The Canary Project

A weather reconnaissance project in Second Life

The Canary Project in Second Life consists of a group of pilots who fly on a near-daily basis to provide weather reports for popular aviation and sailing areas on the grid. We cover most of the seas of the Nautilus Continent and Blake Sea, as well as southern Corsica and a number of private estates, like Tuarua Fiji and Sailors Cove.

The Canary ProjectCanary 2 at the Mermaid Palace, on the westcoast of Nautilus City

I started flying with the Canary Project in July 2020, when there was 1 pilot: Jessica 'Conwing' MacDougal. I had been aware of Jessica flying Canary Flights and reporting on grid conditions for about a year or longer, when I offered to assist.
Since then our team has gradually expanded. At the moment we have 5 active pilots: Jessica, I, Minastasia, Fen (fenchurch.oh) and Tyson Karfield. Other staff include our ground crew Stephyii and HCI executive Tatyana Thomas. Pilot Bart Exonar is on an extended leave due to internet issues.

The Canary fleet

The Canary ProjectThe Canary fleet in February 2021

Our fleet consists of yellow and black painted Sikorsky S61R Pelicans, built by Shergood Aviation in Second Life. They are amongst the most realistic aircraft available in the Metaverse, which makes them very suited to our task. We typically use the autopilot setting for airspeed and altitude when flying weather reconnaisance. The sensitivity of the autopilot to adverse region conditions in Second Life gives a wobble (or in bad cases even a roll or total failure), which helps to find bad spots.

The weather map

We report our findings in a daily base, rolling restart days exluded in a number of Second Life vehicle-related groups, like SL Aviation and SL Sailing Association. Since our scripter Fen joined the team we also have a weather map with a central server to share the weather reports in. Any Second Life resident can get a free weather map on Marketplace.

The Canary ProjectMinastasia and I with the weather map at my weather station
 

 Future plans

For the near future we have no spectacular plans, but we would like to expand our scan area slowly at some point. This depends of course on the availablility of dedicated pilots. In the long run we are also interested in ways to use more accurate data as base for our reports, to increase objectivity.

There is also a sponsorship planned for the Grid Drive in a weekend in February. The Grid Drive is a fun drive/boating/flying event that is group based and takes place every week.

If you like to visit us in Second Life, this is also possible. We have currently 2 main locations: at the HCI Hangar at White Star Airfield and at Nastya's Weather Station on Cannabis Mountain.


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