OAHU for AFS2 in development - Share our excitement!

  • This morning I started my first flight directly over the lookout at Waimea Canyon at 6,000 feet. This is one of the most scenic spots on the islands when viewed from a single-seat sailplane. Looking west the large cluster of big white dome stand out with the deep blue water background. This is the Navy's Makaha Ridge Tracking Satellite station. There are other groups of satellite antennas on the island but this is the largest.

    (web photo)

    Otherwise, you can almost see the waters edge all the way around Kauai, but not quite. At places the bright white foam and the emerald colored shallow water along the beach stand out as the waves break on the shore. But, mostly you see the dark green flora and red or orange earth exposed in the canyon walls.

    It seems you could say up here all day long but the flight sim is not known for thermal activity. My choice of sailplane today is the excellent Schleicher ASG-29. The -29 really is at the upper end of the performance scale with a maximum glide ratio greater than 50. The instrumentation in the IPACS model is not one of the better layouts with the primary or center instrument covered up with a huge sticker. What could have been there would be an oversized airspeed indicator that is popular in many of these models or better yet, a GPS unit with map display.

    Not a big deal for me though, I have the fsWidget's GMap HD add on with all the maps and charts handy for every flight.

    With no suitable landing area this high up the mountain I slowly drifted to the Southwest toward the neighboring island of Niihau, the forbidden, and privately owned island.

    As I approached Barking Sands Missile Range, I was especially alert for any light signals pointed in my direction or god forbid any wisps of black telltale smoke from the afterburners of an interceptor on its way to check me out. Nope, just your normal Tuesday morning in beautiful Hawaii.

    I still had more than 2,000 feet of altitude as I slowly curved around the control tower with those extra long and slender wings. A friendly wave from the lady in the tower gave me a good feeling that all was well from their view.

    Seeing the Guided Missile Frigate, USS Scott, slowly making its way north just offshore in the calm blue water immediately brought me back to simulated reality. I made a large sweeping turn to the south so I could fly over the Scott at about 1,500 feet. There must have been two dozen sets of eyeball staring directly at me, mostly in wonder of what the heck I thought I was doing. Several of those eyeballs were looking through binoculars. Those big diameter ones that they use for, well, whatever they use them for.

    I completed my turn back to the north with the intention of landing along side the big runway 16/34 black runway, but, I just floated and floated and floated some more until I was back almost in front of the control tower. There just happens to be a large patch of smooth grass right there waiting for me to place the one wheel firmly on the ground and hit the spoiler key. I made a greaser landing, came to a quick stop and the plane made a half turn so I was back looking in the direction of our friendly ATC lady.

    I was too far away to actually see her in the tower, but no doubt she also has a set of those huge navy binoculars. Before I got the canopy open I could see two security Humvees splashing water and headed straight for me. I was smart enough to stay seated in the cockpit and wait for their arrival.

    I actually didn't expect to hear, "Welcome to Barking Sands, Sir, our Commander is about to have breakfast and asked that you join him. Our Guard Dog, Enduring Freedom, will stand guard on your aircraft."

    Wow. I really don't know how many Navy bases have Kona Coffee, but this one does and it is outstanding. I didn't remember that folks ate poached eggs anymore. Oh well.

    I'm off to another busy day of helping the team get this ready for you folks.

  • Hey, just in case you are wondering if the "copilot" will fly a single-place sailplane, the answer is yes, and quite well in fact. The coPilot feature locks on to the best glide speed, in this case 62 knots and holds it, and I mean holds it - no deviation. You can really stay up a lot longer than when us humans wander up and down and around while trying to hold the best glide speed. This also give you a lot more freedom to look around and take in the scenery. 8o

  • The background hum is at a much higher level this morning. There is talk about how soon we can get it all together to release to you users.

    We made tremendous progress in the last 24 hours. During some final testing multiple VR users comparing performance rates around the island isolated 3 FPS killers and all have now been replaced with performance friendly versions.


    We have tested an ingenious user friendly method of controlling how much or how many animations we can stuff into the box before everything grinds to a halt. The user can select None or All with 25% and 50% choices. This is all accomplished with one click prior to starting the sim.


    So those users with marginal PC Systems or older graphic cards or minimum memory can still enjoy the scenery, with less pizazz and motion than those with higher end systems.


    The VR users are in for the treat of their life.


    We received a huge shipment of high end static gliders and sailplanes from around the world. These do not have any country markings or national flags as we requested.

    Dillingham airport, known as the Glider Capital of Hawaii now has a full complement on the ramps. An unexpected bonus is that Princeville on Kauai now has sailplanes.

    Keep checking in, we are moving at warp speed to complete this first release.



  • The airways are humming with those pesky last minute details. but, when we are down to the speed of the cars on the highways and what is the proper speed of a golf cart you know we are getting close.

    Rumor has it that the last batch of updates are onboard this morning flight but will most like just miss the connecting flight to Germany this afternoon.

    I did see a flash message that the VR testing is complete and passed with flying colors. Everyone is getting excited. One last round of checking all the helipads for proper elevations is currently in work. It is getting close.

  • We have tested an ingenious user friendly method of controlling how much or how many animations we can stuff into the box before everything grinds to a halt. The user can select None or All with 25% and 50% choices. This is all accomplished with one click prior to starting the sim.

    That's a great option....Thanks! :)

    Regards,

    Peter Splinter

    i5-7400@3,4 GHz, 16GB RAM, GTX 1660 Super, Pico 4, Quest 2 , 'Vintage' Pro Flight Trainer, X52 Pro, VKB pedals

  • Tomorrow, tomorrow.....Well, maybe later. ;)

    We have close to Hawaiian temperatures these days in Holland so it would be a good time to simulate Hawaii in VR. :)

    Regards,

    Peter Splinter

    i5-7400@3,4 GHz, 16GB RAM, GTX 1660 Super, Pico 4, Quest 2 , 'Vintage' Pro Flight Trainer, X52 Pro, VKB pedals

    Edited once, last by PjotR22 (June 24, 2020 at 9:11 PM).

  • We are a lot closer to release than we were yesterday. Overnight and right now as I write this, a select small group of beta team members are downloading getting their first look. Depending on the time zones. We have already received good positive feedback to improve the file structure.

    More news to come shortly.

  • The developers of this scenery do an absolutly fantastic job. But I have one question: The colours are - for my opinion - quite dark, cold and grey. Would it be possible to get the colours more warm and bright? Not so much as the scenery switzerland, but a little bit in this direction? :/

    Windows 10 Pro 64-Bit-Version, Intel Core i7 3770, 3,4 GHz, 16 GB RAM, NVIDIA Geforce 1050 ti

  • Kinda quite for mid-morning. I guess the guys are all flying their beta copies. I was making a low and slow flight counter-clockwise (just to be different) around Kauai a few minutes ago and I caught a glimpse of movement. Our reaction time is going to need some work when we start seeing other aircraft in the air with us.

    Yep, a long winged sailplane hugging the hillside. I did a quick turn and got a distance camera shot just as he was entering one of the many valleys. I was not able to identify him, but, based on what little tail paint I saw, he is not our default ASG-29. Interesting.

    Notice the new Tecnam P2008 repaint from Sylvain?

  • The developers of this scenery do an absolutly fantastic job. But I have one question: The colours are - for my opinion - quite dark, cold and grey. Would it be possible to get the colours more warm and bright? Not so much as the scenery switzerland, but a little bit in this direction? :/

    This is something that can be considered once the scenery is actually on your pc. Every screenshot you have seen is a WIP and could have been from any one of the teams PC setup. It is hard to work on something that is moving everyday.

    I do notice the real world weather in Hawaii seems to be "warm and bright" most all the time. 8o

  • The developers of this scenery do an absolutly fantastic job. But I have one question: The colours are - for my opinion - quite dark, cold and grey. Would it be possible to get the colours more warm and bright? Not so much as the scenery switzerland, but a little bit in this direction? :/

    That has already been discussed internally and we will look to make things a little more vibrant for the final release. The colours currently are true to the source material and we need to balance any adjustments made across the full scenery to avoid clipping waves or white objects for example or over saturating certain colours due to the inconsistencies of the sources.

    The alternative to this would be to selectively edit all imagery for each zoom level which would be many, many more hours of work for 6,500 square miles. ;)

  • I was basically killing time waiting for some beta reports and I saw this green pasture, they call it a meadow in Hawaii, and the Cub just wanted to go down and take a look. Well, it is one of the better unimproved landing strips we have used so down we go. The only sign I saw was kanaloahuluhulu. That is easier to pronounce than spell. Kana loa, hulu hulu

    As soon as I opened a window a rooster jumped into the back seat. I chased him around until I was exhausted. I am now in the air headed back to Princeville with this crazy rooster in the back seat. I have no idea what I am going to do with him or how to explain where he came from.

    We gotta get this scenery complete and outta here. I am going nuts.