[The Big Ezy - Landing at Skiathos]

The non precision approach into Skiathos is famous for its scenic final segment, and lack of either RNAV or ILS guidance. The only published approaches require tracking overhead a VOR on the neighboring island of Skopelos, tracking outbound for 10dme on a radial, before making a turn back towards Skiathos to intercept an offset NDB track into the bay adjacent to the airport. It certainly required a load of button mashing and overriding of the MCDU driven flight modes to pull it off, but thankfully after a 2 hour 59 block to block trip down from Gatwick- it all came together beautifully at the far end!

 

 

 

PS- Is anyone else finding postimg extremely slow to upload images to at the moment? Or is it just me? 

 

 

[Burbank to Catalina Island]

Thanks for the compliments chaps- the lighting engine from MSFS did all the hard work. Quite difficult not to keep keying the screenshot button when the world around looked as good as it did!

[Burbank to Catalina Island]

With the recent flurry of aircraft releases for MSFS, I’ve been neglecting my old favourite PA28R. Today I took her up for a shakedown flight from Burbank, around the Los Angles terminal flyway routing to Catalina Island.

 

Both airport sceneries are from Orbx, having used KBUR as my West Coast sim base for a while- but only picking up KAVX recently thanks to a Steam pressy card gift for Christmas. This flight today was my first time seeing it in the sim. Needless to say, it looks just as good on my system as it does in the Orbx promo screenshots!

 

 

 

[December 2021 Screenshot contest! Prize? Any Orbx product of your choice!]

In the real world, I run an aerial photography company. This shot over Orbx Auckland is inspired by the vertical top down shots I usually capture with our drones:

 

[Voting for the November 2021 Screenshot Contest.]

It was a tough decision between mikee and Adam Banks for me- but have gone with Adam Banks for the Kiwi connection!

[Harvard over the Sussex Coast]

9 hours ago, bernd1151 said:

That bird looks superb. I'm thinking of buying that package too for the very same reason. How does she fly, Andy?

 

Thanks for the kind words guys. My experience is similar to what IntoTheBlue discovered on the review @Fizzelleshared the link to. Beautiful visual model, superb sound kit (kept having to turn my speakers down due to the roar of the prop!), but flight model is somewhat lacking. It feels very overpowered for the size/power of the aircraft class, and can also be flown with relative stability at 60mph which is below the published stall speed in landing configuration!

 

There are some good tips on landing technique, along with correct speeds to use and videos examples from another RW operator here: https://www.t6harvard.com/pilot-stories/t-6-landings-by-a-goodall/

[Harvard over the Sussex Coast]

I recently purchased the Reno Air Races base pack expansion purely for the aircraft models, so that I could get myself the T-6 Texan (aka Harvard in the Commonwealth) and start downloading the 3rd party repaints that have been popping up on flightsim.to.

 

This morning I took an ex Royal Canadian Air Force example on a morning sortie along the Sussex coastline, from Orbx's beautiful Shoreham (EGKA) overhead the new photogrammetry areas of Brighton and Eastbourne that came with World Update 7, then back inland along the South Downs to the River Adur, which leads back to the airfield.

 

Enjoy the shots, there’s quite a few of them! 

 

 

[NZ Mesh v1.1 Issues - D'Urville Island still glitching]

D'Urville Island is still glitching as of 26th November 2021 (version 1.0.1)

 

 

Any progress here team?

[WU7 is Australia!]

Pretty cool news. I hazard a guess that New Zealand is going to feature as a seperate WU afterwards based off Jorg's response to the question of whether NZ scenery would be included in World Update 7!

[Porter Glacier Mission]

Thanks chaps- I certainly can recommend winding the sim calendar back to mid winter and sprinkling a few meters of snow on the ground here, then taking an early morning flight yourselves. Magical conditions!

[A racing Corsair at Orcas Island]

Superb lighting- love the motion blur flyby shot. Really captures the moment!

[November 2021 Screenshot contest! Prize? Any Orbx product of your choice!]

Climbing over the beautiful snow dusted Mackenzie Country landscape (NZ Mesh) in the Pilatus PC-6 (Milviz):

 

[Porter Glacier Mission]

Todays mission was a mountain party resupply run- departing from Tekapo in New Zealand’s Southern Alps, flying up the lake to a snowfield landing on the Tasman Glacier, and then returning to Tekapo. My aircraft of choice was the brilliant Milviz PC-6 from Orbx Central, using the variant fitted with skis. The scenery of course is Orbx's NZ Mesh, accented with a light dusting of snow to bring out the contours of the landscape.

 

 I’ll let the screenshots tell the story:

 

 

[Juneau issue after installing Alaska mesh]

Good news guys- your latest patch for the NA Alaska mesh fixed the PAJN runway issue on my system!

 

[Voting for the October 2021 Screenshot Contest.]

That was a tough one but my vote goes to carlosqr!

[Auckland CBD Building Heights]

21 hours ago, Holger Sandmann said:

Unfortunately, it's not possible at the moment to alter the height or shape of the generic buildings, and we couldn't possibly custom model each of the hundreds of downtown buildings. Generic buildings are generated from Open Street Map data and anyone can contribute to improve OSM accuracy and detail. Building heights tend to be one of the parameters most in need of improvement. Thus, anyone who wants to see better downtown areas in non-photogrammetry cities can do so by improving the OSM source data before the next time Microsoft & Azure update their building database. 

 

Noted on the wake trails, we definitely want to improve on those, especially for the animated vessels.

 

G'day Holger- thanks for the acknowledgment and the explanation. I'm a long time fan of your work and very impressed with Auckland overall! PC Pilot magazine will be publishing my review of this addon in their next issue.

 

Hopefully NZ gets selected for a world update one day in the future and we get those building levels corrected. Look forward to seeing any updates to the Auckland scenery with wakes in the future. Cheers!

[October 2021 Screenshot contest! Prize? Any Orbx product of your choice!]

Sail power on the Waitematā Harbour
 

[Auckland CBD Building Heights]

@John Dow have a walk around Auckland City in Google Maps street view and you wont find a single 2 story building in the entire downtown area. The above MSFS screenshots show dozens of these, evening lining the cities main street (Queen Street). 

 

What I am trying to explain is that from personal experience- having flown over the city on countless scenic flights over the last 10 years, the cityscape does not reflect the structure height of what exists here.

[Auckland CBD Building Heights]

Hi team,

 

As an Auckland resident I am highly impressed with the Auckland City Landmarks addon you have made, however do have some feedback.

 

The generic CBD buildings that have not been modelled in detail are far too low, resulting in quite a hollow feeling to the city center.

 

If you take a comparison look between this screenshot from MSFS and a Google Earth render, you'll notice the majority of the commercial buildings lining the major streets in the city center are approximately 10 stories high rather than 2 stories high as shown in the sim. I feel like even the default MSFS scenery had these heights correct?

 

 

From Google Earth:

 

 

 

 

Is this something that could be adjusted with some simple coding?

 

It would be also good to see every boat in the harbour with a wake trail. This is what the harbour typically appears like from above:

 

[A few from Auckland MSFS.]

How cool are the skywalk and skyjump easter eggs! I did this many years ago myself!

 

[Good morning Auckland .... you're Amazing !]

Absolutely amazing screenshots! You are a master of the art!

 

I wonder if the Skytower lights up different colors depending on what date is set in the sim? IRL it changes its scheme quite frequently to show support for various causes.

[Auckland Landmarks - First Impressions]

20 hours ago, Anna Cicognani said:

Great work by @Holger Sandmannhere - having worked there on and off for about 5 years, I feel (almost) homesick! ;-)
Share screeshots pls!

Thanks Anna, and great work @Holger Sandmann. I've been a fan of your work for a long time and it's no surprise you are behind this scenery.

 

I'll be providing an in depth review of the scenery in an upcoming issue of PC Pilot, so keep your eyes peeled for that!

[Auckland Landmarks - First Impressions]

As a local who has flown over Auckland countless times IRL, I’ve been looking forward to this one all year and am certainly not disappointed! It’s great to finally see recognisable 3D counterparts of all the CBD buildings replace those ugly generic autogen tower blocks. The skyline of the city centre is pretty unique, and it looks fantastic in the sim early morning or evening with the PBR texturing.

 

 

I’m stoked with how much detail was given to the harbors too- with Westhaven Marina, the largest in the Southern Hemisphere actually visible now and 3D boats moored at the jetties, as well as animated boat traffic on the Waitamata. A huge photoreal groundplate stretches nearly the entire width of the city with higher res ground textures replacing the Bing maps data. It includes watermasking of the many estuaries and bays (all be it at very low tide) and is a huge improvement from default.

 

 

Great job Orbx team- this one will undoubtedly give me countless hours of entertainment!

[High Gloss in the Deep South]

Thanks all- wasn't sure if they came across as a bit too cartoony or not. Can't beat the shape of those big round radial powerplants though!

[Shoreham, UK - Spitfire Mk IX]

Quote

Thank you very much Andy.   no, just the skies are from Luminar. 

Could you provide a link to this Luminar skies you speak of please? I don't think I have come across it!