AIR.C74.NET

Out doing some summer offshore flying in the cool ocean air...

AADX SEAKING IX

... launched my Seawing from the transom garage of the Seaking.. and continued heading toward KAVX Avalon, Catalina...

AADX SEAWING IX in Criminy Alloy Graphite "Rycon" livery. Relatively calm offshore sea breeze and calm surface.. about 87F in the sun, and down near 78F in the cooler air at the ocean water surface. Dialed in ~100kts, slowed the prop down to a heartbeat like thrum at ~1600rpm with the engine at a nice healthy ~30" MP, in TERR mode at ~10' AGL flying in high WIG cushion and safely above any of the larger ocean waves. Such a nice cruise.. and so effortless. To think about a mega powered offshore speedboat running 100mph.. is loud, huge seaspray of churn, wake and breaking water... while the SEAWING just cruises barely your own height above the water surface in a smooth cushion and relaxed unlabored engine dial. Whatever summer music suits your ears.. imagine it playing on the system in here while watching the shimmery water glide beneath you and the shoreline in the distance wane as the beautiful Catalina islands appear ahead...





P.S. for "open air" cruising, there's always the topless TARGAWING IX

After an intense weekend of Kung Fu testing and then a full two weeks of painting, I finally got a chance to "fly" this weekend. I spent almost all of it flying the updated EC135 in the Guangxi province of the PRC. I had just finished a few new liveries for the 135 and even redid the Hermés livery, which is the one I wore for these shots.
What can I say about Guangxi? It is my favorite area of the world to see interesting topography. About 75% of the province is covered in karst formations, where soluble bedrock is eroded away from harder rocks, resulting in caves, sinkholes, and in Guanxi's case, adorable hills that resemble something from the backdrops of Super Mario Bros. levels. Before I show pics from X-Plane, I'll share these images that were found thrugh Google Earth:
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/2201226.jpg
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/2598568.jpg
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/2003215.jpg
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/1942753.jpg
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/1265145.jpg
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/orig ... 469181.jpg
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/818423.jpg
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/orig ... 469208.jpg
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/2089296.jpg
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/orig ... 469191.jpg
Pretty neat stuff. What surprised me was how well XP depicted these small sharp hills. Though they are not as formed in XP, the appearance of individual hills protruding through the soft Earth like islands does come through. In the following screenshots I fly the EC135 through the south-west portion of Guanxi near the Vietnamese border. It is 10:30 in the morning an a thin layer of very low cirrus created a neat blanket on the ground, one of those rare times that having Real WX turned on rewarded me.


















...so I landed on one of those hills for a nice picnic, watching the mist drift by. To be continued...

Nice flight AADX! We need to work on a flight from Billings...

I thought it would be cool to see my favorite birds all together. (No, it's not a Photoshop trick...)



Another one of the chops



And finally the non-Piper props. I'm sorry X-Plane doesn't render Sunset Cliffs as spectacular as they really are.



The big Pipers over Mt. Whitney, early morning, the tallest peak in the lower 48 states.



And finally, Piper Cherokees and Arrows over South Lake Tahoe

AADX wrote:x-traffic plugin, right?

I'm not familiar with that plugin.
Let me preface this by saying this was an idea of Herbumus.
I simply chose to have other aircraft in the sim under the aircraft menu.
I then manipulated the other aircraft in the local map, Speed, Altitude, and Heading.
I then "Dragged the Brick" as you taught me to do with the Skybox
so they were all in formation near to me and "Click", took the snapshot.
There was also weather and time manipulation for the correct lighting and such.
Ala Kazam Cool pics

I think i'll mark the end of this page with a shot of tinkering with "3D lighting" for the night interiors. it's a pretty spiffy and tricky little effect.

it's BEST appreciated when you turn out the lights in your room and fly at night, in a dark room so your eyes adjust....
then it feel juuuuuust right.

AADX wrote:it's BEST appreciated when you turn out the lights in your room and fly at night, in a dark room so your eyes adjust....
then it feels juuuuuust right.

That was some REALLY sexy lighting, Jason. Puts me in the mood to do some night flying! We're all looking forward to the result of your tinkering. Until then...
I'll wait with the lights off!
Herbumus

The first thing I did after getting my hands on the Piper collection.

Took off from CYPR and headed for CYZP in the Seminole.

Was the last land before heading out to the water. Love the view from Seminole.


One of the few airplanes I keep looking from the outside when on auto. Just a beautiful airplane. Just a screeny out over the water.


Land again after a while.


Final approach with a lovely head wind.


Then suddenly something change. Like the weather in a instance just made a big mess of my approach. When I landed I had 10 knot crosswind.


Maybe I need to change my weather update to 1 min instead of 10 min
Anyway it was a lovely flight with a great plane more should be comming.

PS. Tanks for the great planes Jason!

Stephy

Here are a couple I took while flying the new Cirrus SR22T