Oodi Sibeliuksen maalle!

joaopaz

The title means "An Ode to the land of Sibelius" and is, of course, a reference to the awesome thread by Dedl. I discovered it yesterday and it was like opening Pandora's Box.

Dedl's screenshots, flights, aircraft, and scenery represent the best of FS2004 and, on top of that, it has Finnland as its subject.

So, I'm going to read Dedl's thread and fly it, as well

Finland/Suomi became one of my major interests about a year ago when I started learning the language. I have a good friend in Finland and when I told him I was learning Suomi he was very happy ... and never again wrote me a line in English . As I am following Dedl's flight plan I will visit my friend in Hämeenlinna on my way to Tampere.

Today was mostly about installing the sceneries from FSNordic.net.

The aircraft, I bought yesterday Yep, we can still buy FS9 aircraft in 2022! It's Carenado's Piper Seneca II.

Carenado's work was really ahead of its time. The VCs are absolutely amazing as is the whole plane. Sometimes their FDs may need some tweaking, but the Seneca II flew great right from the hangar. I also have Carenado's Piper Arrow 28RT and the Cessna 185 and they're all amazing. as for the Piper, I will end up using it for sure, as it's better than the Seneca for sightseeing as it does not have two big engines on the wings!

So, here are the screenshots from today's flight: Lappeeranta EFLP to Joensuu EFJO (Dedl, I couldn't find EFLP's scenery... can you tell me more about it?)

Cruise speed was assigned to 11000 but ATC granted me 5000 and it all went well until the ILS on EFJO rwy 28.

Apologies, for the (too) many screenshots!

Ministry of Truth

I flew a few Senecas in the real world and ended up with the FSD and Carenado versions in the simulator. Even made my own repaint for the FSD, as G-MATT, which was unallocated by the UK authorities at the time, to my surprise. It's a play on the Matthew Ministry persona I sometimes adopt, which is in turn the reason for Ministry of Truth! Which is a kind of nod to Orwell's 1984, a bit dark and sinister and nothing to do with the truth, as all these ministries tend to be!

Everything joins up in the end, you end up with a map of chaos.

There are bits of both Senecas that I really enjoy, but the Carenado Seneca pushed me to buy several other models in the Carenado hangar. I like the Arrow, and the Dakota (which reminds me greatly of my early training, when in my teens).

I have a third Seneca as well, a Seneca I (I think) that came with the Just Flight "Flying Club", which I bought for the really lovely scenery for Shoreham - where I've done a fair amount of flying mainly in the 1980s. I don't fly it as much, but it has its own character and isn't retired from my "fleet".

Back on topic, the Carenado fleet is very impressive, especially when the FDE aspects are correct, and it would have been wonderful to have some of their latest creations available for FS2004. I think the biggest thing I have here is their Beech C90B. When I get a day to play with I might try to get my RXP weather radar in there somewhere.

Dedl

Terve João,

glad you like my article. I remember having great fun while making it.

The Vasa and Lapeenranta sceneries are way back from FS2002 and where on FS Nordic before the lift of the homepage. Now they are gone but - of course - I still have them on my harddisk. I remember that I did some texture work with Lapeenranta and I will send you the sceneries when I get home next week.

Best greetings

Dedl

joaopaz

@Matthew,

Must read the Orwell novel again... I believe I probably read it right in '84 and one other time a few years later. And the movie; watched it a couple of times - that's a really impressive work. And "really" is becoming more and more the keyword.

As for the Seneca, which one do you prefer? FSD, Carenado? Judging from the screenshots the exterior model seems to be prettier in Carenado... but which one do you think flies "best"?

Carenado's VCs are immersive - although I wish their 185 would be a little more complete. I just noticed they also have a "bush" 185 and probably will get that one, too. For my Alaska flights, a 185 is (like in a real bush pilot's life) an invaluable machine. Carenado's bush version comes with wheel skis and tundra tires... mmm. I'll have to check that VC again!

joaopaz

Zitat von Dedl

Terve João,
glad you like my article. I remember having great fun while making it.
The Vasa and Lapeenranta sceneries are way back from FS2002 and where on FS Nordic before the lift of the homepage. Now they are gone but - of course - I still have them on my harddisk. I remember that I did some texture work with Lapeenranta and I will send you the sceneries when I get home next week.
Best greetings
Dedl

Huomenta, Dedl

I'm enjoying you thread very much, yes! And it will be cool to revisit those places in my sim afterwards.

Thank you very much for the EFLP scenery. I looked for it online but the closest thing was for FSX and it didn't look half as good as yours.

Also, a lot of great aircraft tips on your thread: that Caravelle is already on my hard drive

Have a great week!

Joao

Ministry of Truth

I think the models all have different virtues. The FSD flies nicely (its a Seneca V), but since I tried a repaint, the mapping over the engines was very difficult, especially as you see them quite closely when in VC mode, as I usually am. The instrumentation and systems are more complex as well, which I like. I'm not interested in detailed systems monitoring in anything larger than I have flown in real life, which is why things like PMDG leaves me uninterested unless it's a Beech 1900D. The Carenado instrumentation is perfectly fine, but I feel a need to update it to use RealityXP WAAS instruments, and perhaps create parallel versions of the VC instrumentation. It's too big a project for me to contemplate presently.

But I really enjoy flying the Carenado model and, you're right, the external visual model is lovely.

There are elements of the FSD that are a bit clunky in VC mode, where you get to see things quite closely. I did send them some comments a long time ago, with no response. If you have an angular rendering of what is supposed to be a smoother surface, you can get away with it provided it's not right in front of the pilot all the time. The FSD had a little of that.

I've been flying the ESDG Beechjet 400 for a couple years and have all but forgotten what the Senecas were like!

I also repainted a Carenado Seneca to a retro cream color scheme, G-OYDD, and that was far easier to do and looked nice from inside in VC mode.

joaopaz

Yesterday I was checking my FSD's Cessna 337.

Yes, the model is not in the same league, visually, as the Carenado - but the VC has some nice touches to it. The gauges look very cool and smooth and are a welcome difference from most others.

Will probably check the Seneca, too.

Right now, for me, the VC is the most important part of a release (that and the FDs, of course). Using ActiveCamera I set up my favorite views so I can change quickly between them: Usually some 4 views as a panorama and the remaining closing up on the various panel instrumentation areas. Last year I was using two keyboards so I could assign multiple key presses to a single key and that made it really easy to move around the cockpit, with having to press shift or ctrl.... and without having to reasing the whole keys in FS. Must install that again next weekend

Ministry of Truth

In VC mode I just use the "hat control" to pan around the field of view. If I quickly need to get centered again - maybe ATC has given me an altitude or heading to set when on AP - the spacebar does that. None of these are special assignments that I made. I think these settings are default. I would use the hat control less if I didn't have the spacebar allowing me to look straight ahead quickly.

I also tend to use a fairly wide zoom setting to get a better impression of being in the aircraft. In the Beechjet 400 it will be about 50% zoom, and in helicopters it's likely to be 25-30% zoom because that makes landing far easier to do. I took quite a few helicopter lessons about 3 years ago and found I was looking at manoeuvering very differently because for me it felt quite critical to be aware of even small amounts of drift - so I was trying to see "everything" all of the time. The only way to get that feeling in the sim is to use very wide-angle zoom settings. It also improves my frame rates, since the AI is effectively "further away" visually.

I got the same impression about the quality of the gauges as you have. I can't really put my finger on what it is, but there's a certain smooth quality about them that appeals to me.

joaopaz

Leg #2- Joensuu EFJO to Kuopio EFKU

The Piper Seneca remains at Joensuu for maintenance!

So this time I took an old favorite of mine, the Pilatus PC-12 - though I will have to relearn to properly fly these birds, as I've been flying, almost exclusively, the Cessna 185.

So a Turboprop this time! Pilatus, the company claim that this is "The World's Greatest Single". That's a huge claim but I can understand that. This is like the marriage of a small carrier with a bush plane!

This particular model confirms the reason why I bought (and left the Seneca back) - it flies amazingly. FD's belong to Jerry Beckwith, the guy behind AirWrench (which followed an incredible spreadsheet that basically did the same thing, I wish I still had that).

The weather was nice, and this was just a short hop. I need a loner flight, now, to get more familiar with the whole systems.

Here are the screenshots to prove it

joaopaz

Cool photo, huh?

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