Classic British Flight Sim

:hi:

Happy flying, and you're most welcome here up north....

(ATM. I'm in Darwin, heading to Sydney, as you might see in my sig....)

Btw. by the look of your Avatar, you could use a bit of reindeermilk I guess......

Well I have FSX and I have looked at the stars, I still can't find evidence that they are accurately placed but I remember a video interview with one of the FSX development team where he said that the stars are accurate.

Im not really familiar with the skies though so I wouldn't notice alot!

Cheers,

Look out for small whitish thingies, scattered around in the dark....if you can see some, then they are there, if you can't they're not.....

If they are there, some of them are bound to be similar to some kind of picture inside your head.....

If they don't they are M$, if they do, they are Real Star ;-)

I downloaded rlstar04 because when I am not CBF VA flying I am going to take a DC3, C47 or Canberra equipped with a bubble sextant and drift meter, the latter I have been using with ASv6.5 weather in my VA DC3 and it really does work!

I am fascinated by the fact that these were standard Bomber, Coastal and Transport Commands equipment in the days before and after GEE, indeed well into the Hastings and Canberra eras, and I would like to try them out with a trans Pacific flight as a finale! I shall keep my FSNav running just to keep track of my errors.

I recall reading somewhere that Francis Chichester flew a Moth of some kind to New Zealand in the 1930s and worked on the principle that objects were more easily identified at an angle rather than seeeking to aim straight at them. On his flight to NZ he deliberately flew a track across the sea such that his landfall was not directly overhead his intended destination. I cannot recall whether he flew at a height in excess of the highest expected land in the area - and in any case after a long, relatively slow over-water flight how would he know what pressure to set on his altimeter?

Any real navigators or pilots care to comment on the above navigation technique?

I know that some early aviators, and a considerable number of trainnees in WWII never arrived at their intended destinations (Wrecks & Relics?) but it does seem to me extraordinary that anyone arrived at all prior to 1942. Accurate point to point navigation in minimum time must have been impossible then but we take it for granted today that after a flight halfway round the world the aircraft will touchdown on the intended strip of concrete that is 50yds wide and two miles in length.

I have just searched, as indicated in rlstars04.zip, for FS2004 stars.dat and my machine cannot find it in FS2004.

Can someone please tell me where the original FS2004 stars.dat is located so that I can back it up and replace it with realstars04.dat?

hobby wrote:Can someone please tell me where the original FS2004 stars.dat is located so that I can back it up and replace it with realstars04.dat?

Mine is just called stars.dat and is in the main FS9 folder.

It was still regular practice to take star shots from jetliners in the early to mid 70s. A sextant was carried on VC10s and (I think) 707s. I remember the FO regularly having to stand on the observer's seat to check our position. We didn't carry a dedicated navigator then. I suppose it was just a back up to VOR navigation when beacons were sparsely located.

Ian

I'm very reluctant to say it but everything is spelled out in the readme.txt.... :tuttut:

But then again. the readme.txt is wrong..(!)...

Default path would be:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Flight Simulator 9\stars.dat (same folder as fs9.exe)

hobby wrote:I have just searched, as indicated in rlstars04.zip, for FS2004 stars.dat and my machine cannot find it in FS2004.

Can someone please tell me where the original FS2004 stars.dat is located so that I can back it up and replace it with realstars04.dat?

Should be in the FS2004 root directory - usually found at this location:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Flight Simulator 9

;-)

As stated approximately 2 inches above....