Air Hauler 2 for X-Plane discussion thread

There are a LOT of pilots that don’t know how to classify turbulence.

Then there are the good ones.

PIREP1

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Oh that’s a good-un. White caps in the coffee was a standard - always seemed like the guy who said it, said it like he was the first to come up with that gem. Gosh, haven’t thought about this stuff in a while.

Guy I worked with had a good one, “Ruffer than a stucco bathtub”. I used it when he wasn’t around :kissing_smiling_eyes:

Oh, and a personal favorite…the audience has to be there though…Me, “Southwest123 how’s the ride there?”. SWA123, “Well, it’s Southwest light chop…or American [airlines] severe turbulence”. Ha! Loved it. There’s more to this but it gets deep into the whole commercial aviation personality thing…

Interesting…yeah…looks like a Coast Guard station…my son was asking for M&Ms as I was landing…which explains my attempt to turn my 172 into a 172(F)loat

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LOL!!!

You’d hear some good stuff associated with stuck mic’s.

Even better are the young kid freight haulers on 123.45. I’ve heard some interesting jokes on that freq…

Same controller I mentioned above (‘stucco bathtub’) used to play Trivial Pursuit for direct. At like 3 AM, with only maybe 3 airplanes above FL240 in all of central AZ.

He’d break out the TP box and key up, “Speedbird 456, for direct Boston, who was the only ZZ Top member that didn’t have a beard…”, etc. Of course we’d give them direct regardless. Kept you awake. Which was the point.

We’d have guys come back to our freq with answers sometimes (after switching them to the next sector down the road). Didn’t last long. Having fun was not allowed. That was about 25 years ago, ish.

Alrighty, my Ortho d’l is at 68% now. Whee doggies, as Jed C. used to say. Not going stay awake for it though.

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You’d cringe at what Guard has become. Meowing and people impersonating Delta pilots for some reason.

LOL The “Ramp Strike” shout out!

So @BeachAV8R, @smokinhole, @PaulRix, @Troll…the “So No Joke, There I Was” thread is awaiting your input along these knees…don’t make me have to submit FOIA requests to get the transcripts! :grin:

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A couple of candidates… Tacoma Narrows and the C170…

I guess the C170 won’t carry much though.

I’m kind of thinking a vintage Air Hauler might be fun…

Ford Tri-Motors, DC3/C47’s Beech 18’s, JU52 etc. We could start off with the really old birds, and as the company grows, we could progress to the newer and more capable aircraft, but in some semblance of a chronological order.

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On a related subject (AH)…is it possible for us to compete in the same virtual world with each other? i.e. Flying Squirrel Air Cargo (working title. for my company) and other Mudspike associated firms compete for routes, charters, etc?

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After my tech support question sent to Laminar, they told me this is exactly what happened. My wife VPNs each day to work, which apparently gives us a new IP address (I don’t know how these things work). The solution, says Laminar, is to give me a Steam key once I provided proof of purchase for my digital X-Plane version (which I purchased from the X-Plane.COM store).

Now I wonder about all my other digital purchases that might be looking at my IP though. :thinking:

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In doing a bit more research on this - I’m not sure that this is the way I want to go. I don’t like Steam changing my install, and I don’t think it would be as “portable” as my .COM digital download version. I need to figure something out with this VPN conflict.

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Took about 24 hours but the US Orthophos 1.1, for WA, is on the plate. 21 hours to D/L at 500 kbps (max) and 1.5 - 2.0 hours to convert JPG’s to DDS/PNG’s.

Quick photo of the above mentioned KCLM.

So far, so good. FPS seem about the same, and maybe slightly better, with Vulkan 11.5b6. Though being a beta, well, ya know.

Haven’t tested in VR yet.

FWIW, as mentioned [somewhere] above, I visited here in the mid-90’s. I’d forgotten about the steep drop off there at the water’s edge til I took that screen shot. Then I recalled our B&B was only ~100 yards from it; I walked out to it in a pea-soup fog and did the appropriate thing off the edge :slight_smile:

The OEM mesh seemed much flatter.

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This post is might come across like I am a real “nickname for Richard” - that s not how it is meant. :slightly_smiling_face:

What does “US Orthophos 1.1, for WA” get you that ORBX Washington HD doesn’t? The ORBX download/set up is double-digit minutes but not hours. Sure, Ortho-scenery is free but that many hours???

I downloaded and decombobulated the Ortho for my area and was not impressed. Sure the underlying “real” scenery was there but living in suburbia (technically Hampton is a “City”…yeah, for about 4 square blocks) there really is not a good fit between the underlying scenery and the autogen stuff. Is Ortho really more for mountains and forests?

Regardless, I came away from my Ortho experience much more inclined to pay ORBX for my XP scenery. Is that a fair attitude or am I “out to lunch”?

Slang Translations:

  • A common nickname for Richard is Dick
  • “Out to lunch” means that you are missing some point …you are not with the group on the issue, ergo you are “out to lunch”.
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I have all the available True Earth regions and I wouldn’t part with them, but… the regions are not cheap, and you need a beefy PC to get the best out of them. Forkboy2’s scenery isn’t at the quality of OrbX, but it is pretty amazing when you consider the price point, plus there is little or no performance hit.

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I don’t think that it’s meant to be better, just less expensive. By the time you buy Orbx and the enhancements to the scenery that you already bought and that for which Orbx will eventually convince you to part with more of your recreational funds, you’ve spent quite a bit for one state, that is essentially free with Orthophoto. That is if you are not on a metered connection and that you tinker with it during your free time. I’m on a Gbps connection, so my downloads will be much quicker. That isn’t to say that I’m not enjoying Orbx Washington. There are definitely some enhancements to some of the default airports, and in general, it looks pretty damn good. But given enough time and determination, I could get pretty close with Forkboy’s Orthophoto and some freeware airports. Is that what you are asking?

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Yes. Exactly what I am asking.

I guess my initial Ortho experience was less than fulfilling. I’m like tinkering around with freeware scenery and stuff…after all I used to be an FSX addict and that was the only way to go. So I tried Ortho for the VA Tidewater area - up the Peninsula a bit. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t great…I didn’t feel it was “worth the powder” as the RN might say.

I fairly frugal with my recreational funds…I have to be, I own a sail boat! I had had good experiences with ORBX in FSX so I trusted them with XP and was not disappointed. Then when this COVID-19 thing hit and ORBX usher out a bunch of sales …and I wasn’t sailing…I filled out most of the ORBX area scenery library. So now…

I guess as I delve into AH and decide on a region to start, if it isn’t covered by ORBX, it might be worth taking another plunge into Ortho.

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I really like this idea. Freight operations through history is fantastically interesting

Wellll…

As for the d/l times, I have to live with a .5 mbps rate. Why I cringe when DCS has a message for me at startup.

I have no clue what the diff between the US Ortho… and ORBX is, in XP. Until this week I’ve barely touched XP. Thought I’d check it out.

However, I agree with you on the photo vs ORBX, from my experience on P3D. It was, to me, the diff between; A) Really good, convincing, scenery, with continuity, vs, B) images of what is, or was at some time, the real deal, but is, well, just the opposite of A.

Always came to the conclusion you need a mix of both, to taste; photo stuff near specific places for instance. Which I think is what ORBX does.

What I like more than I thought I would (in this test) was the higher-res mesh. Not sure I’ve ever used any mesh beyond the default in XP/FSX/P3D.

For this test, and this area, I’d say it’s a plus overall. Worth the time? To me it made this little out of way spot better. See below for some samples. Again, the mesh may help more and I’ve not seen ORBX’s entries for here.

Worked with a guy, early in my military life, named: Head, Richard. Yeah, he got a lot of grief. Brings up other questions though…