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03/15-16@18:00utc, Isle of Man TT, Scooter tour

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03/15-16@18:00utc, Isle of Man TT, Scooter tour

Postby LesterBoffo » Mon Feb 17, 2014 12:36 am

Be ready for the St Patrick's Day weekend on your FlightGear calendar, I will be hosting another 'Funfly'. Except this one is on two wheeled vehicles, and not just any old bikes, but scooters. :lol:

Oh, did you say that FlightGear doesn't have motorcycles or scooters? It will...

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The course of course will be on the infamous Isle of Man TT race course, which, with the recent terrain improvements in FG actually has the roads used in the TT course on the terrain of the Isle of Man. :D And a treacherous race course this one is, as there are more ways to crash and wreck on this course in FG that the real one has.

We'll start at a set of co-ordinates I've made as a groundnet for EGNS, at Ronaldsway, that corresponds with the approximate start point in Douglas. If I have the time I hope to have corner markers and some curb edge markings and maybe the pedestrian bridges over the roads at the Start-Finish and at the intersection near Bungalow Cottage.

The main point is to have fun, And I don't mind if you bring alternate ground vehicles as long as they function, drive, and are available, (meaning we can all see them..) by the weekend. The main point of the scooters for this is the challenge of 'driving' them, and finishing the course, as they are not easily driven fast.

Hope you can join the fun
Last edited by LesterBoffo on Thu Feb 20, 2014 5:47 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: 03/15-16@18:00utc, Isle of Man TT, Scooter tour

Postby LesterBoffo » Mon Feb 17, 2014 2:04 am

A short test drive of the scooter FDM on the first part of the TT course on Youtube...
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Re: 03/15-16@18:00utc, Isle of Man TT, Scooter tour

Postby LesterBoffo » Thu Feb 20, 2014 5:12 pm

Isle of Man TT scooter tour..

The Route:

Starting at the Grandstands on the A2 just opposite of Greenfield Road is where we begin.

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Heading roughly West SW on the A2 at this point till it merges with Quaterbridge Road, and then intersects with the A1 road heading NorthWest. The A1 then takes a sharpish left-right zigzag and crosses the River Vale and becomes the Main Road to Union Mills. We follow the A1 roughly North- to more Northwest-West for a few miles as it becomes Maitland Terrace Road though Crosby Crossing, Greeba and then at Ballacraine, we hang a slight right at the intersection of the A3 heading North.

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Just a couple miles up the A3 is one the places where the road in FG gets tricky. The bikes will have YASim FDM's, which means in certain terrain tiles, if you go off the road you get stuck and would have to reset. The trick is to not go off the road as they get bumpy and off camber. That means driving smoothly and not too fast. The scooters in certain conditions can be quite fast, nearly 73 knots ground speed. They also have somewhat compliant suspension, lean into turns, and have sticky tires, but, you can overwhelm the traction of the wheels if you get crazy on rough surfaces. This is just one of three places on the TT course where the road gets challenging, and the worst is yet to come..

There are also a few bridge crossings on the route, and a couple of them are on corners, so if you go off the road on the bridge, instant reset.

I've completed the entire route without resetting, it's difficult but can be done.

P.S here's the groundnet specifically for this event, note that it doesn't include any parking at EGNS, just the start positions of the Time Trial road course.

http://www.mediafire.com/edit/1w5neeqehmczj23/EGNS.groundnet.xml
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Re: 03/15-16@18:00utc, Isle of Man TT, Scooter tour

Postby someguy » Fri Feb 21, 2014 4:17 am

Hey Les,

I seem to have missed the link to the scooter model. And remember, groundnets don't work reliably on Macs, so some of us may need to scoot from the airport.
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Re: 03/15-16@18:00utc, Isle of Man TT, Scooter tour

Postby LesterBoffo » Fri Feb 21, 2014 5:28 am

Well yes, the scooter is in the shop getting fitted to the flight model, animating also takes time. So it will be ready hopefully soon. Ah, the Mac problem with groundnets. That's going to be a small problem because the A2 Southwest of Douglas is a bit of work to get to from EGNS Ronaldsway. Are you able to use the groundnets that usually come with the Terrasynch airports? I'm just wondering if it's an .xml parsing issue? Or maybe a change of utc formatting?
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Re: 03/15-16@18:00utc, Isle of Man TT, Scooter tour

Postby Johan G » Fri Feb 21, 2014 8:57 am

I would guess one also could start by using coordinates. ;)
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Re: 03/15-16@18:00utc, Isle of Man TT, Scooter tour

Postby LesterBoffo » Fri Feb 21, 2014 8:45 pm

Here's a really good video showing the Isle of Man TT race route at sane speeds with commentary.

It's a little hard to understand what he's saying sometimes from the wind noise and the engine. He also included a small course Icon at the top of the video window, with a red dot showing where he was on the course. The YouTube page has a list of the place names and milestones to elapsed time of his trip. note the sideways wiggle the camera does, ( his vid-cam is mounted to his helmet..) as he passes another motorcycle rider, is a greeting between motorcyclists in the UK not usually done in the states, but I might start taking it up as it keeps your hands on the grips. Pop up some popcorn and settle in, it's a long video. He averages about 41 mph for the whole distance of the course. Note that he starts about a half mile just north of Greenfield road and the start-finish line.

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Re: 03/15-16@18:00utc, Isle of Man TT, Scooter tour

Postby someguy » Sat Feb 22, 2014 4:45 am

LesterBoffo wrote in Fri Feb 21, 2014 5:28 am:Are you able to use the groundnets that usually come with the Terrasynch airports?


If you mean can I select a runway or parking position from the Launcher at KSFO, then yes. I never bother with parking positions, always spawn ready to takeoff. But your parking positions don't appear in the popup menu for EGNS. In fact, I don't recall seeing any runway(s) listed either. It's a mystery to me, amigo.

I hope we can get it sorted. I'm sure the event will be a real hoot.
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Re: 03/15-16@18:00utc, Isle of Man TT, Scooter tour

Postby LesterBoffo » Sat Feb 22, 2014 8:15 pm

Well do you think that maybe it's being placed in an alternate scenery/airports folder? My install does both FG/data/scenery and FG/Scenery as paths.

It would help if someone else with a Mac could verify whether the EGNS groundnet I've made works for them.
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Re: 03/15-16@18:00utc, Isle of Man TT, Scooter tour

Postby LesterBoffo » Fri Feb 28, 2014 8:28 am

trying out the new track scenery with the bike.

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Re: 03/15-16@18:00utc, Isle of Man TT, Scooter tour

Postby someguy » Fri Feb 28, 2014 3:47 pm

A trials scooter! Kewl.
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Re: 03/15-16@18:00utc, Isle of Man TT, Scooter tour

Postby LesterBoffo » Fri Feb 28, 2014 8:43 pm

You know I was playing with this last evening, the hairpin turn section of the A18 a mile or so out of Ramsey is almost a deal breaker for this event. I've been able to traverse it successfully only 1 out 4 times. And when you go out of control, it's into the conifer forest terrain tiles and you're stuck big-time. I usually reset after that. :roll:

So I'm proposing that you participants be given the option of taking the more round-about route of the A2 out of Ramsey. The hairpin is nasty, it's a steep gradient, it's off camber, it takes momentum and being really smooth to get through and you'll still get stuck. Of course you'll miss the really fun downhill section from Bungalow at the Summit of A18.
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Re: 03/15-16@18:00utc, Isle of Man TT, Scooter tour

Postby LesterBoffo » Tue Mar 04, 2014 4:13 pm

A video from the seat of the Vespa of the intersection of A3 to A18 and the Ramsey hairpin. It's hard to appreciate from the rider's seat, the inclination and off camber-ness of this climbing turn. Plus the variations in the 3D triangles that make up the road tend to make the front wheel bounce a small amount. Notice the climbing curve to the right as you round the hill crest at the waterworks, also way off camber.

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Re: 03/15-16@18:00utc, Isle of Man TT, Scooter tour

Postby someguy » Fri Mar 07, 2014 7:36 am

I joined LesBof tonight for a lap around the island on scooters. It wasn't as hard or as silly as I'd feared, and we had tons of fun. It requires lots of attention, and the challenge increases approximately as the square of speed, just as it should. I'm looking forward to racing with a passel of angry 2-strokes!

The more the merrier, so grab a Vespa from http://www.mediafire.com/download/oihah ... -GS125.zip and meet us on March 15.
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Re: 03/15-16@18:00utc, Isle of Man TT, Scooter tour

Postby someguy » Wed Mar 12, 2014 6:49 pm

...or is it March 16? LesBof, please set a firm date, perhaps one that doesn't conflict with qtscho's FANW event on March 15 at 1700 UTC. Thanks.
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