So today we are going to attempt our first flight for EPOCH. This was a special one-off mission that was published last year, but we are going to skim it out of the archives and take a crack at it ourselves. The mission has a very nice briefing book with multiple missions that allow for many different types of aircraft and mission profiles.
My mission is a straightforward rescue mission to the high altitude landing strip on the Denali Step…
My custom Shade Tree Micro Aviation A-1A Husky in EPOCH livery (original by RocLobster). My base is King Ranch (AK59) and it is a beautiful location…
My Husky has a zero-time engine on it and I make some back of the napkin fuel calculations and come up with filling the tanks halfway for my trip to Denali and then on to Skwentna (PASW)…
I load the essentials into the GPS and head out on my first mission…
I basically climb gradually for the first 30 minutes of the flight since I know I’ll be needing to be up around 14 to 15 thousand feet for the landing at Denali Step. Bordering the north side of the Matanuska River valley is the first bit of high terrain, then the mountains drop into the Susitna River valley near Talkeetna. I’ve entered the mission required weather and it provides a nice layering of clouds. The turbulence (even on 1) gets a bit tiresome after a half hour though since the Husky has no autopilot…
As I climb, I continuously check the status of the engine temperature by pulling the mixture back to lean it. At peak lean, I roll it in to be 50 degrees rich of peak lean…
Crossing the first bit of mountains I start to see some snow cover and glaciers…
I have my online flight tracking on so people can see my progress on the map. A few minutes later - real life invades and my pager goes off, so I set out on a real life flight while my Alaska trip gets put on pause. After skipping around to Roanoke and Philadelphia, and after some rest in the morning, I’m back in Alaska by mid next day…
The scenery is always gorgeous…
I love these Cockpit Intelligence Files that come with the Ultimate Glacier Pilot Adventure package. They basically contain the “gouge” on the airfields in the package. Apparently, I picked one of the hardest strips for my first EPOCH flight…whoops!
Approaching the Susitna River just south of Talkeetna…
Soon, the massive bulk of Denali starts to rise out of the clouds ahead. Wow…what a monster!! I maintain around 15,000’ and I have contact with another EPOCH pilot (Dirob) on the radio. He is waiting for my arrival at UX09 and it is useful that he was on the network since I could use his reported position to find the strip more easily. I go ahead and lower my skis for the snow landing…
We use the multi-player plug-in to chat as I approach from the southeast. The landing strip sits on the western flanks of the mountain…
I circle around the south side of the mountain and elect to do a flyby to assess what the strip looks like (I’ve never seen it…)
Dirob gives me a weather report and I spot his beacon and nav lights on the strip…
Satisfied with what I see - I break off and circle around to the left to join the straight in approach. It is pretty evident that this isn’t a strip where you have many options beyond the runway threshold. Going around from a close in position would probably result in a crash…
My first approach starts off OK…but I as I approach the strip I’m bending the throttle forward even as my airspeed continues to decay. I can feel that sinking feeling and know I’m behind the power curve. I was too shallow, too slow, and I would learn later - I had never advanced my prop from cruise (2000 RPM) to full forward - which would give me better bite and performance at the higher RPM (rookie mistake!). I catch the situation early enough that I’m able to safely break off the approach to the right and recover as I drop some altitude. I climb back up and set up for a second approach…
My second approach comes out nearly the same…still too shallow, too slow, and just can’t get enough oomph out of the engine. I’m dragging the approach in and I think it is because the severe uphill slope is causing a visual illusion of me being on glidepath when I’m clearly low (this is a common visual illusion with sloping runways). I elect to go around again, but still haven’t discovered the cruise RPM setting problem…
My third approach is higher, steeper, and with more reserve airspeed, and less flaps. It works out much better, despite still not having the prop forward…
I touchdown about halfway down the runway and stop within one or two cones distance. It takes full power to taxi up the steep incline to the top of the strip where I shut down and go find my passenger…I probably should have brought a coat and a thermos though (and an oxygen tank…wheeze…)
The scale of things in Alaska is just mind blowing. Here is my tiny dot of an aircraft on the Denali Step with the upper portion of the mountain looming above… Hope X-Plane doesn’t model avalanches!
It takes 1.3 of Hobbs time to reach UX09 and you can see my three approaches plotted on the network tracker…
A snapshot from the slopes high above the airfield looking down and out across to the west… Awesome!
I change the weather setting from the mission designated one to real weather - and am surprised to see the real weather is actually a touch better than the canned one. I think typically it would be much, much worse…
Time to head for Skwentna. I start up the engine - note that I have about a quarter tank of fuel in each wing remaining and point the nose down the hill…
What a thrilling departure!
Since I’m trading a lot of altitude for speed on the way down to Skwentna, my estimated time enroute is only around 25 minutes…
Don’t ask where my patient is - let’s just say I stuffed him in the belly pod…
The glacier pouring out of the mountains toward the plains…
The PASW briefing gives me the low-down on the airfield - rated 1 for Recruit!
The clouds come and go enroute…always adding some variety…
A check of the site gauges on the wing roots show the fuel is down to around 1/8th of a tank. My fuel planning was pretty good…but good thing I didn’t run into any strong headwinds!
Safely on the ground - I discharge my sick climber to the local paramedics. Mission accomplished in 2.0 hours of flying…and no bent pieces of airplane.
There are additional missions to fly within the Rescue On Denali briefing…so I’ll probably pick up a few more flights while I’m in the area… Nice job by the mission designer and, as always, great flying with and discussing the flights with the members of EPOCH Alaska Air…
Stay tuned - I made a video of this mission as well - to be posted within the next hour…!
BeachAV8R