Tag: flight simulator

Every time I fly in the UK in FS 2020 I forget which areas have photogrammetry, so here’s a quick list for future reference:

World Update XVII UK and Ireland (released 23 July 2024 added (from release notes here: https://www.flightsimulator.com/world-update-xvii-united-kingdom-ireland/) 16 TIN cities (triangulated irregular network) with surface modelling (higher resolution elevation data):

England:

• Bristol
• Brighton
• Greater London
• Heathrow
• Leeds-Bradford
• Liverpool
• Newcastle-Sunderland
• Welling
• Wembley

Ireland:

• Cork
• Dublin
• Cliffs of Moher / Liscannor

Scotland:

• Edinburgh
• Glasgow

Wales

• Cardiff

• Gibraltar

5 handcrafted airports:

• Farnborough Airport (EGLF) and London Stansted Airport (EGSS) in England

• Cork Airport (EICK) in Ireland

• Sumburgh Airport (EGPB) in Scotland

• Cardiff (EGFF) in Wales

World Update III UK (from release notes here: https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/release-release-notes-1-13-16-0-world-update-iii-united-kingdom-now-available/365854/1  and here: https://www.polygon.com/2021/2/16/22285851/microsoft-flight-simulator-world-update-3-united-kingdom-england-ireland-scotland-wales)

Added:

• Birmingham
• Bristol
• Cambridge
• London
• Oxford

Handcrafted airports:

• Barra
• Liverpool
• Land’s End
• Manchester-Barton
• Out Skerries

Summarized list from my previous post here: https://www.kevinhooke.com/2021/05/16/microsoft-flight-simulator-uk-cities-with-photogrammetry/

Original FS 2020 release cities:

• Portsmouth
• Southampton

If you fly over Calshot near Southampton, you’ll see this manufacturing site for wind turbines:

Flight Simulator’s scenery generator clearly doesn’t know what to make of these large objects, and so probably thinking they are streets, it places auto gen houses along them:

Taking a quick look in Google Maps, you can clearly see this location in more detail:

You’d think a couple of years after release with regular world updates and patches that most bridges would now be modelled as bridges, and not photogrammetry draped over elevation data. At least significant landmark bridges such as the Golden Gate and Bay Bridge are now (very beautifully too) modelled accurately and yes you can fly under them without hitting a brick wall:

You don’t have to fly too far however before you start to see these again, here’s the Carquinez Bridge in Crockett, about 6 miles to the NE:

Don’t try flying under this one, it doesn’t end well.

Some Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) apps such as FltPln and ForeFlight can also connect to most of the popular flight sim apps like Xplane, MS FSX and FS Flight Simulator 2020.

FlightPlane has some great instructions for connecting to flight sims using a number of different approaches. The easiest option I’ve found so far is to download the Flight Events app from https://events.flighttracker.tech/ . Press the Join button top right and follow the instructions.

Enable the ‘Broadcast data to local network’ option. Initially ForeFlight didn’t show the Flight Events panel under ‘More… Devices’ until I entered the current ip address of my iPad on my network in Flight Events (instead of the default broadcast option) :

and the Flight Events appeared in the Devices panel here:

Click ‘Flight Events’, enable, and then ForeFlight is sync’d with your sim.