Flying the RTMM Flight Plans

[Doug]

Flying the Autoroutes

I started with "A" and am coming through all of the autoroutes, that is my goal for the year. A lot more flying and a little less building. I'm making sure each of these routes is correct so a newbie can fly them without hitting a mountain. For ones that go above 1200 feet, I'm adding a minimum altitude to the end of the name. Tweaking corrections as I go.  I'll post on the notams each time I finish a letter of the alphabet.

Counting both TO and FROM, we have 802 flight plans in our library. You can find them on the Here2There page. You simply download the zip and put the contents into your simulators document area (where the flight plans are stored). An "=" sign means TO a location, a "#" sign means FROM a location. "How to" is on the here to there page.

I haven't visited some of these places, literally in years and I'm always amazed as though I'm seeing them for the first time.  A nice surprise tonight was Berner's Bay USFS Cabin.  And flying down the Lynn Canal, you would never know it was there ... hidden in plain sight in the huge expanse of the area.  If you are looking for something to do, 800 flight plans should keep you busy!  Each one only takes about a half hour, so it is not a large time commitment ... just a nice way to spend a half hour.

[Doug]

I have "relabeled" the flight plans. So the "TO" flight plans are labeled now with a "#" and the "FROM" flight plans are labeled with a "=".  Now the "TO" flight plans which most people fly are at the top of the list, making it easier to find them.

Remember, when updating these flight plans. Go to your simulator document file and DELETE all plans starting with "#" or "=" FIRST!!!  Then copy the contents of the zip file and add them to the sim's document directory. All the instructions are on the HereToThere page.

[jsapair]

Doug, definitely appreciate all the work you put into this. My problem, though, is that I split all my RTMM FP's into separate folders...APP, Barnstormers, CIRP, Owikeno Lake Area, PFJ, PNW, SAK, etc, rather than having them all lumped together. It's working pretty well that way so I'm not real keen on revamping my file system. It would be a daunting task to pull individual files from the new Zip and replacing what I already have in multiple folders. But maybe someone has another way of organizing their FP files. Suggestions? Ideas? Otherwise I'll just keep what I have,
                           
                                                        jsapair

[Doug]

No problem. What I'm doing is making sure all of the autoroutes are good. I'm finding problems as I go, only into the "B's" and have rewritten 6 completely and adjusted 11. Many people won't use these, they would rather fly the plane themselves. The # and = designators will help anyone interested in replacing old routes with new ones...easy to find quickly.

For me, it is a way to get back to the flying side of running the site. I'm finally enjoying sitting back and watching the incredible scenery and weather in our home area again. Making the routes and adjusting them is my favorite "chore" at RTMM.

Way back, Holger and Bill W wisely included the USFS cabins into the early sceneries. When we started, finding those cabins was almost the purpose of the game. That has all evolved to creating more destinations for simmers...thus RTMM. But, working on this project, I must admit...finding that tiny cabin in that huge wilderness is still a thrill.

For a newbie, going to The Cabins web page first will give them 300 locations to fly to. There are autoroutes for all of them...to and from. If they have SAK, PFJ, TONGASS then they have 70% of the cabins. With the "Missing Cabins" zip, they have ALL of them. So rather than downloading our 250 locations and installing each, in only a couple of installs they have DAYS of flying at their fingertips. And one zip gives them all of the routes. I'm thinking this actually should be our entry level starting point for a new person. Then, when comfortable, go to The Legends package as an intro to our locations. From there on to sites they want to see...an easy natural progression.

Looking at my rate of progress, it may take me a year to fly all of these.  Over half that will be flying cabin routes! So we have plenty of things for people to do. I doubt anybody has seen all of our locations and all of the cabins. Relying in the next hydro plant, or modeled community for entertainment exciting but a frustrating wait, when there are hundreds of things to see already built and operational.

I've created a way of sharing what I'm doing with everyone that some may find exciting. That will be announced soon.   As for personal filing systems...we will all have our own system. What I want to do with the autoroute project is make sure you have the best and safest routes to put into whatever filing system you may have.

One other item to note, for the new people who might focus on the cabins, we should really also help them get Dex's shipping package operational. There is a lot if time spent over water, and having those ships below is a lot if fun.  So I'm thinking, 1 Cabins, 2 Shipping, 3 Legends and 4 RTMM Scenery. This means a revamp of the startup page.  Oh me.

Doug

[jsapair]

Well, as you know, this is the most unique bush-flying site in the known universe, thanks to the dedicated work by you and the other members of the team. I remember flying stock MSFS years ago and going to sea bases where there was nothing. Came across RTMM. Acceleration? What's that? ORBX? Tongass? It's mind-blowing to see how far we've come over those years. Thanks again for your dedication, and to the rest of the RTMM team...you guys have brought a hobby to life to untold numbers of simmers.

[Doug]

Well I've finished everything through "B". This includes the cabins and the RTMM scenery locations. A few little corrections in the flight plans. As I landed at each place, I slewed it and checked it out. Found one problem at a cabin which I've fixed and re-uploaded (Missing Cabins.zip).  But everything is looking pretty good. I'm not changing the flight plans on the scenery locations. I may do this later. But if you want plans that will WORK on autopilot, all of the ones in the RTMM Flight Plans.zip through B are picture perfect.

For some, there is a "high spot" so you have to go above 1200 feet. Where you do, at the end of the route title, I have the high spot's altitude.  .....-2300.pln  so people will know to be ready to get to 2300 feet sometime during the trip.

I made an entirely new route and map for Big Lake Cabin ... it was not working.

Anytime you want, you can follow my progress on TwitchTV ... I'm broadcasting there daily and you are welcome to fly along with me. See the thread for "Website Discussions" for details.

[Doug]

I've just finished with DeBoer USFS Cabin ... this one hung me up for about 3 hours!  So simple, a straight shot from Petersberg over water, quiet, relaxing trip. Then you turn inland and find yourself faced with landing on a short lake in a punchbowl of mountains ... a lake that lengthwise is perpendicular to your flight path. Then you have to drop about 1000 feet from the rim down to the water to land. Not one for the feint of heart!  Most of these are easy flights, with just a little adjustment here and there ... then you get one that is almost impossible. One, Crows Nest, I had to give up on ... it is helicopter only. One this, you will see "heli" after the name on the file.

For others that fly above 1200 feet, I am putting the max safe altitude at the end of the file name so you will be ready to fly at that altitude sometime during the flight.

Other "hold ups" in the process are when I run into a technical problem with the scenery. When I'm through flying the route, I "slew" the location for two reasons ... one to let any people watching the broadcast (I'm online with all these flights on TwitchTV) see the great job our scenery developers have done. And while slewing I may run across a problem. I stop the process and fix the problem.

Darb Lake Cabin was one with a problem. There is an "offset" problem when you place scenery at altitude. Darb Lake is about 4500 feet. The cabin smoke came out of nothing about 5 feet from the cabin chimney. Steve and I spent a lot of time playing with this "online".  We solved the problem, but it really takes some tricky placement. You have to place a fence post or something at the roof suspending it there in 3 dimensions. Not easy. Then worse, you have to place a "shrunken smoking cabin" into the center of the fence post... also not easy. This is IS3. Then you go look at it in P3D ... and the little cabin is 4 feet from the smoking post sitting there in the air.  I went through all of the scenery objects (for the 100th time) and found the SDT Stove (below). This stove even has a little fire going in its belly. You put it in the cabin and position and size it so the chimney sticks out the roof. The smoke coming out of the pipe STAYS WITH THE OBJECT! So I can place ONE object now, simply and it will work very well at altitude.  So all the time being spent on this project is also because of a learning curve ... and we are getting smarter!

Here's a pic of the stove object:

[spud]

Doug,
just wondering if you will have a list of any locations you altered as you flew the plans.  This will aid everyone in downloading the scenery with updates.  I would prefer to grab a bunch at a time than one by one and such a list would allow that.
 

[Doug]

I'm only updating the RTMM Flight Plans.zip folder (on Here 2 There).  I'm not changing any of the plans that come with the download packages.  Right now, there is no need to download any of those flight plans that are hooked to the scenery locations. I have all of them all in the new folder, and am coming through them to make them accurate. So when I'm finished, you can download this single zip, (which comes down fast), and use those for your flight plans to all our locations and to all of the cabins. There are now 808 flight plans in the folder! When you download the zip, you'll have everything.  I put them all in my Prepar3D Documents folder, if I want to go somewhere, or come back from somewhere, I simply go there and load it.  This will save people a LOT of downloading ... one file, everything! Rather than one flight plan at a time.  If people still want to download a flight plan from a scenery location, they can. But it will NOT be as accurate as what I'm creating for folks.

Doug

[spud]

Can I suggest that when ALL flight plans have been flown and made correct and available to download 'en mas' that the Scenery Page have a notice that the flight plans included with the downloads are no longer correct and the user should download the entire flight plan zip file.  We all know that the 2% will not read it but at least the majority of RTMM members will have the correct updated flight plans available for their use.
 

[Doug]

Absolutely. Long Range, I'm actually thinking of pulling all of the individual flight plans from the scenery page. The "flight plan" button will download the master zip for (RTMM Flight Plans.zip). So that will get rid of the "old" flight plans that have been redone. First I have to make sure all of these new ones work, this is going to take some time (which I am thoroughly enjoying). 

For people who don't want all the flight plans in their sim's "document" area ... they can still download this, put it to the side somewhere, and when they need a plan, just go to it.  With the # and = sign preceding the name on each of these, when they are in the document area and you "load flight plan" from the sim, they are all together, they are grouped at the top of the page alphabetically. So if you have other flight plans, they will not be dispersed among them...that is the reason for the # and = prefixes.

• Another item on the long-range plan. When a new person comes to RTMM, it is daunting enough to try to get all the libraries in place. Then they look at the MOUNTAIN of scenery locations they must download ... it can overwhelm a new person.  I'm going to be suggesting in the getting started page that they go with Tongass, PFJ and SAK. Then go to the CABINS page and download the "missing cabins" zip. They will then have over 400 locations to fly to and from ... and all of those cabins are in the "RTMM Flight Plans.zip" file. This will give a new person HOURS of flying time and they can add the RTMM locations at their leisure.  This is the way we all started with this ... back to basics for new people. And this master flight plan file will have it all of the cabin flight plans listed for them.
  

In the end, for all users, this will be ONE LESS STEP for them in downloading a location. They won't have to "download the flight plan too and place it" ... it will already be in their master file.  If we put up a new location, I will update the master file putting the flight plan to the new location into it.

That's the long range plan.

IMPORTANT NOTAM: If you are updating the plans in your document area with a NEW "RTMM Flight Plans.zip" content, you MUST delete all of the old # and = plans already in there FIRST. Then copy the new plans to that area. I'm renaming these, so if you try to overwrite, you will have the old (bad) plan and the new one. PLEASE delete the # and = plans already in the document area FIRST.

[Doug]

AutoRoute Project: OK, now finished through the "D's".  After I fly each, I slew it and take a close look. I'm finding small things and I correct them as I go. Most of them are not worth a re-download on anybody's part. Adjusting some smoke, grounding a water tower, etc.  But I did find major buildings missing at Ocean Falls. So I re-did the industrial complex there and it looks much better.  I am using the new SDT Stove for the smoke and it is VERY easy to handle and place.   Starting on the "E's".

[Doug]

Had to share these screenies with you ... sometimes you run into a place that literally is breathtaking. When I do, I stop, have a coke and turn on Pandora!  We have some amazing scenery to see, but flying to these little out of the way places are amazing. (Don't forget to click on them to enlarge them!).

Progress: Finished the "E's" into the "F's" ...

[Doug]

Now the flight plans have been checked through "H".  Some small changes were made in some locations where I found some problems:

1. Fuel Trigger at Gwent Bay Cannery
2. Ocean Falls Medical Center Changed
3. Missing Cabins Updated (Harvey Lake)
4. Missing Cabins Updated (Hook Point)

So these files have been updated.  Nothing major, a "flying fence", a fuel trigger missing, little things.

Doug

[Doug]

Another Missing USFS Cabin "Found!"

For some reason, the Koknut Cabin was missing. It is near the center of a slough 10 miles from Wrangell. I added it with a new Flight Plan. You must land away from the cabin and take a "canal" to it. (Now in the updated "RTMM Missing Cabin's.zip" file.