World Tour Of New Zealand

[JonARNZ]

Its been awhile since we posted about our world tour of New Zealand. We have been tracking south and today headed to Ardmore first..

Heres Nik, enjoying the views of the Hauraki Gulf to his left..



Heres Nik, still enjoying the views to his left Nicholas, it may pay to enjoy the views in front of you as well...



Heres Nik, enjoying the views to his right, and me, well I'm just watchin him




After Ardmore we headed to Mercer..




And then on to Matamata. On the way we picked up DFC (Piper Warrior) and ZOL (Zoltuger) who joined us for the first time.

We arrived safely at Matamata for a group photo, say cheese everyone..




What do you think of our shiny new World Tour paintjobs, emblazoned with our own rego and our favourite FS forum, naturally




And heres Zoltuger just after we finished flying some circuits. Welcome to the tour!



We will update this thread as the tour continues south.

[Jimmy]

well good thing you have crash damage off!

four aircraft in a row looks prety neat, got any formation flying screenshots? now thatd be a chalenge trying to get four ppl in a flying row! lol

[Zöltuger]

yeah, great flight all!
(once i got the microphone issue sorted)

[JonARNZ]

That Cessna of yours would look good in green with ZOL on the side, don't ya think?

[scon]

Really cool that FSX multiplayer is.
Reminds me of the time I flew down to Thames with my Aero Club (in real life )

[JonARNZ]

We continued south last night, this time joined by Zoltuger once again and h290master.

Across Hamilton on the way to Raglan..



From Raglan, where h290master tried to land a 747-400, we continued to Tekuiti..





And then on to Taumaranui, flying into the sunset..




Then we decided to fly a final leg to New Plymouth..






Where Zoltuger got to show of his new paint job

[Zöltuger]

Where Zoltuger got to show of his new paint job

it's pretty hawt too

[JonARNZ]

From New Plymouth we flew VFR around the corner to Hawera, on the way enjoying some new scenery coming out for FSX that enhances the Taranaki region.

Mt Taranaki looking resplendent as always..



We flew into Hawera that isn't featured in FSX, but the good work of David means we can now enjoy it. This scenery is exciting because it is purpose built for FSX, uses default items and shows creating scenery can be a fairly straight forward process (Note Zoltuger lurking in the hangar)




Quite a line-up, the locals must have wondered what was going on..




Then off to Stratford..




Where we gathered for the group photo in the shadow of the mountain..

[G-HEVN]

new scenery coming out for FSX that enhances the Taranaki region.

Ooh! Ooh! Do tell....

[Naki]

Yes please!

Why does Microsoft forget about Hawera but Stratford is there?

Any chance of the Hawera scenery being available for FS9?

Paul

[Brennanx]

grr i wont to be able to run scenery on max i can only run it on low. And on low their are no airport buildings just flat ground.......

[JonARNZ]

Well a gentleman by the name of David Hall has been tinkering and put together some basic scenery for Taranaki. It adds Maui A and B rigs, the chimney and other items at New Plymouth harour, the refinery north of the airport, Hawera Airport as shown, and various other bits'n'pieces. He has also changed the land class for the region so it better represents the farmland as opposed to desert

He is still working to complete it, once its ready you will know as we will do an announcement. No, it wont work in FS9 as David is using all FSX scenery items.

[Zöltuger]

Here are some more screenies from after I joined the tour...


Raglan traffic, Boeing 747 on short finals...


Hmmm. It seems DFC doesn't have the Hawera scenery yet.


I take my hat off to NAC, who can land a fixed wing aircraft on an oilrig.


Our first attempt at a co-ordinated takeoff. Not a success when everyone shows different wind speeds and directions


Landing in the setting sun at Kaikoura tonight. Stratford-Kaikoura in four hours ain't too bad.

[JonARNZ]

Here we are in Stratford yesterday..



But today was probably the longest legs we have flown in the tour to date. We left Stratford and headed south to Piper Warriors home airport, Wanganui. The now 'famous' in a row take-off thats wasn't was done here..



But we proceeded to Feilding, then down to Paraparaumu via Kapiti Island..




Great Topography here..



At Paraparaumu some fueled up, Nik decided to touch and go..



And then it was off to Woodburne via the sounds..





At this point Nik jumped into Woodburne tower and redefined 'Near Miss' and 'Airspace Intrusion'...



We all survived, ready to depart for Kaikoura with another group take-off..




We might be getting the hang of this..



The terrain in this part of the country is amazing..



And great fun formation flying..





Before we all dropped into Kaikoura for a well deserved break, parking up for the night.




The tour is drawing to a close, we are once again on the same island and coast we started, but we still have plenty of flying ahead to take us home to Dunedin.

[ardypilot]

Dam I am sorry I have not been able to join you guys so far- looks like so much fun- is it possible for me to come on using FS9, I can't get FSX to look good for me at the moment

By the way, the evening shots appoaching Taranaki and the cloudy screenies over the Sounds look brilliant!

the refinery north of the airport

Hehe, I remember driving past those when I was down in New Plymouth last year- too bad I didn't get time to stop in at the airport for a bit of plane spotting!

Our first attempt at a co-ordinated takeoff.

Back in the old days, I'm talking late 2004, early 05 here, I used to frequent the FSCAFE online server and organise group flights in default aircraft (usually the old FS9 Grand Caravan and Beech Kingair), getting as many people as possible (up to 27 belive it or not) to do group take offs and flights, then land one by one and taxi and park up in the same order as takeoff which was heaps of fun We used to start at big wide runways like Schipol, Oslo, Kathmandu and Gatwick, then fly across the sea to small island and mountain strips. Think I have a load of screenies somewhere

[ZK-Brock]

Hey Jon, you're marlbrough scenery looks good as - very green. What scenery are you using for it, if any?

**EDIT**
I took a few pics in FS9 to compare Jon's marlbrough to mine. I don't know where he took his so I went to the northern end of queen charlotte sound, or thereabouts. Remember this is FS9 not FSX, and that I have the default mesh installed.

Mine:




Jon's

[Zöltuger]

Dam I am sorry I have not been able to join you guys so far- looks like so much fun- is it possible for me to come on using FS9, I can't get FSX to look good for me at the moment

not even just for one night? you don't need to have it look like Jon's shots, it just needs to run.

[ardypilot]

not even just for one night? you don't need to have it look like Jon's shots, it just needs to run.

I'd rather do it in a sim that runs and performs well, and I'm a screenshot addict so I don't want snaps that reflect my PC badly lol. Is it possible to have both FS9 and FSX running on multiplayer simultaneously? I know it works on the Inspire server...

Also Brock, I have taken a collection of screenies to show what the Sounds look like with my FS9 (RBE 20m mesh and topo- a HUGE leap forward from default!): http://z11.invisionfree.com/nzff/index. ... topic=2257

[ZK-Brock]

Trolly - it certainly is a leap forward! Just trying to convince myself that the $105 price tag is worth it...BTW do you use the VOZ textures?

[ardypilot]

BTW do you use the VOZ textures?

I used to for the water, but nah not for the land. These days I just use default textures with the RBE landclass for NZ. When I'm flying in Ozzie or doing a Trans-Tasman flight, I always load the appropriate area VOZ textures though, and they are very good.

Just trying to convince myself that the $105 price tag is worth it

100% worth it mate, have a scan through my Long White Cloud tour... best scenery enhancement EVER... makes your experience so much more realistic, trust me