Photo-Review: FTX US 1S2 Darrington Muni V1.0

Every time when flightsimulation hits a new level I am hooked. Some people are excited when the new big ‘heavymetal-thousandswitches airliner’ is released or a new mega hub gets real. But there is a growing group of virtual bushpilots enjoying back country flying. For those “tough” guys every improvement of landscape modeling is welcome.

The first real big step for me was when Holger Sandmann released his first sceneries (Glacier Bay, Misty Fjords …) or the Georender’s came along. Also when Tongass Fjords for FSX came out, I was trapped in my fantasy, being a smart Cub pilot, bringing important “stuff” to lonely places miles from anywhere.

Now we’ve got the excellent FTX Pacific Northwest Addon from the ORBX Team and for that the first two highly detailed airstrips 7S3 Stark’s Twin Oaks (Bill Womack) and 1S2 Darrington Muni. And again we’ve reached a new level in visual presentation in FSX.

Darrington Muni is a scenery from Andreas Hegi and Heiko Glatthorn and a bunch of people from the ORBX Team. This small 1500 souls village is situated in the west of the Cascade Mountains and in the northeast of Seattle. A perfect place to start tours to the North Cascades or the well designed Glacier Peak in the south west.

To get an first impression of the huge amount of  details I used (for the first time) this FTX BOB Dude ( http://fullterrain.com/freeware.html ) to walk around:

When I walked along Madison Ave to finally get to the airport, I found a beautiful modeled bus station. So it’s obvious that you have to fly low and slow, to get an impression of this beauty.

Especially the Hampton Lumber Mills near the airport is a landmark worth visiting several times.

On a next flight I took the A2A Piper Cub to follow the Arlington-Darrington Road (530) to the end of the scenery in the west an back along the power line to Sauk River with the nice sand banks. A good place to practice dangerous tundra landings.

Sometimes friends ask me: Why do you ‘play’ being a pilot as a grownup?  I should do something more serious. You know: building a house, plant a tree …..  And then I think for a minute and … I don’t care . Because it’s makes me more satisfied; more pleased. And that’s good for them.

Frank Coburger

Hardware: Intel Core2Duo @3.4 Ghz, GForce 8800GTX 768MByte, 4 GByte RAM

Software: Windows 7 64 bit, FSX + Acceleration Pack, FTX NA Blue Pacific NorthWest ( necessary ), FTX 1S2 Darrington Muni, Real Environment Extrem 2.0, A2A Piper Cub + Accu Sim + Urs ‘Maloney’ Burkhardt’s repaints

Special Equipment: Swaddling clothes 🙂

Links: http://orbxsystems.com/