Flying the Tour de France 2025

[deeknow]

Not sure I've shared my passion for cycling before at NZFF. It's a sport I've followed closely since my late teens, in my mid 20s got to watch a few stages IRL while living in the UK, and since then have obsessively watched coverage of pro cycling (and more recently cyclocross) of all types, initially on VCR, then DVDs and finally these days on various streaming services.

So this week, what with the Tour de France now in full swing, I thought why not combine flight-simming and cycling in a weird sort of way. As a result I'm gonna do a small number of fly through vids in the sim following stages in various points of the 3 week event in different parts of the country. It's a gorgeous country to view from the air, and the TV coverage is often taken zoomed in from choppers not far above the race below.

Le Tour started on 5th July this year in the Hauts-de-France region in the North East tip of France. The first 4 stages were all in this region with the opening stage a loop around Lille itself. This video covers sections of the Stage 2 route and the scenery is nicely representative of the area, and all 4 stages are on similar terrain so this one kinda sums up this phase of the first week of the tour.

I also kinda wanted to make this a bit of a swan-song of my P3D flying. Like most of us I'm looking to transition to MSFS20xx at some point but thought why not show off what P3D has to offer for those who've made the investment in time or money to enhance it over many years.

We're flying a local genrdarmes chopper today (Nemeth Bros AS350) on security detail keeping an eye on the race route from above.

We start from Lille airport (ICAO: LFQQ) showing a freeware airport release and some photo-real from yours truely, and we end up after the stage ends not far from Lille again at Valenciennes-Denain Airport (ICAO: LFAV) another freeware airport w models from f-bmpl.com / Christian Dupriez and some more photo-real from me.

Enjoy

Watch on youtube.com

Ground mesh, auto-gen and land class en-route are all Orbx Global and EU for P3D.

[Charl]

Deeknow!
superbe idée mon ami
Remember to fly the knife edge under the Arc de Triomf in 10 days time!

[deeknow]

Remember to fly the knife edge under the Arc de Triomf in 10 days time!

Haha of course, the final stage each year is along the Champs-Élysées and up around the Arc, they do that a few times, I'll have time to sneak through ..

[emfrat]

Couldn't help noticing the plonk factory on the airfield, just like the good folk of Marlborough have

[Splitpin]

Great project deeknow.

[Irfan Ahmed]

You seem to know your way across northwestern France. Great video!