Greece in a Grumman Goose

[ZK-Brock]

Yesterday I flew from Samos Island to Chios Island, then to Skiros Airbase, all islands to the west of Greece. Here are the shots, 15 pics at 1.85mb


Our flightpath, starting at Samos the SE and moving NW via Chios (about half-way) then to Skiros


Departing Samos


Leaving the island on track Chios. VFR of course, it's a good day.


Finals at Chios for a touch and go, then vacating the zone to the NW on track Skiros



There's some good looking scenery as you leave Chios.


They also managed to get the turquoise water looking good here (it's really good IMO), unlike Oahu.


Approaching Psara Island, only a few miles of Chios. There's also a little island to the SW of Psara called antipsara, but when I went past there was nothing happening there (it was just a lump of desert).


Not sure I like some of this landclass.


The bay of Psara island. Looks awesome in FSX IMO.


Here's skiros. Apparently this island has it's own breed of pony, or something. This part of the island looked great as well.


Descending for base leg


Base


Finals. I found that the goose slowed down easily, requiring quite a nose-down attitude to keep the speed up. There was a pretty massive displaced threshold as well which screwed up my approach a bit


Parked at Skiros.

Enjoy

[Alex]

Great stuff Brock, Greece looks really good in FSX.

Alex

[ardypilot]

Some of that landclass looks really realistic, some of it looks pretty bad IMO. Nice screeies though, and a great area of the world to fly in! I used to holiday in that region a lot as a child.

[Cbris]

Great stuff Brock, Greece looks really good in FSX.

Alex

Weeeelllll...

Add Greek Coastlines and whatever else the team from Hellas Scenery Project have on offer, and there is an improvement, but I have my main home on Kos island (I just work in Germany to get the cash flow right). I find Greece a bit let down in FS. This is one country that cries out for at least two or three higher levels of detail. In places we really need a 10 meter mesh to do Greece justice. Being on a very volcanic, earthquake risk region of the planet, there is some very rugged countryside that is totally missing.

The autogen is also very much lacking that Greek flavour. I am missing those blue roofed churches, chapels and monasteries that are so frequent. There are soooo many small villages missing. What about ruins? Delphi, Hippocrates' Hospital, the hundreds of amphitheatres...

...or even the beaches? There doesn't seem to be one hotel on any of the island beaches I fly over. I real life you can't miss the hotels. There's at least eleven hotel complexes on Koan beaches. And the neighbouring island of Kalymnos is literally dead in FS.

And very important, probably Greece's most visible land feature seems to be totally absent - the olive grove. Fly over southern mainland Greece and from Corinth to Kalamata you should see literally millions of olive trees all lined up like... er... lined up olive trees.

And where's Meteora? And just over the water, the Turkishg coastline is equally dull.

If anyone would, this is one part of the world that could be so much improved.

Sorry to dampen enthusiasm... I just happen to love the place. Oh, and sometimes I do get a little homesick.

Any scenery modelers out there? I could send a couple of hundred lo-res photos of typical island houses for fresh autogen.

[ardypilot]

I could send a couple of hundred lo-res photos of typical island houses for fresh autogen.

I could help out there too- have hunderds of photos I could scan in from family holidays- I've been to the mainland (Thessalonki), Kos, Corfu and Rhodos

[Cbris]

Sad, isn't? Me moaning abput the FS Greece... Actually it is well detailed for what's available. It's just that it isn't Greek enough. It's more south of France-ish.

The HSP addins do improve things. But I'd love to see some more Greek autogen too.

[Greekman72]

Great stuff Brock, Greece looks really good in FSX.

Alex

Weeeelllll...

Add Greek Coastlines and whatever else the team from Hellas Scenery Project have on offer, and there is an improvement, but I have my main home on Kos island (I just work in Germany to get the cash flow right). I find Greece a bit let down in FS. This is one country that cries out for at least two or three higher levels of detail. In places we really need a 10 meter mesh to do Greece justice. Being on a very volcanic, earthquake risk region of the planet, there is some very rugged countryside that is totally missing.

The autogen is also very much lacking that Greek flavour. I am missing those blue roofed churches, chapels and monasteries that are so frequent. There are soooo many small villages missing. What about ruins? Delphi, Hippocrates' Hospital, the hundreds of amphitheatres...

...or even the beaches? There doesn't seem to be one hotel on any of the island beaches I fly over. I real life you can't miss the hotels. There's at least eleven hotel complexes on Koan beaches. And the neighbouring island of Kalymnos is literally dead in FS.

And very important, probably Greece's most visible land feature seems to be totally absent - the olive grove. Fly over southern mainland Greece and from Corinth to Kalamata you should see literally millions of olive trees all lined up like... er... lined up olive trees.

And where's Meteora? And just over the water, the Turkishg coastline is equally dull.

If anyone would, this is one part of the world that could be so much improved.

Sorry to dampen enthusiasm... I just happen to love the place. Oh, and sometimes I do get a little homesick.

Any scenery modelers out there? I could send a couple of hundred lo-res photos of typical island houses for fresh autogen.

Hello dear members of NZFF

First of all i have to thank dear Trolly for point me this thread with these magnificent shots of my country...A great Art-work and presentation of some excellent places.
Secondly i have to apologize because i didn't visit these forums as i would like too...Real life in a combination with the creation of my own FS site spend mosts of my time...

Couldn't agree more with what dear Cbris points in his reply.Yes Greece looks better in FSX but not as we would love to.And this does not happens only to Greece...Flying over Kenya or Siberia is exactly the same think...Well maybe except winter time.
So we all have to pray or wait for a designers inspiration about specific places and thanks goodness there are a load of excellent works out there.Payware and freeware ones.
As far as concerns Greece ,i think that except Greek Coastlines there is no other add-on for the moment.A mesh or some airports.The FS9 existing ones are good but bot the best you can find but anyway it is something better than the defaults...Olives,Meteora,Santorini,Prespes lakes are some places that may worth a better luck...We shall see.

Sorry for this long post and also apologize for my bad English dear Gents.

Just in case anyone want to visit my site you will be more than welcome there

www.flightsimulationforums.com

Thank you very much and happy & safe flights to all of you.

[Cbris]

Yasou Hellinikos! Ti Kanis? Apo pou isse? Ime apo Ko kai meno sto Zipari.

OK, I know there's a lot of Greek folk in the southern hemisphere, but I'd best stick to the lingo I really know better.

Guess what... I found an olive grove! A nice regular patern of brown blobs on sandy soil with light shadows. Yuk! Athens looks nothing like the real Athens and Piraeus is dead in sim! Normally the place is full of ferry boats! Even setting FSX sea traffic high, the sea around Athens is bare. As for the Corinth Canal - well, the sim version is nothing like it. The real one is a 21 meter wide, steep sided gash from the gulf of Corinth to the Saronic gulf.

The Corinth Canal

And all that yellow countryside in all those inappropriate places (even a lot of Greek mountains look like oversized sand dunes), well, since when has grey granite been sandy coloured.

Thing is, Microsoft have simply brought the environmental collapse forward by a decade or two, that's all. Some people would simply call FSX "Forward Thinking".

[Greekman72]

Yassou ki esena file mou.

Well its a great pleasure meet people from Greece everywhere...And yes you can found them everywhere... I'm my forums we have two more Greek guys.

I born in Piraeus and now I'm leaving in Kiffisia(North Athens)...My parents born place was a small amazing village in Epirus.

You are right about everything you point about FSX and yes its annoying that Parnitha mountain its a sandy one...LooooL....FSX has more things to improve than FS9 when it first comes to the market...Obviously because most of us(The hardcore simmers)get used in some great add-ons for FS9 which we expect to see them default in FSX...But in the name of any goodness they hadn't put raindrops on the windscreen....

I'm expecting SP1 about FSX(soon it will be released)to see what they have keep on their mind and what not...The results will persuade me if MS wants to sell just a game or a serious Simulator.

Dear monkeybdg,sorry for hi-jacking your post!

[Jimmy]

kool brock, how do you come up with these ideas? Just pick a place on a map?

Whyd don't you turn you autogen off but put the water settings to max? Thats how I have my fsx and I find its far mroe enjoyable

[ZK-Brock]

No way James, I can't live without my autogen (even though it's so frickin sparse on FSX on my system). I used the Greek Coastlines scenery.

Since I was bored I also joined the FSGreece community here. Honestly there wasn't much going on, but it's still a nice place. I want to do somemore flying round here, can someone recommend me a flight?

[ardypilot]

can someone recommend me a flight?

Thessalonki (LGTS) to Heraklion (LGIR) or Zakynthos (LGZA)

Both flights include mainland mountain scenery and Aegean Sea islands

By the way, if you enjoy toruistey volcanic island scenery, be sure to check out 'Project Canarias 2006' which I reviewed here

[ZK-Brock]

I used to have Project Canarias, and I remembered it was great, but the downloads are so huge! And most of these are one-off flights so I'm not really wanting to download hundreds of mb's of stuff B) But I will try your suggested flight.

I'm also gonna have a go around Salt Lake City in the USA

[Cbris]

By the way, Monkeybdg, I must sincerely apologise for my churlish behaviour.

I entered this thread and commented on another reply, starting a sub-thread, but totally managed to ignore the fact that it was your post, which started it.

Those are great shots of my "adopted" home country and they do (as all my flights over Greece do) make me just a wee bit homesick. Anyway, thanks to this thread here, I also found the new Greek simmers' site and like you, Monkeybdg, I joined.

Thanks for the screenies and the lead!