Christmas flying, the reality

Follow-up to Flying plans for the Christmas break… from Steve's blog

Predictably, I didn't get as much flying done as I had planned. What I did manage was:

• Clockwise circuits: I only managed this once at Baginton. As it happens, I found the approach easier for some reason, and produced my cleanest landing at Baginton ever. Of course, a sample size of one is not particularly significant – we'll see what happens after a few more. I'll fly clockwise by default now, at least for a while.
• Landing on runway 05: This was the same circuit as above, and therefore my cleanest landing yet at Baginton. Again, some more circuits needed.

That's it. How disappointing. In my defence, I tried flying with AI traffic turned on and didn't find any planes getting in my way. So I started trying to understand how AI traffic works, resulting in finding a pile of stuff to download, install, and try out, which in theory would give me thomsonfly 737s to dodge, flying to a realistic timetable. In practice, the stuff I found didn't work. I get 737s parked at various places at the airport, but none of them go anywhere, and no new ones arrive. Part of this was a redesigned airport that contained suitable places for the 737s. Unfortunately, this new airport seemed to interact badly with my installation of FS2004 and the runway disappeared! Actually, it was still there but it wasn't grey tarmac – it looked like a grass runway and it was really difficult to use because I couldn't see the edges. So, for now it is turned off.

I have a description of how to add AI traffic at airports, so I'll try adding some local traffic doing circuits, and see if that will produce some planes to get in my way.

I have now got copies of VFR photographic scenry and VFR Terrain to add to FS2004, so that will give me some incentive to do some more flying. It will make visual navigation easier, so I'll do a bit more around here. I also want to visit North Wales and see what Snowdon really looks like from the air. Of course, I'll cheat and start from an airport a bit nearer than here – one of the benefits of a simulator:-)

Steve Rumsby : 11 Jan 2005 14:14 |  Tags: Flying Msfs |  Comments (1) |  Trackbacks (1) |  Report a problem