Scenic VFR Flights (NE USA)?

[Bjoern]

Does anyone have recommendations regarding some scenic VFR routes in the northeastern US?
New England, upstate New York, Appalachians, Piedmont, Alleghenies, etc...

It's a bit hard to look for suitable airports and scenery enhancements in the freeware scenery list when all you have is a very rough idea of a geographic area.

It doesn't have to be add-on scenery powered at all. Nice routings themselves will also do. Maybe something you've flown in real life?


There are some constraints though:
- No payware
- Airports with hard surface runways
- No big airports

Any recommendations for a suitable freeware aircraft will also do as long as it existed in the 1980s, has retractable gear and does 150+ mph in cruise. Good visibility is an asset as well, because sightseeing. ;)




- Edit:

I've completed the first important step: Installed Plan-G on the laptop and successfully connected it to FSX.

A canal tour might be a good start, I guess. But which one...Erie?

[Bjoern]

Well, after much headscratching and back and forth, I've finally started a tour.

I'll be following the old Erie Canal and the New York Barge canal downstream from Buffalo to the Hudson near Albany.
I'm posting about it here if anyone's interested:
http://www.aviationcafe.co.uk/Index/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2465
(No image-per-post limitation over there.)

[falcon409]

Great time to be flying the Northeast. I miss the color changes in the trees, not much of that in Texas. . .not like up there. What ground textures are you using Bjoern?

[Tako_Kichi]

Looks like you've already made a start Bjoern but here's a way I found around the numerous airports way back in October 2009. I split it into three 'tours', small airports, larger airports and water-ports.

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/showthread.php?23659-New-England-Tour%28s%29&highlight=england+tour

It took me quite a while to complete all three 'tours'.

Edit: Oops! I just noticed all the attachments disappeared (twice) in that thread so I'll attach them again here.

[Badger85]

Bjoern, what a great picture log of your VFR journey! I'm really enjoying it for the entertaining writing and also all of the tools that you use described in your description. I had never heard of FSXWX, RealEngine, OpenStreetMap, and others before. One question: the Damage Mod that you mention, is it the one referenced here: http://forums.simviation.com/cgi-bin/yabb25/YaBB.pl?num=1329862800 ? If so, will it work on any freeware aircraft or just some select ones?

Thanks and happy flying!

[Bjoern]

What ground textures are you using Bjoern?

Either Adam Mills' (Avsim) or Aimé Leclerq's (https://sites.google.com/site/aimecreations/ALCreations/download) or a combination of the two. I can't remember which I've installed when.




Looks like you've already made a start Bjoern but here's a way I found around the numerous airports way back in October 2009. I split it into three 'tours', small airports, larger airports and water-ports.

120 legs is...ambitious! Might take me the better part of a week or even month to do.




One question: the Damage Mod that you mention, is it the one referenced here: http://forums.simviation.com/cgi-bin/yabb25/YaBB.pl?num=1329862800 ? If so, will it work on any freeware aircraft or just some select ones?

The code looks pretty generic regarding input variables, so I assume that you can use the Baron's damage mod for any piston twin with retractable gear, the Cessna's mod for any single piston fixed gear and the V35's mod for any single piston retractable gear. Multi engine turbine will require a bit of work as there's only a mod for the default Caravan.
Adapting the mods to different airplanes will require tweaking the damage treshholds though.


The damage mods are also on Avsim, by the way:
http://library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=hakki&CatID=root&Go=Search

[Tako_Kichi]

If you think 120 legs is ambitious you should try the hop list I have been flying for over 18 months now, 951 legs in total and I'm barely half way around the world at the moment. :dizzy:

[Bjoern]

If you think 120 legs is ambitious you should try the hop list I have been flying for over 18 months now, 951 legs in total and I'm barely half way around the world at the moment. :dizzy:

The problem with a lot of legs is that, while landing itself is one of the fun parts of flying, it takes a whole lot of time if you're trying to stick to the real procedures.
And time aloft can be used productively if you're willing to use an AP. I've spent entire airliner cruise segments with cleaning my apartment or doing university stuff, lol.

My only RTW was done back in FS98 days within three or four flights or so. Been a while...

[Bjoern]

The tour is over, fini, beendet.

http://www.aviationcafe.co.uk/Index/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2465

You'll find the flight plan in the last post. You'll need to load it into Plan-G and export it for FSX if you want to use it in the GPS.

[Badger85]

Reading over your flight report now. Entertaining as always!