Flying adventures: A Flight Simulator Travelog

Today I finally installed my trusty old Saitec X-55 HOTAS set. I originally bought them for Elite Dangerous but I'd not played that title for at least two years. You can tell by the thick coating of dust which I will clean off, now that I know the set works.  I was disappointed that there wasn't a pre-configured profile available, this was a popular set, back in the day. That said, I watched a noted Flight Sim Youtuber, Squiral's Peripheral set up video and it explained a good workflow for getting controls configured -- from within the cockpit, going through configuring and setting the essential stuff first. In fact, they were just too chunky for Leo. He's back to the XBOX 360 controller I've been enjoying flying with an old wired Xbox 360 controller. It's compact, precise and does not clutter your desk up. However, there are some controls, such as the rudder which absolutely need an axis -- that is, you set a degree of rudder input. Where the Xbox controller&#

 Tonight's destination, an iconic tower of rock made famous by 70s UFO science fiction thriller " Close Encounters of the Third Kind ." Yes! It's Devils Tower, in Wyoming.  Project Leader : If everything's ready here on the  Dark Side of the Moon ... Devils Tower   (also known as   Bear Lodge Butte ) is a   butte , possibly   laccolithic , composed of   igneous rock   in the Bear Lodge Ranger District of the   Black Hills , near   Hulett   and   Sundance   in   Crook County , northeastern   Wyoming , above the   Belle Fourche River . It rises 1,267 feet (386 m) above the Belle Fourche River, standing 867 feet (265 m) from the summit ( 1,559 m above sea level)  to its base.  Devils Tower was the first  United States national monument , established on September 24, 1906, by President  Theodore Roosevelt . [9]  The monument's boundary encloses an area of 1,347 acres (545 ha). Spiffing drone footage gets you in close. In Close Encounters of the Third Kind, this g

 This was one of those spur-of-the-moment flights that results in a lot of gawping at the amazing scenery without actually knowing where to go. Down below is the stunning terrain of the Colorado National Monument and the iconic Monument Valley. Only I accidentally flew north east instead west so ended up flying over the incredible ridge, north of the airport. I'd only glanced at a map and missed the fact that the national part/reservation is on the other side of Grand Junction. Route Take off from Grand Junction Regional . Actually know where you're heading - unlike me! I don't tend to fly without some clouds. Clouds give you a second "landscape" to explore. While I didn't actually see Monument Valley, I did learn how to refuel, once I got back to Grand Junction Regional Airport. I'll repeat the flight when I'm better prepared.

 Tonight's flight  took me back to a place I first visited in another video game, Battlefield 3 . Mount Damavand Just over 40 miles north east of Tehran lies Mount Damavand , a dormant volcano that rises above the other peaks of the Alborz range like a king of the mountains. It is well worth a flypast -- flying over it is certainly possible in the bigger, more powerful GA aircraft, although you'll spend longer climbing and descending than you really need to.  Route OINJ Bishe Kola Air Base is a good starting point, setting your destination as OISI Sharifabad Aiport , 80 nautical miles to the south. This route will take you right up to the mountain. Bishe Kola is a military airbase. In real life you'd need to write a very persuasive letter to the Iranian government to get permission to depart from here. I completed the flight in the Cessna 208B Grand Caravan . This was my favourite aircraft for exploration in FSX, it's like an SUV of the air. It's very slightly dihe

  So the 2020 edition of Flight Simulator has been released. It's pretty amazing, and a fun way to explore the world. So, that's what this blog is going to do. It's going to record some of the cool places that I've been to, maybe learning a bit about the place when there's a story to tell. Last night's first flights were spent with the graphics settings accidentally knocked down to medium-low, leaving me with the impression that the sim was having scenery streaming problems. It wasn't and within moments of starting a flight, it was immediately apparent that the muddy textures and fake-looking clouds were all the result of some fat finger action on the settings screen. The first destination is a lonely little airport, located on the western edge of Scotland. This unassuming aeronautical backwater has some interesting history. Campbeltown airport, (Previously, RAF Machrihanish), Scotland Scotland's slightly secret cold war base Flight Simulator looks okay,