Antartica, worst virtual place ever.

A few months ahead of Antartica X release (LimeSim and Aerosoft), this is a small zoom on South pole in FSX. Everybody knows that in FS9 (FS2004), if you fly to this point, you simply hit a transparent wall. But in FSX, things are much more complex and difficult to explain../.

 From what i understand, Microsoft ACES (ex) team designed the globe by wrapping it "around" or "from" the poles. If you take a look at the south pole from the sky, you see all the strips pointing to the south pole. (picture below)

Now  why is it such a mess to fly over the south pole ? Sascha Normann, LimeSim's founder explains it the right way ;

"You can actually go to the South Pole. The only problem is that the terrain system (landclass, aerial, mesh etc.) are still based on "flat earth" coordinate systems. That means that to get the one last meter around the pole itself covered, you need the same amount of datas as if you would be spanning the whole equator with a 1m strip of data... The further south you get the worse it gets".

And here another quote from Aerosoft forum ;

"For FSX the South Pole has a size of 0, but this 0 includes the whole LONgitude range of 360°. Further up this range covers about 44000kms, (and) here, it's all merged in one single pixel"

All of this explain why you will probably just have a FSX crash to desktop if you fly a too long time over this point.

I know that i am just touching on this topic but please, indulge me and add some good comments to help us learn this thing.

Want to fly to the south pole ? Things to know :

* At the Amundsen-Scott station, temperature is usually around -40 degres.
What degres, Celsius or Fahrenheit ? Its the same, -40° Celsius equals -40° Fahrenheit ;
as prouve the formula :  F=9/5 * C + 32.

* The pole is at an elevation of 9300 feets, but the barometric pressure is always fluctuating there.
(in FSX, its not managed though. Apparently the pressure remains stable whatever your altitude but will change with your weather settings).

* As near to the south pole, you won't be able to seriously rely on GPS values as they are getting unstable.

 * In FSX, somewhere on your route to the south, you will lose Jeppesen real weather parameters. (no station transmitting this far).

* Magnetic compass are not reliable any more. I don't know how they navigate today but for instance, in 1927, Richard Byrd used sun compasses.

* Other aspects ; fuel mixtures (not too lean).



The Antartica X scenery project.

Here is a very early preview (already published) of LimeSim project ;
Final textures and mesh shall be better thant that actually.

Useful resources ;

Sascha Normann Antartica page shows several videos resources.
http://www.limesim.com/products/fsx/antarcticax/index.html

The A-380 flying over the south pole and effects on navigation parameters ;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnyGLq-XlQ8

Dirk Stuck project with Antartica custom vehicules;
http://www.flight-team-bremerhaven.de/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=36&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0