Hi All,

I admit that I'm a flight simulator junky. Being a flatlander I have to go to the PC to get my bush flying fix.

I had to share one of the best routes I have come up with yet.

Lemhi Co. KSMN to Big Creek U60 in Idaho. No GPS just a map in hand and fallowing the river (Middle Fork then Big Creek).

Try this with Flight Simulator X and the Maul = Great Fun!

Until next time...

Todd Giencke

Todd-

I am a flight sim geek too. I think it's a great to way to keep your head in the game when you can't actually get out and fly. I used to love flying in Flight Simulator 2002 and 2004, but I don't have any Windows machines anymore, so I've changed to X-Plane, and have found it to be superior in a few ways. However, the selection of planes available isn't quite as good for the single engine taildraggers. They used to have an excellent Decathlon you could download, but they haven't updated it for the new version.

A while back I bought 2 USB joysticks for $11.00 and I plan to turn one set into rudder pedals, as I'm too cheap to spend $129 on the the CH Pros.

I do the same thing you do with a real sectional, follow the terrain to my destination using pilotage. In the older versions of FS, you had to download the better resolution land mesh files to get any accuracy, but Flight Sim X might be better by default. It was good practice for flying in Idaho this summer with jmtgt, but when he let me navigate us out of Big Creek, but I still got lost. It's tough following the terrain when you're at or below ridgetop level.

Zane-

I had FS 2004 upgraded with a lot of add ons so it was very life like. The new FSX is it's equal but not much better with all of the add ons I had. But with some tweaks I got FSX to run well on my PC.

I agree flying in FS keeps you very sharp for real flying. In many ways it is harder to fly at the edge in FS. I have the peddles, yoke, joysticks, etc.

I have a 1.8ghz Mac Mini at work with X-plane 8. It is fun but doesn't have the horsepower my PC has.

What have you found for add ons for X-plane 8?

-Todd Giencke

My Macbook Pro has a little more video horsepower than the Mini, so it seems to run X-Plane with the defaults well, but I haven't run anything up yet. I'm going to get it running on my linux desktop this week.

Here's a link to the v8 GA Singles on X-plane.org:
http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?s=a827d33421739c736e70fb70634be9ec&autocom=dlmanager&cat=37

You need to add some realism to your backcountry flight simulator op's. Have your old lady stand in back of you with a baseball bat. When you blow the approach into that short one-way airstrip too late for a safe go-around, she get's to give the old Babe Ruth treatment to the back of your head. Back country flying ain't no fun without some risk!

Eric

I had to do the real thing last hunting season when the weather was skuzzy, but into Cabin Cr, then back to the Main to Riggins, up the Little Salmon to New Meadows and hopped over the ridge into McCall. What should take about .6 took 1.1, but it was pretty. Kinda like flying through tunnels.

I have Xplane on my Mac too, and I've flown the Middle Fork some. From someone who works the Middle Fork by air for 6 months a year, I have to say, I am amazed at how accurate the program is!

Any flight sim'rs will get a kick out of this vid.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcW3hbnR2EI&feature=related

wirsig wrote:Any flight sim'rs will get a kick out of this vid.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcW3hbnR2EI&feature=related

That was hilarious.

I've got an old program called FLY II that someone gave me years back. It's probably pretty outdated by you guys' standards, and I've never put in the time to learn it. Do any of these new programs let you load Alaska terrain?

oh my god you guys are really just a bunch of computer geeks, I had no idea.

I mean, I respect you all, and all your flying prowess, real and/or simulated, but how much of what I have read and absorbed and digested on this website is just a bunch of cyber fly computer cow pie? How many photos have been photoshopped? How many of you are using aliases??

Tell me there is more to you then just silicon, baby. Tell me, more...

It's all fake, and I am an alias.

Some of my non-flying friends have said things like"It's so real just like flying a real plane" when they describe PC flying.My reply is to try doing it kneeling on a beach ball with broken glass spread all over the floor around you.You need a little pucker factor to get the adrenaline up.
Bill

Back in the day before we flew a mission, we would first "fly" it in Falcon View. That is the closest I've come to PC flight sim software, but I've got flight sim X for my kid.

a64pilot wrote:Back in the day before we flew a mission, we would first "fly" it in Falcon View.

Between AK jobs I have on occasion tried my hand at corporate flying down Lower 48 (nice equipment, but what a bunch of asshole people). I had, and still have somewhere, an original version of the Azure Elite IFR software. Since everything we did was IFR, and always into some place I'd never heard of before, I'd load up the route and approaches for the trip the night before, dial in the forecast winds and weather, and fly the approaches a few times until I had them squared away.

Made a world of difference being "familiar" with the plates and fixes, especially in the pre-GPS days, and kept me sharp with wind corrections flying the ADF. That program was the reason I bought my first PC.

Gump