USA - New Castle, VA

New Castle airfield, Craig County is located in the South Western part of Virginia and is home to the Blue Ridge Soaring Society, Blue Ridge Soaring Society. The Area is surrounded by National forest where the applachains stretch through the wilderness of Virginia. With many Mountain ridges, you can enjoy the experience of ridge running.

Aerodrome Information.

ICAO VA85
Elevation: 1320ft (402m)
Runway 18/36, 2400x100ft
RWY 18 Left Hand Circuits, RWY 36 Right Hand Circuits.
Sectional Charts. The Broad Mauve Ribbon to the South is Class E airspace, you are allowed to fly up to 18,000ft, keep clear of the solid purple band near Roanoke (Class C)

Also remember to squawk mode C with code 1200 whilst VFR on VATSIM in the USA.

CCS2004 Slope Files

Below is a compiled set of slope data files for CCS2004 so that you cab ridge soar in FS9.

Scenery

There is not much in the way of VFR scenery to be had for flight simulator in the USA but you could try Earth Tiles or Tileproxy for photorealistic scenery. Default Mesh will be used, there is available from the web 10M mesh but is about 2GB in size.

Suggested Tasks

All of these tasks are loosely based on RW competition tasks. I have taken as near as I can the real world weather conditions for each task and have included a pre-saved flight and cmx file for FSX users that may want to use it for syncronised thermals with another glider.

Because these tasks are in the Fall month of the year, you may need to after your launch bide your time in seeking the thermals, perhaps take the ridge if winds are favourable. If you are still struggling for thermals then try advancing the clock in 1/2 hour increments to see if the thermals are better. Or you could roll the month back to August, there is no hard and fast rules in what you do for the general tasks.
This mirrors what RW glider pilots do in that they choose there moment for the best strategic weather conditions.

The only task that should not be touched is Task 5 if you are doing it as a competition entry, otherwise you can amend it as above if you are just doing it as a general task.

FS9 users using CCS2004 ensure that the slope files are installed in your CCS2004/Slope data folder.
Note: The Max. start height for all tasks is 5000ft AGL. The start line is about 3km NE of the airfield.

General Task 1 158km

Task Course 1
Alt Start A
Oriskany
Mountain Lake
Sweetsprings
Maggie
Finish Gate

Weather
Approx 8000ft Thermals
Winds NW 10knts

General Task 2 167km

Task Course 2
Alt Start A
Trussmark
Big Hill
Maggie
Finish Gate

Weather
Approx 8000ft Thermals
Winds 130 12knts

General Task 3 154km

Task Course 3
Alt Start A
Big Hill
Sweet Springs
Maggie
Oriskany
Finish Gate

Weather
Approx 8500ft Thermals
Winds 138 16knts

General Task 4 83km

Task Course 4
Alt Start A
Oriskany
Sweet Springs
Maggie
Finish Gate

Weather
Approx 9000ft Thermals
Winds 327 16knts

League Task 5 202km (Approx task time 2hrs)

For a bit of a competitive element I have used this course. Try to get around in the quickiest possible time. You can do this course as many times as you like, this is a great way of trying to improve your gliding performance.
Practise using the McCreedy settings.
Think about spending most of your time in thermals (rising air) and less time between them (sinking air). Think about what else you can do to improve your performance.

The task starts at the Alt Start A 3km NE from the airfield. The Maximum Height across the Start is 5000ft AGL, penalty points will be deducted from your score if this height is exceeded.
Points awarded will go into a league table which will be continually updated as pilots improve their scores. The score will be based on the BGA ladder.

League Task Course 5
Alt Start A
Mountain Lake
Eagle Rock
Maggie
Finish Cylinder

Weather
Approx 7000ft Thermals
Winds 325 16knts


Overall League results

CN  Pilot  Task Points 
ZS-GJD  Charl Viviers  2662 
G-VGAL  Ivan Rogers  2189 
G-VGIM  Ian McFarlane  1161 

Individual Results for Charl Viviers

CN  Glider  Start  Finish  Time  Speed (kph)  Dist (km)  Points  Comments 
ZS-GJD  ASW28  17:6:14  18:28:53  01:12:39  163.1  201.85  2150  Incomplete Task. 
ZS-GJD  ASW15  17:15:44  18:37:17  01:21:33  163  201.85  2662   
ZS-GJD  Std Libelle  17:15:49  18:37:10  01:21:21  163  201.85  2662   
ZS-GJD  Discus 2b  17:16:04  18:20:39  01:04:35  182  201.85  2584.6   
ZS-GJD  LS4  17:17:19  18:29:34  01:12:15  169  201.85  2543   

Individual Results for Ian McFarlane

CN  Glider  Start  Finish  Time  Speed (kph)  Dist (km)  Points  Comments 
G-VGIM  ASW28  18:07:09  19:32:16  01:25:07  104kph  150.24  1161  Incomplete Task 
                 

Individual Results for Ivan Rogers

CN  Glider  Start  Finish  Time  Speed (kph)  Dist (km)  Points  Comments 
G-VGAN  Discus  17:20:08  18:43:07  01:22:59  143  201.85  2189   
                 

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