New Minnesota Sightseeing Charter Available

Pilots:

MN Sightseeing Charter is in the Bush Ops area under Charters.

This one's for those who like to pull out those charts and find destinations using visual cues. There is no flight plan with this flight, only flight charts with designations marked and lots of helpful directions. You will also want to download our scenery for this using the link provided. There's a version for default FSX/P3d sims without addon scenery, and one for FSX/P3d with FTX Global/Vector addons. If you like a challenge, give this one a try. I think you'll really enjoy it. I think it takes about 3-4 hours to complete, but you can stop along the way and file a pirep and fly from where you left off using the same flight number (900834).

Let me know if you have any questions or problems.

Enjoy,

John<br /><br /><!-- editby --><br /><br /><em>edited by: jer029, Oct 13, 2019 - 07:58 PM</em><!-- end editby -->

Thanks Philippe.

I figured this could be difficult hunt. It's still a challenge for me the second time I flew it and I placed the stuff. Of course I'm trying to go by visual cues and not google-mapping the coordinates into gps. (these are all googleable sites). As for the starting point, there is no 12L 12R at KSTP. As the directions state, you're picking up your plane at KMSP (where I believe there is a 12R and 12L), but you fly the short hop to KSTP to pick up your passengers. That's where the bus is (by rwy13). The written directions make more sense too if you start at the correct airport.

The most difficult things are those in the inner cities - Basilica in Minneapolis, and the trio (State Capitol, Landmark Center and JJ Hill House) in St. Paul. While it's true that saying "it's by the two lakes" is vague, when in context of the other information and when you're in the right area following the map, it becomes a bit easier perhaps. If you follow the river as it loops around KSTP (the west side of the loop) where - when following it south towards KMSP and veers due north - that's Fort Snelling - spitting distance from a KMSP runway. The falls can be seen misting away just a short distance ahead (north) up the river, and the stone arch bridge beyond that.

The Basilica is probably most difficult to spot because it's a lone sight destination in the big city of Mpls., so you have to follow the directions closely. It helps to pause the sim and do a top-down view of the interstates and compare that to the chart where it's marked. I got lost going in circles today and had to do that several times to get my bearings.

The St. Paul Trio are a bit easier, as once you find the state capitol, the others are in view of it to the east. Landmark is just on the west end of where the tall buildings start and JJ HIll is almost due west of Landmark.

Yeah...I could have removed and replaced the capitol, but I just put the better one over the top of the default. It worked almost perfectly on my default fsx scenery. Perhaps FSX steam did some adjusting things - very interesting. This reminds me to mention for those ftx/global-vector folks, I couldn't hide their bridge where the Duluth Aerial bridge is so it's running along side my aerial lift bridge, and unfortunately, right through my ore boat. Oh well - nothings perfect.

If I get a chance, I might hop in a Piper Cub and refly it to see if it's easier to follow roads. Obviously we want to use a slow plane for this for sightseeing and circling at slow speeds. The Kodiak would be a poor choice because it would likely fall out of the sky on a slow sharp circling turn. I flew the Twin Otter. It can go fast enough to not be too tedious on the long haul up north, yet can veritably float in the air circling a sight destination. Even the Otter goes a bit fast when you're trying to follow roads and pick out visual cues, but it seems an appropriate plane for a sightseeing charter.

Hope this helps,

John<br /><br /><!-- editby --><br /><br /><em>edited by: jer029, Oct 14, 2019 - 09:35 PM</em><!-- end editby -->

Ah yes...Thanks Philippe, those addon's undoubtedly added the extra capitol. I'll have to do Georgia early on for you and Robert - and certainly CA for Mike. I commend your effort - being a stranger to MN. I at least get the advantage of studying the layout as I try to find sights, locations and place them using available visual cues, and living in Minnesota my whole life made it that much easier to do all of those things.

I wouldn't normally have included the capitol because is 'existed' in the scenery and I'm not looking for extra work, but it was there and looked nice so I grabbed it along with the other stuff because nothing seemed to be there. Now I'm guessing that all the state capitols are probably included with default. Surprisingly little changes in FSX, P3d default and even with FTX/Orbx Global-Vector in Minnesota.They apparently really don't want to waste much time with 'fly-over country' and concentrate their efforts on the coasts. Even with all the addons, the only change was the added bridge at Park Point by the Duluth Aerial Lift Bridge and the position of shoreline for Lake Superior where the Split Rock Lighthouse was positioned. By the way - that lighthouse I had to move further north than it's actual location in the Global/Vector version of the scenery. That had to do with using the natural contours of shoreline that worked best for positioning it. Now in the Global/Vector version it's almost into Silver Bay by the time I got done fiddling with positioning it. I didn't want to mess with it any further.

I also considered adding pictures of the simulated objects, but that would make it less fun for discovering I thought. This way - if you're at wits end and can't find it - even with additional verbal cues and hints provided in the forum by me - and perhaps other pilots who are piloting the sightseeing charters, then you can always look up the coordinates on Goggle Maps and plug them into your simulator to find the locations in your sim. That should put you close enough to the target to fly or slew around and find the object. If even that fails...I (or another pilot who found the sight) can give out the exact coordinates of the troublesome destination. I figure this way it can be fun for everyone without any 'spoilers' included with the download. I could even do like those missions - with those ridiculous big green spinning arrows floating in the sky over the destinations - but what fun would that be <img src="tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-lachen.gif" alt="lachen">.

John<br /><br /><!-- editby --><br /><br /><em>edited by: jer029, Oct 15, 2019 - 07:52 AM</em><!-- end editby -->