Simviation Forums

Hey guys,

I'd like to know where you test your planes after downloading them or just test your skills?

Do you have a test site in the desert, where the FlightSim doesn't load unnecessary scenery objects or do you use an usual airport?

Conan

I usually use Seattle because it is the default airport.

I commandeered LIBA out of the italian army's hands and took it for my own. Upgraded it with a personal AFCAD (designed to mirror the real LIBA thanks to Google Earth) and use it every time a new plane needs intensive testing.

I always use Manston (Kent UK.) It was once an RAF base and has a nice long concrete runway just in case

Zaph0d.

RAF Leuchars, usually.

The only test center WORTH being called a Test Center.

Edwards Air Force Base (KEDW)!

Plenty of runway, plenty of room to rip a 747's wings off Test your aircraft  ;)

Plus... It's the desert... You can do whatever the heck you want and no one can do a thing  ;D Mach 3.3 in an SR-71, 30 feet off the ground? Go ahead!  :D

If it was a smaller aircraft, any GA airport will usually work. If it was a military jet, usually an AFB

usually i either use midway islands(KMDY) or my EA Base(KEAB). both are near large bodies of water where i can go and test high speed aircraft.

...mostly in the sky... ...!

Paul... 8-)

In my world of FlightSim, I use the Detachment 3 (or Area 51) for my own.

The scenery is here: http://www.simviation.com/fs2004scenery93.htm

When I download a plane, it often happens that I'll test it there.


(more details to this pic in "What landing procedure do you prefer or love most?").

For smaller planes/helicopters/GA/warbirds I tend to use Milford Sound in NZ! Totally brilliant even as standard 8-)

Upington, SA! (I think its FAUP....)

Great little (big) airstrip, with the longest runway in South Africa, or maybe Africa itself...  ::)

Schiphol Amsterdam, it has a lot of runways in every direction, so you can land and take of wherever you want.

I do my testing either at Edinburgh (handy for home), Boscombe Down where I worked in the 50s, or Edwards AFB where I worked in the 60s.  Having religiously tested some 200+ WWII aircraft, I have to wonder whether the end result is worth the effort.      The basic MS flight dynamics engine is flawed in many respects, it is almost impossible to get accurate data on fuel loads and disposition, ammunition loads and disposition, and critical altitudes.     Accordingly, any basic test programme starts off with an awful lot of assumed, rather than factual, values.      Take a number of the data sites on the net and check the data for any given aircraft.     Very seldom will there be agreement.     So,unless you have access to Janes for the aircraft in question, you're starting your test programme off with a page full of uncertainties.      If it's one of Kazunori Ito's aeroplanes, you can't even be sure whether it's a piston or a jet!      I still fiddle about with the .air files more out of habit than anything else but, if you really want to do accurate test work, you're going to need a new flight dynamics engine AND more data than you can believe, data which it is almost impossible to accumulate today.       I now do my best with the test process but, at the end of the day, Microsoft Flight Simulator is just that - a simulator!     So, if testing is your thing, give it your best shot and then, even if it's performance doesn't entirely match the specifications, just go ahead and enjoy flying the thing.      

I test my GA stickshifties around my home airport, LIPU. Small, default, no addon scenery, almost no traffic, frame rates are happy.  ;)