The Famous MACH Loop Race

[Forder1702]

Hello Simulator Pilots,
Are you ready to test your flight racing skills? No matter what plane you wish to fly, you can try your hand at flying the famous MACH Loop in North Wales, where all the military jets get to crank and bank and all out zoom. (noon Eastern Time Zone or 1600 zulu)

There will be specific categories of airplanes to compete and we simply time your loop for the fastest time around the loop. (WP5 to WP33)
-You get best 2 out of 3 loops if you wish.
-Certificates of participation for all contestants
-Giveaway prizes from scenery/aircraft providers, such as Orbx
-Enter into as many categories as you wish
-After you compete, maybe think about helping to judge or camerawork

It’s all happening on the ForderLearnToFly twitch channel live and in multiplayer.
Flight Plan for the Mach Loop

All registered Pilots must use Flight Events to be timed. (click JOIN and download the client)

Categories for Competition:

1. Ultralight
2. Corsair and Spitfire
3. F-15 and Eurofighter
4. MB-339 and Vertigo
5. Cessna 172 and DA-40
6. Bonanza and Up
7. Extra and Pitts
8. Other

Come for the fun, stay for the excitement. All visitors welcome, all flight sim flyers welcome. Win prizes, take home a certificate.
https://twitch.tv/ForderLearnToFly

Click Here to Register
Come to our Discord to Discuss More

Some Restrictions and Guidelines:

1. Any time of day or weather you like, but we will stream in clear skies at noon.
2. 1500 feet MSL altitude restriction. Standard Barometric Pressure between WP5 and WP33 (you are timed between these two waypoints) 29.92 or 1013mb. Check on the ground before you go. Elevation at starting airport (EDOG) is 19feet or near zero.
3. Pass through each waypoint without shortcuts over hills.

Penalties:
We have tried to make this event not too detailed in restrictions but many are insisting we set some limits and rules to go by.

1. Penalty of 15 seconds added to your time for each shortcut you take over a hill to a waypoint. We are encouraging a test of skill on a valley run between waypoints.
2. Penalty of 15 seconds for each altitude ceiling break. If you stay above the 1500 foot MSL ceiling, you are out of this run. (you get 2 out of 3 if you wish). You will want to watch your speed through to WP19 as there are some tight turns that can throw you up and over a hill.

Here is a sample run done by Simulflyer without displaying waypoints in the Vertigo, a free plane download from flightsim.to : https://youtu.be/AdjQUKwtYxI

While you are at the event, look for the ForderLearnToFly Blimp. It will be piloted by our moderator: Dalle. We will have a camera in the sky. Forder Learn to Fly Blimp - YouTube

[stw222]

is there any sort of weather, time, or altitude restrictions?

[stw222]

What exactly is the “Bonanza and up” category? is it like any single engine faster than a bonanza?

[Forder1702]

@stw222 thanks for asking and others are wondering too. Here is what our tests have resulted in:

1. Any time of day or weather you like, but we will stream in clear skies at noon.
2. 1500 feet MSL altitude restriction. Standard Barometric Pressure between WP4 and WP32 (you are timed between these two waypoints) 29.92 or 1013mb. Check on the ground before you go. Elevation at starting airport (EDOG) is 19feet or near zero.
3. Pass through each waypoint without shortcuts over hills.

Penalties:
We have tried to make this event not too detailed in restrictions but many are insisting we set some limits and rules to go by.

1. Penalty of 15 seconds added to your time for each shortcut you take over a hill to a waypoint. We are encouraging a test of skill on a valley run between waypoints.
2. Penalty of 15 seconds for each altitude ceiling break. If you stay above the 1500 foot MSL ceiling, you are out of this run. (you get 2 out of 3 if you wish). You will want to watch your speed through to WP19 as there are some tight turns that can throw you up and over a hill.

Load the flightplan and follow the waypoints. The loop is between WP4 and WP32 in a counter-clockwise direction.

[Forder1702]

great point @stw222 We will see what planes are registered and go from there. We have tried to match similar planes. We might need to make adjustments to be fair on the day of the event.

[daScooty]

Would it be acceptable, if you miss a waypoint, to circle back and to re-fly the last meters correctly, to avoid a 15 seconds penalty?

There are some very tricky edges where you can easily overshoot a tiny bit, so if we can “repair” this by re-flying the missed waypoint correctly could be a bit nicer than a direct penalty maybe.

Btw: do we need to install anything, if we wanna participte? Any tools for letting you measure race-times or so?

[Forder1702]

hey @daScooty , great to hear you are practicing. Yes, up to wp19 has some tight turns and some of us will need to throttle down and dance. We are trying to keep this as light as possible without a thick book of rules. The judges can make allowances such as the one you are mentioning. If you are doing a 360 and pick up a lost waypoint, I will instruct the judges to not invoke any penalty to be fair.

As far as extra files or scenery. The stock scenery is perfectly fine and beautiful. I only ask all contestants to use Flight Events. The link is above in the original message. Run that before you leave the airport. The judges have a special stopwatch function that Hy has enabled for us. Plus we see you on the map and can monitor your altitude through the loop.

During your practice, you might want to use Flight Recorder, also by Hy so you can record your flight data, then play it back either as your plane or as an AI plane and look at it from all angles. Very useful for practice.
For your own time trials, just start your cellphone timer at wp4 and stop it at wp32.

Thanks for your suggestions and your participation.
-Howard

[stw222]

ive already timed myself in all 4 aircraft ill be using. its pretty fun especially in something like the vertigo

[daScooty]

Hi Howard,

thanks a lot for pointing me into the right direction. “Flight events” looks really cool, it was a good kick today, seeing others in their training sessions and trying to catch them on track.

I´m really looking forward to the event, it´s gonna be great fun and the time schedule is also perfectly “Euroland-ers friendly”. Is there any award for the most spectacular crashes, too? I´m just asking for a friend…

Some more questions i ran into today:

*) If i see my plane flying on the map via “Flight events”, that´s all i need to prepare? I don´t have to trigger anything else to start the time recording of my lap, right? It´s all done automatically or by the judges, if i get it right? I just start “Flight events”, check if i am visible on the map and fly?

*) We count the best 2 out of 3 laps… does this mean, we can do up to 3 laps per single plane we have registered? So if i registered 2 planes so far, will i fly up to 2x3 laps? Or does it mean, the best 2 laps of our registered maximum of 3 planes are ranked? (= 1 just lap per registered plane)

*) if we should fly more than 1 lap per plane, we need to land and restart the flight, to reset the waypoints, or is there any way to just add another loop directly, going from WP 42 to WP4 again?

*) What if we mess up our run or the sim crashes, is it just bad luck or can we restart our run?

*) what server do we need to connect or is it just “any one”, as it´s “Flight events”, where the race is really happening?

*) how do we know, when to start our run or is it “just whenever we want”, Flight Recorder is recording anyways, after some time we just get the results told? Some kind of “interactice feedback” would be cool. Do we watch the stream for that? So maybe you call us on the stream to start our lap?

Sorry if i ask that much, but it´s my first event of such a kind and i´m still learning, how it´s done right by the big boys…

@ stw222 what´s your time for the Vertigo? I have no clue at all, how fast i would have to be, to be fast…

[stw222]

i think 4:24. it would be faster, but my attempt after that, i had the memory leak fps drop bug. so ill try again later.
also, im doing the vertigo turbo extreme in the “other” category. you can do the loop in less than 2:30 minutes if you do it right

[stw222]

on race day, does my flight events name have to match my in game name?
it would have been a good idea to include flight events names on the signup form. I use something different than in game
stw222 = N341SW on flight events

[daScooty]

Usually i also fly with another nametag, but maybe it´s gonna be easier for the judges, if we just use a single name(tag) per user, not to make things too confusing?

[IronDad1289]

@Forder1702 isn’t the 1500 ceiling is too high? Should be 500 feet only

[Forder1702]

Agreed. Just tell us before start time and we watch the appropriate tag. We learn for next event. Thanks.

[Forder1702]

I agree but there are many spots that are just below 1500 like transitioning over a hill to the next waypoint. So in our tests, 1500 is the highest you would have to go. At one point, hugging the ground at 1400 feet almost breaks the ceiling but a good test of skill to keep it under and not hit the ground.
Remember in the real military planes, 500 feet and 500 miles per hour are from very skilled pilots who eat, sleep and drink flying everyday.
Maybe we will open a competition one day where the ceiling is rediculous and most get disqualified.
Thanks for your comments.

[Forder1702]

Wow, so much here, so little time.

1. Judges will start and stop timers as you pass through the waypoints.
2. Best 2 out of 3 in case you pop the ceiling, crash or sim troubles. But you have to start at the airport. Get up to speed by WP4 when they start the timers.
3. Server is “East USA” just because our stream always uses that.
4. You will know when to start. I will be sending out a pilot’s briefing to all contestants. Departing runway 17. Returning as a right downwind to runway 17 to keep the flow appropriate. But the start of each category will be announced over the stream as each category is done. Once a race group exits out through WP 35, we start the next group. We don’t have to wait for them to return to the airport.

Remember, even during the event while you are waiting your turn, you can turn off multiplayer and practice the loop without us seeing you. Just a thought.
-Howard

[Forder1702]

Update: timing will be done from WP5 to WP33.
This change is because it is hard to turn at WP4 at high speed and many will cut corners even by accident. So we are straight and level by WP5 and under the 1500 foot ceiling when the judges start the timer.

Also, when leaving or returning to the airport; runway 17 to depart and when you return do a right downwind over the water to runway 17 to keep the flow. There will be a controller over discord (and all contestants) so you will know what’s happening at the airport.
All timing is done by judges as you pass through waypoints. During the event, all pilots will know when they are expected to start their engines. More to come.
-Howard

[Forder1702]

Lookout for the ForderLearnToFly Blimp, piloted by our own TheDalle (Dalle).

Install it here so it looks good in your sim: Custom Hot Air Balloons and Blimps by EggMan28

Also, here are some sample certificates all participants and staff will get:
We will have an awards ceremony at the airport next Saturday, June 19th.

[stw222]

where can the blimp be downloaded so it displays correctly in sim?

[stw222]

once a race group exits wp35 might be fine, except for those who plan to do multiple categories like me