FSX and belly landings...

Turned out I wasn't 100% correct about FSX and how it handles belly landings. Basically I discovered that any aircraft can perform belly landings, it is just a matter of how it has been configured. An aircraft has a list of so-called "contact points" and depending on how those contact points are chosen, you can have belly landings or not. I have spent a few time discussing this issue in the flightsim.com forum here, so if you want to know more details, you can have a look.

Bottom line: belly landings are always possible, you may have to change something in the aircraft.cfg file, but you can achieve the result.

This is going to be interesting, as it adds realism. I have already checked the aircrafts that I may use for the tour, and belly landings are possible (not with the Rutan, as the landing gear does not retract).

The aircraft: option#3

Another one: it looks like the default fsx Beechcraft Baron 58, and indeed it is a cousin (or a stronger brother). This is the Baron 58 TC (TurboCharged), therefore it is faster (220 knots approx.). Incredibly easy to land, it handles very well and it reacts fast when speed is needed: it is equipped with cowl flaps that need to be managed, alongside with mixture and rpm, this is kind of "old school" aircraft.

This model is freeware and can be found at the flightsim archive (but I believe also elsewhere, there are several Baron 58TC versions floating around).

Steam gauges all the way for this aircraft. A GPS is available (kind of "add-on" it is not integrated in the virtual cockpit). Info about the Baron 58 here.

The aircraft: option#2

Another candidate: this is the Diamond DA-42 Twin Star, a payware aircraft made by IRIS Simulations. It is a "glass cockpit" aircraft, meaning it uses two GPS1000 panels with integrated avionics. It is nice, it handles very well (but the flight dynamic is not 100% correct, IRIS has already issued a first patch for it), good endurance and a top speed around 220 knots, so faster than the Rutan.

The Twin Star has two related Turbo-Diesel engines with a distinctive feel, the aircraft gain speed a bit slowly sometimes.

Two engines, beautiful lines, winglets: integrated avionics, most probably it is the aircraft of choice! As usual, more information about this on wiki.

In-Flight Failures...

I spent some time checking the various options, and at the end, the in-flight failures of FSX seem the best choice. There are a number of sections (instruments, systems, radios, engines, ...) and each section has a list of possible elements that can fail.

As I would like to have random failure, both in terms of when something will fail and what will fail, I have found a simple way to achieve it:

• choose the "random" option for each section in which I want one or more failure

• I choose how many element I want to possibly fail (usually no more than 1 or 2)

• I choose a time interval in which the failure will occur. Note that I said "will" meaning that something is bound to happen within that interval. However, By choosing a time interval which is higher than the flight duration, one can choose the % of failure. To make an example, with a 2 hours flight and a 4 hours interval I have a 50% (2/4) probability that something will go bad

The duration of the failure is random. That's also fun.

Of course, an engine failure or a fuel leak (both failures are possible) is a serious issue when flying for example over mountains or over the sea. That means I should take this in account when choosing the aircraft to use for this tour: most probably, a two engines aircraft is safer!

The aircraft: option#1

This is a possible candidate... The Rutan Long-EZ. It is a home-built aircraft, designed by Burt Rutan (the guy who designed the SpaceShip for Virgin Airlines). Fast, sleek, easy to fly and with a long endurance, it is one of the few GA aircraft equipped with an airbrake and the reason is quite simple: on final the aircraft shape is so clean than prevents airspeed from bleeding quickly enough, so you can deploy the airbrake and slow down faster.

Despite having a single engine, it can reach 180 knots, which is not bad at all. It is even capable to perform some simple aerobatic maneuvers, is ILS capable and can fly in cold weather (it has a carburator heater),

However, having only an engine means that if it stops for any reason whatsover, you have to land quickly: for long flights over-the-water or when crossing mountains this can be a problem, also it is difficult to land and take-off in cross-wind (the limit is 12-15 knots).

The model shown in the picture above is the payware Rutan Long-EZ produced by Alphasim. If you want to know more about the history of this amazing aircraft, you can look here.

Ground Rules...

When you start a Tour (or more in general, when you fly with FSX) you have to think which realism settings and how you want to structure your flight. so here they are:

• During the Tour, always fly with maximum realism (aircraft systems, collisions, fuel management, real-time weather etc

• Landing and Take-Off: allowed in every possible place providing (with collision detection enabled)

• Refuel: allowed in airports or, after an emergency landing, if there is a town/city nearby (within walking distance)

• Repair: allowed in airports or, after an emergency landing, if there is a town/city nearby (within walking distance)

• If the aircraft is damaged: well, this is quite tricky. FSX has a collision detection system, however is is rudimental. If you do a belly landing (without gears) all you get from FSX is a "Crash!" message. In real life a belly landing is possible. Same goes if you clip a branch of a tree with your wing: depending on the speed, the wing structure and the size of the branch, you can either scratch something, or end up crashing in the tree. From FSX point of view, it is always a "Crash!". At the end, one has to apply common judgement, so in case of an FSX "Crash!" I will consider the extent of the damage and decide on the spot whether it would be realistic to continue the Tour or call it off. I have no other option in mind!

With those rules, the main issues are the weather and fuel management in general, and how to handle the unexpected (random aircraft failures), more on this later...

Intro

My goal is to make a RTW (Round-The-World) tour using Microsoft Flight Simulator X as simulation program, coupled with TileProxy. I can hardly claim to be the first one who has decided to make a tour with FSX, however I am not sure there are many people who tried it with TileProxy.

There are quite a number of things I need to sort out before starting the tour: ground-rules, aircraft of choice, route, which FSX add-ons (sceneries, tools, gauges, external applications) will be integrated. I have only a preliminary list of key elements:

• Rex/Rex2 for the weather. Rex is a wonderful application that handles all the weather changes, it is payware but well worth the price. Read here for more details

• GA Traffic for additional General Aviation (that is, GA) Traffic in FSX. GA aircrafts are usually small propeller aircrafts such as Cessnas, Pipers, Diamond and so on. As my tour will be low-altitude, VFR, with take-off and landings from small to medium airports, GA Traffic can help a lot in creating additional aircrafts flying. The good thing about GA is that it works with any GA aircraft and you can configure it in such a way to choose even which aircrafts you would like to see most often. It is freeware, sadly not anymore supported by its author and can be found here.

• TileProxy will take care of the scenery. It is a very interesting application that downloads in real-time satellite imagery of the ground and convert the images (typically jpeg files) in "tiles" suitable to be used by FSX. TileProxy runs in parallel with FSX and replace the standard images of the ground with photorealistic ones. As TileProxy depends on the satellite images to generate tiles, the result is not always good. There are many places on Earth whose satellite coverage is extremely poor (in terms of image resolutions). The images are downloaded by image providers such as Yahoo Maps or Microsoft, and are basically the same images you see when you want to see a certain location. TileProxy could also download images from Google Maps, however Google does not accept this, so the only available images at this time providers are the ones mentioned before. Depending on the location, an image provider may have better imagery and roughly speaking Yahoo Maps has good US imagery whereas Microsoft has better coverage for Europe. Also, TileProxy is quite resource-intentive (CPU, HD and RAM) so you need a powerful pc to run FSX and TileProxy in parallel. Last but not least, if you fly faster than 200 knots, TileProxy can't generate tiles quickly enough. TileProxy is freeware, requires a bit of work for setup and tuning and if you are interested, the best thing you can do is read this guide to begin with.
  

• Failures/Emergencies: I would like to experiment some "unexpected" problem while I am flying... This should add some spice to the tour. A failure can be anything ranging from an instrument failure (e.g. the GPS stops working), a mechanical one (rudders, elevators, flaps, engine...) or something else, such as a bird strike. FSX itself has a built-in failure system, and there are also third-party applications that can feed such events. I fly routinely with FS Passenger X, an airline simulation program and it has a nice set of in-flight emergencies. More on this later...

Well, this is enough for the first post. There will be several posts about the preparation and most probably the next one will be about the aircraft to use for the tour.