Not flown in a while. Just had a very quick & short look at the demo scenery release from the Australia scenery project by frtps and others .
The demo scenery needs engine features from a recent FG nightly for cliffs, plantations, and newer OSM2City.
Thread: link , Instructions link, Scenery link , OSM2City link , YSSY Airport scenery: link, FG nightly: link.
Edit: updated with link to airport models.
Note 23/02/2020 : region_pack.tgz in the scenery pack may need to be downloaded from here: link. Unpack just the NSW/output/terrain folder in Sydney_Scenery.tgz. The other folders are empty linux links which caused problems in windows causing explorer.exe to churn until terminated (for me at least).
Blue Mountains, near Katoomba. Heli: gazelle. Close airfield: YKAT. Coords near: -33.72716594, 150.3036198
The Blue Mountains get their name as a result of Eucalyptus trees which evolved in the Australian region. Sort of the tree version of the Marsupials IIRC Eucalyptus elsewhere are imported. AIUI these trees release Eucalyptus oil (a volatile organic compound called a terpene) which combines with dust & moisture to form an extremely fine aerosol smog layer giving the blue colour.
Remember to turn the smog slider up when flying in Australia to approximate this: Environment menu -> weather -> detailed weather -> advanced options. Tree species in other countries also release amount of terpenes. The oak forests of Blue Ridge mountains in the USA and some forests of France or Italy have similar aerosol hazes AIUI.
Under the right conditions the smog helps make certain (thin) clouds pink at day time - in certain areas of the sky but not in others. These screens were with a low morning sun.
Pterosaur:
The Blue Mountains region is like the Grand Canyon region (img) in some respects. An uplifted sedimentary plateau heavily incised by flowing rivers. There are steep sedimentary cliffs unlike the Grand Canyon.
These cliffs need engine features available in nightly.
FG's lighting of cliffs stands out at sunset/sunrise. 3 screens as the sun sinks lower.
1:
2:
3:
Colour change as ice crystals in upper clouds scatter light depending on angles (see near the Pterosaur). IIRC I also increased the ground haze in weather->advanced settings which is responsible for the redness of the trees at the base of the cliff.
Album : https://imgur.com/a/E1a45Yl
Kind regards