Simviation Forums

Heys Guys, I just did a flight in a Piper Cub from Seattle-Tacoma to Whidbey NAS I with a TNG at Snohomish Co airport (KPAE, AKA Paine Tower). I was about eight miles south of KPAE with instructions to make a straight in TNG on runway 34L when I began to notice some "black lines" in the air. They seemed to be aircraft in a pattern at first, but then, as I got closer, I realized they are not labeled as AI aircraft and that they weren't flying a pattern anymore, but seemed to be soaring., kind of like, vultures, buzzards, hawks and eagles do. At the 3 mile final, I began to experience some really bad turbulence and began to see the broad wingspans turning and hovering and soaring along. Back in the cockpit, I found myself hovering and soaring also. I shut the throttle down completely, which I usually don't do in the Cub, but winds and turbulence dictated such action. I had a hard time getting the Cub down for the TNG, so I did what any stupid pilot would do. I pitched the stick forward to force a nose dive, so I could complete my TNG

Those birds appear when you choose the "natural" visualization for thermals. They are simply AI birds that soar, in order to show you in a realistic way where the thermals are, so that you can find them when you are in your glider.

In real life, paraglider pilots seek for those birds to find a thermal, and sometimes they are lucky enough to fly very close to them

Aahhh... very, very interesting. It makes perfect sense, and I do have the natural viz checked. I didn't realize that I would be in for such a treat! That is very cool... nature's way of letting one know what's in store in the winds aloft in a certain area. Thanx for the knowledge, I appreciate you clearing that up for me.   8-) Semper Fi, Dave

Apparently that takes settings my computer is not capable of because I've never seen that. For me the only way of seeing thermals is to use the schematic setting. What are your settings, Mothball?

Those birds appear when you choose the "natural" visualization for thermals. They are simply AI birds that soar, in order to show you in a realistic way where the thermals are, so that you can find them when you are in your glider.

I think this is amazing,!!! I'll set this option to see 8-)


EDIT; :-/ No Birdies yet at 2:25 am (set in "day") still flying in every airport..

Need to find the right weather that supports Thermals. For example:   try the soaring missions lol  ;)

it was the highlight of my very limited flying experience to be in the same thermal as a wedge tailed eagle when I was on a Glider course at Bathurst in Australia many years ago.    The Eagle was very close to us and very quickly 'out-thermaled' us , as if to prove a point that he/she/it could do it better than us.  I was with an instructor at the time and in a 'Pucarz', which i think means 'owl' in some european language.

ive noticed them in the sim but not looked up close, i must admit i 'cheat' by using the schematic option on the occasions that ive gone up in the glider in the sim.  cool stuff hey.  do they actually climb or just soar ?

cheers
pn

This is what the birds look like in FSX when you set your thermals to natural.

I was on final when i saw it and didn't have time to hang around.

Matt, open up FSX, click Settings (lower left side), Customize (low, center), Weather (top, right of center), Thermal Visualization (middle, left of center), Natural (you get three choices, None, Natural, & Schematic).



Llamedos, I didn't get that good a of a view of the birds, but that is a good picture, very cool.



Alrot, the airport that I was lining up for a TNG had a bit of a cliff not far from the end of the runway (34L, in this case) and I had a fairly strong wind coming in from the north and as I was trying to descend, I seemed to have gotten into a cross wind from the west. I was just lucky, I guess. I have conservitively about a 1,000 hrs on sim, and this is the first time I've seen this. Way cool though.



Semper Fi All, Dave out

I've tried setting visualizations to Natural but no birds. I have a pretty low spec computer so I think it might be due to my other settings or one of the modifications I made to get more performance has removed the feature.

I've seen a couple of birds only, never as many as you claim to have seen. I will look for that now.  :D

Hey guys you also see birds in the piper cub mission (i believe flour bomb) and your passanger says "watch out for those birds".

Hey guys you also see birds in the piper cub mission (i believe flour bomb) and your passanger says "watch out for those birds".

I may be wrong, but I think that some "boats" models have the birds somehow "integrated". You certainely have to force the scenery and advanced animations settings very high, I guess.

For the thermal birds, I could never see them before SP1 because I had installed some autogen twekas and textures that "removed" them. Funny thing is that the performance hit was still there anyway, even with no birds

In any case, in a default FSX SP1 with no addon textures, you can see those birds by setting the thermal visualization to "Natural", as explained above, and setting a weather theme that allows thermals, for example the fair weather theme, the one in which you can see a glider in the preview. Important to say it that those birds are hard to see in the distance. You hardly see one or two moving pixels if you're not close enough. Eaiest technique is first to set the thermal visualization to "schematic", get close to one, then switch to "Natural" and search in the sky. The birds are describing circles, but I don't remember if they change altitude. The glider is too fast for them, and the hang-glider too... Somebody should make a paraglider, like the one from captaim slug for FS98.

The birds were not visible before SP1 I believe. They also hang around some runways, cargo ships and (cargo) cranes.

They were. I can remember NickN explained me what the "Natural" visualization was, and I could not believe him. Then I understood I could not see them because of the modified autogen, that everybody else had also installed at that time ! (thus nobody could see those birds )