Glacier Bay Ultralight Club Forming!

[falcon409]

I wanted to introduce as many folks as possible to this new fledgling club and give you a link to check it out at your leisure. This is FS2004 only and the Glacier Bay Tour that kicks off in early December will be flown in Bill Lyons "Quad City Challenger". These folks are looking for pilots who are interested in flying this tour and not those interested in joining another club and then never showing up, lol (solely my opinion and not necessarily those of VRSair).
All the necessary downloads are available through their site and everything is freeware and sanctioned by the original designers, namely Holger Sandman and Bill Lyons. There is also a small download available to enhance the default buildings and trees in FS9 and take it from me. . .the download is worth it.
Ok, you can get more info once you go to the site for registration and if you've heard of Glacier Bay but never experienced it, you are missing an amazing piece of scenery magic from Holger. . .payware quality and then some all for free.

Check here for more info:
http://local.vrseries.com/news.php

[falcon409]

lol, lol, I can never leave a scenario like this alone as it bugs the dog doodoo out of me, lol. So I'll ask a question that might get a response as none of the 100+ folks who read the origional post had anything to say either way. . . .

Is it the Glacier Bay area that no one finds interesting enough to fly in. . .is it multiplayer in general (since that's what the club entails basically). . .is it the fact that it's ultralights and more specifically "only" the Quad City Challenger. . . .or is it a combination of all or some or some other reason I've overlooked?


Just curious. . .as I'm doing a paper for my Docturate in Flightsimology, lol!!

[txnetcop]

lol, lol, I can never leave a scenario like this alone as it bugs the dog doodoo out of me, lol. So I'll ask a question that might get a response as none of the 100+ folks who read the origional post had anything to say either way. . . .

Is it the Glacier Bay area that no one finds interesting enough to fly in. . .is it multiplayer in general (since that's what the club entails basically). . .is it the fact that it's ultralights and more specifically "only" the Quad City Challenger. . . .or is it a combination of all or some or some other reason I've overlooked?


Just curious. . .as I'm doing a paper for my Docturate in Flightsimology, lol!!

I'm pretty crazy over that Quad ultralight myself
Ted

[Lionheart]

Hey Falcon,

I cant presently but sounds interesting.

I remember there was a huge group of people that started a Piper Cub club back in FS2000 and FS2002, before FS had a Piper Cub. (Bills Cub looks amazingly similar to the new well known Aces Cub). I thought that was pretty cool that so many people were flying the bird and that there were so many addons for it, etc. Many people were part of that.

Posting pics and getting the information out there is the main thing. So many neat things for FS are out there and not all are known because people didnt know how to instroduce them or didnt tell anyone, etc.

Have you posted on this in SimFlight's forums? They might really get into it. Also, send a press release to Computer Pilot and to PC Pilot magazines. They might put it in their Misc. section or on their cover CD. There is a great French Sim magazine also, I think its called Micro-Flight, (cant remember) that would probably love this. The French love RV aircraft, ultralights and sky trikes and all. In real life, they are a huge section in the world in that field of aviation.


Happy flying!


Bill

[Dangerousdave26]

Well I book marked the page yesterday. I have visited the page but do not intend on joining until after the 2009 Around the World Race is over. Yes I know it is not until Feb but I have a lot of work to do and have constantly been working on projects related to it for months. :d

Any way it looks like a good break from flat out flying hard once the race is done.

[jordonj]

Scant time for that, but I should get Glacier bay at some point...

[LouP]

I used to fly in the sim exclusively up north there as over time I have collected almost all the payware and freeware scenery one can get for that part of the world. I love the area and I am still thinking about it. Holger has made a lot of great scenery up there and he has always assisted me when I ran into any trouble installing any of it. :applause:

LouP :kilroy:

[EasyEd]

Hey All,

I was one of the original 100 lookers and I definitely am interested and will likely give it a go. That will get me to get Glacier Bay installed.

Flying on line is a problem for me as I ahve never been able to without being bumped. No idea why it's just a fact of life. So it depends a lot upon whether or not the new computer I'm building allows online flight or perhaps the old will allow it on a server other than netwings - the only place I've ever tried.

As for the plane I'm interested in ultralights and the Challenger is OK but I have yet to see what I'm looking for well modeled.

-Ed-

[txnetcop]

Falcon after Thanksgiving weekend I may give that a shot. I love that Quad and it does sound like fun. I'll see if I can roust some others in there too.
Ted

[luckydog]

I've no experience with on - line flight..............
any advice / suggestions / tutorials ???

Thanks,
LD

[Tom Clayton]

No tutorials need - just enter the IP (or URL), hit Search, slect your server and hit Join. The only thing you might find odd is if another pilot is flying something you don't have installed, or even if it's the same thing with a modified "title=" line, what you'll see him/her flying will be a mirror of your current aircraft. So if you enter the session in the default C172, and someone's got some tricked out mil fighter, you're going to see one very fast and maneuverable Cessna! There are only two things I can suggest...

1- Keep your frames locked at about 25 to keep from loading up the server and causing problems for other users.

2- For up close formation flight, keep the same weather as the other pilot. If he's fighting a headwind and you've got a stiff crosswind, it can get ugly! Check the server's status page to see if it has mandatory weather set. If so, be sure you're not trying to use any kind of real weather.

[TomSteber]

I've no experience with on - line flight..............
any advice / suggestions / tutorials ???

Thanks,
LD

Same here, plus time is always an issue.
Also, don't have mic set-up for communicating.
If time and talking arn't an issue, I'd love to give it a try.

[Dangerousdave26]

1- Keep your frames locked at about 25 to keep from loading up the server and causing problems for other users.

2- For up close formation flight, keep the same weather as the other pilot. If he's fighting a headwind and you've got a stiff crosswind, it can get ugly! Check the server's status page to see if it has mandatory weather set. If so, be sure you're not trying to use any kind of real weather.

Don't forget to forward your ports in your router.

Per the FS Host FAQ

FS2002:
TCP 47624
UDP 2300 to 2400 (Peer ports or the ports you exchange information with the other players)


FS2004 and FSX:
UDP 23456 (some servers may use a different port when running multiple servers)
UDP 6073 (Direct Play port part of Direct X)
UDP 2300 to 2400 (Peer ports or the ports you exchange information with the other players)


You can get more help on forwarding ports in your particular router at www.portforward.com (http://www.portforward.com/).

Russell Gilbert also created a program called FSPortTest (http://www.chocolatesoftware.com/fshost/FSPortTest.exe) that you can run on your PC to check to see if you have all the ports forwarded correctly in your router.


While many of us have been guilty of flying online with only the main FS Host server port forwarded with no problems it can and should cause problems with connectivity. You are likely to block someone else from joining the game if you do not open up all of the ports. Or someone else will block you out. You will get a message that states "could not connect all players".

You can go to FS Host home page (http://www.chocolatesoftware.com/fshost/)and look for FS Host Spy this is a program that will search out all the public FS Host servers running on the net.

{Now time for shamless plug}

You can join my server on the Alaska or Burst Hoplist

Put fs9x.dyndns.org in the address box on the multiplayer page

I use Port 23500 so I could keep the default port open for another instance. Make sure you forward that port in your router.

If you have any problems with these things head over to the Multiplayer forum and start a thread we will help you out.

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/forumdisplay.php?f=6

Good luck

[falcon409]

I've no experience with on - line flight..............
any advice / suggestions / tutorials ??? Thanks,
LD
I find this quite a bit and while not faulting anyone here in the least, I also find it amazing that as long as FS9 has been around (and FS in general) that there are still a good number of folks who have never flown online. Personally, I rarely fly offline as it becomes very boring, very quickly, lol.

Let me speak to online flying, from my experiences, in very general terms:
There are hundreds of servers available to fly on and in a majority of cases, those servers allow "free flight" which means you can simply log on and start flying from wherever you wish and either chat with pilots that are already online via the chat window (typing as you go) or via the mic/headset or mic/speakers setup on Teamspeak which is really the only way to go because trying to type and land your plane is a pain in the butt, lol.

Many of those servers also offer hoplists to fly which gives you a structured flightplan to fly if you don't have anywhere special to fly on your own and that's a whole separate set of instructions that I won't go into here right now. There are also VA's (virtual airlines) that you can join that can be somewhat fanatical in their membership requirements and which I avoid at all costs, lol (not all but some, mind you) and there are flying clubs you can join that are less structured and simply offer a place to come and join other like minded pilots that enjoy the online flying experience.

Now, going back to the Quad City Challenger group specifically, they are signing up members to begin a tour of the Glacier Bay area using Holger Sandman's Glacier Bay Version2 (not to be confused with the original Glacier Bay). GBv2 is a spectacular flying experience with detailed airports everywhere and more eye candy than should be allowed in a freeware scenery package. This package is required for the tour and can be downloaded via the VRSair site as well as the Challenger (also required and the only aircraft permitted for this tour) ultralight by Bill Lyons. Because of this limitation, seeing someone else in a high speed Cessna isn't an issue as everyone has the same airplane with all the variations (four different ones including the original Challenger, a clip wing version, a ski version, and a float version) and each variation has at least four different liveries so it's also not a case of everyone flying the exact same airplane with the exact same livery.

The tour will start sometime after Thanksgiving (first week or thereabouts in December probably) and run until we've basically seen all of the Glacier Bay region. If you're going to register via the link in the original post, please also note that you're signing up for the QCC Glacier Bay Tour as John has quite a few other things going on on his site and he won't know why you're signing up unless you mention the tour.

I hope this answers at least a few questions that some may have had about this Tour specifically or online flight in general. Any other concerns/questions. . .please feel free to ask.

[Tom Clayton]

There are also VA's (virtual airlines) that you can join that can be somewhat fanatical in their membership requirements and which I avoid at all costs, lol (not all but some, mind you) and there are flying clubs you can join that are less structured and simply offer a place to come and join other like minded pilots that enjoy the online flying experience.
Transload is really both. Although we have no set flight plans or requirements, we have plenty of members that fly offline and log those hours. We also have regular online sessions with pre-planned routes where we basically take off, set the autopilot, and then shoot the breeze on Teamspeak for an hour or so. When we get to where we're going, lately it's turned into a "who can grease their landing the best" contest!

Once in a while, we set up something like a Grand Canyon run to break things up a bit. I need to set up another one of those soon...:d