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Greetings All,

I am needing a bit of a break from the war so I am currently enjoying my new FSX install. The DVD arrived on Thursday and I spent yesterday getting things set up and tweaked and am now enjoying just flying about down in Fiji. Ah, what a quiet, post-war life it is: shuttling rich tourists about, delivering the odd package to this island or that, making the occasional supply run when required. And when I'm not flying I can simply lay about on the beach and sip a cool drink. Good times ... good times.




Cheers Mates!

Lou, (somewhere other than in France)

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Enjoy your your new digs Lou. You deserve it!

I bet you could stick a Vickers on the front of that!

ENJOY !
Tahitti is my favorite for float planes.

Flying in Fiji??? I can't believe it!
I bet most of your surroundings down there is a blue desert.
And I also bet, there are no enemy planes to shoot down?
So what shall you be doing all day???

I hope you come to your senses sometime soon, Major!


(Fiji - tch!)

Nice!

I wouldn't mind spending winters in Fiji.

Yeah - the winters, maybe...

Yep! Vickers on the front, rockets on the wings and you could 'deal' with all the other shuttles

I could whip up a new skin for that kite if you want. something with a winged wiener on it...?

Bye for awhile Lou and thanks for the maps!

Lou, make sure you check the latest chart and the post with it, okay?

Lou'
Might I suggest you try Ant's Tiger Moth.It is freeware and beautifully done.Perfect for drifting over Fiji ,and I believe it comes with a seaplane model.
Happy Holiday!

Happy sailing, Lou!

Looks beautiful and very relaxing there. Hope to see you again

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Thanks for the well wishes all, it warms me old heart it does. But I won't be gone permanently, simply a leave of absence for, oh, let's say, 'health reasons'.

hood, I am currently flying the Golden Age DH60 Moth float plane and started doing my own paint for it this afternoon. Had to at least get a correct Fiji registration number on the kite.



Not finished yet but it's coming along nicely, and it's a treat to sit on a tropical beach and paint a plane instead of in the mud of Flanders.

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Do you fly it?
or does it just sit lookng purty in da water?

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Oh yes indeed. I just had a sunset run from my digs at South Sea Island up to Matamanoa and back. So idyllic, so peaceful.



It was dark for the last fifteen minutes of the run but navigation was quite easy as I could make out the lights shining from my little island home.

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As a Minnesotan, Lou, I would have expected this post from you in February, not September!

Ah well, enjoy my friend. We'll leave the light on for you when you decide to rejoin we mere mortals.

Nice plane, Lou, welcome to the club ! I also find these days it is much more relaxing to fly when nobody is shooting at you...

Fiji - huh! Idyllic! Peaceful! Tch! You guys must be getting old!

But dreaming must be allowed, and one day I might try some FSX (if it should work on a Win 7 (32bit).

I have always liked the Grumman Goose as one of the smaller sea planes, and her daughter "Super Goose"
also looks very beautiful. So if ever I should retire from the Albatros and combat flying...

Wait!
Ain't that one of these Planes Stallone & his Bunch of Actoin-Movie-Rentiers put a large Cannon into the Nose?

I'm very jealous Lou. You'll have to watch your six.

Raine

Uh, Lou, might I suggest some bright tropical colours so it can easily be seen if you are down on the ocean with engine broblems and have to call mayday!!

Many of us back here on the Western Front wish we might join you.

I confirm I'm getting old...

I flew the Syndicate Vintage Mission last night with RoF. I went for a bombing raid in a DFW under tree top level. It was a large map took me twenty minutes to be on target (I went through the back door...) and in the end I enjoyed more the flight and navigation than the bombing which lasted a few seconds !

That is an excellent screen shot, Lou

I like flying the Goose too.

The bird I did my work in, long ago, was the SA-16A and later the Queen B ( SA-16B ). I loved flying in that bird, when doing rescues at sea. It could also land almost anywhere and get up quickly with the help of several JATO bottles.

Some years ago( 1994 ) my wife and I spent over 3 weeks all over Fiji and loved it. We still have our scrap books with all of the info on our travels--- so if you want some suggestions just drop me a PM. The local dish of fish,coconut,lime juice,and spices called Koconda ( the spelling I am not sure of ) was our favorate. Raymond Burr's Orchid research garden is a very nice
relaxing place to visit.

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Yesterday late morning I was dropping off several cases of fresh lobster and crab at the Grand Pacific Hotel and in the course of off-loading I struck up a conversation with the head chef, a fine fellow from Le Touquet, France. He pointed out that if I were serious about my flying service I needed a proper name so that people would know who to ask for. I told him I'd been thinking on such but had yet to come up with anything I liked. He said, "Well, that can't be so difficult. Why don't you call it 'Pegasus', no one 'ere has such a name. Is très bon, oui?" I thought for a moment and agreed that it was indeed très bon! As I lifted off from the turquoises blue waters of Suva Harbour my mind began working on a design, and as soon as I returned to my digs on South Sea Island I got to work. By the end of the day my bus was sporting its newest livery.



Still a few minor tweaks and I may add the logo to the wings, but all-in-all it is as I like it. To the logo, I actually grabbed it from a vintage Aerovias Reforma advert, but no worries. This is 1926 so I can sue them for copyright infringement when they begin using this emblem in twenty years.

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Lou it is nice to fly without being shot at. I listened to Corsaire and ended up with Air Hauler and FSX. I have been flying my Quest Kodiak Amphibian around the wilds of Alaska and Canada trying to earn a living. Very nice scenery but it is going to get cold soon. May look into going south with a company somewhere. I have a Goose that is freeware from Orbyx I believe. Enjoy your relaxing around Fiji.
John

Lou, impeccable art again Sir! Classic clean lines and not overdone!

I can't make out the script ahead of the cockpit. What does it say?

OK, Lou. Now you're just rubbing it in!

The best Goose you can find is the Goose HD Redux at OZx :

http://aussiex.org/forum/index.php?/files/file/633-ozx-grumman-goose-hd-redux-120/

My company in Canada is doing well, I have lately opened a new base in PAYA Yakutat, I fly now with 3 Cessna 185 Amphibs + 1 C185 Toundra wheels and a Goose. Bases in Prince Rupert, Sitka, Yakutat and Port Hardy. Just landed some freight in Ketchikan this afternoon.
Keep flying in winter, it's beautiful ! Just need to turn on the cabin heat...

Lou, beautiful skin !

Nice! I'm tempted to start flying those civilian crates right away, but unfortunately there's a war to be fought and I can't leave to the Pacific quite yet.

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Ah yes, the war. I remember the war, Hasse.

Corsaire, Canada and Alaska and the Pacific Northwest are areas I intend to seriously fly one day as well. But for now, Fiji.

Hauksbee, I'm not rubbing it in ... much.

Robert, it says 'Air Cartage & Charter Service'. Also, if you right-click on the image you can open it in a new tab and view it full sized which makes it much easier to read that signage.

John, it IS nice to fly without being shot at!

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Lou I have these in my hangar as well but mostly used the Gipsy and Cirrus Moth on wheels, didn't try the amphibs yet. From next Sunday I will be flying from Toulouse to Africa in a Tiger Moth !

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Corsaire, the Golden Age Gipsy Moth handles quite nicely with its boots on, I love flying it. I have downloaded the Goose HD Redux at OZx per your recommendation, as well as Ant's Tiger Moth recommended by hood, and I am going to take each for a turn this weekend. What I would like to find is a nicely modeled larger early float plane, seaplane, and/or amphibian from the 1920s that I can move up into as the business in Fiji grows. A DH.61 Giant Moth could be fun.

Toulouse to Africa in a Tiger Moth sounds like a great run to test your navigational skills. I am going to work my way up to such runs as well.

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I had a large biplane two seater seaplane, multi engine.
Sorry the name isn't coming to me right now.... might have been from FS9 days,

I think it was the Sikorsky S-40 clipper listed on this page.
Seems like the was also an early Short

http://www.surclaro.com/fsx-aircraft-vintage_c43_0_dateD.html

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Thanks for that info Mudwasp, I will check those out. Apart from my current bus, the only 1920s vintage float planes and sea planes available for FSX that I'd found so far are the Travel Air 6000 and the New Standard D25A, (both from Golden Age as payware), and the rework of Ted Cook's Vickers Viking, (freeware). Everything else out there is from the 1930s and newer. I will take the Vickers for a turn and see how well it's modeled and if it looks good I may do a repaint of that. Otherwise I might put down money on the New Standard at some point in the future. For now though I am very content hopping round the islands in my Gipsy Moth.

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I remember a Dehavilland DH-89 on floats too

This old thread has lots of freeware files mentioned and discussed.

http://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/showthread.php?206668-Absolute-BEST-freeware-gems-for-FSX-list

I use a Beechcraft D18s "Twinbeech" Amphib from the 1930s you can find it at :
http://simviation.com/1/search?submit=1&keywords=Beechcraft+D18S&x=22&y=7
there are both a pax and cargo version, on wheels and amphib.

For my Aeropostale blog with the Tiger :
http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4006991/Aeropostale_2014#Post4006991

Unfortunately can't take it all the way down to Dakar as it lacks some range for the desert legs. Will use a Waco YMF5 from Tanger onwards.

That is the one I downloaded Corsaire, but I just could not get the right letters out. I knew it was O something. My base is at Hoonah airport code PAOH. I just went up to your base airport at PAYA the other day. I have not hired any other pilots yet, but to make your company grow that is something I will have to do. The worst and most fun I had was flying into PAOH one morning and fog had me 50' off the ground just to find the runway. I got her down with no damage, but I sweated a ton of water out before I landed. Lou you should be used to the weather in Alaska, you will sunburn on the beach.

I know your place also, been to Hoonah a couple of times. I have now 5 pilots in my Canadian company and I think I will stop there as it is some work to do the dispatch a couple of times every day !
I often have to tackle with fog at Prince Rupert, even had to divert a couple of times as I couldn't even see the runway lights a mile away !
Finding entrance to small fjords is also sometimes a little sweat !

I agree very tricky finding the right place to turn. I found a place called Return to Misty Moorings. It was a great site with a lot of places to fly in Alaska. I ended up buying some of orbx scenery to fly to some of their places. They have a lot of freeware add on scenery with dispatches for flight planning. Most of the flying is low and slow with very nice views. All in all a very nice website to visit.

Boy all those nice screen shots have me itching to buy FSX.

Yes I know it and I've been tempted but I made the choice of not putting any more money in FSX for now. So I keep my UTX/GEX environment and freeware for airfields.
I might take the plunge into Orbx for New Zealand as it is the only very good scenery available and I have future plans there... could make a nice Christmas present !

I'm in the same situation Corsaire. I tried some of their freeware, but it caused issues with much of my other scenery in the Pacific Northwest on America. For me it is sort of an all or nothing proposition as far as OrbX is conserned.

I do have Tongass Fjords, which blends and plays well with UTX/GEX.

Misty was one of my favorite spots/areas for FS9

FSX can be a huge money pit there is no doubt. I have limited myself to what I will purchase. I also have Tongass Fjords, which is where a lot of Misty flights are. I have also thought about New Zealand, but I will wait for awhile has I have pretty well reached my FSX dollar limit for this year. If I make anymore purchases I will have to submit a request to the Minister of Finance a my house. That can be an unpleasant task at times.

Yep, I understand that!
I am highly interested in Misty and all the other small airports in the Pacific Northwest out there by OrbX...not this year.

X-plane has some nice scenery too of that region.


Maybe a payware plane for FSX. Been waiting on the aerosoft JU-52 for a long time.

In the meantime, I have a nice freeware..

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Hello again from virtual Fiji! Had a busy work week and got home late Friday, then spent yesterday visiting relatives and fixing on the old homestead. But last night I began a total repaint of the Vickers Viking so that I could add this bus to the Pegasus Air Cartage and Charter Service assets. This freeware model was originally built by Ted Cook for FS9 and was then reworked by Brain Farrington and Leyland Spurr for FSX a number of years ago. Here is what that current stock offering looks like out of the box:




While the virtual cockpit is a tad simplistic the model itself is nicely done, and this particular Vickers fits the time period I am currently flying in the islands. At this point I have changed every texture on this mount and added a lot of extra detailing via the DXT files. Still have a bit of massaging to do to it but it's very close to done.





A very nice bus to fly and it works outstandingly well for shuttling several tourists about at once in addition to all their gear and some extra payload to boot.

Bula!

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I like her!

Are you going to submit a final for download when you're done working on her?

How does having her engine so high up affect her flight model? I'd think that would interfere with her lift.

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CatKnight, placement of the engine doesn't really affect lift. It does however affect turning characteristics and in this bus you take your turns slowly and rather flat. Excessive bank tends to lift the nose and no amount of control input will get you square in the turn if you go at it too steeply. This one's a pleasure cruiser to be sure.

MudWasp, not sure how I would go about that as it isn't as simple as just offering a custom paint file. I would either have to provide the texture files which would need to be manually installed into the aircraft folder, overwriting the existing files. Or, I would have to build a standalone of the entire plane folder and that assumes I can sort out what would have to be rewritten in order for the new texture files to be recognized under a different name.

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Virtual Fiji----- OK, So you will not be going to Raymond Burr's Orchid Garden, or tasting Kokonda (sp)?

Some how I missed the virtual bit. Some day you must get there. Great weather, food, people and crystal clear water.

It sure sounds like you are having fun ----- so keep it up.

Well Lou as the skies turn dark and cold with fall weather looking at your Fiji screenshots looks awfully inviting.
In fact so much so I just ordered FSX Gold. Hard to imagine needing a break from the Western front but the sunshine and blue water may be too much when there is 3 feet of snow on the ground.

Hehe, the virus is spreading...

Wow Lou simply fantastic what you have done with that bird. What I would give to have half your talent! I am still flying the wilds of Alaska. I have something I am thinking about trying though. I downloaded all the files and flight plans for the MacRobertson Air Race. It was flown from London to Melbourne in 1934. I have downloaded all the AI airplanes to race against as well as all the scenery and mesh. The program backdates the airports you land at to the 30's. I still have to decide if I want to purchase the Douglas DC-2 I need. The place you get it from has a museum in England that has on of the last flyable DC-2's. The money for purchasing the plane for FSX goes to the upkeep of the real plane. I would then have to learn to fly a twin engine plane. I sometimes have enough problems with one.

Several tourists? Where are they seated? Under this hummocky-looking bit?

I really feel envy while looking at these pictures. I used to spend hundreds of hours with FS9 but FSX won' t work on my pc due to some very strange Microsoft Visual Redistributable problem that won´t allow me to start FSX,..Anyway, Enjoy your flights sir!

I know people who are still flying lots of hours with FS9. There are some graphics improvements which make it still look good :

Ohhhhh, good ol´times,...FSX..well, kinda killed it all,...

I liked the planes Bill Lyons made for FS9