Phantoms Phorever!
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OK…that’s probably technically true…but if you think about it, there is really no such thing as “the wrong jet”. 
It’s only wrong if someone shows up to kick you out.
If they bring you the paperwork to sign for this jet, you’re good!
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By the way - I’m sure some of you already know this…but for the ORBX TrueEarth scenery packages, it does offer the ability to toggle the X-Plane road textures on/off in a similar fashion to what @Gunnyhighway was talking about doing with the Ortho4XP tiles. I think it does make the scenery look a bit better with the roads OFF (you still get the cars driving on the road “network”) but obviously the roads are not real high resolution…so like all ortho, it tends to break down in realism as you get very, very low to it.
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This is actually just over the border of the South California package and is in the North California package…Mammoth Lakes area…
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Out of Stovepipe Wells (L09) on a climbout to the south through Death Valley. I have great memories of this area. I’ve twice attempted to hike to the top of 11,048’ high Telescope Peak from the floor of Death Valley (Shorty’s Well at -262 MSL…below sea level). My wife often mentions this as her most hated hike (we didn’t make it to the top). I came back out again a couple years later and tried it solo. On my ride to the “trailhead” at Shorty’s Well, I blew a tire on a backroad in Death Valley on my rental Jeep. There are few places less advisable to blow a tire than in the middle of a dirt road, off the main track, in Death Valley in the late summer. LOL… Anyway, that put me out of my frame of mind, and I gave up the next day after not even getting as far as my wife and I did. It is still on my bucket list though. (Mudspike meet-up??)
The ridge directly under the belly is where we ended up throwing in the towel. Telescope Peak is the second rise from the left in the pic…
We walked all the way from the valley floor down in Death Valley up this swash (Hanaupah Canyon). Camped, then ascended the ridge under the nose…Death Valley is…well, kind of hot.
Crossing the summit ridge…
But I hit a $400 slot at the airport on my second aborted trip. Paid for the tire and Jeep rental…
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That’s the Malbec talking. @Chipwich would probably want to bike it though. Some ridiculous Death Valley challenge to Las Vegas…
Panamint Springs up there at the north end of this valley…to the west, entering into the valley is Star Wars canyon…site for the photography bugs. I’ve driven the road between Vegas/Death Valley and Lone Pine a half a dozen times and several times been buzzed by F-16s and F-18s…always cool to see them rocketing down that valley. Might be where the filmed some of that Top Gun 2 low altitude footage…
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Ok so we need to do the VATSIM meet up in So Cal?
- No, we can do it up at Washington State…I was talking about a real meet up. Where we secretly put the beers that @chipwhich brings into @Navynuke99’s pack and make him huck it all the way to summit of Telescope Peak…whereupon, after reaching the summit, we drink them all and celebrate his excellent hauling skills!
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Haha. Did you have ortho for California before? How does the True Earth compare? Looks pretty great.
Yeah…I had Forkboy’s Ortho for California and it is very good. The other good thing that ORBX does is they do clean up some of the airports and make them a bit more “good” looking. X-Plane is also sort of doing this by default with their WED editor. I think people can go update airports using the Lego Brick method of using default X-Plane scenery, and upload it to X-Plane or the WED editor or something, so slowly the world is getting populated by more custom created 3D airports. WED only accepts ones that are built with default X-Plane objects though, so even though there may be custom placement, they aren’t really custom objects.
ORBX sceneries do have a lot of attention to object placements…both points of interest and some medium sized airports. So it is sorta nice…
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I’m using Forkboy also, I think the resolution is pretty good, obviously missing the custom buildings and object placement. I like it overall. Just trying to weigh the cost benefits or getting the HD Orbx California (North and South) to replace.
Thats Qualcomm in Forkboy. You can see how jacked up the object/tree placement is. I’m using the transparant roads which look great, but you definitely see some weird stuff when down real low.
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The South England Demo seems to have about the same resolution as Forkboy, but the object placement makes a huge difference. Also my road mod didn’t work on this tile, I guess you have to use their option. Having been tainted by it, I now think the default roads stick out like a sore thumb.
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Yeah…if I were more motivated I would do some side-by-side comparisons by loading and unloading the Forkboy ortho and the Orbx ortho…but I just rebuilt my X-Plane install after moving it to Steam and I’m afraid I’ll screw something up…haha…
Came out of a little private strip, Loma Madera, that didn’t have good runway contouring…banged my front prop just prior to rotation, it killed the engine. Fortunately I had enough power with the rear engine of the 337 to get airborne… That might not be the best Airhauler plane for rough fields. At max weight that could have gotten me into a lot of trouble.
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That is a pretty nifty site:
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Finally, it was out of order for some time.
If I understand it correctly, the Gateway project is a brilliant move on the part of LR. They’re literally farming out their work to the customer base to update and improve airfields… for free.
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I’ve wondered if I should delete my gateway scenery after they have been included in the base game. Probably save a few Gbs.
Anyone that has HD So Cal, how is Catalina Island and San Clemente Island? Couple of my favorite spots to fly out to.