Exploring the real world in the Google Earth Flight Simulator

[Leif Ohlsson]

No, no, no Bob - how can you think you're hijacking? I'm extremely grateful for the tip about the Smoky Mountains, and have spent a whole day there - please see below, if there's any place you might actually recognize!

John, the Inka looks beautiful and it is so good to see you flying it. You made such a good job of it. And the MSFSX landscape looks very good as well, what with the trees and all.

The advantage of the GEFS of course is on another level - it the Earth you see, as it actually looks, photographed by the national authorities for cartography in each country, satellites and what not. The 3D structures you come upon are made by anonymous people all over the world, working mostly in Sketchup I take it, and all of them publishing it in this huge database of what the world looks like. And it is all free, readily available, ready to go in minutes. I think it's wonderful.

What I'm trying to say is that the focus in GEFS is on the Earth, more than in what you fly over it. Which is a welcome change for me. I've had considerable experience with the X-plane sim over the years, and have designed several aircraft for it. It was great fun and very absorbing. I've flown several times over the Atlantic (Labrador-Greenland-Iceland) in a DC3 designed by myself. I do remember it with fondness. And I have laboriously constructed buildings on every local airstrip here around Gothenburg.

But today I am really happy with what the GEFS experience has treated me to. I'm sure it's the same for you - the flying experience is more important than what you fly it in. And yet, the experience is of course enhanced when you find something you can relate to in the way of aircraft. Sailplanes for you (and for me), a yellow Cub for me. At least for now.

Can I invite you to follow me for a day of flying through the Smoky Mountains area, in turn following the invitation by Bob?

Leif

[Leif Ohlsson]

As I progressed deeper into the Smoky Mountains area it really dawned on my what Bob meant by preparing for a road trip by flying the route in GEFS:



Fly this situation: "Smoky Mountains - road on top of ridge enroute Waynesville". (A caveat here: I saved the situation depicted, including the proximity to the ground. The simulator, however, seems to have an abhorrence - understandably so - of placing you too close to the ground, so you may end up a bit higher. Circle a couple of rounds and you'll get down. The same may be the case for several of the dramatic situations I tried to save in what follows.)



Above: Clearing yet another ridge, I came upon this vast forest clear-felling area. This is an example of what you come across unexpectedly, when you fly over the Earth as it really is. I've discovered several areas of clear-felling not far from where I live. They are sometimes quite close to roads, and the timber companies always save a thin perimeter of trees, to hide what they are doing. It is almost as if they really are ashamed of the practice. In the case above, erosion would be a concern, wouldn't it? [Fly this situation: "Forest clearing above Waynesville".]



Above: A dramatic crossing of a ridge near Waynesville. At the end of the valley towards the left, Asheville should appear eventually. At this point, it was evident that I was flying in the autumn. Beautiful. [Fly this situation: "Waynesville - Ashville at end of valley".]

I made a flyby over Ashville regional airport, and missed the smaller Cane Creek airfield until I was almost on top of it. None of them were really inviting to land at, so I continued towards Asheville:



Above: Here we are, over Asheville center. I wonder whether our member Curt, "the Ashville Angler" resides or works somewhere around here? [Fly this situation: "Over Asheville center".]



Leaving Asheville (above) I was soon back into this dramatic landscape of ridges and valleys. Some of those houses on top of the ridges must have fantastic views! Like this one:



On top along some of the ridges were roads and parking lots, I suppose for enjoying the view:



[Fly the situation above: "Roads & parking lots on top of ridges".]



Above: On the map I had spotted a triangle mark on top of Mt Mitchell. Guessing that it must mean something special, I made a point of following this road towards it. That must be a spectacular goal for a road trip, and I do appreciate Bob Gurkin finding a flight like this helpful before undertaking it! [Fly this situation: "Mount Mitchell and the road to it".]

[Leif Ohlsson]

My goal for today was a small airfield I had spotted on the other side of Asheville, called "Mountain Air Burnsville". It seemed a pleasant enough goal to set up, situated as it were 4.400 ft MSL. That is more than 1.300 meters altitude, and I longed to see how it was situated among all these ridges and valleys.

Little did I know what kind of a goal for a days flying I had selected. Leaving Mt. Mitchell I was just gliding serenly through the clear autumn day, course set on Burnsville:



[Fly this situation: "Serenly gliding towards Mountain Air Burnsville".]

Clicking on the link will get you a couple of thousand feet higher unfortunately, due to the sim's abhorrence for ground proximity. But that may actually be an advantage, since then you can spot what I missed in the situation above - you can actually see the "Mountain Air Burnsville" asphalt airstrip. It is situated straight ahead, in a crevasse on top of the ridge.

This I just had to get right!



Here's my setup for approaching this fabuluous airstrip. And I've manipulated a link, so that the computer will set you up almost exactly like this - hope it'll work for you, too. [Fly this situation: "Mountain Air Burnsville rwy 32 approach".]



Landing here is actually doable. This is me floating close to the start of the runway (albeit not the first time around, I'll freely admit to that). It feels like landing on a hangar cruiser on a mountain top, 4.431 fit MSL! Try it in a moderate side wind, as it happened to be today, for me, and you're in for a sweaty experience.



Above: Here's the incontrovertible proof that I actually managed - the Cub parked among the real-world mountain flyers, intrepid as they must be. In this sim there's no way of getting a photo like this other than by flying here, landing safely - however bumpy - and taxiing in a sidewind without falling off the cliff's edge!

Today I feel good about my yellow Cub. I wonder what tomorrow shall bring…

Leif

PS - In case you've just arrived here, the reason I'm so freely giving out links to flight situations is that you really can experience it yourself, on your own computer, without paying a dime, and without any hassle installing a lot of stuff, other than dowloading Google Earth plug-in version 6.2. See the first post in this thread for instructions.

[ashevilleangler]

Leif, what a nice way to do virtual travel! Yes, Asheville, NC is my hometown. We actually live on the south side just outside the city limits. The road you see winding it's way across the ridge tops is the Blue Ridge Parkway. It's our nation's longest national park and runs behind our house, no more than a 10 minute walk away. The parking lots allow people to stop for roadside views and provide access to hundreds of miles of trails.

Yes, it's a very nice place to live.

Curt

[Leif Ohlsson]

Hello Curt! So glad to have seen what a beautiful landscape you live in. Flying over the North Carolina part of the Blue Ridge Parkway has been a breathtaking experience. It is the most dramatic, yet friendly landscape I've come across so far!


Flying the Blue Ridge Parkway

Leaving Asheville and flying along the NC-Tennessee border I followed a road winding along the top of the ridges mostly. I didn't know it then, but it must have been the Blue Ridge Parkway I had hit upon already then. What a stroke of luck!



Above: This is me heading into the mountains west of Boone, trying to follow that winding road. Most of the time the landscape was so beautiful and dramatic that I simply got absorbed in it and forgot to take photos. I think this landscape will return to me in my dreams - and I don't mind at all!



Above: At times, however, you come across ugly wounds in the landscape. I suppose this is some kind of open surface mine, situated betwwen Warrensville and Jefferson, some distance away from Hwy 88.



Above: I'm just doing a fly-by over Ashe County Airport. Seems like a pleasant enought paved runway to practice landings upon. I passed up on it for now, but you may try it: [Fly this situation: "Ashe county airport flyby".]



Above: This is where I first came upon the map label "Blue Ridge Parkway". I had heard about it, and counted myself lucky - this I was going to follow from here on!



Above: Flying the Blue Ridge Parkway at low altitude is something that can only be done in the sim. It was both an exhilarating and tiring experience. The Cub seemed to dance a lot more than usual close to the top of the ridge. Little did I know at the time that this was most probably a result of ridge lift and turbulence in the prevailing westerly winds that were hitting the ridge!



Above: Crossing the stateline NC-Virginia, the ridges got lower, and the Parkway also had double - separate - lanes. One in each direction, I suppose. Must be crowded on holidays and weekends! On my flight, however, I don't think I saw a single car. Usually, the do turn up in Google Earth photos.



Above: Flying through some sections of Virginia was less pleasant than NC - the cartography units here have failed miserably in the color rendition of some sections of the Parkway. You can see the much too green tones in the photo above. What I really wanted to catch, though, was another of those ugly wounds in the landscape created by vast areas of clear-felling, right in the Rocky Knob recreational area! What a dismal view for the inhabitants of that estate down there. Was it worth it?, one wonders. [Fly this siutation: "Vast clearfelling near Rocky Knob".]

[Leif Ohlsson]

By now I was very tired, both from flying in the ridge lift turbulence, and from the dismal view of the clear-felling areas. I wanted to land in a nice place and stretch my legs. A quick look on the map showed a small airfield only a right turn and another ridge away.



Above: Crossing that ridge, the GPS map told me I was right on top of Bush (6VA9) - Woolwine airfield. But where was it - can you see it?

Right - it's that tiny grass strip (2800 ft , 840 m long), jutting out from the ridge at left towards the right, built on a smaller ridge. The wind was blowing at some 15 kts almost straight into rwy 15, which was good. The precariousness of the situation, however, is that in order to get down, I'd have to make the base almost hugging the ridge, like on the photo above. This was going to be interesting! [Fly this landing with me: "Bush 15 right base setup for landing (make right turn, hug the ground to avoid ridge lift)".



Above: Here I am, trying to get down through the ridge lift. This is where it finally dawned on me that the GEFS sim really replicates ridge lift everwhere in the world, not just on special set-up places and situations. This is another fine feature - but the lift seemed always to carry the Cub up, up and away, when I wanted nothing but getting down on that small strip!



Finally, I learned a technique of skimming the ground at almost stall speed in order to avoid most of the ridge lift. This Is most educational, let me tell you. If you fly the situation, the wind of the day might differ. You can set up a steady head wind 140-150° in the sim, if you'd like to try the conditions I happened to encounter. This will be almost straight into rwy 15 (which has an actual heading 144°).



Above: I got down, eventually. Here I am, turned around halfways and looking bakc at the ridge from where I came. The strip is leaning sideways - I doubt that's the case in the real world. If not, this is the first such small imperfection I've encountered in the rendering of the world in GEFS.

[Isaac]

Can this program handle really fast jets? I wonder if it can refresh the scenery fast?


Isaac

[SCEtoAUX]

There is a SU-35 in the drop down menu for the type of aircraft you can choose to fly. It seems to handle that OK.

Many hours can be lost when playing around with GEFS. The Map feature lets you choose anywhere to fly around.

[Leif Ohlsson]

Hello, Isaac and Doug.

I get a framerate average of 25 fps, which is considered good, I believe. The Cub undulates very sweetly and softly up and down, almost putting you to sleep. No roughness and none or very few and short hangups for loading scenery.

Having said this, I should add that it only refers to single-player mode. If I try to engage multiplayer mode, everything deteriorates beyond what I can live with. So I fly alone. Suits me fine.

Leif

[Leif Ohlsson]

In today's posts I've corrected all links to deliver you to the situation depicted, as close as I can get it. The problem, as already noted, is that the GEFS sim has and abhorrence of leaving you too close to the ground. You can correct this yourself - here's how:



Above: A photo of the Ashe county flyby situation as I intended for you to have it. As you can see, the altitude (above sea level) is some 4,000 ft (1.200 m). The airfield's actual elevation is 3,179 ft, so we're flying at roughly 1,000 ft (300 m) above ground. This is good.

But if I save a link to this situation in the sim, and load that link again, you will end up like this:



See? The sim places you 3,000 ft (900 m) higher up, so that you won't risk crashing. Very courteous and considerate, but we really want to get down there, right?

Now, load this link: "Ashe county flyby - the sim's suggestion", and study what the link looks like in the browsers link box. Here is the interesting part of it:

[...]aircraft=cub&lon=-81.42795455879522&lat=36.437744096798305&alt=1261. 711724244103&heading=118.97891217551825

Among all those decimals you can see that the saved situation link is built up by 1) aircraft (=Cub), 2) longitude, 3) latitude, 4) altitude (in meters), and 4) heading. Altitude in the sim is measured in meters, so we're fflying at some 1,200 m (4,000 ft). But the altimeter shows 7,000 ft. Clearly the sim calculates with altitude above ground.

What you want to do is to reduce this number by 3,000 ft, to get down to our desired altitude of 4,000 ft above sea level (ca 1,000 ft above ground). Now, 3,000 ft is 900 m, so we reduce the altitude in the link by this amount.

In your browser's link space, type "361" after the "alt=". Now load this link and see where you end up!



Isn't that great - exactly where we wanted to be. Here's the adjusted link: Ashe county flyby - adjusted to -900 m.

With this technique you can set yourself up for a whole row of interesting landing approaches at various places. Good luck, and have fun!

Leif