Question: FS9 Geography

[gooneybird]

What is the lowest and highest sceneries geographically in the FS9 world?  ??? (ie- North Pole scenery, Arctic, Antarctic) just wondering as I love flying the snowy sceneries. These can be default or add-on. Thanks in advance. G-bird

[flyboy 28]

Well this is complicated.

Flight sim isn't designed that the earth is a sphere, but more of a cylinder, so when you fly up to or down to either of the poles, it basically becomes a blob of black ground textures because the engine FS is running on freaks out or something.

If you like to fly in snowy conditions, just set the season to winter and turn on some snow. That's whats great about a simulation.

[Jakemaster]

YOu like snow?

In a winter setting on "Winter Wonderland" weather theme, go to Talkeetna (PATK) and fly toward the big mountain in the north (Mount Mckinley).  For some real fun on the north side of the mountain theres a big flat area, great for a challenging landing

[gooneybird]

two great ideas so far. the reason for the question: I, like most of us, went through the bush flying phase (to those who enjoy this I mean no insult) however, my new thing is to fly (find) really out of the way locales to fly to (ie- a pole rescue excursion back to a civilized area) Also, any good suggestions for planes to use. My personal favorite right now is the Islander and the C119.

[Nav]

gooneybird, you can fly over either Pole if you like. This picture was taken from my B25 over the South Pole (from a north-south round-world trip I once did).



Only thing is, because of the 'cylindrical' setup of FS9 (plus the limitations of magnetic compasses) you cant just fly 'due South' until it becomes 'due North'. Set up a normal flight plan from an airfield on one side of the Pole to one on the other, and then follow the GPS track. Even though it seems to bend at a right-angle over the Pole, it'll get you there.

[wji]

FS2002 has many Antarctica sceneries which I installed and flew in that version.

May I suggest searching the usual sites for 'antarctica' to find some updates for FS9.

[simonmd]

You can't fly over the poles in FS9, they don't exist! All that happens is you'll get to e certain lattitude and the plane will just crab sidways along it.

You could in FS2000 I remember, I used to like flying at hdg 360 and watching the compass spin when we got to the N pole!

[-sam-]

There is another problem when you fly far north or south.
As closer you move to the poles as more will the airfields in that region "flow" along the ground. Just try this out at the McMurdo Station.

If you emphasize detailed terrain.. you should stay within
+60

[Mobius]

Here's a picture of the North Pole:



Neat-o

I would suggest flying somewhere like Alaska or Canada or the Alps or something during the winter.

[TheBod1357]

wait, how are you getting to the north pole? every time I get to the certain lattitude mentioned earlier, my plane crabs as was mentioned earlier...

[Mobius]

Look at my latitude in the upper left corner, and if you notice the white streak to the right of my airplane, you'll see that I had come to the "wall" and I couldn't go any further there.

[Hussein Patwa]

Jake, that's a novel idea. I hadn't even thought of setting the weather to snow - I usually just use real world weather.

Yes, the damn poles not existing is rather a pain as you cannot follow cross-polar flights.  Murmansk-Fairbanks ULMM-PAFA is routed by Flightsim straight over the Pole, which made me laugh as it doesn't exist.  Talk about an MS design error.  And if as people said FS2000 had poles, why have they basically moved backwards and removed them here?

Hussein.

[gryshnak]

There's a mesh you can download here on SimV for the Alps and the Himalayas (including Mt Everest), you get snow on the mountains all year round.  Very exciting to fly low through the valleys in a fast jet, or relaxing to do it in a Tiger Moth enjoying the scenery.

Gryshnak

[gooneybird]

Guys,
Thanks to all who responded but I feel that the thread is actually going away from my original intent. I was actually looking for far desolate scenery either in the Arctic or Antarctic that would provide an excellent adventure to fly out of and get back to a more remote site. (example storyline- at an Antarctic research base an accident occured and the patient must be rushed back to civilization for medical attention) It wasn't my intention to fly over the poles or anything like that. Although, given the responses that has come from this; I may have to try some of this stuff out to take a look. Thanks again and keep'm flying.... G-bird

[Chris_F]

Near the poles you'll find the airports "flow" over the ground, probably as a result of accumulated errors due to the way the earth is mapped in the sim (I don't really know).  So flying near the poles probably will be less than satisfying.

Want desolate?  Northern Russia, Alaska, Northern Canada make exellent desolate destinations.  There may also be some little islands deep in the Southern oceans which could provide a navigation challenge.  You'll probably want to manually set up the weather to be what you want on landing though since I don't know how good MSFS's weather data coverage is.  Does it really report weather if there are no weather stations there?