NZFF

This may not be the right place for this, but Ive found (screens later) a great low level circuit.
Take off from Manapouri head down the south arm...theres a long valley running south with the Hunter mountains on the left (beautiful in winter) keep going....soon you get a view of green lake just ahead and left, your now approching a saddle straight ahead, pull up and over and there's lake Monowai in front of you.

Depending on what your ride is will determine how you approch the next bit, the lake curves away to the left and its quite a hard pull around to stay off the hillside and still keep low. I did it in an F4, and came over the saddle at about 400kts 200ft agl, and that resulted in a 4+g turn to stay where i wanted to be......good for the circulation follow the lake to the end, pass between black mount on your right and mount titiroa on the left.....again, depending on your speed, you pick up the Waiau river ahead....keep the mountains on the left, pull around freestone and your back at Manapouri ..........and if your still comfortable, pull up vertical roll over , nose down in the dust and do it in reverse.....as in course not flying backwards....although if you have a chopper you could try.

This is what VLC is made for.....sorry its not the same without pictures, but I'll do them later.

I love this area in the Hawk , makes you think your at RAF Valley VLC and and suitable cloud .. SUPERB !

Ian Warren wrote:

QUOTE (Ian Warren @ May 25 2011,11:42 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I love this area in the Hawk , makes you think your at RAF Valley VLC and and suitable cloud .. SUPERB !

Are there any good freeware fsx hawks Ian?

You have the T-45C Goshawk by Dino Cattaneo at Flightsim.com which would be considered the best freeware

Payware , Has to be Skysims Hawk and i still consider this better than the Lotus L39

Iris have a freeware Hawk but the best Hawk is Dino Cattaneo's very nice T-45C Goshawk ...which he is currently updating ...but I cant find where the heck you can download the last verison (1.85)

Edit: snap!

Splitpin wrote:

QUOTE (Splitpin @ May 25 2011,11:27 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

.....sorry its not the same without pictures, but I'll do them later.

I can't read without the pictures!

connor wrote:

QUOTE (connor @ May 25 2011,7:20 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I can't read without the pictures!

Strange , I started the same way , having the image spoke a thousand and a few more words , I grew out off that around thirty five , today my many books seem to miss a lot , all these pretty pictures in colour and black and white , around the photo,s big holes , i scratch my head wondering .

connor wrote:

QUOTE (connor @ May 25 2011,6:20 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I can't read without the pictures!

Yeah....sorry Connor, i should have put the screens up as well....

I did your "circuit" and apon reading your directions the second time, realised that I flew the coarse backwards. Still, at sunset and low cloud it was amazing even in a little slow Technam sierra. Have a bunch of pics to put up but i'll wait till you post yours as I dont want to push in

AndrewJamez wrote:

QUOTE (AndrewJamez @ May 26 2011,6:53 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I did your "circuit" and apon reading your directions the second time, realised that I flew the coarse backwards. Still, at sunset and low cloud it was amazing even in a little slow Technam sierra. Have a bunch of pics to put up but i'll wait till you post yours as I dont want to push in

Andrew, please go ahead and post your shots, Im going to have to do it again as i deleted the ones i had.........thanks for reading the post and taking the time.

Ok, here goes, First pic is of the technam halfway down lake Monowai turning right to head up to the saddle.



A good chunk of the saddle was shrouded in low cloud so I had to sneak around over the green lake.





Head directly north to lake Manapouri no more low cloud for the rest of the flight.



Looking back south as I am over Manapouri



Final pics are of the decent and joining down wind









A great little tiki tour. Beautifully complimented by the adjoining godzone scenery.

Does anyone know of some screen capture software that does not compress the images, I am using screen hunter 5.2 and the pics are comeing out at only 200kbits so are very compressed and are know where near as good looking as 'in game"

Andrew , lotta people swear by GIMP to edit , this is freeware , now just checked the current version is 2.6 , had my computer man throw it on the laptop but have not tried it .

Wow...great pics Andrew...must try the trip myself

Well done Andrew great shots....Im glad you enjoyed it. I'll be doing it again later today, and might explore a little more of the area.