Terrain avoidance?

[Guest beazle]

I was wondering how easy it would be to have some way to pause FS2002 (through FSIUPC) when you get too close to the ground? The reason is that I plan my flights with FSNavigator and it does not show "real" terrain elevations. I go for a shower or whatever during my flight and I come back to a plane that has crashed into a mountain that I did not know was there!!! Any ideas?

Thanks

[Pete Dowson]

I was wondering how easy it would be to have some way to pause FS2002 (through FSIUPC) when you get too close to the ground? The reason is that I plan my flights with FSNavigator and it does not show "real" terrain elevations. I go for a shower or whatever during my flight and I come back to a plane that has crashed into a mountain that I did not know was there!!! Any ideas?

Thanks

"Sorry sir, I hit a mountain I did not know was there"! :D What a story to tell the authorities!

When you planned your trip you should really have noted the "MSA" (minimum safe altitude) for each section passed through. I use the relatively cheap TPCs or ONCs which you can get for virtually anywhere in the world -- I think the TPCs for the USA are equivalent to the WACs.

Unfortunately, nothing in FSUIPC tells you about mountains ahead. It really isn't much use just reading the ground elevation directly below the aircraft. In England with it's mostly rolling countryside maybe the ground rising slowly beneath you is a warning or something dangerous ahead, but that isn't going to be the case most of the time. In parts of the USA in particular, mountains have that annoying habit of sticking up out of an otherwise very flat plain! There's no way to predict that from the ground level beneath you.

No doubt something somewhere in FS knows about the shape of the country side around you, otherwise it couldn't draw it. But I don't know how to access that to proivde a terrain view ahead. Sorry. Programs that do this make use of their own terrain data files, I think.

Meanwhile, all I can suggest is set up AutoSave to save your flight at intervals, so when you come back to the wreckage you can go back in time a tad and change the course of history!

Regards,

Pete

[StuartWhelan]

I was wondering how easy it would be to have some way to pause FS2002 (through FSIUPC) when you get too close to the ground? The reason is that I plan my flights with FSNavigator and it does not show "real" terrain elevations. I go for a shower or whatever during my flight and I come back to a plane that has crashed into a mountain that I did not know was there!!! Any ideas?

Thanks

It would be /really/ easy to write an app that checks radar altitude and pauses Flight Sim.

The hard part would be stopping it from doing it when your landing.. :)

I guess that:

If Gear is up

AND Vertical speed is zero or climbing.

AND Radar Altitude is < 500 ft

Pause.

It would take about 10 minutes to code, if that is what you want.

[Guest]

That sounds great except that I could never write something like that...I understand most stuff but writing code is WAAAAAY beyond my capabilities! If you could write something like that and send it to me I would love to try it out! Thanks...

beazlebug@shaw.ca

[Phil51]

well, StuartWhelan as a matter of fact I am in the process to write a terrain avoidance and even a terrain following module with FSUIPC, furthermore I am a vb6 programmer. And a pilot in real world.

So far I can read aircraft and autopilot parameters and write to the AP except for the VS, I can't find the conversion formula, if someone knows, it would save me some time.

What I intend to do and use the SLEW functions to reverse "course of history" as stated Peter, and also use the elevator to pull a steady 11 Gs if there is time to do so....

I think that a new approach must be found, not Lago's Tornado one ! as it remains impossible for me to "look ahead" for what's coming fast !

So if you have bright suggestions and the conversion formulas, there shouldn't be any concern to give them a try.

Cheers, Philippe