Lotus Posted August 27, 2011 Share Posted August 27, 2011 Hi guys. I just wanted to post a few pictures, along with a thanks, via a quick story. I recently went for a mountain checkride with my flight school at Pitt Meadows airport (required so that I can rent their aircraft for mountain cross country flights). I received the route they wanted me to fly a few days ahead of time, planned it all out, and then set to work flying it in FSX. The extremely complicated route runs 180 nm through the 6000-8000 foot mountains to the north of Vancouver. By the end of the flight my instructor was perplexed by my accuracy. She said I had failed to fall for any of the tricky dead end valleys on the route that most pilots do, valleys that look very safe and inviting at first glance, and then turn out to be anything but. FSX, and in particular the wonderful Orbx PNW scenery, made all the difference. Everything went perfectly, and every landmark and waypoint on the route was exactly where I expected it to be. Many of my visual checkpoints were very small lakes, nestled high up in berms and crevasses. These lakes don't appear in the default scenery of course, but in PNW each and every one was accounted for, perfectly shaped, and at the correct altitude. I should mention that I had never flown over this terrain before in the real world. So thanks Orbx. PNW's accuracy is downright scary, and a major help! Cheers, -Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Dontay Posted August 28, 2011 Share Posted August 28, 2011 That is a fantastic story and even more amazing are the side by side comparison shots which I love. Excellent post and congrats on the accurate and successful checkride. Btw, did you fall for any of the inviting "tricky, dead end valleys" during your sim flight or did you follow a route via gps? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lufthansa 001 Posted August 28, 2011 Share Posted August 28, 2011 WOW I'm speechles... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Routley Posted August 28, 2011 Share Posted August 28, 2011 Awesome set of comparison shots .... worthy of the product page! And a great story. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lotus Posted August 28, 2011 Author Share Posted August 28, 2011 Thanks guys. Dontay, no, there was no GPS involved, for my part anyway. I have an Aera 500, which I let my instructor play with during the flight, mostly so she could check our ground speed instantly (no wind information available in that area), but I never looked at it myself. I planned and flew the route "old school", with just my paper charts (sectional and VTA), a pen, and a flight plan, with headings, distance, times to waypoints etc. I did fall for a couple of wrong valleys during my first run through it in FSX. Did I mention the route was confusing? The second run was perfect though. Gotta love this sim! Cheers, -Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Dontay Posted August 28, 2011 Share Posted August 28, 2011 The second run was perfect though. Gotta love this sim! Nice! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClemCookie Posted August 28, 2011 Share Posted August 28, 2011 That is 99% accuracy! Amazing again! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cvearl Posted August 28, 2011 Share Posted August 28, 2011 This is fantastic. A testiment to the value of this sim and ORBX to real world aviation and pilots. Thank you so much for taking the time to post this. Will forward this to some of my pilot friends. Charles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lotus Posted August 28, 2011 Author Share Posted August 28, 2011 Charles, I totally agree. I've used FSX (and previously FS9 and 2002) to pre-fly every single cross country flight I've ever done, but this was the first one that really made me think: WOW. I sent these same pics to my instructor (since she took the original photos in the plane) and her response was "What the.... that's NUTS." There is just an immense value to having an animated 3D mental picture of an entire flight in your memory before ever getting on board the plane. When you're up in the real thing you can immediately tell when something doesn't quite look right, right down to the timing of things. -Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waco Posted August 28, 2011 Share Posted August 28, 2011 Wow that is just fantastic. Love the side by side pictures. Amazing! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matthew73 Posted August 28, 2011 Share Posted August 28, 2011 An oustanding post and pictures. Cheers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TreeTops Posted August 28, 2011 Share Posted August 28, 2011 Fantastic read Mike. I dont suppose you could post your flight plan so we can try to repeat your flight? Cheers Trev Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jjjallen Posted August 28, 2011 Share Posted August 28, 2011 Truly an excellent story and picture set! Thanks jja Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Harris Posted August 28, 2011 Share Posted August 28, 2011 Gold, this one goes straight to the pool room!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
berg319k9 Posted August 28, 2011 Share Posted August 28, 2011 That was really good buds! Enjoyed the read and the side by side pictures. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lotus Posted August 28, 2011 Author Share Posted August 28, 2011 I dont suppose you could post your flight plan so we can try to repeat your flight? You bet! Just follow the turquoise line northeast out of CYPK (Pitt Meadows) over Alouette Lake. The airport at the furthest east of the image had its name cut off in the scan unfortunately, but it's Tipella airfield, a gravel logging strip. After a bunch of running around northwest of there in the mountains, the route dumps you out just south of Whistler mountain, then south to Squamish, then back into the cumulogranite, home towards CYPK. The little loops near the beginning and end of the flight were areas where we wanted to practice some box canyon turns. The second one is really fun, over Widgeon lake, like flying into a salad bowl. Takes about 2 hours 10 minutes in a C172... or about 14 minutes at Mach 1 in an F-16. Keep in mind you can't pick up any navaids in here, since you're down in the trenches most of the way, and no comms either until you pop out near Whistler. It's just visual checkpoints, and time and distance calcs, and after awhile all the mountains and valleys start to look the same hehe, good fun! Enjoy, -Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dontworry Posted August 28, 2011 Share Posted August 28, 2011 This is incredible Lotus and one of the coolest things i've seen on this forum. Congrats! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TreeTops Posted August 28, 2011 Share Posted August 28, 2011 Thanks Mike. Much appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Lovell Posted August 28, 2011 Share Posted August 28, 2011 It really goes to show that Orbx dont just make any old scenery and be done with it... as acurate as can be and their attention to detail is amazing. Your story is very impressive and I enjoyed looking at the comparison shots. Top stuff and thank you very much for sharing your adventure Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iain Emms Posted August 28, 2011 Share Posted August 28, 2011 Great story and shots it just goes to show how good the team here are with these shots from the real world. cheers Iain Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lotus Posted August 28, 2011 Author Share Posted August 28, 2011 It just goes to show how good the team here are with these shots from the real world. cheers Iain I couldn't agree more. Bravo Orbx! (btw, if my images aren't showing up, just wait a bit and refresh. My webhost is having the odd hissy fit today it seems) Cheers, -Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taph Posted August 28, 2011 Share Posted August 28, 2011 Stunning post, loved the comparison shots. The Peak in the last shot never look totally realistic to me when I flew it in the sim, now I know better Envious of your flight Thanks Taph Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ajc Posted August 28, 2011 Share Posted August 28, 2011 Awesome!!!!!!! Just Simply Stunning! AJC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lotus Posted August 28, 2011 Author Share Posted August 28, 2011 The Peak in the last shot never look totally realistic to me when I flew it in the sim, now I know better Hehe, yeah that's Black Tusk, a pretty famous landmark around here, and thankfully a hard one to miss. We've had an unusually cold summer here, so it has a fair bit more snow on it than it should for this time of year. Thanks guys, glad you like the shots. -Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay Kae Posted August 28, 2011 Share Posted August 28, 2011 Awesome stuff Mike, good to see you as well buddy, it has been too long ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timmy74 Posted August 28, 2011 Share Posted August 28, 2011 Thanks for sharing that with us Mike. Trully amazing stuff!! Can not wait to give it a go. Makes one think how much better Orbx can get.....? I think they have nailed it!!!! Clearly a testimate as to what the great team at Orbx can and does achieve. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnandbank Posted August 28, 2011 Share Posted August 28, 2011 Don't laugh, but I honestly had to look a few times to be sure which was the photo and which was FSX in a couple of those comparison shots. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holger Sandmann Posted August 28, 2011 Share Posted August 28, 2011 Hi Mike, many thanks for setting up those comparisons, that must have taken some time! Some of our commercial clients use the NA regions in the same manner you describe: prepare their pilots for upcoming jobs -- fire fighting, heli skiing, or prospecting/mining support, etc. -- by using the sim to familiarize them with the terrain features in the ops areas. It is quite amazing that the digital topographic data exist to allow us to reach this kind of accuracy and realism. When I started making add-ons for FS8 about 10 years ago the best data available for BC were 300-m elevation grids and 1:1 Mio scale roads and waterbodies. These days we're using 20-m terrain grids and 1:20,000 topographic data and almost all of it is in the public domain. Cheers, Holger Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThrottleUp Posted August 28, 2011 Share Posted August 28, 2011 Wow this is one of the COOLEST threads ever and I still cant believe the side-by-side compares FSX vs real world. Im so glad I put my money towards Orbx/FTX scenery. Now I know for SURE that its all so accurate! And so totally awesome to hear that someone used it to practice for a REAL world flight! Great stuff Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lotus Posted August 29, 2011 Author Share Posted August 29, 2011 Thanks very much for the kind words guys, I'm glad you enjoyed the comparison. I think Orbx's NA releases are the first large scale, non-photoscenery flight sim packages that really require no imagination on the part of the user. The real world looks just the same. Another instructor at my school saw the pics and said "It's not flight sim anymore. It's pretty much 'The Matrix' now." Sweet. Myself, I just can't wait for FTX New Zealand. Now THAT's some scenery! -Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derxtreme Posted August 29, 2011 Share Posted August 29, 2011 Awesome set of comparison shots Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cvearl Posted September 5, 2011 Share Posted September 5, 2011 Mike, Hope you dont mind a few quesitons. #1. I am inspired to try the same kind of comparison thread but I don't know you made the side by sides so damn perfectly lined up like that. Were the original pics Geotagged? Then you play with the camera and heading of the plane till it lined up? Not sure I have the patience for that. Or the skill. #2. Which 172 model did you use in the comparisons and for your practice? Carenado or default? What's your opinion versus real flying? Excluding the fact that you are not being thrown around. #3. Do you go all out sim hardware wise? Yoke and peddals and TMP throttle prop mix stuff? Or just the stick and such. C. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lotus Posted September 5, 2011 Author Share Posted September 5, 2011 Hi Charles. To answer your questions... 1. To line up the shots I put the photo in question in a window on my screen, and then put FSX in windowed mode and scaled its window to the same size and roughly the same aspect ratio, and placed them side by side. I was quite familiar with the places where the photos were taken along the route, and they were taken in order during the flight of course, so I just slewed the plane into the general area for the first picture, and then started fine tuning my position and zoom (and VC head position) until the shot lined up. Then I just set the same weather and visibility settings until I got something close to the shot's conditions. Probably took me about 5-10 mins to get one shot lined up just right. It's a strangely fun exercise hehe. 2. I used the Carenado 172 for the shots and for my practice. As an aircraft developer I feel it would be improper of me to offer my opinions on this aircraft or a comparison to its real world counterpart, I hope you understand. Also in my experience every C172 out there has its own individual personality when it comes to handling. I've flown about 20 different real 172s over the years, and none of them handle quite the same way, hehe. I do like the Carenado 172 though, and it has a similar avionics fit to most of the ones I fly in the real world at the moment (ie: older models, 1977-1983). 3. I do use a saitek yoke and throttle for flying the 172 most of the time, just to keep muscle memory intact, and I use CH pedals for everything (love them), but for just about every other aircraft I prefer to use the thrustmaster warthog stick and throttle quadrant. It's the most accurate and solid controller setup I've ever owned, I just love it. I have a track-ir 5 pro as well (can't imagine flying without it anymore). That's about all the hardware I can afford, both monetarily and in desktop real estate, hehe. My desk is rather full of "stuff" at this point! Cheers, -Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cvearl Posted September 5, 2011 Share Posted September 5, 2011 Thank you for the reply. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.