The official 3rd Annual Mudspike Christmas Flight - 2017 Edition

I found it exceedingly palatable at Mach 2.

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Christmas in September :cocktail:

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Very cool CP! It’s going to take you awhile!! I’m looking forward to reading about your journey.

I think I may give this a go. I need a DC3 in the hangar and the challenge of flying DR all the way appeals to my sense of learning the difficult. :slightly_smiling_face:

Well, I’m not really dead reckoning all the way. I’m using NDBs when I can pick them up. The oceanic legs are going to be interesting though.

Prince Rupert BC (CYPR) to Juneau, Alaska (PAJN)…

After planting our feet on Canadian soil for a night, the next leg has us pushing up into Alaska.
A nice sunny day at the airport.

Once again we are on our way…

Using a combination of dead reckoning and NDB’s we fly over Sitka Alaska pretty much at the expected time. So far so good.

After passing Sitka, we turn North. With a True Airspeed of 160 Knots, we should be over Juneau in 30 minutes…

At about 20 minutes out we pick up the NDB at Juneau.

I passed over the NDB within a couple of minutes of when I expected. I probably should have flown an instrument approach, but I had visual contact with the ground and knew where I was. I have to admit I spent a little too much time oggling the scenery and managed to fly through the final approach… C’est la vie

Safely on the ground…

From Juneau we will push on to Anchorage, which should be a scenic 500nm flight, mostly over the coastline.

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Juneau (PAJN) to Anchorage (PANC)…

This was a fairly long leg. 508.7nm according to the flightplan.

It was not long after first light when we arrived at Juneau airport for our trek up to Anchorage…

A great morning to do some mountain flying… nothing to worry about folks.

After climbing to 400ft I initiate a right turn to bring us back towards the Coghlan NDB following the Juneau Five departure…

The departure routing keeps us away from the worst of the terrain…

You can barely see the runway lights as we head to the NDB (CGL)

The tops were at about 9000 ft.

Our planned course takes us right over Mt Fairweather, which summits at 13420ft AMSL. I’m cruising at 10000ft, so a detour to the South seems prudent.

After skirting South of the mountains, I take a more Northerly course to bring us back on track.

The only thing that marked our passing of the Ocean Cape NDB was the swing of the ADF needle as we were now over a solid deck of cloud.

The weather started to break up a little as we approached the Orca Bay NDB.

And at last we are getting close to Anchorage. Off to our left we can see the Turnagain Arm, which leads to Chickaloon bay and the Gompertz Channel.

Because of the terrain between our present position and the airport, I decided it would be wise to pass over the airport’s NDB before descending any further… We broke out of the weather as we passed abeam the airport, pretty much at the calculated time…

Circling around to join a left base for Runway 33. The scenery here is stunning!

As we turn final, a look to our right gives a nice view of the Turnagain Arm.

Turning final.

After turning off the runway, an Alaska Airlines B737 started it’s takeoff roll. I picked up World Traffic 3 this week. It’s pretty neat.

And at last we are parked and shut down. It was an interesting flight undertaken with NDB navigation and a healthy dose of dead reckoning when NDB’s were not available.

I have to say I am really enjoying this trip so far. Our next leg takes us to Iliamna (PAIL).

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I just did too. I’ve only had time to generate a single flight before leaving for a weekend biz trip to CHS. Like what I see so far. The “review” at xplanereviews is informative and ends with a mini tutorial.

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I kind of glossed through that review before buying, but a second read through was definitely worthwhile. Thanks Dan! It seems like a good product but it does require some effort to get the best out of it. It is pretty cool to see the airports come alive.

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One more important read with regard to WT3 is this Behind the Screen blog update concerning the importance of accurate WED ground routes.

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So a relatively short hop today from Anchorage PANC to Iliamna (PAIL)…

Departing Anchorage…

We are soon in the weather. I was pretty much broken or solid cloud cover for most of the way…

To our left we see the Glacier that flows to the North alongside Mt Iliamna (a volcano). The Volcano itself is out of frame to the left. It was obscured extensive cloud.

After flying the NDB approach to Runway 35, I circled around for a landing on Runway 07 (due to wind).

Short final to Runway 7.

Shut down on the ramp.

The next leg is going to be Cold Bay (PACD), our first stop on the long trek along the Aleutian chain.

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Is that an approved use of the JeppPro app on your company iPad?

:grin:

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Well, it’s on my personal iPad, so I self authorized ;).

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As I mentioned above I also want to be an Early Start club member :slight_smile:

So for this years journey I have chosen the new sim in my collection, the Flight Sim World.

FSW is new, and by many it is the sim to replace FSX. And also meant the bad way = FSX in just better graphics.
But I have hopes and also evidence that the developers are going to make it the better sim. It is under constant development so I am looking forward to see constantly improving sim along the route and better sim (maybe already subjectively better then FSX) at the end of this journey. Lets see.

Go East! So first leg is from home airfield LZTN Trencin to LZKZ Kosice, still inside the country. Here in FSW FP screen:

As there is only single addon aircraft from JustFlight to this date, the PA-28R, I decided to use all the default aircrafts starting with the slowest. Piper PA-18 Super Cab

Realy cool feature is the ‘Start Cold and Dark’ which you can select in the menu before Free Flight. For this option developers prepared for us knee-board with the start-up checklist. Neat. I hope that developers will later add to the knee-board also other pages like POH info etc. which is available now only from inside the game menu.

Terrain looks good, I mean the mesh at least. The ‘Vector’ part of it is not satisfying, I mean roads and rivers. At least on this side of the globe.

trueSKY is also little bit strange to me. Looks good from distance, but on a sunny day with fair weather clouds base at 2000ft ? Hmm… maybe cold morning… :slight_smile:

And finally LZKZ.
As the terain is not so detailed and with no GPS yet (at least I didnt figure out how to turn the GPS on even there is menu option after right mouse click) I managed to get there only with help of the in-game Flight Planning screen which depicts your actual position during the flight.

And to be honest I crashed the Cub on the landing :smile: But it can be excused because I tested the interaction of the undercarriage with the concrete.

Some time ago I saw comparison video on youtube casting early FSW release vs XP11 beta. And one of the compared areas was the interaction of the undercarriage with the terrain.
FSW displayed just default behavior copy-pasted form FSX = nose wheel sinking under the surface at breaking and overal not really realistic behavior of the suspension.

I was really positively surprised that it is now gone in actual release of FSW = there is no wheels sinking under the terain and the suspension reacts instantly on the contact with the surface. And there is also different reaction of the suspension on the grass surface.
Thumbs up to the devs for this :+1:

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Bravo Sir for taking up the challenge in pioneering fashion. FSW keeps improving to be sure. With the short legs of the Cub, I’m very curious as to your route selection. Bon voyage!

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Thx Sir :slight_smile: Cub is just the first from the default fleet, I plan to use all of them on the way east

2017-10-03 21_27_36-Dovetail Flight Sim World

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It looks like FSW has great potential. It is certainly easy on the eyes. :sunglasses:

Looking forward to reading about your trek Nevo.

Iliamna to Cold Bay (PAIL - PACD).

Not much in the way of great scenery for this leg, mainly due to extensive cloud cover.

The weather had taken a turn for the worse as we departed Iliamna.

Much of the nearly 400 nm flight there was nothing but a solid cloud deck below us. Occasionally though, there was a gentle reminder that hiding in those clouds was some pretty high terrain.

One landmark that poked up through the layer was Mt Veniaminof, just south of our planned course, not quite half way between Port Heiden and Cold Bay.

About 40nm from Cold Bay, there are two volcanos known as Mt Pavlof which last errupted in March 2016, and Pavlof Sister which has been quiet since 1786.

Descending into the murk, it became obvious that an instrument approach would be needed (not exactly what the AWOS was putting out!).

As there were no NDB approaches available for this airport, I flew the ILS. I’m trying to keep this as old school as I can.

Cold Bay is another airport with no 3D default scenery. Still, I’m glad to be here safely on the ground.

Next we will be heading to Dutch Harbor. I wonder if the Deadliest Catch crab boats are in port?

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And like magic, I’m now internally reading these with the voice of Mike Rowe.

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Cold Bay - Dutch Harbor:

The worst of the weather had passed through Cold Bay by the time I fired up the DC3 for 160nm flight to Dutch Harbor. The winds were strong and gusty though with an overcast layer at 7000 Ft…

For this leg, I decided to stay at 6000ft so that I could take in the view and navigate with good old fashioned pilotage.

With a stiff breeze mostly down the runway, our venerable DC3 leapt into the air in no time at all.

Leaving Cold Bay behind us, I flew North to the coast and then headed South West, initially following the coastline. Ahead of us we see the very distinctive Roundtop Mountain, Isanotski Peaks and the distinctive cone of the Shishaldin Volcano.

A closer look…

Faris Peak, located at the far South Western end of Unimak Island was another unmistakable landmark.

After crossing the Unimak Pass, we coast in over Akun Island.

Over Aktun Island the scenery was quite stunning.

Dutch Harbor in sight!

On a right base for Runway 31. There was a stiff crosswind coming from the left.

Down in one piece. Not my smoothest landing, but I’ll take it.

From here we head to Adak Island, but that will have to wait awhile as real flying will be getting in the way for the next several days. :wink:

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