The nerve of those guys. We were talking about setting a soft target date for release of our Hawaii scenery and were using the airways, so I guess Google intercepted our Private Messages and let MS know what we were thinking. Next thing you know, they announce their flight sim will be released on August 18th. Yea, I know, it still has lots of holes in it and it is still in Alpha, not even beta yet. That is going to be a busy 5 weeks for them to get their ducks lined up.

Neither of us have a working ICON A5, but ours is designed for VR in a helicopter.

Meanwhile, we are considering taking pre-orders for our freeware, VR certified scenery, designed with helicopter flights in mind, Hawaiian scenery pack.

We all know it is not practical to shoot for August 17th, but, we can probably have Maui County and the Big Island complete by then. Who knows ? ( . . . my grandson always says "the Shadow knows" when I say that)

All this is totally off the wall and in jest.

Who knows they names of the islands in this screenshot?

DANKE - aber habt ihr nicht irgendwie den Rest von Hawai vergessen?!!

Quote from Schnuffelduffel

DANKE - aber habt ihr nicht irgendwie den Rest von Hawai vergessen?!!

THANK YOU - but haven't you somehow forgotten the rest of Hawaii?!!

No. We are only preparing scenery for the 8 major islands. The other 129 small islands, islets, and atolls will not be included because none of those are occupied and naturally none have any sort of airport suitable for flight simulators. Some are up to 1,500 miles from Honolulu.

Just so you know.

For those of you that may be wondering about the other 129 Hawaiian islets, islands, atolls, and rocks, here is the extended map.

Hello everyone, nothing major but a small fix to Hawaiian Islands: Kauai & Niihau

Link: https://flight-sim.org/filebase/index…s-kauai-niihau/

Update: "Kauai_places_v2"
Small Fix: Animation rework, Fixed Runway numbers, Added/Fixed Airport lights.

Update Installation:

There is no need to re-download the complete package. Only download "Kauai_places_v2"

Make sure to delete the previous folder \places from C:\Users\InsertYourUserName\Documents\Aerofly FS 2\addons\scenery\US_HI_kauai\.

Now copy the unpacked places folder to the the above directory.

Example:

Now here is something that you don't see every day.

It could work with a winch launch if the carrier is going fast enough.

Bye, Michael (🍅🚁)

Here is a short article that I found in one of the magazines last last. If it has the words Aloha and Cessna in the title then it is a keeper for me.

aloha - island hopping in a Cessna2.pdf

A morning flight from Maui to Lanai. We have completed planting new trees along the main roads on Lanai. I will make a low pass and see how it looks.

Yesterday, we got our first look at some animated cars on the island of Molokai. Interestingly, I had just finished reading a few travel related stories about short visits or side visits to Molokai. Although promoted as the Friendly Isle, it is in fact the least visited of the main Hawaiian islands even though it sits directly in the middle of the chain. There are several recent articles, primary written by travelers that had their expenses paid to come to Molokai and write favorable reviews. A Smithsonian Magazine article caught my eye, well, a single photo in the article caught my eye. How about a Sikorsky S-43 flying over Molokai in the mid 30s.

Given enough time, I could find this exact spot and make a screenshot of our scenery 90 years later. The S-43 would be a Dash-8 or a Cessna 208 this year. You notice the geography is so severe that it probably has not changed at all since this photo was taken in 1935.

Back to my opening statement. In this article that I had just read, it was explaining how few cars were on the island, and in fact, almost no cars at all - more like pickups and SUVs. The only cars might be a few convertibles that you can rent for about 25% of the going rate on Maui. First, there are practically no improved roads, mostly red dirt and not many and not very long. Even though the island is 38 miles wide or long and 10 miles across, you can't drive on most of it.

Here is the actual paragraph:

On Molokai, there is not a single traffic light, and the only things that might be called traffic are a few pickup trucks waiting for a parking spot along the three-block-long main street of the island’s single sizable town, Kaunakakai, population roughly 3,000. Somewhat more than 7,000 people live on the island—about 0.5 percent of the state of Hawai‘i’s population of 1.4 million. There is just one hotel, and only a handful of restaurants more ambitious than burger shacks, spread over the island’s 38-mile length.

I fired off a message to Jake, about the possibly of using pickups in lieu of cars for Molokai. By yesterday evening, he had scratched his first cut, and replaced the cars with higher grade pickups and SUVs. Neat.

Here is a screenshot taken about 5 minutes ago along the NE coast of the island.

For most Hawaii residents, Molokai is called the “outer island". Yet Molokai isn’t remote. It sits dead center of the main Hawaiian chain, only 25 miles from Oahu, with its population of nearly 1 million, and just 8.5 miles from bustling Maui. On most days it is visible from both, as well as from Lanai, and, on a clear day, even the Big Island of Hawaii.

On most nights, the bright lights of the capital city Honolulu stain Molokai’s sky yellow to the west, while those of Maui’s Kaanapali coast do so to the east. Nor is it especially small: 38 miles long and 10 miles wide at its widest point, it is the fifth largest of Hawaii’s islands. It is nearly twice the size of Lanai, with more than double the population, but shares with it many characteristics, including having long been mostly controlled by outsiders. Nearly 85 percent of Molokai is controlled by seven owners, all but one of them headquartered off-island.

Molokai boasts the longest fringing coral reef and the longest white sand beach in the state, and the tallest sea cliffs in the world. It has all of the things the other islands have that can be turned to profit: well-watered valleys good for traditional Polynesian agriculture, flat land suitable for modern farming, shorelines protected from waves (in the Polynesian period, the south shore sheltered 50 or more fishponds, the largest aquaculture complex in the Pacific), and all the lovely beaches, swaying palms, towering waterfalls, and rainforests to attract tourists.

Even though Molokai may not be developed and may not attract the mainline tourist trade, I suspect it will be very popular with the low and slow pilots in our flight sim. We have three airports on the island and each is as different from the other as Molokai is from the neighboring islands. One with multiple runways, one a single runway and one a very nice grass strip.

Gotta get back to work on the scenery. More later.

Seems like our repainter is too busy to check in for a progress report. Let's all hope he is doing well. Here is a catchy livery that would look good on our B737-500 - a Bluebird Cargo. It seems they are all cargo models. hmm.

Once we release our 2nd Hawaiian Island package you will be able to start your island hopping experiences. The four airports on Kauai can be starting places or destinations from the Maui County islands with four new island opening up with 7 airports. A slight complication is that you will be overflying Oahu, our crown jewel in this Hawaiian Scenery package. I don't know exactly how this is going to look for you, but, for now, that is how this is unfolding.

Hopefully, our 3rd release - the Big Island of Hawaii - will follow close behind the Maui County release and will be able to extend your flight time and destinations yet again. The Big Island has 6 airports and two helipads.

The commercial commuter flights are constantly changing both in the number of flights, the actual aircraft types and the airports on the islands. This Covid-19 pandemic has seriously affected the tourist trade and especially when you will be quarantined for 14 days upon arrival. Most folks can't afford to fly to Hawaii and stay two weeks and fly back home and not have a job to produce some income.

This sudden drop in tourists and the nearly empty flights have created some unlikely mergers and acquisitions in the smaller island hopping businesses. The competitors are being forced to join together to cut their losses and try to keep their airplanes in the air and away from the bankruptcy lawyers.

Some of the larger airports have direct flights originating on the U.S. mainland with destinations bypassing Honolulu, PHNL. So in addition to island hopping you can load up one of our larger airliners and fly direct to Maui or Lihue from Denver, San Francisco, Los Angeles, or any of the military bases in the western U. S.

The passengers are ready for boarding on the small Lanai airport. (Upcoming Part 2)

I wish one of them was me

Hello Again. I got a little sidetracked waiting for the new EC135 helicopter to arrive so this morning I decided I had waited long enough and was going to get back in my normal routine.

We got bogged down a bit with our Maui County trying to figure out the curvature of the earth when trying to keep a boat or ship in the water. We are still scratching our heads, but, some of the team has been pulled away to work their day jobs or their own special projects or summer vacation. Not to worry, they will be coming back to join in the race to the finish line.

We added some astonishing new and previously unseen additions close to the Maui airport and cleaned up a few more things. We are still waiting for the final orthos before packing up and uploading for you. We don't even have a guess at when that will be, but, the orthos are necessary for things to look correct and have the expect Hawaiian colors.

Meanwhile, some of us jumped ahead and started working on the Big Island and this is what I would like to show you today. This is a built from scratch mega hotel resort overlooking a small bay and surrounded by a golf course. This is typical of the West coast of Hawaii. It just goes to show what can be done with a scenic view and a train load of money to attract the tourists with seemingly unlimited money and time to spend on vacation.

This is the Sheraton Kona Resort at Keauhou Bay and the Kona Country Club Golf Course. The blue roofed complex is the Mauna Loa Village. This required a full week of creative work then a few more days and nights to bring it to life. The orthos are temporary just so we could add the proper trees in the exact locations and find the greens and sand traps. Amazing isn't it?

This is located about 12 miles South of the Kona Airport and will be one of those "if you look out your window on the right, you will see . . . ." when starting your letdown for Kona. There is another similar level resort under construction a few miles up the coast that I will show you soon.

I arranged a special Heli platform for you, if arrive with your helicopter

View from the new EC135 helicopter.