Flight Back - Xmas in Antarctica, Easter at home

I decided that I will fly from Antarctica back home.

There are few reasons for this. I feel like I want to learn and try new things in regards to civil flying. For the same reasons I started also new thread as I will have many questions I guess.
If somebody wants to join me with his/her reports feel free to post your screens here (if you didn’t do it already in the official thread).

First part for me, as obvious, is Antarctica to Africa. Departing Base Marambio in bad weather. But I am empty and there is always sun shining above the ceiling.

Rain switched to snow as the alt was rising

The initial destination was Port Elizabeth but about 1000nm away I decided for a change - Cape Town Intl (FACT). I had plenty of time to think about it as I figured out how to set the AP to follow the GPS / FMC flight plan.

I was eager to try out approach via STAR but also eager to try FSX ATC (yep everything at the same time is the best). So after I followed direct-to to the STAR I dialed in ATC and followed then the instructions for the approach

With everything on I was still not able to pick the glideslope. So I had to fly the final part of the approach just visually

In the end it was good flight. I learned something again. But there are still tons of things I am missing. But with this lady I am looking forward to it

I have one question right away:
it is just my feeling or FSX: SE just igonre the seting in NVIDIA control panel - program (specific) settings? I set all up - AA, AF, and whats not but I still feel like the game looks all the same.

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@NEVO I might join you in flying back as I really enjoyed the longer flights. My A400 may have to stay there as I’m also toying with the idea of switching to X-Plane for the return.

@Sine_Nomine , @keets and also anyone else pls feel very welcome to join this thread with anything related. I am still enjoying reading through the original thread so some additional good read would be great

And @keets the plan to fly it with XP was also on my mind but unfortunately XP10 wasnt on sale this xmas

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I just wanted to finish next leg. I had a simple plan from Cape Town FACT to Alexander Bay FAAB at night.

It started as any other regular flight

But shooting this approach I crashed twice and the third time I accidentally restarted the flight back to FACT just before the final turn!!! AAAAAAAARGHH…

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Fourth try. On AP I had to leave the PC for a while. When I returned

I’ve made it! But first the two crash reports ‘How to crash so big and full of systems airplane’

Crash 1) I was too high on finals. Flaps deployed, gears down, auto throttles disengaged. I called for missed approach, retracted gears, turned back on auto throttles and set the AP for climb rate of 2000.
For a little while I was wondering why the aircraft is pitching up with negative climb rate! All I did I rechecked the climb rate set on AP. Suddenly I noticed that the speedmeter will hit zero at the same time as altimeter and knew what happened.

With so many systems on board I felt over comfortable and didn’t pay too much attention to set them all correctly. Not talking about scanning the steam gauges.

Crash 2) For a change I was too low on finals. At night and without experience I assumed that I am higher then I actually was. This time I didn’t know what happened at the time when the crash occurred. Just watching my plane from outside with one wing buried into the runway I realized what I did.

Totally consumed by all the dark around me and only airport glowing I again forgot about the steam gauges (DC10 has e.g. radio altimeter!) and applied too low too radical controls inputs trying to lined up with the runway.

And here is the fourth successful approach. AP disengaged, relied only on steam gauges and my pilot skills… at least I didn’t crash :relieved:

My next planned stop is FOOL

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Nice report! Thanks for still posting AARs after the new year has started, motivates me to try to make some room in my schedule for X-Plane.

" With so many systems on board I felt over comfortable … Not talking about scanning the steam gauges. "
This seems to happen irl as well, nice simulation of at least 1 real crash I know of.

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Nice report @NEVO. I’ve just had to rebuild my PC and going through the process of re-installing has delayed my departure.

I’m hoping to get underway this week and likely to fly the same first leg as you. Initially I thought about going the long way via NZ, but it’s too far. :slight_smile:

Yep, take your time guys, we have still one year to go till next annual Xmas flight :relaxed:

@Freak exactly, I was thinking the same after the two crashes.
Also the second one is quite real, it is very easy to misjudge the alt at night in regards to the runway width. If you are accustomed to certain width of runway wider runway will make you think you are higher than you actually are and vice versa.

I think I remember the default NZ Antarctica base in FSX @keets . Was upset why there in FSX are bases close to South America, close to Australia/NZ but nothing close to Africa. Then I bought DC10 :slight_smile:

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This sounds definitely interesting what you are preparing for us @Sine_Nomine, looking forward to the AAR!

I finally did the next leg from FAAB to FOOL ( still in Africa :relaxed: )

Off we go

Climbing on AP to FL320 aiming for M.82
Again I left there too big VS and almost stalled the lady at FL300

I was not able to create flight plan in FSX the way as on SkyVector, but with the ability to call FSX Flight Planner in the middle of flight I decided to plan in 3 parts. Always direct to next VOR/airport.
Here turning on first WP with next part of the route already planned

And here on full AP ILS approach “Look mom, no hands!”

But before this nice approach over some higher terrain (see the trees on above pic) I crashed twice.
First was wrong engagement of ILS AP mode by pressing too many buttons on the glareshield .
Second try I again slept on the AP and as was expediting the descent I overspeeded the frame, again.

Sometimes I just aim for quick and easy evening flight and instead of 1 hour flight (with time compression) it ends up, with all that crashes and another tries, as demanding 3 hours flight :relieved:

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Wow, intense report! Love it!

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Great flight, great resources!

Few years back when I was studying the navigation I was wondering why is the Polar Navigation problematic so extensively examined.
I didn’t know that @Sine_Nomine will be in need of that :wink: :smile:

If I just paid more attention to it :slight_smile:

Saying that is getting easier and easier for me…

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[quote=“Sine_Nomine, post:13, topic:3440”]Here’s what FSX had to show about what had happened…

High_Jump_Route.jpg800x606 68.5 KB
[/quote]
Interesting stuff.

Would be great to have an overlay of your flight track with deviation lines for that area.

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I’d bet it was less an error in your calculations than some quirk to the way FSX handles deep latitude navigation maybe. I was surprised you got as close as you did…! (And without an FSX.EXE crash!)

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Nice plane, nice report, not nice end.

That’s an irony that the XP crashed on you right after talking about FSX crashes.

This is working absolutely for me, with the slight detail that FSX didn’t crash on me even in the full-screen :wink:

It is obvious, we really don’t know what you are talking all about there :innocent:

Btw I should finish the sentence now.

Saying that is getting easier and easier for me… and doing it harder and harder :sweat_smile:

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It’s been a while so an update:

I’ve made Capetown… on the 3rd attempt. I need to write the report up, but a combination of new sim (Xplane), game crashes, me crashing and RL had me thinking about binning the flight back. I’ll get the report up some time this week.

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After two months at Base Marambio due to a PC rebuild and various RL commitments it was time to put the snow gear away and begin the long trek home.

My flight out was with FSX, but having seen the fun being had with Xplane I’ve jumped on board and decided to fly back with the newer sim.

Initial thoughts were to go via NZ then Australia and then pick my way through various countries and interesting destinations along the way home. Having seen how far NZ was from Marambio I decided against that and a better route would be via South Africa. This has the added bonus of getting the long sea crossing done on the first leg.

With only the stock XP11 aircraft available, I had a bit of a play with the 737-800 and quite liked it. The only trouble being the range. A max of 46,063lbs of fuel gives a predicted max flight time of 4:53:57 @ “normal cruise” (whatever that is :slight_smile:) With a predicted flight time of around 6-7 hours needed, this was going to leave me a bit short. I wasn’t convinced a fully loaded 747 would get off the runway, and remembering Beach’s flight down, I wondered if at 30,000ft the fuel burn would be less and I could make it. Only one way to find out.

SAWB (Marambio base) → FACT (Capetown international)

I don’t have any Antarctic scenery, so it was a bit sparse with the default. Almost as sparse as FSX.

Loaded up with max fuel, no passengers apart from the crew from the flight down.


At the point of rotation I was getting concerned I wouldn’t have enough runway to get airborne. I think the wheels may have brushed the water as I got airborne, then there seemed to be a flock of birds and a bang and I was in the water for the first of my crashes. I wasn’t sure if I imagined the birds, either way I’d cost Qantas a lot of money. Not a good start.

The second attempt I managed to get airborne and started a nice climb out through the cloud.

With no time to read the manual (that can wait for later), I found the autopilot quite intuitive and similar to the A400, so managed to get things set up for FL300 with no major dramas.

I’m loving looking at the externals. It seems easier in Xplane to get some nice views of the aircraft.

Slowly the miles tick by and looking at the fuel burn rate I think I might be able to make it. Using the ground acceleration/timeskip thingy I’m having to go back to normal speed at regular intervals. After a few minutes at x4 acceleration an oscillation starts, that if left unchecked gets bigger and bigger losing and gaining altitled which would end in a crash. With this skip method it was going to mean around 2-3 hours of RL time required to do the flight.

Eventually it starts to get dark.

The burn rate is looking good and by the time I have 29 minutes of flying time to do, I have just over 9,000lbs of fuel left.

Just as I’m reaching Capetown, I was setting up the runway in the FMC and the game crashed with an Xplane error. Cue lots of swearing. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised, it is after all a Beta. With no further time, it would be another week before I could have another attempt. I was feeling quite disheartened and wondered whether to just start from Capetown as I’d made it most of the way, but decided to have another go and leave that as a last resort if I had another crash.

The repeat was much the same as the above, getting close to Capetown I started the decent, wary of Table mountain I followed the IFR instructions set up a landing on Runway 19

Turning onto the final, it was nice and clear and I didn’t need the ILS, which is a good job as I hadn’t figured out where it was. Touchdown, the speed brakes automatically deployed and I was soon slowing down nicely.


Coming to a stop at the nearest gate, the remaining fuel was a little under 6,000lbs left. I’m not sure if the ground speed acceleration had an influence, I think it probably did and I’m guessing I broke a ton of regulations for not having enough fuel, but I’m happy with a completed flight and it was good to be back flying. :slight_smile:

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Yeah…really nice AAR there - and yes, that PMDG DC-6 really is the mutt’s nuts. The AFE is a really useful tool…but just the overall modeling of everything is fantastic…

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Is anyone else getting a ‘player.swf’ warning in this topic? I’ll hunt through the posts…

EDIT: @Sine_Nomine I hope it’s ok, but I edited a post above to stop the embedding of the vid.me video link. It seems like some browsers don’t like the Flash player. I just changed it to a link.

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Great flights, great pics boys :thumbsup:

I am behind schedule with my flights… what date exactly is Easter? :relaxed:

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Gotta love a place called “Mount Terror”…

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