avian
Student Pilot
Posts: 36
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Post by avian on May 12, 2013 16:35:08 GMT -5
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avian
Student Pilot
Posts: 36
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Post by avian on May 14, 2013 3:22:27 GMT -5
Something to ponder over this section, Short cuts. At the beggining of the Portland Canal I noticed it was possible to cut the corner which would have saved some valuable race time, However, as the charted course showed an "over the water" course, this is what I followed, it occurred though that it might be helpful if this was specified in the leg requirements (i.e. the course is over water only, or to be strictly followed"
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teson1
Commercial Pilot
Posts: 243
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Post by teson1 on May 14, 2013 17:25:34 GMT -5
Something to ponder over this section, Short cuts. At the beggining of the Portland Canal I noticed it was possible to cut the corner which would have saved some valuable race time, However, as the charted course showed an "over the water" course, this is what I followed, it occurred though that it might be helpful if this was specified in the leg requirements (i.e. the course is over water only, or to be strictly followed" You're right that the route to take should be clearly defined. I find so far Jimmy has done a pretty good job in defining the route in an unambiguous way in the text description. I think if it's continued that way it's good enough. And so far nobody has exploited any loopholes anyway.
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Post by jimmy on May 14, 2013 23:41:48 GMT -5
This was specific in the leg description: "Remain over water and at an altitude of no greater than 1000'MSL for the duration of this leg."
And if you "enter the Portland Canal at the western edge of Wales Island." (as also described), I don't think there's any possibility of a shortcut. ??
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avian
Student Pilot
Posts: 36
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Post by avian on May 15, 2013 2:58:51 GMT -5
I should have gone back and re-read it, sorry for that Jimmy! It was just that the thought occurred during the flight and I never thought to double check.
Appreciate your efforts in setting these routes out and I will pay closer attention to the text!
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teson1
Commercial Pilot
Posts: 243
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Post by teson1 on May 15, 2013 16:26:24 GMT -5
Yes, we should probably make a habit of attentively rereading the course description before starting a leg. I've also missed a few points on this course. Overlooked the fact that we were supposed to land on the canadian side of the border on leg 2 and ended up 50 ft on the US side...
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avian
Student Pilot
Posts: 36
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Post by avian on May 17, 2013 6:41:24 GMT -5
I changed the thread title to keep all reports for my flights in this thread. Completed Stage 2 but lost a bit of time as I headed the wrong direction for Mt Bayard at first! But all peaks crossed and landed on the Canadian side of the border on some rather convenient mud flats of the river. fs-duenna.com/flights/ShowFlight.php?flight=WFAY6LQVLtsP8m5ehADW61QPdc
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Post by kronzky on May 17, 2013 7:55:46 GMT -5
You're right that the route to take should be clearly defined. I find so far Jimmy has done a pretty good job in defining the route in an unambiguous way in the text description. I think if it's continued that way it's good enough. And so far nobody has exploited any loopholes anyway. Like we discussed before elsewhere, it'll probably be impossible to unambiguously define the path, if you only rely on descriptions. For one, sceneries look different (and have different altitudes) in FS9 vs FSX. Secondly, the path definition on SkyVector is unavoidably rough, so how closely are you supposed to follow it, and what's an illegal shortcut, and what's a good racing line? Are we really supposed to follow the zig-zag line, as defined for leg 1, and is a shortcut over strip of land good racing or cheating??? I wasn't quite sure on how to interpret the line definition for the last leg, too. Do the instructions to follow the river mean, to really make a sharp right turn, to get over it as quickly as possible, or just to follow the river's general path? That sharp turn there looked too much to me like the sharp turns in leg 1 (which I, like every other racer, chose to "optimize"). And, as it seems like everybody was taking wrong turns somewhere, we can't really rely on "artificial" limits (e.g. instructions like "follow the water", "stay north of the border"), but will probably have to rely on "natural" limits that will kill you right away when you exceed them (i.e. mountains).
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avian
Student Pilot
Posts: 36
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Post by avian on May 17, 2013 8:48:55 GMT -5
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teson1
Commercial Pilot
Posts: 243
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Post by teson1 on May 18, 2013 17:19:37 GMT -5
There's no issue with the descriptions IMO. AFAIU we are just supposed to follow the descriptions, not the skyvector path. And descriptions like "Remain over water ... for the duration of this leg" and "you must pass directly over the top of each of the listed mountain peaks" are pretty precise. And I think we should try to follow these instructions precisely. The only point needing clarification is how close we should hit these checkpoints. It would be good if Jimmy could clarify here. IMHO it could be acceptable if from time to time a pilot misses a checkpoint by up to 1 nm, in particular if the checkpoint is not easily identifyable in the sim, or if weather conditions are bad. Normally pilots should try to hit the checkpoint with better precision than that though. If ever we get a pilot into the BPRL who systematically skirts the checkpoints by 1 nm with a clear intention to get the shortest flight distance then that should probably be frowned upon. On the other hand if a pilot takes a slightly shorter flight distance than another due to a different interpretation of the description, or different representation in his sim, then so what. Let's not legislate the BPRL to death. The main goal is to have fun flying some challenging bush flights in a beautiful environment. A few comments on the first image: In that flight I was hugging the coastline, but was clearly over water in my sim (FS9). The reason the flight path seems to pass over land in GE is that in (my) FS9 the coastlines are sometimes off from what is represented in GE. In any way, flying at <100 ft I wouldn't have been able to get far inland in any way You're right that the route to take should be clearly defined. I find so far Jimmy has done a pretty good job in defining the route in an unambiguous way in the text description. I think if it's continued that way it's good enough. And so far nobody has exploited any loopholes anyway. Like we discussed before elsewhere, it'll probably be impossible to unambiguously define the path, if you only rely on descriptions. For one, sceneries look different (and have different altitudes) in FS9 vs FSX. Secondly, the path definition on SkyVector is unavoidably rough, so how closely are you supposed to follow it, and what's an illegal shortcut, and what's a good racing line? Are we really supposed to follow the zig-zag line, as defined for leg 1, and is a shortcut over strip of land good racing or cheating??? I wasn't quite sure on how to interpret the line definition for the last leg, too. Do the instructions to follow the river mean, to really make a sharp right turn, to get over it as quickly as possible, or just to follow the river's general path? That sharp turn there looked too much to me like the sharp turns in leg 1 (which I, like every other racer, chose to "optimize"). And, as it seems like everybody was taking wrong turns somewhere, we can't really rely on "artificial" limits (e.g. instructions like "follow the water", "stay north of the border"), but will probably have to rely on "natural" limits that will kill you right away when you exceed them (i.e. mountains).
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Post by kronzky on May 18, 2013 17:55:28 GMT -5
A few comments on the first image: In that flight I was hugging the coastline, but was clearly over water in my sim (FS9). The reason the flight path seems to pass over land in GE is that in (my) FS9 the coastlines are sometimes off from what is represented in GE. In any way, flying at <100 ft I wouldn't have been able to get far inland in any way I didn't mean to criticize your flightpath with that picture — it just seemed like a perfect example of the discrepancy between the path defined in SkyVector, and the path people actually take. Obviously, the placements of a lot of waypoints in SkyVector are just chosen to allow drawing straight lines between the least amount of them. But my point was that that can also lead to ambiguities (like it happened to me then, in the last leg).
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teson1
Commercial Pilot
Posts: 243
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Post by teson1 on May 20, 2013 11:51:00 GMT -5
A few comments on the first image: In that flight I was hugging the coastline, but was clearly over water in my sim (FS9). The reason the flight path seems to pass over land in GE is that in (my) FS9 the coastlines are sometimes off from what is represented in GE. In any way, flying at <100 ft I wouldn't have been able to get far inland in any way I didn't mean to criticize your flightpath with that picture — it just seemed like a perfect example of the discrepancy between the path defined in SkyVector, and the path people actually take. Obviously, the placements of a lot of waypoints in SkyVector are just chosen to allow drawing straight lines between the least amount of them. But my point was that that can also lead to ambiguities (like it happened to me then, in the last leg). NP. I knew that. Just thought it worthwile to point out that the path in GE doesn't exactly represent what a pilot has experienced in his sim.
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avian
Student Pilot
Posts: 36
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Post by avian on May 20, 2013 13:15:26 GMT -5
It does beg the question though, especially since my previous erroneous comment on tracks and short cuts was eloquently answered by Jimmy pointing to the clear text that such should apply equally to this stage too, for the final leg running down the river to PAWG the text runs
"remaining over water for the duration of the river and passage until reaching Wrangell Airport (PAWG). "
Which I did make sure to follow and as such would have inevitably flown a slightly longer track as a consequence.
I think that for areas such as the river "Over the water is reasonable, but setting a height restriction of say 400ft for that part of the leg would ensure that pilots stayed more firmly on the desired track. However, I don't know if that would be possible to monitor.
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teson1
Commercial Pilot
Posts: 243
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Post by teson1 on May 20, 2013 17:42:12 GMT -5
It does beg the question though, especially since my previous erroneous comment on tracks and short cuts was eloquently answered by Jimmy pointing to the clear text that such should apply equally to this stage too, for the final leg running down the river to PAWG the text runs "remaining over water for the duration of the river and passage until reaching Wrangell Airport (PAWG). " Which I did make sure to follow and as such would have inevitably flown a slightly longer track as a consequence. I think that for areas such as the river "Over the water is reasonable, but setting a height restriction of say 400ft for that part of the leg would ensure that pilots stayed more firmly on the desired track. However, I don't know if that would be possible to monitor. We shouldn't be too concerned with minimal differences due to slightly different representation of the terrain in the sims. Following the coastline as represented in GE, not in FS9 would have added 800 ft distance, 4 seconds flight time. That is negligible compared to other variables governing flight time.
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avian
Student Pilot
Posts: 36
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Post by avian on May 20, 2013 17:56:30 GMT -5
4 seconds!! that's an age!!
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