FSX Ferrocarril De Atlantico Mission

Ferrocarril de Atlantico. A sight-seeing tour in the default DC-3 that follows the route of the Costa Rican "Ferrocarril de Atlantico". Fly from Alajuela to Puerto Limon and Bocas del Toro, and learn something about Costa Rica along the way. By Owen Graham.

COMPATABILITY

Should work with all versions. I have the original deluxe version with no service packs or Acceleration installed.

INSTALLATION

Just extract the contents of the zip file to your main FSX directory, the one where FSX.exe resides, and everything will go to the right place. If you don't care for "automatic" installs, like me.....just point the zip file to a dummy file of your choice, and move the files to the correct places from there.

What is installed:

Scenery files in the Addon Scenery\scenery folder. These add towns missing from FSX and a few details around some airports. They are listed here so you can remove them later if you want to. You might want to leave them, as they improve the default installation.

Cartago.bgl
Changuinola.bgl
Bocas Almirante.bgl
MPCH_ADE_OG_CVX.bgl
MPCH_ADE_OG.bgl
MRSA_ADE_OG_CVX.bgl
MRSA_ADE_OG.bgl

The mission is installed under Missions\Pilot For Hire, and is named "The Coffee Train".

There is a reward in the rewards folder named Coffee.rwd

There is a folder in the Effects folder named alternate cfg. It contains an alternative effects.cfg file that will increase the distance at which effects can be viewed. BACK UP YOUR ORIGINAL EFFECTS.CFG FILE before moving this alternative file into the main effects folder. This is all non-essential to the mission, so if you don't feel comfortable making the change, don't do it.

In the mission file there is a folder with some photos and links to items pertaining to the mission.

SOUND FILES

I didn't record a lot of wavs for the mission. I like the wav files in the default missions, but I think unprofessional recordings are more of a distraction, and worse for a mission, than none at all. Not only that, the add tremendously to the size of the download. This mission has over 50 dialog actions which would add about 25MB to the size of the download. If it ruins the mission for you, I apologize in advance.

While on the subject of sound, if you don't have Edit Voice Pack, you should get it. Then chance the ATC to accelerated. It greatly enhances the default "slow motion" sound.

WEATHER

This mission used "user defined" weather. Non the less, due to who-knows-what in FSX, the weather still has a great deal of variance. I have flown this mission dozens of times, and each time the weather is different. The reason I mention it is because at some point in the mission you are going to wonder why I am directing your attention to some object that is completely obscured by clouds. I could have just cleared all the weather, so it wouldn't be a problem....but that would not be typical of Costa Rica, where there is almost always some cloud cover.

FLYING TIPS

Fly as much as possible in "spot plane" view, as it will allow you to pan around more to view the "sights". The auto-pilot is a big aid in that regard, so if you're not familiar with the DC-3 auto-pilot, you might want to try it.
Remember the point of the "tour" is to follow the route of the railroad. Therefore you don't have to fly directly to each and every Point Of Interest. You should be able to easily follow the tracks below you. Listen to the clues provided for a change of course.

If you have a little problem with the pace of the messages, just hit "P" (pause) for the long ones, to give yourself enough time to read. Also, remember you can see all of the messages on the kneeboard.....even scroll back thru them to review one that has passed.

Anyone that wants to translate the dialogs into another language, have at it! I think this one would be great in Spanish.