Calling All Racers! Albania: The Drin River Race - Community Fly-in Event

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Hi all, I thought we could try something a bit different for today’s fly-in, and depending on how popular it is, we could do a few more races in the future. Obviously, if there’s no real interest in this type of event, we can just have regular style fly-ins instead.

I found the Drin river when flying around Albania and noticed how unusually detailed it was, the mesh is perfect for the entire course and it has a few dams to fly over, which makes for a pretty good racecourse.

When: Sunday 8th November

Race 1 Start Time - [19:00 GMT] [13:00 CST] [20:00 CET]
Race 2 Start Time - [20:00 GMT] [14:00 CST] [21:00 CET]
Race 3 Start Time - [21:00 GMT] [15:00 CST] [22:00 CET]
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RACE DETAILS

The race will be run three times in total, an hour apart.

For these races we will be using the Icon A5.

There will be an audio countdown to the start of each race on our own Discord server.

The “course” takes about 32 minutes to fly.

Please spawn onto the runway (LAKU) about 10 minutes before the start of each race.

Obviously there’s no way to time or verify race results (I wish there was) so this is just for fun.


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COURSE DETAILS

At the start of each race, please position your aircraft on top of the runway’s painted number 19, this will be the race starting position.

You must fly underneath the very first bridge in the flight plan (It’s safe, I’ve tried), this will ensure we are all entering the course at the same point.

The finish line is the dam adjacent to the Vau i Dejës Hydroelectric Power Station. This is also marked as “FINISH” on the flight plan. (Coordinates: 42.019315, 19.626608).

You don’t need to land at (LAGJ), it’s only there to allow the flight plan to be made correctly.
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RACE RULES

• You must use the unmodified Icon A5 for all three races.
• From the first bridge, you must always stay within the width of the river.
• From the first bridge, your aircraft must always be above water (except when flying over dams).
• Cutting corners is not permitted.
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HOW TO BE FAST

Before the race starts, position your aircraft on top of the runway’s painted number 19, enable the parking brake, remove flaps, and provide full thrust. This will keep the aircraft stationery until the race begins, at which point you only need to release the parking brake to begin taking off.

Dial in your trim before taking off – I find setting the trim in the region of -0.2 keeps the Icon A5 in level flight.

Height is your enemy – vertical height only adds length to the course, so stay as low as possible, but try to avoid skimming the water, as it will slow your speed slightly.

Smoothness is key – The Icon A5 is a low powered aircraft, so being smooth through the twists and turns will reward you with faster overall speeds.

Keep your VFR map open - the path of the river isn’t always obvious to follow.

Turn off crash damage, aircraft stress damage, and engine stress damage – this is supposed to be fun!
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MULTIPLAYER SETTINGS

Please adhere to the following settings so you can see/be seen by everyone.

Server: West Europe
Multiplayer: All Players
Weather & Time: Few Clouds – change the time of day to around midday.
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COMMUNICATION

To communicate with others, a voice and text channel is available on our own Community Fly-in Discord server where everyone is welcome to join in.

Also, if anyone would like to stream the event on YouTube or Twitch please feel free, be sure to share the link so we can all join in!
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FLIGHT PLAN

A .PLN file is provided by the following link:

To use the flight plan, follow these steps:

Download the flight plan to an easy-to-remember location
Open MSFS
Go to the globe
Click “Load/Save” on the bottom of your screen
Click “Load”
Navigate to the downloaded flight plan
Click load.
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LET’S FLY

This is meant to be a fun and informal flight. Everybody is welcome, no matter the amount of experience!


All my flight plans are created using LittleNavMap and are available for free at World Tour Flights.

5 Likes

That river is amazing lol. gonna get some practice in before the event :sweat_smile:

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It’s good isn’t it? I thought I’d try something a bit different with this one, should be interesting.

OMG I just flew this in the Extra 330LT. It’s just as fun as shooting the narrow mountain valleys in North Idaho and British Colombia and honestly, a bit more challenging. There’s a section of the river that has some weird terrain bug and it’s like a thin slot barely wide enough for the plane. Great fun! Great find!

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Live stream link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7gY54AGDdw&ab_channel=PatrickDortch

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Oh man, that was super fun! More of this please!

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Archive of the stream from the first two races: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7gY54AGDdw&t=252s&ab_channel=PatrickDortch

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Thanks Flavor, that was epic!
If Asobo did something right, than it is definitely the multiplayer experience. No glitches, no lag, no funny behaviour of the other planes. Really nice.

  • mo -
1 Like

That river race was great fun, FlavorFlav. Thanks for organizing it!
(I hope you didn’t mind my occasional ‘participation’ in the later races - the bird’s eye view

was awesome.)

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The jets made for some funny moments in the stream… Good fun!!!

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Did you guys try it in the other directions? If not, let’s do it next weekend!

A BIG thanks to the organisers for yesterday , It was such good fun but knackering with the concentration required !
I crashed on Race 1 by trying to fly and Whatsapp Patricks YT Stream to the *kids ( mid 20’s) … Race 2 i tried to fly under the bridge just after the dam like a smart ■■■ ( The Bridge won ) …
Things have come along way since my first Sim that i played for hours and hours , That was The Dam Busters by U.S .Gold in 1985 on The Spectrum 48k when i was 15 .

Jon

3 Likes