More scenes from my virtual Oshkosh 2020. Last weekend I was having too much fun doing my taxes to get a lot of flight simming in, but this weekend I flew a dozen planes around OSH using two difference sceneries.
Using the same scenery as shown in my B-17 pics above, here I am looking for parking in my Swift. I was tempted to write "Vintage Parking" on a post-it and stick it in the corner of my monitor to alert the marshalers.
Of course it was necessary to hop the EAA's Ford several times. The detail of this scenery is a little sparse, but it gives you a slight sense of the event.
Then I found this much better scenery, which can be downloaded from simviation (search for Oshkosh; it's the big one, 298 Megs!) This has a lot more different planes and buildings, but the best thing is it has all the runway alterations they make for the convention like the colored dots and the creation of "runway" 18L/36R, and it also has several square miles of surrounding terrain replaced with satellite imagery so that you can see the landmarks necessary to fly any of the special Oshkosh approaches. It can't change the way the ATC behaves, but you can download an old NOTAM and fly whatever approach you wish. Here's the area around Aeroshell Square or whatever they call it now, and you can see it's quite nicely populated.
Unlike the other scenery, there's warbird parking, with a more or less appropriate selection of types as low-detail static aircraft. The Warbird in Review pad is present, but not the grandstands, the Warbird Cafe, etc.
The quarry, a well known landmark north of the field, is well represented.
It's always a big moment at OSH when one of the B-29s takes time off from ride-selling at a nearby airport to drop in and attract admirers in the central square. The Virtavia B-29 is fun and challenging. You can see here that the Red Barn and the rest of the antique complex are not represented by 3d buildings, although they can be seen on the satellite image from altitude. This scenery package already causes a hit on frame rates, so I wouldn't want to add too much detail, but that is one thing that I would add.
Starting the Fisk arrival from Ripon, trying to be a good boy and hold 1800 feet and 90 knots. The train tracks are accurately placed in the sim as are the highways, Fisk Road, and other needed landmarks. Here the tracks are the dark brown line coming from the lower left corner, running parallel with route 44.
Here I'm lining my RV-8 up for 36R having completed one of the Fisk approaches.
Just yesterday, Orbx announced a limited-time giveaway of this delightful RV-4 and a couple of other planes, so I had to download it and shoot some of these approaches again. Perfect airplane to fly to OSH.
Flying Jahn's magnificent freeware DC-3 on the warbird arrival track, with a nice high-res Flagship Detroit skin that I found.
Warbird Island passing under the DC-3.
Ran into a squall while bringing in a T-28. Not a problem, touchdown on 27 was fine.
Some good clean simming fun, and I'm not done yet! I'll fly the dozen or so airplanes I have parked on the field around one more time before I fly some of them home and then turn off the special event scenery.
I wonder how well Flight Sim 2020, to be released next month, will represent Oshkosh. It would be nice if they put a little extra attention into that field, and maybe the ATC in this new sim will even be versatile enough that they can simulate the sweaty-palm experience of arrival day. That alone would be worth the price of the program.
August