NZFF

With it pouring down outside and a newly purchased Real NZ Scenery, I decided to attempt to fly from Omaka to Nelso in the DG808s Sailplane...I havent spent a lot of time in this (has anyone!) but its strangly addictive.....finding the thermal to gain height....but then having the courage to leave it to carry on the journey....

I started at Omaka and called the tow plane (Ctrl + Shift + Y) which pulled me up to around 5000 ft before I 'pulled the pin'






Up up and away!




Passing over Woodbourne....apparently the tow plan only has an elevator




Movember 2030?

Pepin Island! Which means im over the Bryant Ranges and on the home straight


Nelson in sight- Cleared for a Runway 20 R landing



Just before touchdown...still a bit of wind on this side of the ranges

The tower told me to 'exit runway when able'.....erm....giza push then mate?!

Wow all that from just 5,000ft?
Did you find any ridge lift?

yep- Released at 5000 over the Wairau River and found a bit of lift on the hills there.....then carried on a lost a bit of height but managed to travel down through the Valley follwing the 'Kaituna River' (the South Island version of the Kaituna)...then picked up a really good thermal near Havelock and another one near Canvas town which took me up to 5400 ft (anymore and I would have broken airspace). Called Nelson tower and got clearance to enter the zone for landing which also meant I could get a bit more height as I couldnt see any more thermals on the way towards Nelson....I followed the highway down to 'Saddle Hill' where I was getting a bit low but found another thermal which got me over the ranges...I stopped for a quick lift near the Marybank reporting point but didnt need it- I ended up doing some aeros on long finals to scrub the excess height....

It was actually a lot of fun!- Lots of slow VFR nav + strategy to get where you want to go

Wow nice pics Timmo - must try some more gliding although I don't believe FS9 is no where near as good as FSX in this regard - although I do have some good gliding add ons - Emma Field.

Jezz TIMMO .. payware , then fly to default ! ... with that i guess a Sailplane ride to Welly (heck be a first) Great Screen shots

Gliding in Flight Simulator?? That is something to try out.

Great shots. I love the glider myself too, strategic gaming at its best! Excellent screenshots Timmo and well done!

Inspirational! I've never known what to set the flaps to, or where to find thermals (I feel like having visualisations is cheating.) I guess over concrete, over hills, and over water?

Very noice pics Tim! I really wish there was a decent FS9 glider and tug addon- I have to rely on slewing up to a desired altitude and just sinking back down without any thermals at the moment. Not nearly as much fun as RW gliding at Durey which I did a few years back!

Ian Warren wrote:

QUOTE (Ian Warren @ Apr 1 2008, 10:50 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Jezz TIMMO .. payware , then fly to default ! ... with that i guess a Sailplane ride to Welly (heck be a first) Great Screen shots

Ha well I actually only intended to fly from Omaka to Picton (i.e. completely within RealNZ scenery) but then I has having fun so decided to see if I could get over to Nelson!

NZCoffee wrote:

QUOTE (NZCoffee @ Apr 2 2008, 04:00 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Inspirational! I've never known what to set the flaps to, or where to find thermals (I feel like having visualisations is cheating.) I guess over concrete, over hills, and over water?

Yeah I tried it with no visualisation but when you turn them on you see they are a little 'random' in their placement....well not random so much as not enough of them: There will be a thermal in the right place on the windward side of a hill but there wont be one in a similar place further down a range of hills? So you could spend a while 'in the right place' technically but FSX hasnt decided that there is a thermal there.....maybe just like real life? I dunno

I only used flaps for landing- When circling in the thermal I was sticking to around 70kts IAS, when transiting to another thermal i would push that up to around 80 -90 kts....still only loosing a hundred feet a minute or so.

I also remembered the water ballast near the end of the flight too....of course its been replaced with the crop dusting effect for Deanes Fletcher so there was some odd looking 'water' coming out haha

There was a glider addon on FSdeveloper a while ago which allowed you to give directions to the tug I think??

Edit: here it ishttp://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6497

This allows you to choose what plane will tow you, if it will depart straight out or fly circuits etc etc.....pretty cool.

Sweet work Timmo! Glad to see another Silent Flight convert
Get your rear into gear and check out These mint gliders .... FS2002 thru to FSX
Most of the modern types use an older FS gauge that was custom built for gliders called CAISET (Cambridge Aero Instruments Set) so you have a functional all-in-one comm radio, glide computer, pre-set real world competition waypoints (I've got NZ covered) in a GPS, Variometer and altimeter.
VET (a winch launching module) saves having to slew... you can adjust how high you want to launch to before you commit to takeoff (max is 2000ft)
Flaps: by default, they'll be at 0 degrees or maybe 8. Most real world gliders take off and thermal in 8. Normal thermalling is done at just above stall, so usually around the 40-50kt mark (thats why they give us really good spin recovery training ) Above 65-70kts you start moving the flaps into 0, then into the negative range as you move up the speed range in order to keep the drag to a minimum.
Landing flaps are marked as either L or +12 and arent really conducive to good glide and climb performance.
For mint thermals, and awesome ridge or wave lift, look out for a freeware program called CCS2004. Get your head around all that, and you should be set for some 5hr plus flights at some good speeds... I took about 2hrs crawling along from Whitianga to Turangi and enjoying the Photoreal scenery on the way since I was in no rush

Alfashark wrote:

QUOTE (Alfashark @ Apr 2 2008, 05:48 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

...For mint thermals, and awesome ridge or wave lift, look out for a freeware program called CCS2004. Get your head around all that...

I have that sitting in the downloaded files box, and just somehow don't get there.
I'm hoping you can give a solid recommendation that it won't end up in tears after hours of fruitless tweaking and fiddling...

Charl wrote:

QUOTE (Charl @ Apr 2 2008, 08:52 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I have that sitting in the downloaded files box, and just somehow don't get there.
I'm hoping you can give a solid recommendation that it won't end up in tears after hours of fruitless tweaking and fiddling...

LOL! Seriously, after about 10min reading the read-me files, and carefully doing as it said (at the time I first installed it, I'd only had a computer for about 6 weeks - that was about 3-4yrs ago) I had some monster thermals cranking!
To start with, in the CCS Control Panel, make sure you have the "unscripted" box ticked, give yourself a generous lift ceiling (5-8000ft) and lift strength (500-2000fpm). Make the diameter about 1500-5000ft wide (totally unrealistic, but will allow you to get the feel of high bank angles at low IAS, while maintaining a constant attitude). You can also play around with thermal duration (life cycle in minutes) of the thermal, as well as the number of thermals within 100sq miles.
Once you've got the hang of it, you can wind the diameter, lift ceiling, strength and also the density per 100sq miles down to keep it challenging...
Note, the thermals will only work as high as the LOWEST cloud ceiling set in FS... Also, in general keeping with real life, there are no thermals before 10AM and after 6PM

I'm sure I could be persuaded into a multiplayer soaring flight sometime this weekend and give you guys a hand with the CCS setup