VFR Socal @ Night

[Ryan B]

So I'm trying to fly two sims...

FSX and XP10

Using XP10 for night flight and maybe IFR /A routes.. FSX everything else

In XP10 nights are so dark compared to FSX that I'm really having to rely on some other form of navigation, usually VOR radials, so I don't bust the myriad of airspace in and around socal. For you RW pilots flying this area at night: How on earth do you do it without getting busted? In FSX I commonly used my GNS430W or 530W which displays the airspace... but I don't have these tools in XP10. I've already gotten fairly lost in XP10 flying PSP to SNA at 10,500. Any recommendations for avoiding the class C and D's with just a sectional? Sometimes it's pretty clear but more often than not all the roads look the same and there's just a lot of airports I can see, it's tough to straighten out where I am.

I come from hickville North Dakota where I learned to fly (technically born and raised in MSP but whatever)... the only adjacent airspace I had to worry about was the Red River AFB class D. Even Fargo had a D but that's about it.

In real life, I'd get FF in socal at night. There's just too much airspace yikes!

Opinions?

[Keith Smith]

I did some night flying around NYC in a /U airplane a few times. It took quite a bit of planning in advance, including using timing and radials.

I would say that unless you're really familiar with the roads, it's going to be a lot of work to do it VFR without the use of radials and timing.

You might want to look into integrating the Reality XP stuff....or just go IFR.

I did an IFR flight in the JS32 from BUR to SBA last night in XP10 and shot the visual for runway 25 from KWANG based on the presence of the airport beacon. It was incredibly tricky to find the runways...I had to enter a left base and it was only when I was about to cross through the centerline that that direction runway lighting became visible, just like the real thing.

I find XP's night lighting is pretty much bang on, except for the fact that the night textures for the new buildings are missing. That should be improving very soon and should make it easier to identify city centers at night.

[Pieces]

The night ground lighting seems ok. The night interior lighting for the planes I fly is way too dark. It may be because the planes don't have a night texture like some of the buildings. The other problem I've noticed is that lights don't light up objects for me. I suspect this is some setting that I had to turn down.