The Staff and Crew would like to invite you all to the forthcoming VPC Flight Rally # . This flight will take place on Sunday 10th November 2002 arriving at the destination airport for 20:00 GMT/UTC/ZULU and then into the Pilot Lounge for the usual chat and the virtual burger and beer afterwards

This months destination is to Ayers Rock - Australia - YAYE

Listed below is all the data available to you for this flight.

Altitude - 1624ft
Mag Variation - -4.3deg

MULTICOMM - 120.60Mhz 126.90Mhz 121.85Mhz

Runways available are 31 and 13
Length 8548ft x 98ft Wide

Nav aids available are NDB 233.0 AYE and VOR 117.10 AYE
Both nav aids are 500 and 600 metres respectively East of Rwy 13

Ayers Rock is in the Northern Territory of Australia. In FS2002 I had Ayers Rock in the scenery yesterday, but can't see it today . As far as I'm aware Australia is coming into Summer and we are coming into Winter here in the UK No doubt Andy will put me/us right on this.

Remember folks, fly safe and have an enjoyable flight.

NB.

Please look up this airport and scenery for your particular version of Flight Simulator, Fly etc.
Anyone wishing to can fly online with me as I fly online from departure to destination, just look me up in the Flight Terminal.

Regards,

James (CONman) Anderson
*** The plane in front is a Boeing ***

-= VPC OffLine Reader 2.1 =-
Registered to: James Anderson
-OLR.PL v1.80-

• RE: ANNOUNCEMENT - VPC Flight Rally #10,TD, 20:43z, 10-28-02
• RE: ANNOUNCEMENT - VPC Flight Rally #10 - Uluru,RobertVA, 18:37z, 10-29-02
  • RE: ANNOUNCEMENT - VPC Flight Rally...,James, 22:25z, 10-29-02
• RE: ANNOUNCEMENT - VPC Flight Rally #10,andor, 22:53z, 10-30-02
  • RE: ANNOUNCEMENT - VPC Flight Rally...,Vulcan, 21:16z, 10-31-02
  • RE: ANNOUNCEMENT - VPC Flight Rally...,James, 22:54z, 10-31-02
    • RE: ANNOUNCEMENT - VPC Flight Rally...,andor, 02:41z, 11-02-02
      • RE: ANNOUNCEMENT - VPC Flight Rally...,James, 12:32z, 11-02-02
  • More about Uluru and Mount Olga,RobertVA, 19:52z, 11-04-02
    • RE: More about Uluru and Mount Olga,andrewluck, 19:59z, 11-06-02
      • RE: More about Uluru and Mount Olga,James, 10:53z, 11-07-02
        • RE: More about Uluru and Mount Olga,andrewluck, 20:40z, 11-08-02
• RE: ANNOUNCEMENT - VPC Flight Rally #10,Emile, 07:57z, 11-01-02
• RE: ANNOUNCEMENT - VPC Flight Rally #10,Emile, 07:08z, 11-11-02
  • RE: ANNOUNCEMENT - VPC Flight Rally...,James, 17:56z, 11-11-02

Remember folks, fly safe and have an enjoyable flight.

And who is bringing the dingo repellent? Is Andy bringing the Castlemain?

"TD - Virtual FAA investigators are on line 2, AGAIN!!!"

I did a little testing:

• Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002 Pro While on field surrounding terrain appeared nearly flat and at approximately same level as the field (more on this later). Found the rock 12.5 miles from field on bearing 149. Rock wasn't visable from field, but became visable a couple of miles from the field.

• Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000 Pro With "Goto Airport" did not find AYE. Discovered airport is listed as YAYE. Terrain surrounding field seems to be hundreds of feet higher requiring ground skimming final approach to both ends of runway. Saw no indication of the rock. Even if the rock had been modeled (doubtfull) the terrain is so high it might be "buried". Rock location checked useing GPS range and bearing from FS 2002.

• Microsoft Flight Simulator 98 Couldn't find airport listed useing search by location or either code (AYE or YAYE). Positioned aircraft to Lat/Long position of rock (from MSFS 2002), but could only see flat arrid looking plain. Scenery probably flat synthetic tiles.

• TRI Fly!II Field in a depression resembling the one in MSFS 2000 Pro. Compounding problem an "invisable" slope supports aircraft above runway end when flight set to start at field. After failing to find rock at GPS range and bearing obtained in MSFS 2002 returned to "land", complete with tire smoke, on invisable slope well above runway and descended to visable runway surface during rollout. Note that, while it makes little difference in a nearly flat dessert, Fly!II texture edges are much better concealed than those in Fly! (and Fly!2K) and coastlines outside detailed cities have a much more realistic appearance.

• TRI Fly!(and Fly!2K) Terrain surrounding field nearly level. Flew to location of rock obtained in MSFS 2002 but no rock visable, Note that TRI made no claims of anything other than generic textures over a low resolution mesh outside a limited number of "detailed cities" in either version of Fly!. (exclamation point part of application title)
  

Encarta 2001 Atlas shows Ayer's Rock / Uluru in same area as shown in MSFS 2002.
In simulator position is S 25° 21.42' / E 131° 4.72'

Robert

Near KORF

Hi Robert,

Thanks for your comments and I'm sure a few of the regulars will take note

AYE is the identifiers for both the NDB and the VOR. As you are more than likely aware FS (all versions - I'm sure) have 4 letter airfield ID's

When I first looked at the location I had Ayers Rock in full view (a large rustic coloured blob ) when I looked at it the day after I couldn't locate it. This may have been due to me reading some place about uninstalling and reinstalling FS2002 after changing my graphics card to a Matrox Parhelia.

As I only have FS2002 installed on my system (along with CFS and CFS3) then I'm unable to check as to whether airports selected for the Rallies are listed but I do know that a lot of add on scenery is available to users for most of the world

I did purchase FLY many moons ago but due to the amount of patch's released I soon got bored big style and binned it. Haven't upgraded it since. I wonder if it's in X-Plane

Will have to fire up FS shortly and take a look at the surrounding area again. I'm still tweaking this card as the sea is all Horizontal lines to me which is driving me nuts

Regards,

James (CONman) Anderson
*** The plane in front is a Boeing ***

-= VPC OffLine Reader 2.1 =-
Registered to: James Anderson
-OLR.PL v1.80-

Greetings guys,
"Local Knowledge" info re. YAYE
Time........ Ayers Rock GMT + 9.30 ie ETA 0530 Local.
Season.......Just ending Spring.
Airport......James Details

Ayers Rock...Lat 25*23'S Long 131*05'E Alt.868M 2850'
Surrounding plain approx 1500'. Featureless. Nearest other airport Alice Springs about 190' NE.
I also couldn,t find the Rock James, in FS2k2,should be South of the airport. Don,t get confused with Mt Olga 3500' WSW of the airport.

I,ll bring in some Hawkesbury oysters and East Coast prawns for the barbi. See you in the lounge.
Regards,
Andy

Found the rock in FS2k2

S25 21.46 E131 5.04

-= VPC OffLine Reader 2.1 =-
Registered to: Dave Wild
-OLR.PL v1.80-

Hi Andy,

Thanks for that. Got to get used to bringing in the 747 on a visual as no ILS as such Should be interesting to say the least.

I picked up Ayers Rock again (I think) yesterday:-) about 12 clicks away. Can't recall bearing though as was just messing about.

Hope to see you after the flight or even during it I'll be doing the flight in 2 stages - 1st from EGCC to Singapore or Hong Kong and 2nd stage to Australia. Will be online for the whole flight and using FS Meteo for the weather.

Regards,

James (CONman) Anderson
*** The plane in front is a Boeing ***

-= VPC OffLine Reader 2.1 =-
Registered to: James Anderson
-OLR.PL v1.80-

G,day James.
Yep a bit light on for Nav. Aids around the Rock . Still 0530, there should be a bit of daylight. !!
Found the "Rock" it is 147* dist 14nm from YAYE and quite impressive. In FS2k2 it suddenly pops up at 10miles ( why I didn,t find it before)
I will probably intercept with you from Darwin NT. Look forward to it.
Regards,
Andy.

Hi Andy,

Yep, I found it again after flying around for a while I'm doing Stage 1 in my own time as the flight from EGCC to WSSS is 14 and a half hours. Stage 2 from WSSS to YAYE I'll do online and hopefully from the flight room

Regards,

James (CONman) Anderson
*** The plane in front is a Boeing ***

-= VPC OffLine Reader 2.1 =-
Registered to: James Anderson
-OLR.PL v1.80-

Encarta Atlas 2001 shows Mt Olga at 25° 18.75'S, 130° 45.9'E. At that point the MSFS 2002 GPS shows YAYE is on a bearing of 53° at 13.7nm. I did not see a mountain at that location in MSFS 2002.

MSFS 2002 shows an isolated Mountain at 25° 18.75'S, 130° 42.5'E where the GPS shows YAYE on a bearing of 56° at 16.1nm. That mountain is solid for landings. It is an isolated, but ordinary looking mountain and lacks the domed appearance and red color shown in the encylopedia for the Olga Rocks / Kata Tjuta .

Ayers Rock / Uluru appears to be coded as a building. With crash detection turned off I sank trough attempting to land on top of it. With crash detection turned on, MSFS 2002 complained of a “Building Crash” even when I lowered a helicopter at a very low descent rate. That fomation also lacks the red color of the photos (appears beige to light brown in the sim - full daylight), but appears to be very similar in shape. The photos were viewed on the same monitor with the same resolution and color settings. The encylopedia article described Ayer's rock / Uluru as appearing red in full sunlight and violet in dawn and dusk lighting.

Robert

Near KORF

There's some wierd stuff going on in this area. I checked in Fly!2 and as you say, YAYE is buried in a hillside. Bit strange considering the whole area is a flat plain.

So I downloaded the GTOPO30 file for the area and had a look. Importing the scenery into Fly! results in the airport being in a slight depression (the result of airport flattening). However, I still haven't found the rock. Checking the DEM file in the viewer doesn't really show anything at the LAT / LONG of the rock. I would expect at least a white spot.

I guess it's possible that the rock is just too small to show up on the DEM file. I shall have to investigate a bit further.

Andrew Luck
18 SW EGSH

Hi Andrew,

Sorry I can't help with any Fly related queries but maybe Ray P can jump in here and help?

Regards,

James (CONman) Anderson
*** The plane in front is a Boeing ***

-= VPC OffLine Reader 2.1 =-
Registered to: James Anderson
-OLR.PL v1.80-

James

Not entirely Fly! related, more general scenery stuff.

Did a bit of digging into Digital Elevation Maps. 30 arc seconds is about 1km so you're only sampling the elevation every 1km. Something as small as Ayers Rock doesn't show because the resolution isn't high enough.

There are some much higher resolution maps available but the Australian government likes to charge for them unlike the USGS.

Hopefully, when the latest Shuttle radar map data is processed and available then we'll have accurate, high res maps for most of the world. Late 2004 is the target date for this I believe.

Andrew Luck
18 SW EGSH

Hello guys,
If you want to improve the scenery, I did find
http://www.satpac.org/vatpac/terrain/#Downloads
You can get the NT region and on Flightsim.com i did find the "ayersrk.zip" to get the "rock"

I will try them

Regards
Emile
EBBR Brussels
Belgium

Hello all,
Thanks for this flight. It was quite special, I did join James in his flight, I had James visible on my FS Nav, I had James, Vic and Andor on RW but Vic and Andor never on FS Nav. After the crash of the PC of James I was no more logged in Flight 1 , Vic could see me in FS Nav but never had a visual in FS.....
The multi player link was not perfect ...
The team was perfect
Regards
Emile
EBBR Brussels
Belgium

Hi Emile et al,

My apologies for the problem at the end of the rally. Don't know what was going off but it started with attempting to get Multiplayer working in FSNav! I then had major problems with my connection keeping locking up! I hope you all had a good flight and we may have better luck next time <LOL>.

Due to the lock ups I kept receiving I was unable to get logged in and join the Chat afterwards, again, I apologies.

Regards,

James (CONman) Anderson
*** The plane in front is a Boeing ***

-= VPC OffLine Reader 2.1 =-
Registered to: James Anderson
-OLR.PL v1.80-