Aviation in Second Life…a follow up:

Some avi’s can’t stop telling that it is always splendid weather in Second Life, ’…it never rains and if you wish, the sun does always shine….’ Well, let me tell you this: there is a dark place in Second Life where the weather is always bad; rain, clouds and thunderstorms are frequent and navigation is impossible. In addition a weird and horrible green slimy creature is hunting for your avi flesh if you have the misfortune to get lost in the miserable grounds of that sim ….(NO, I am not telling you which sim, some younger daring avi’s may not believe me and in their inexperience they are NOT able to escape the monster living in the gloomy waters of that dead volcano). Curse the Frankenstein creator of that sim. May the monster she created gnaw her bones when she returns to feed her nasty pet…

A quiet evening patrol or how it started
Minaki Aerodrome Rezzing Platform, Minaki (78, 37, 21) is one of my favourite airfields. Well done Atashi Toshihiko, governor of Waikiti, ( http://www.waikiti.com/ ), lots of space around to fly, no nasty high buildings and a separate rezz platform.

Minaki Aerodrome is where this adventure started…I am just preparing for an evening patrol and decided to fly in my old, slow, but trustworthy British Sopwith Camel airplane. (Cheap little plane which flies like a brick, but I like the shape, the textures and nice roar of the engine). Little did I know what was going to happen the next hours…

Just leaving the airfield and cruising at medium altitude over Minaki, enjoying the last minutes of sunset. An experienced avi may note that I am using the Wind Light viewer

The darkness set in rapidly and I found myself alone flying over the waters of Waikiti

About 15 minutes later, having passed the sims of Waiki Atoll, Murulla and Berala, I approached Tangiwai. Suddenly the weather changed…rain…RAIN????

…and soon I was covered in a thick blanket of mist and cloud, something you may not expect in the Second Life air …

Much more rain, thunderflashes and thick black clouds which made navigation impossible. I rapidly was loosing height. Quickly I switched on my SL inter sim radio. Yes folks, I am the proud owner of a genuine Sin Trenton’s Inter-SIM radio for direct contact with your friends to give an emergency call, but unfortunately no one was stand by to reply my SOS
( http://sintrenton.wordpress.com/projects/steampunk-taggart-radio/ )

Due to loss of engine power I was unable to climb. Suddenly I saw the contour of an assumingly dead volcano AND a glimpse of daylight!

Still loosing height I desperately tried to control my plane, which was behaving like a drifting toy balloon in that turbulent wind…

Almost touching the dark water with my wing tip, spinning around, in a split second I saw the reason for the turbulence and bad weather: the Second Life Maelstrom (You don’t know what that is? Read ‘A Descent Into the Maelstrom’ by Edgar Allan Poe http://www.onlineliterature.com/poe/26/)

A last short jerk, trying to get away from the heavy winds, and hurray!, suddenly my engine got back its power and I manage to escape just before I got a victim of the sea

Trembling in my seat, sweat on my forehead; I flew back with throttle full open to Minaki Aerodrome at a low altitude in order to ditch rapidly when my plane engine would give troubles again. But I swore: I will be back! (This unwise decision, which was the cause of my most unfortunate encounter with the cursed Monster of the Dead Volcano, will be described in my next entry.