Island Beater

[SeanTK]

Purchased the A2A Cherokee as well as the B-17 (with Accusim) a couple weeks ago, and have been enjoying both (and my other A2A products) around Hawaii! Having detailed scenery for every airport in the chain except for the two Army airfields certainly helps, as does real-life familiarity with the region!

I base my Cherokee at Waimea-Kohala airport, and did a quick flight to the other side of the Big Island today, destination Hilo.

The livery's external textures are here:
http://www.a2asimulations.com/forum/vie ... 67#p316367

And I combined that with the internal textures from N8860J on this page:
http://www.a2asimulations.com/forum/vie ... &start=165

It results in a nice white/gold/brown/black theme which I believe suits a somewhat rugged, cheap, "island beater" for just exploring the region. Of course, A2A has options to fit wheel-pants, and other streamlining methods, as well as a GPS...but I like the basics in this case.


The Waimea airport scenery (kind of hard to see in the shots though) is freeware from George Keogh, part of his Hawaiian Airports - Part 3, package. The Hilo airport scenery is payware from FSDreamteam, as part of one of their Hawaiian Airports packages.


All shots are unedited except for some cropping. Enjoy...and let me know what you think! There are a total of nine (9) shots below.




















A few items to note about the flight include the fact that unless you detour to the coast, getting from Waimea to Hilo requires some high altitude (for a light piston single) flying! The shots taken around the middle of the trip were actually around 9000 feet msl!
Additionally, using Orbx global textures makes a big difference in how Hawaii looks, and I find the terrain depictions to be very accurate to the real deal.
Further items to note include the weather. Hawaii can have some strange weather, and on my flight, I encountered just a few scattered clouds on departure, but on the other side of the island, overcast conditions were forming. I used real-world weather from ActiveSkyNext.
Also, approaching Hilo feels....interesting....due to the fact that it is on the coast near sea level, and you have to descend from approximately 9000 feet in a relatively short timeframe. Basically what this means is that you are following the slope of the ground down to the town for the duration of the approach.

And...in case you are wondering about that final approach shot....I had a nearly direct crosswind blowing at 20 knots. I was puzzled as to why they didn't give me the crossing runway instead, but it made for an interesting challenge.

Again....enjoy!

[Ian Warren]

Like you have the B-17 , that was a must for and Eighth Air Force fan , course the many Jankees paints really make it superb .

The Piper, course that one type was one I did my first six start and stop hand on circuits take off and land at West Melton , I found flying the Piper much nicer than the Cessna tho I flew that out off Wigram in the late 1990s , still enjoy simply flying but the other flight down Ashburton was right doosie.

[Olderndirt]

Once hauled most of a moose in one with a similar paint. From Ophir AK to Anchorage, back in the '70s - FAA flying club aircraft.