FS 1954 Flight

[Willy]

Took a little hop in FS 1954 to chill out a bit. Picked up the Boeing 307 Stratoliner at Boeing Field and flew over to NAS Whidbey Island. Stayed low and slow and just did a little sightseeing over Seattle and points north....

[Willy]

(didn't have enough room for all five pics)

Once I got to Whidbey, the only thing home there was a parked blimp. Oh well, off to the Chief's Club for a cold one and to figure out where to go from here.....

[Hurricane91]

Hello Willy. What a nice flight. Beautiful skin, polished to perfection. And what is the instrument just forward of the control column?

[Willy]

Thanks, sometimes I think I got too much alpha in it. But the original Pan Am and TWA Stratoliners back in 1940 were highly polished as well.

I swapped out the turn and bank indicator for that Wind drift gauge. Basically it tells you how much to turn to allow for wind drift when flying dead reckoning. Set it to your desired course and just keep the indicators aligned. I flew the Stratoliner in one of our races a year or so ago and we were only allowed to use DR and NDB navigation. No VORs or GPS. But a wind drift gauge was allowed as well. So it came in handy when I was out of range of the NDBs.

[Lionheart]

Great screenshots Willy.

Love the autogen adjustments in the Golden Wings verison.

That shine looks pretty dang good from here.

Can you imagine an updated interior on that VC with the new high-poly hack for FS9?


Bill

[bpfowler]

Holy cats Willy, I thought I recognized the 307 flying north over my house...Shiny as a new dime. But no shinier than some of those oshkosh dc-3s in Tom's pix.

LOD for panel detail, now that would be a treat. Just build the 3d panel lines into the mdl.....and shine em up how ever you like. Okay, gotta stop dreamin.

[Willy]

Bill, actually it's Silver Wings. Golden Wings takes out some of the bigger airports that I prefer to have left in. But otherwise, pretty much the same. I've combined SW, a bunch of the California Classics retro airports and did up a custom AI set using the CalClassics' propliners and a bunch of other aircraft that I converted to AI along with custom flight plans to make my idea of FS 1954.

I flew the 307 on down to Eugene, Oregon (don't think I've ever been there in FS before). Got up some altitude to check out the cabin pressurization. Never lost consciousness so I guess it worked ;). I've been flying online so much, I forgot just how bossy the ATC can get. And this was a VFR flight.

[PRB]

Walks out to flight line to help put the big Boeing away for the night... Nice shots, Willy!

[Willy]

Decided to go on down and visit the San Francisco area. I was originally planning on landing at Alameda, but diverted to Oakland about 100nm out. I did fly over Alameda though. Basically, I'm just following my nose here.

[Willy]

It was a bit of a rough landing at Oakland. But other than shaking things up, it came out all right. I need to work on my landings in the 307 as I've gotten a bit rusty. I did get some screenshots of the parked aircraft at Oakland though. Most of these are Cal Classic AI. That Canadian Northstar is Jens, that I converted to AI due to a shortage of Canadian propliners when I was doing the AI for Canada.

Let's see... while I'm in California.........

[Willy]

Left Oakland for a spot in the southern California desert. One of Boeing's newest was parked next to me at Oakland and then I had to wait on a TWA Constellation before I could take off. On the way south, I flew over these old blimp hangers.....

[Willy]

Flew down next door to Edwards AFB to this nice lady with a hispanic name's place. I had to overfly it to find the runway as they pretty much match the rest of the desert. Even at that, I lost track of the rwy on approach and just landed near it, dodging the sagebrush. I parked near her horse corral and will figure out where to go from here.....

[mrogers]

That would be Pancho Barnes' ranch wouldn't it? Chuck Yeager was at Edwards AFB at the time I think.

[Willy]

Yep. The Happy Bottom Riding Club by Nigel Mason.

[Willy]

Decided to get out of California and pay Arizona a visit. Took off from Pancho's and headed east to Lake Havasu City, AZ. Nice flight in some excellent flying weather and for once the ATC pretty much left me alone while pestering everyone else. Now to start looking at other airports in Arizona that might be interesting that I haven't paid much attention to before.

[hawkeye52]

May I suggest Sierra Vista Municipal/Libby Army Airfield at Ft. Huachuca as an off-the-beaten-path destination. With its 12,000 x 150 main runway, you should have no trouble getting in and out. And a little further West you can drop in at KOLS (7,200 x 100) right on The Border. A quick taxi ride to the Port-of-Entry and you can walk across to stock up on tax-free booze and smokes. ¡Orale, mano! :monkies:

- H52

[Jagdflieger]

You can also have the Canelo Kid meet you at the Libby Army Airfield at Fort "We-gotch-a" as he lives just to the west as I recall. Been a while since I've been TDY there, but a quick trip to Tombstone a few miles to the Northeast is always fun for history buffs too.