Exploring the real world in the Google Earth Flight Simulator

[Leif Ohlsson]

Here's an interesting application of what's been discussed both in the flight report and in the tech notes - let's try some slope-soaring in the Cub, at the ridge behind Bush airstrip! If you can manage that here, it is ample proof of ridge lift being present in the sim everywhere in the world.

First an initial situation. I've set you up at 2,500 ft, at the same position as for landing, but slightly higher. Let's see if we can improve on that altitude. Here's the situation to fly: "Start here - 20 kts 145 deg wind - 2,500ft".



Pause the sim immediately, and set up a wind of ca 20 kts 145 deg, in "Options" - "Weather". Some days it will blow with this strength, from that direction. Let's see if we can fly it.

Now un-pause the sim, and immediately shut off the engine ("E"). Now you're on your own and have to rely on your flying skill to find and stay in the lift. This is where I was after one run along the ridge:



Not higher - but no lower either. Turning outwards from the ridge, going back, turning again and coming back I had learnt some tricks:



A gain of 500 ft, and the other side of the ridge sometimes visible. Very satisfying!



Going back and forth along the ridge at near stall speed is very educational. You quickly learn the value of clean flying - any uncoordinated maneuvres, and you immediately loose height or stop climbing.



It is also very exciting to find out exactly how close to the ridge, and where on the ridge you get the best lift. Here I suddenly ran into a proper elevator - 1,000 ft per min, 5 m/s climb over a limited stretch.



This is about as high as I got in this wind - 3,300 ft, 800 ft more than where we started. You can see the landing strip just under the wheels. Getting down there in this lift will be a challenge. But that's another story, which we have already been through…

Leif

[Johnflys2]

Leif, I am follwing with great interest now that I see you can slope soar. I really don't want to install another simulator on my machine but I am very tempted now. Your screen shots show the chase plane view, can you also fly from the cockpit? Being a sailplane pilot in the real world I have difficulty flying in the chase plane mode. John

[Leif Ohlsson]

Quick answers, John:

• The GEFS is an online sim. You fly it in your regular browser. You do not download or save anything on your disk, except the Google Earth internet plug-in, version 6.2. See my first post for more. That is why I give out links so freely.

• I fly it in the "Follow" mode, since this sim is more about the Earth as it really looks, than the aircraft you fly with. You can fly each plane from the inside, but it is disappointing from all aspects - the aircraft is sparsely detailed, no fine panel like yours; and you do not see much of the beautiful Earth outside the plane. So I regularly fly it from slightly above the aircraft, so that I can see a lot of the ground, roads, and natural features.

• There is a high-performance "Jantar" sailplane included. It has airbrakes which is a boon for landing more precisely. Situations for well-known soaring sites are included. The exiting thing for me to discover was that you can soar on any natural ridge appearing along your path. It is very tempting to set up a strong southerly wind (a mistral, right?) and fly the alps from France to Yugoslavia...

• I have a strong suspicion that there are also thermals under the sparsely occuring "low level clouds", which you can check as an option. I thought I felt a stirring when entering under one of these clouds, and when exiting from under it, in the Cub. Remains to be explored.

Like I said from the start - this sim is more about the Earth than about the aircraft. But it is nice that both you and I can fly the Earth in the kind of aircraft we like best, respectively.

Leif

PS. I'll have to make a mental note about checking out the Wasserkuppe sometime. But right now, I have to get back to the Cub outside Roanoke, still on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

[Johnflys2]

Leif, I now have access to the GEFS. In an earlier version of Microsoft's Flight Simulator ridge lift was placed near Muir Woods NW of San Francisco. I flew a lot there and am familiar with a lot of landmarks in the Bay area. So I placed the Cub there to try out GEFS. I flew south to Half Moon Bay and then back North and made a pass under the Golden Gate Bridge. ( screen shot attached )
It's kinda hard controlling the Cub using the key board but a person gets better with time. I missed my joystick and not being able to trim it out for straight and level flight.............. hands off.
I may try to follow your path in North Carolina using FSX and a Cub. Will let you know how it goes. John

[Leif Ohlsson]

Very pretty, John!

You should know that in all probability joystick will work fine for you. You just need to download another little plug-in. See the GEFS home page, this section: "How to enable the joystick".

The reason I haven't been able to say much about the joystick is that the Mac plug-in doesn't seem to work for me. Would very like it to do so, but so far the sim doesn't recognize my CH Gamestick.

However, this being the case, it made me concentrate more on the scenery. Which wasn't so bad, after all.

Some day, I'll try out the Jantar glider under clouds. It has an audio variometer, so any lift should register pretty immediately. I kind of long to hear that sound again, must be almost twenty years ago now...

Have fun, Leif

[willygoat]

I got the flight sim going today. It is quite fun to fly all over the world. I took aerial tours of the cities I visited on vacation this summer. Super cool!

[Leif Ohlsson]

Willy, I'm glad for you that you got the sim working! Have you tried flying over your own house yet?

John, I'm not so sure any longer that there are in fact thermals under "low level" cumulus clouds. Couldn't find any over my former base airfield at Alingsås outside Göteborg. Clouds are very high up and extremely sparsely scattered. The Jantar, to boot, has a flight model I'm not so fond of. So it was back to NC mountains and the Cub for me.

I'm looking forward to seeing your experiences of NC mountain flying in FSX!


Back to North Carolina mountains

I abandoned the Blue Ridge Parkway outside Glasgow, VA. The colors in that part of the Google Earth simply aren't inviting at all. Instead I went back to the North Carolina mountains. I don't think I can get enough of the landscape here, and will fondly keep the links I've supplied in this thread. Whenever I feel in need of some vitalizing flying, I'll return here.

Before leaving for now, here's another challenging landing at a small airfield, Jackson County (24A), near Sylva, NC:



[Fly this situation: "Jackson Co (24A), Sylva NC - base, turn right for final".]

I've set you up on base for a landing on Rwy 33. The wind today was almost straight into the runway. You can set that up yourself, if you wish to fly this approach. The field is on a ridge; the wheels of the Cub are pointing at it.

Immediately when you enter the situation, give the Cub some 20-30 percent throttle (2-3 on you keyboard), and start making a shallow right turn.



Above: Flying the final will get you around here. Watch out for the possible downdraught over the edge of the plateau right ahead. Add some throttle if you suddenly sink, but no more than 40 percent, or you'll balloon; reduce to idle ("1" on keyboard) before ballooning. Remember that elevator is for setting and keeping proper speed, throttle is for conserving or losing altitude. Practice will get your there.



Above: Here we go, soon over the ridge edge. The runway seems deceptively close here, but it isn't - don't loose too much altitude too soon.



Above: The runway is very narrow.



Above: Reaching for the ground while bleeding off excess speed. I did get down eventually, before running out of runway. But photos on the ground are so boring…

Leif

[Johnflys2]

Leif, I gathered a few shots but I thought I could find more interesting subjects. I'm still looking and may find something tomorrow.

The pilot sits in the back seat in my Cub so the view forward is restricted.

1 Final at Asheville
2 Take off from Asheville
3 Might be a good fishing spot
4 Another lake in the distance
5 Looks like exposed rock
6 Roanoke Apt.

I wish I could tell you exactly where these were taken but it's not set up like GEFS.

Yes, I know about the joystick plug in but I won't be using GEFS sim that much. Thanks for letting me know it is available.

John

[Leif Ohlsson]

John, now you got me really jealous - in some places the world in FSX does indeed seem more beautiful than what photos of the real world are able to convey. And what a fine Cub you're flying. I really envy your having this at hand whenever you feel like it!

As a comment to some of the scenery we've booth flown, I found the Roanoke area most disappointing in GEFS. Very bleak and dismal colors. It was around that point I abandoned my northward trek along the Blue Ridge Pathway and returned to North Carolina and the Smoky Mountains. Here's some more of that flying - and in that area I do believe the landscape in places could compete with FSX, even if the Cub can't.

Anyone interested in trying out the situations below should go to GEFS - Google Earth Fligh Simulator (made by an individual, not affiliated with Google, on his spare time, and a free offer, like downloading a model offered by one of ourselves from Papermodelers.com). It's easy (which is my main point), you don't necessarily need a joystick (I have to do without, since the joystick plug-in doesn't work for me), and it doesn't clutter up your computer at all since it is an online sim. What you do need is an urge to master the inevitable difficulties learning to control an aircraft with only keyboard control input.


Sossamon Field (57NC) - Bryson City



Above: Flying along the ridges in the Smokey Mountain area, and then choosing a valley and following it down with throttle low or on idle - that is a very exhilarating experience! Here I am aiming for an unknown small field:

Sossamon Field (57NC) - Bryson City, data:
Runway 28 (towards the left in the photo below)
- Length: 2265 ft
- Surface: Asphalt (doubtful; seems more like gravel to me; see later in this thread)
- Elevation: 1939
- Heading: 277



Above: Emerging around the last hill in that delightful long, valley-hugging descent the field appeared; in the photo right under the Cub's landing gear. [Fly this situation: "Sossamon Field - Bryson City in sight 2500 ft". This is roughly 550 ft above the runway.]

Let's follow the Smoky Mountain Expressway a bit further towards the right in the photo, turn around, and come back on a long final:



Above: Returning from that U-turn, I just couldn't find the field again, until it suddenly appeared, under the left wingtip in the photo. As it turned out, the final isn't so long any more. This could be just a tad too high. We'll see. [Fly this situation: "Sossamon Field - Bryson City on final 2700ft". This is roughly 750 ft above the runway.]



Above: It really was too high for me (you try it!), so I went around again, for a new attempt, coming in lower on final:



Above: This is looking much better, isn't it? [Fly this situation: "Sossamon Field - Bryson City on short final 2200 ft". This is roughly 250 ft above the runway.]

This was a delightful situation to fly. I couldn't figure out why it was so serene - until I had a second look at the wind - 0 knots, absolutely no wind at all.



Above: Which explains why I didn't touch ground until almost out of runway. Managed to brake before completely out of runway. The Cub is the tiny yellow speck on the grass field at the end of the runway.

Still love flying in these surrounding. I came down from one of the peaks in the background, hugging one of the deep valleys down from it.

Leif

[Tapcho]

This is so great to follow, I never knew that Google has this kind of thing up and running. For a long time I've wanted to have a flight simulator and now the dream came true. I have to study this and start flying myself. It's funny that the J-3 you're all flying is actually a real plane registered in the States - wonder if the owner has some connection to G or to this simulator?

Tappi