FS2000 The Cannibal Queen, a modified 1942 Stearman Biplane.

This plane was owned and flown by author Stephen Coonts and was immortalized in his book "The Cannibal Queen, An Aerial Odyssey Across America" by Pocket Books, Copyrighted . I would advise you seek out a copy of this book as it is great reading for anyone who loves airplanes that have propellers on them!! I have seen it at book sales for just a few dollars and many libraries also have it. Included with the aircraft are two small maps that chart the two halves of his trip. His accomplished goal was to navigate around the US using only a wet compass and pilotage and to land in each of the lower 48 states. This sim allows you to follow along on the adventure and now, with the great new mesh scenery available, to see the USA in a whole new way!! I have used a road atlas, compass and the map view in fs2000 to fly some of the legs of the trip and it's quite a beautiful and exciting summer challenge!
On to the installation! Before you do anything you must increase the pan rate in fs2000!!! It is much too slow. You can do this by opening the fs2000.cfg and finding the line that says PAN_RATE=400. Increase it to 900 and save the file. Now unzip the Install.zip file into your main fs2000 directory and everything should go to the proper folders. Thats it! When you boot up select the flight "Boulder to St. Francis" The Cannibal Queen will be on the tarmac ready to start the first leg of the adventure. It is1:35pm , June 10, 1991 and the goal is to fly from Boulder Colorado to St.Francis Kansas where a Stearman fly-in is in progress. Using the "S" key, cycle through the views to load the virtual instruments. There is no traditional arcade type bitmap panel as this VFR aircraft uses real operating virtual instruments in the virtual cockpit mode. Use the hat button on your control stick to pan around the cockpit and to fly the plane.
IMPORTANT! The use of the virtual cockpit and virtual instruments is still expirimental and there are some FS2000 loading anomalies which can be gotten around! If, after selecting the Virtual Cockpit mode, you are NOT sitting in the cockpit then pull down the aircraft menu and select the CQ again. Fs2000 sometimes remembers the view from the previously flown aircraft. The second problem might be NO NEEDLES on the virtual instruments. If that happens pull down the Aircraft Realism menu, punch the ok button and the needles will load properly.
Steve's total two part trip is charted on two maps included as jpg's. They can be printed out for reference. I have used a Rand McNally road map for IFR( I Follow Roads :o)) flying and most US roads are fairly accurately depicted in Fs2000. If all is well then taxi out, take off and head East to cross Eastern Colorado on your way to St Francis, Kansas. Use the map view to check your progress. It's a two+ hour flight. The St. Francis airport designator is KSYF. Use Flight Planner to plan each leg of the journey and you'll have a fun summer flying adventure. Definitely get the book as the author narrates each leg in great detail and describes the weather, visibility etc. Be careful though! You'll hate to see the adventure end just as Steve did and just as I hated to see the book come to a close!!

I wish to thank MS for Fs2000, Konstantin Kukuskin for his great programs, Jim Nichols for the Stearman sounds and all those who are working hard to make Fs2000 an even better flight sim. Mostly, I wish to thank Jack Hill for his invaluable help and great ideas in this and many other projects. I would appreciate any feedback on this VC aircraft as this is a new area which we are learning about and any and all comments are helpful. Anyway, enjoy the summer flying and take the CQ on some exciting VFR adventures.
Happy Landings, Bill Lyons