Posted: Mon Nov 27, 2006 12:05 amThe southern tip of the country is a great area to fly, with the Godzone Te Anau photoreal, Murry Hill's Invercargill and Bluff photoreal, plus RBE's landclass and topo which make Stewart Island a fantastic place to go VFR exploring.
I took a nice two hour flight this afternoon. Here is some details of my journey if you wish to recreate it:
I started at Manapouri (NZMP), covered by the Godzone photoreal, and took off in my Carenado C206, climbed up to 4000 feet and headed south towards Invercargill city, cruising slowly at 110kias, to take in the beautiful scenery, with the fjords to the west, and mountains and open fields to the east.
Once you reach the southern edge of the Godzone photoreal, turn east, and follow the boundary until you meet the Invercargill coverage textures, turn south again, and head right over the centre of town, and along the motorway towards Bluff.
When you reach Bluff, turn South West and head towards Stewart Island which you will be able to see in the distance about 30nm off shore from the mainland. You may wish to increase your airspeed over the Foveaux Strait as the photoreal textures are replaced with boring old sea water, nothing special to look at.
After about 10 minutes, you will reach the northern coast of the island. Turn right to follow the islands coastline in a clockwise direction, exploring all the inlets, mountains and rugged coastline (with numerous smaller islands dotted around close by). The RBE mesh and topo make it seem really realistic, especially when you are also running the RBE freeware landclass on top of it. Another thing to mention is that you will get pretty smooth FPS here, no matter what your system specs, as the island is really very isolated, and is the final fronter of land of the Southern Ocean before you reach Antarctica!
It took me about 1 hour and 15 minutes to completely circle the island, cruising at 130kias. Once I reached the point that I had joined from the mainland, I descended into land at the small grass airstrip at Oban (Half Moon Bay), which is not included in the default scenery- only the RBE topo data, but is very realistic and bumpy all the same. If you don't have the payware RBE scenery, you can return across the Foveaux Strait and land at Invercargill Airport instead. (There is a great freeware photoreal version of the airport on avsim created by Ian Warren which is well worth the download).
Here are some teaser screenies I took on my flight- note that the Sounds Air C206 is a long way from home at the other end of the South Island to it's home in Picton, but lets just say it was on a special charter flight today
I took a nice two hour flight this afternoon. Here is some details of my journey if you wish to recreate it:
I started at Manapouri (NZMP), covered by the Godzone photoreal, and took off in my Carenado C206, climbed up to 4000 feet and headed south towards Invercargill city, cruising slowly at 110kias, to take in the beautiful scenery, with the fjords to the west, and mountains and open fields to the east.
Once you reach the southern edge of the Godzone photoreal, turn east, and follow the boundary until you meet the Invercargill coverage textures, turn south again, and head right over the centre of town, and along the motorway towards Bluff.
When you reach Bluff, turn South West and head towards Stewart Island which you will be able to see in the distance about 30nm off shore from the mainland. You may wish to increase your airspeed over the Foveaux Strait as the photoreal textures are replaced with boring old sea water, nothing special to look at.
After about 10 minutes, you will reach the northern coast of the island. Turn right to follow the islands coastline in a clockwise direction, exploring all the inlets, mountains and rugged coastline (with numerous smaller islands dotted around close by). The RBE mesh and topo make it seem really realistic, especially when you are also running the RBE freeware landclass on top of it. Another thing to mention is that you will get pretty smooth FPS here, no matter what your system specs, as the island is really very isolated, and is the final fronter of land of the Southern Ocean before you reach Antarctica!
It took me about 1 hour and 15 minutes to completely circle the island, cruising at 130kias. Once I reached the point that I had joined from the mainland, I descended into land at the small grass airstrip at Oban (Half Moon Bay), which is not included in the default scenery- only the RBE topo data, but is very realistic and bumpy all the same. If you don't have the payware RBE scenery, you can return across the Foveaux Strait and land at Invercargill Airport instead. (There is a great freeware photoreal version of the airport on avsim created by Ian Warren which is well worth the download).
Here are some teaser screenies I took on my flight- note that the Sounds Air C206 is a long way from home at the other end of the South Island to it's home in Picton, but lets just say it was on a special charter flight today
Sure u'a enjoy 1&1/2doz fresh bluff oysters ,Lucky Bugger! 