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May be able to watch the Reno Air Races in FS2020

Discussion in 'Flight Simulator 2020 - FS2020' started by Zed, Aug 17, 2021.

  1. Zed

    Zed VR Simming w/Reverb Gold Contributor

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    My Motion Simulator:
    2DOF, DC motor, JRK
    This isn’t motion sim related but still may be of interest.

    There is a mod on flightsim.to called Enhanced Live Traffic. It injects real world traffic into FS2020. FS2020 already has that capability but it’s 5 minutes delayed data from FlightAware and a subset of available data. ELT gets its data from Flightradar24, it isn’t delayed, and in ELT you can set how much traffic you see.

    There is model matching that we can edit all the way to liveries. It would be possible to actually “fly” with the racers and see who is where but FS2020 doesn’t support labels on these injected aircraft and we don’t have many (any?) racing liveries. But hopefully we can see positions well enough to view the races. I was watching aircraft arrive at Oshkosh a couple of weeks ago and the Texans were arriving in flights of two in formation for setup for landing. ELT was faithful enough to watch them in close form as they arrived and then broke for landing. It was cool as hell to watch in the sim.

    There are issues that could interfere to some extent. Aircraft heading lags flight path a little so aircraft might not be pointed quite right for a few positions after a pylon. And not every aircraft may be broadcasting ADS-B positions. I just checked unlimited P-51 Miss America and she is properly equipped and flew just yesterday from Wiley Post in Oklahoma (return to Wiley Post). Also, you only see the aircraft when their electrical systems are up and broadcasting positions. They disappear when shut back down. Also, the default aircraft is an Airbus A320 so anything not matched will get really big.

    As we get closer to September 15th, we may see aircraft on the course. I was watching an RV fly the landing pattern at Stead yesterday and Flightradar had him covered all around the pattern (not the course) though his flight path was less accurate probably due to the radio/instrument setup in the plane. Some aircraft just don’t track that well. I’d bet the homebuilt end of the spectrum has more of that. With good setups in aircraft, you can see if they are one side or the other of the runway centerline.

    Anyway, for those who might be interested. I’m trying to line up good surrogate aircraft to use in the model matching to try to cover most aircraft at the races. Can’t say how well it will work since it’s never been done before. A few of us met up at 9NM9 for the Virgin Galactic launch (both mothership and rocket are ADS-B equipped) but we didn’t have ELT and didn’t see a thing. All were using the stock real world aircraft injector which didn’t bring them into the sim. Flightradar24 saw them though and had we known about it then, we might have been able to see them fly. Like I said above, I did have it set up for Oshkosh and it was a very fun Sunday watching aircraft arrive. Fingers crossed we see some of the action at Reno.

    Anyone interested?
    • Informative Informative x 1
  2. Zed

    Zed VR Simming w/Reverb Gold Contributor

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    My Motion Simulator:
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    Just an update way after the fact - couldn’t see much of anything. I suspect it was lack of coverage down low but I didn’t manage to catch starts on the unlimiteds or jets which I believe start on the east side of the course flying north. There are a lot of ridges around Reno and if all the receivers are in Reno proper, there is a nice ridge between Reno and Stead. We may just need better radio coverage at Stead.

    So it was a bust.

    Next opportunity to see something like this is the next Virgin Galactic flight. They’ve announced Unity 23 but the FAA grounded them to investigate an anomaly during the Branson flight. Don’t know the current status of that, though.
  3. getrav

    getrav New Member

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    Good idea. Something like live data + your controls would allow you to experience the race in FPV!
    Don’t have the skills but it seems really cool.