Preflighting has changed for ever!

Check out http://www.keyhole.com They have a tool for $40/year that
allows you to "fly" to your destination before you fly! This isn't
like some flight simulator, these are actual satellite pictures. You
can even see your house and tell if your neighbor has a pool or not.
The pictures are 3d so you can lay the image down and see what the
terrain will be like on final before you fly to a mountain airport.
Sorry if I sound like I'm trying to sell something (I'm not in anyway
associated with this company) but I've never seen anything so cool!
One day I bet MS will integrate this into their MSFS product.

In a previous article, (Robert M. Gary) said:
like some flight simulator, these are actual satellite pictures. You
can even see your house and tell if your neighbor has a pool or not.
[snip]
associated with this company) but I've never seen anything so cool!
One day I bet MS will integrate this into their MSFS product.

You haven't used MSFS recently have you? Satellite imagery ground has
been a feature of MSFS since about 1998 or 2000.

--
Paul Tomblin http://xcski.com/blogs/pt/
And it should be the law: If you use the word 'paradigm' without knowing
what the dictionary says it means, you go to jail. No exceptions.
-- David Jones

On Tue, 30 Mar 2004 22:20:19 +0000 (UTC),
(Paul Tomblin) wrote:

You haven't used MSFS recently have you? Satellite imagery ground has
been a feature of MSFS since about 1998 or 2000.

Actually that's not quite true. Digital ELEVATION data, possibly
acquired by satellites, forms the terrain mesh of FS200*. The IMAGERY
mapped over that elevation data is mostly comprised of bitmaps that are
driven by USGS "land class" data (i.e. "where are the trees, where is
the water, where are the verdant pastures of green"), not actual
photo-imagery.

In FS2004 there are exceptions to this - a few areas have satellite
image-based areas - but the vast majority of the world's terrain is land
class-based.

There are many add-ons to FS that *are* based on aerial imagery - I'm
waiting on the one for Northern California to be released by
www.megascenery.com for instance.

BTW I've used the www.keyhole.com stuff, courtesy of a 30-day free
license that I got with an NVidia graphics card. It is really an amazing
application, and worth the bucks in my opinion. I haven't signed up yet
for the $ version but I probably will at some point.

---

On a related note, that may provide a similar function for folks, I've
been playing around with "ExpertGPS" (www.expertgps.com). It's a
shareware product ($59 after 30 days of free use) that lets you do a
number of things with topo maps and (b&w) aerial photos, typically in
association with a GPS receiver. For instance, I just bought this really
cool Garmin "ForeTrex" palm-size GPS unit that has a PC interface, that
I bought for biking and geocaching (www.geocaching.com). I can download
a "track" that I've traveled with the GPS and it will map that to
web-based topo and aerial photo data and then download those "tiles" for
viewing. You can also digitize a scanned sectional or other aeronautical
map and do similar things - *or* plot out a flight in the application
and then download the route into your handheld.

It's a little hard to describe in text but the download and first 30
days is free and I have been having a blast with it over the last few
days.

(Scanned sectionals are available for free download from a number of
places, e.g. www.avsim.com. But - they are not current if that's
important to you.)

Dave Blevins

wrote in message
...
On Tue, 30 Mar 2004 22:20:19 +0000 (UTC),
(Paul Tomblin) wrote:

You haven't used MSFS recently have you? Satellite imagery ground has
been a feature of MSFS since about 1998 or 2000.

Actually that's not quite true. Digital ELEVATION data, possibly
acquired by satellites, forms the terrain mesh of FS200*. The IMAGERY
mapped over that elevation data is mostly comprised of bitmaps that are
driven by USGS "land class" data (i.e. "where are the trees, where is
the water, where are the verdant pastures of green"), not actual
photo-imagery.

Maybe that's why, a few years back, MSFS '98 had me crash into a mountain
on a flight from CHD to the Grand Canyon when flying at 13,000 feet. That's
1000 feet higher than any terrain in the area (Mt. Humphries, which was
misplaced by 70 miles). I never went back and bothered to upgrade the
product. It also misplaced the runways about 100 feet left or right.

On Wed, 31 Mar 2004 05:01:41 -0700, "Tom Sixkiller"
wrote:

Maybe that's why, a few years back, MSFS '98 had me crash into a mountain
on a flight from CHD to the Grand Canyon when flying at 13,000 feet. That's
1000 feet higher than any terrain in the area (Mt. Humphries, which was
misplaced by 70 miles). I never went back and bothered to upgrade the
product. It also misplaced the runways about 100 feet left or right.

I don't know what the FS98 terrain was based on, but I have a feeling it
was at least a lot less accurate and probably not based on the same
digital elevation data that the newer versions are. The landscape looks
a LOT better in FS2004 than FS98, believe me.

A couple more notes:

- the resolution of the terrain mesh in FS2004 varies by area, but
almost without exception it is lower than what you get get both as
freeware and payware add-ons. (See http://www.fsgenesis.net for both
types.) But, in general the stock data should be sufficient to represent
mountain peaks and the like accurately. The higher-rez mesh serves
mostly to make mountains and hills look a lot more realistic.

- Many times, I have flown instrument flight plans and approaches in
FS2002 and 2004, using add-ons that hook up the Garmin GNS530 PC-based
emulator softare to FS. I've never noticed any inaccuracies whatsoever
(in the area I fly, which is almost always northern California) with
respect to elevations, runway locations, etc. in FS and in the Jepp
database in the emulator. I have also never run into rocks in the
clouds unexpectedly.

I can set the wx up for 800' overcast and 1/2 mile viz, shoot an ILS,
and assuming I keep everything centered I'll be perfectly lined up with
the runway on short final. And, just as you'd expect, for non-precision
approaches the runway shows up somewhere other than where I'm pointed
8^) . I'm not a terribly experienced IFR pilot by any means but my
experiences in FS are very realistic as compared to the IFR work I *did*
do during the instrument ticket training.

Dave Blevins

In a previous article, Please replace "nospam" with "xilinx" to reply said:
On a related note, that may provide a similar function for folks, I've
been playing around with "ExpertGPS" (www.expertgps.com). It's a
shareware product ($59 after 30 days of free use) that lets you do a
number of things with topo maps and (b&w) aerial photos, typically in

If you need aviation waypoints for ExpertGPS (and I'm pretty sure
ExpertGPS can upload them into your GPS), go to http://navaid.com/GPX/



--
Paul Tomblin http://xcski.com/blogs/pt/
I mean, if went 'round saying I was a perl hacker, just because some
moistened bint lobbed a "Perl for Dummies" at me, they'd put me away!
-- Randy the Random

There are many add-ons to FS that *are* based on aerial imagery - I'm
waiting on the one for Northern California to be released by
www.megascenery.com for instance.

I just spent a couple hours last night flying a virtual cross-country in FS
2004 with the MegaScenery pack for Southern California. (It's something to do
until my student pilot/medical certificate problem gets resolved.) It was the
first time I actually used the MegaScenery in a useful way.

I don't like that it takes so long to start up FS when it's installed, and
while the general terrain features are far better than what FS offers by
default, it's still not accurate to the point that a student pilot like me
could use what I'm seeing on the screen and match it to the reality of flying
in the pattern at my home airport.

That said, I found it to be invaluable last night in gauging the effectiveness
of landmarks I had chosen along my route (CCB - F70 - CRQ). Lakes that I
didn't think were very interesting on the sectional really stood out in FS,
telling me that distinctive lakes make very good landmarks (especially when
your path is in between two of them).

I also have the Keyhole software. I bought a year subscription a while back
just for fun. It's great for getting aerial views of particular places (such
as destination airports), but I don't think it would do as well for simulating
navigation, IMHO.

--Marc

Very Cool! Thanks. Let's see how long before I get bored.... or not!

"Robert M. Gary" wrote in message
om...
Check out http://www.keyhole.com They have a tool for $40/year that
allows you to "fly" to your destination before you fly! This isn't
like some flight simulator, these are actual satellite pictures. You
can even see your house and tell if your neighbor has a pool or not.
The pictures are 3d so you can lay the image down and see what the
terrain will be like on final before you fly to a mountain airport.
Sorry if I sound like I'm trying to sell something (I'm not in anyway
associated with this company) but I've never seen anything so cool!
One day I bet MS will integrate this into their MSFS product.

That really is cool -- although it has repeatedly crashed on my system.

However, it works long enough for me to "fly" into my hometown airport in
Racine, WI, and to "fly" into Meigs one more time... *snurf*
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Robert M. Gary" wrote in message
om...
Check out http://www.keyhole.com They have a tool for $40/year that
allows you to "fly" to your destination before you fly! This isn't
like some flight simulator, these are actual satellite pictures. You
can even see your house and tell if your neighbor has a pool or not.
The pictures are 3d so you can lay the image down and see what the
terrain will be like on final before you fly to a mountain airport.
Sorry if I sound like I'm trying to sell something (I'm not in anyway
associated with this company) but I've never seen anything so cool!
One day I bet MS will integrate this into their MSFS product.

Yes its impressive. Better than the Megascenery that I just installed for
the NY area. Having zoomed into my area in NJ the photos are at least 3
years old . Wouldn't want to rely on them for spotting tall stuff that may
have been put up since. The appoach to the airfield I'm training at was
perfect.

"Robert M. Gary" wrote in message
om...
Check out http://www.keyhole.com They have a tool for $40/year that
allows you to "fly" to your destination before you fly! This isn't
like some flight simulator, these are actual satellite pictures. You
can even see your house and tell if your neighbor has a pool or not.
The pictures are 3d so you can lay the image down and see what the
terrain will be like on final before you fly to a mountain airport.
Sorry if I sound like I'm trying to sell something (I'm not in anyway
associated with this company) but I've never seen anything so cool!
One day I bet MS will integrate this into their MSFS product.