Goodly afternoon all...

Snowing and blowing outside and the old girl is out so a good excuse to do a little simulated flying...

While the college boys are out and about in their C17s, C130s, King Airs, Cormorant Helicopters along with a few other flying mechanical marvels like their Airbus I am snug as a bug in a rug puttering about with the FSX Cessna 172.

They pass by our front windows at several hundred feet on approach to land or when they depart over the water.
We can almost look directly into the cockpit sometimes.

We also enjoy looking at the boats as they come and go.

Hope to get some ski flying in this weekend with a grandson or a friend.
It has been months since I was up in a Citabria Aircraft but for now here are some shots of a short flight I did today on the FSX Simulator...

FSX and Windows 7
HDE Clouds
3D Lights
FS Water Configurator...not on
Season is Winter and the flight took place during day and night hours to keep the Night Endorsement Current.
Location:  Ontario Cottage Country just north of the City of
                Toronto.

Check out the Simviation Download Site...all the Freeware is there...

Wonderful winter morning for a local flight.
Engines seem to run better in the rain or the cold of winter...


Something for every aviator:
---Frozen Lake for the Ski Aviator
---Open Water for the Seaplane or Floatplane Aviator


Just puttering along...
Some World War One Fighter Aircraft were faster...


"X" on each end of Runway....Runway is closed....

http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/civilaviation/publications/tp14371-aga-3-0-3094.htm
When a section of a runway is closed, either temporarily because of construction or permanently because the full length is no longer required, the closed portion of the runway will not be available for the surface movement of aircraft for taxiing, take-off or landing purposes and is marked with an “X”, indicating that the area is not suitable for aircraft use.




Keeping up the Night Endorsement...


Just ahead and below the Port Wing you can just make out Navigation Lights of an aircraft approaching the airport.



Comments and Advice most welcome...

Thanks andy190 for the comment...

It is FSX Ontario, Canada in all the shots...

Cool shots and nice livery

Hi again Doug,

Some nice shots here as well. The first three have cool colors once again, and the water looks really nice too.

The night shots are nice but a bit dark. I understand you wanted to emphasize on the runway lighting as well as the landing light of the plane, however the rest of the shots around those details are quite empty. Once again, by choosing a different camera position, you could certainly get the same kind of view of the terrain, coupled with a more interesting view of the aircraft ! That would be a better balance, don't you think ?

This applies to all shots. For example the first one... wait, I'll try to make a similar screenshot to show you what I'm trying to say...

Ok here is an example.
I tried to reproduce your first shot, but I failed to set the time correctly so my shots are a bit too dark...

So, here is a similar shot to your first one:


The plane sits in the center of the picture, with a nice background, nice sky, nice weather, nice colors etc... but it's a very classic shot right ? Now, I change the view to the special external ones, those which are just before going back to the VC when you circle the views with the S key. It's the view "right wing to cockpit" or something like that. Then I move the camera position (with the various key combos CTRL+ENTER, SHIFT+CTRL+BACKSPACE etc....) forward and left to reproduce the same angle of view than the first shot, but also a bit down in order to get the plane out of the center of the picture, in front of the sky. Also, I keep the camera closer to the plane than where it was in the original screenshot, keeping the same zoom value. Look at the result:



And since the default Cessna has quite a beautifull 3D model, we can even get closer to it, so I move the camera again to get closer :



Do you see the difference ? Suddenly, the shot looks a bit like a postal card instead of a simple screenshot ! Of course, the goal is to find the correct balance for distance, visibility of the background etc... It's nice when the plane is off the center of the picture, but if you put it too far off the center, it can look quite bad actually.

Honnestly, sometimes I spend more time trying to find the correct angle of view for the screenshot that just flying around 

Nice ones! I have to say I enjoy the C172 as well
The tips from Daube are great too, I'll give them a go.