 10,000 ft msl).
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Post by Allen Peterson on Oct 18, 2008 19:04:05 GMT -5
Well, I'm just about done also. I flew up to the Salton Sea and landed. Flying over the sea, the altimeter read 1800' (corrected) but the RadAlt gauge read 2041'. I took off and flew over San Luis and am on my way to El Doctor. Tom, I'm shocked! Do you mean to tell us that you arranged for this fling and DIDN'T get clearance for us to fly at any old altitude that we wanted???
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Post by jerryluke on Oct 18, 2008 19:58:14 GMT -5
Made it to Bullfrog Basin. Decided to land for fuel and a bite to eat. That cross-wind landing caught me by surprise! Guess I was mesmerized by all the brown scenery and wasn't paying attention. I corrected and made a decent landing. Whew!
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Post by Tom Goodrick on Oct 18, 2008 21:31:37 GMT -5
Allen, yes, the surface of the Salton Sea is at negative 228 feet relative to mean sea level on a Standard Day. Several airports from TRM to IPL are below sea level. I used to make many flights (by commuter airline) between Yuma and LAX noting the contrast between the low elevation around the Salton Sea and the mountains around Palm Springs just a few minutes away.
Jerry I had some trouble at Bull Frog too. The elevations there are also tricky.
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Post by flaminghotsauce on Oct 19, 2008 17:35:06 GMT -5
I finally finished up a little bit ago. I flew the Baron for the last couple of legs, because it flattened out and opened up. I kept it down low, like 200' agl !
I did have a unique problem at Yuma. I was lining up for the runway, dropped gear and flaps....no gear. I fiddle and fudged with it and had to go around. I don't know what was wrong or why if finally dropped out, but I got it. Non-eventful landing with a Mooney holding for my "emergency" business. I only did a touch and go at San Luis and flew direct to El Doctor.
A very mellow ending to a wild and scenic fling down canyons with lots of fiddling with mixture. That kept me on my toes. I took advantage of the fling to fly several different aircraft, including the Maule which is a new one for me. Mooney, Caravan, Cessna 172, 152, Baron 58, Maule, and I attempted to fly a Lancair I downloaded but it was buggy and crashed the simulator. So six aircraft not counting the Lancair.
Good trip!
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Post by Tom Goodrick on Oct 19, 2008 19:12:18 GMT -5
I assume you were using FSX. In FSX as in FS9, you probably need to set Automixture ON for any piston aircraft with turbocharging in order to get proper performance. Such would be the case for the Mooney Bravo. It eliminates all the mioxture adjustments. You can just leave the mixture full rich.
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