I think that there is a pedestal piece to it as well. As far as I could see, it required pre-programmed channels? I will have a look tonight.
1 Like
Leg 2 completed. And at this rate it is going to take months for me to finish this trek. 
This flight sees me travelling from Barberey LFQB to, well I guess I cut off the full name, but it’s LFSY.
Taking the same Scout as before, I had 3 tries (and one reboot before #3), as I kept ‘over-stressing’ the helicopter during my take off down the runway? Yeah. Weird. under 60 knots, and 250 fpm climb during the first 2 runs and got about 70% of the way down the runway before the sim chastised me and forced me to reset. Third try was fine, I just headed off the runway 5-10 degrees. No idea what the issue might have been but I am fairly sure it wasn’t my flying (said every pilot, ever).
My goal was to head south-ish until I encountered the road near the nav beacon, then turn and hold 144 on the compass until I got near the destination area. As far as navigation plans go, it started off great but I had to refer to the LittleNavMap VR display as I got near the destination airfield because it wasn’t easy to find.
Had some slight weather enroute, with rain in the distance. I tried to steer around those but ran into a small shower as I was searching for the target airport. It’s there, off to the right (center-ish in the screenshot) hidden by trees around the runway.
And it was quite brave of that apron handler to guide me in. They did a great job of hiding their laughter as I hover-taxied into position.
It also surprised me how MSFS fills in ground aircraft after I shutdown and exit VR. Had no idea there was anyone else at this airfield until then.
And there is the ADF as @Deacon211 pointed out I am not sure about the frequency selection there. It seems encoded in a way that my brain can’t process.
And here is the chanel box that I was talking about. Not the transponder at the read, tilted forward, but the box just in front of that.
My plan for the next leg is to follow the D-971 highway direct to Dijon and the first official stop on the trek. And, probably to pick up some mustard?
5 Likes
Leg 5: Milan to Venice.
Took a little break there to fight off a head cold but decided to get back to it.
This leg was a bit longer than the last few at about 150NM as the crow flies. A wee bit longer as the locomotive flies however. 
This section of the journey would perhaps lack the majesty of the last one (it would be hard for it to be otherwise!). But it was still a lovely trek across the north of Italy.
Went back to the Huey. That extra 20 knots or so was going to pay off in the long run, I figured.
As with any flight, it’s always important to get off to a good start.
It would be unfortunate then that I accidentally selected a different (and incorrect) airfield than the one I had planned in Navigraph.
Those are the buildings of downtown Milan…they’re supposed to be in front of me!
So, it was with a little bit of searching that I finally found the rail line; not without help from Navigraph, I’m not too proud to admit.
The Sun rise certainly also helped.
But the sim…not so much. For some reason, while I found the rail lines to be well represented in France and Switzerland, they are much more obscured in Italy. To the left in this shot, you can see the tracks obscured by trees and a building!
Maybe the suburban sprawl is just too complex for MSFS to properly intermesh all the autogen elements. 
So I stayed glued to the tracks and applied some Kentucky Windage as needed.
Not as many obvious points of interest this morning…at least that I could find.
But I guess the Alps were fortress enough for the Romans; at least for a time. Not hard to see why.
Off at my 10 o’clock however, the Università Degli Studi Di Bergamo, a suspiciously well-fortified university, if ever I saw one! 
This turned out to be my kind of navigation. Over the Alps? Too far north. Not over the Alps? Too far south!
Monte Orfano, a last bastion out on the Italian plains.
Soon enough, I popped over a last ridgeline and took in the broad sweep of Lake Garda.
As the mountains bent north towards Trieste, they gave way to some remarkably sweeping plains. This isn’t quite Iowa flat, but still.
Here passing by Verona. I think I know two gentlemen from there!
I have a feeling that there are many sites here that I am missing, maybe by only a few miles. A shame really.
Here just managed to spot the Basilica of St. Anthony in Padua.
Like so many places that I encounter on my flights, I feel that I must come back some day.
But today I am on a mission. The rail bed points like an arrow towards Venice. The end of my journey is in sight.
Finally, I reach the coast. I follow the causeway out to the end of the line.
My intention was to do a circuit of the island and return to the airport.
But, spying a helipad (a hospital I presume) passing beneath, I can’t resist the temptation.
I have no idea if this will work!
Remarkably, though the buildings are a little melty, I manage not to sink through and shut down on the pad.
Well, that’s this leg in the can. As I said, perhaps not the most thrilling flight, but enjoyable nonetheless.
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The astute and observant among the readers will notice that there seem to be two tracks in that image above. And, yes, that would represent what happened.
If you are taking notes, you might also notice that the second (longer) leg, although some distance farther from the first, didn’t stop where it was intended to stop…
For this flight, I chose Taog’s UH-1 Bell 205-A1B … the civilian version of the Iroquois, more widely know as the Huey.
I guess I missed uploading a screenshot of the cockpit, but it very closely resembles the UH-1 in DCS. So much so that I was feeling right at home, and was pretty sure* that I could do the startup from memory. Now, it is well know that my memory is not great, and that I have a cheat-sheet in the DCS kneeboard section to help me get through the process, but at least I wasn’t going to be hunting around the switch landscape looking for something obscure.
Or was I?
Above, up and off the airfield and hunting for the highway that I plan to follow all the way to Dijon. It was less obvious that I hoped, but with LittleNavMap’s help, I was able to locate it. And I didn’t have to keep consulting the map, which I was a little proud of.
The scenery was enjoyable, but if you can pick it out from the screenshot above and below this comment, some of the needles went, very quickly I might add, from happy to unhappy.
Hint for one such needle, which caught my eye as it rapidly spooled down: From the ADI, go left to the second gauge and note it’s happy 4 o’clock position to it’s unhappy 8 o’clock position. The RPM indicator dumped itself on me, but luckily the rotors kept turning … but unluckily the engine decided to follow the indicator.
Quickly choosing a nice, flat-ish field, and one auto-rotation later I was in good condition. Thought somewhat far from help, in an unknown direction.
If you can pick out the white placard in the bottom of the next screenshot, you can see that the AC voltage has hit zero. Next to the placard, to it’s left, there are two gauges. The top-ish one is the DC voltage, and the bottom one is the AC Voltage.
So. Back to the start.
I reset the flight and, happily, the sim decided to put me on my departure runway with the engines going. I was happy for this because it meant that I could ‘ignore’ whatever I had done wrong and trust that the sim had started the whirly bird correctly.
It didn’t. Apparently.
In the next screenshot (and I tried to grab a section of that and name it more … bigger. … alas, I didn’t make it clearer) you can see the AC voltage. Note it’s position at, roughly 11:30.
And then note its position a few minutes later at less that that; touching the yellow warning bar.
Glancing at the LittleNavMap display, I could see an airfield that I hoped was within the time I had left, before I used up the last of the AC juice that was not being replenished.
Grah! I missed another screenshot, but if you noticed the two tracks in the very first screenshot, you already know that I made it far enough to land at Darios (LFGI).
Now, I don’t know what I am doing wrong. I think that I had this issue with Taog’s SA315 - where after some time limit, I ran into a similar problem with everything spooling down. It may be related to the hardware switch assignments that I for the various panels. For example, I have one switch which is set to the Battery On/Off, and in another aircraft module, I was fighting that switch with the mouse in VR. IE: I would use the mouse to move the switch to the battery-on state, and it would move in the sim, only to return to the off position once MSFS realized that the assignment on one of the hardware panels that I have was set to off. I was confused about this behaviour for may minutes until I realized what was happening.
Anywho. Here are screenshots of the state that the aircraft was in when I landed at LFGI. I am hoping someone can point out what I did wrong.
According to the PDF manual, I think that I have everything in the correct state.
- AC Voltmeter is set to AC Phase;
- Inverter is set to On Main (forward);
- Main Gen is On (forward) and caged;
- DC Voltmeter is set to ESS Bus;
- Non-ESS Bus is set to On-Normal (forward);
- Starter switch is set to Standby Gen (forward);
I think that’s all that is relevant to this problem?
I will try turning off/disabling the other hardware panels to make sure that one of those switches is not in a ‘bad’ position that is being picked up by the sim, but not reflected in the limited set of switches for the UH-1
But I did get to practice my auto-rotations. And I did get to panic-fly to a nearby airfield knowing that I had limited time to get there
6 Likes
Wow, that sounds like an exciting flight!
The best stories always come from things going all dog squeeze. 
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definitely you had som fun!
By no means I am an expert on Hueys but why is there FUEL switch set to OFF on the middle console !?
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Sorry, you are correct! That was part of my engine shutdown and I forgot to put it back to where it was during flight.
1 Like
Yay! I remembered correctly and sorted it out. I had two issues with settings on my Ka-50 Virpl panel!
First, note that the gauges showing the positive load from the generators
is indicating zero for both the DC and AC generators. Note the two gauges to the left of the DC and AC volt meters.
And here is what I get when I flip the switch set on my KA-50 panel assigned to ‘Alternators’…
And that, my fellow flight sim enthusiasts, is why you need to look at ‘all’ of the gauges and have a rough idea of what the heck they mean
Also, note the ‘Avionics’ assignment on that device as well. Which would explain why the transponder was not working, and the radio only partially working. There is no switch in the civilian version of the UH-1 for this, as the function is taken by the IFF panel which doesn’t exist. At least according to the checklist in the PDF. MSFS is processing those assignments as part of the inner workings, but the module provides no mechanism to interact with them.
So … be careful what you have mapped and don’t assume that it is having no impact
6 Likes
Next instalment:
This will be a quick little flight to make sure that my issues with the battery charging
Beautiful model. MSFS assigns some courageous and brave virtual airport employee of the month near me as a ‘reward’ for good service.
Passing by all of that good mustard as I fly by the LFSD milestone.
Not sure if it is me, but I am finding it somewhat challenging to find airports at distance. May be a VR thing and not my eyes? Yeah. Probably.
Down and safely parked. Compared to DCS, I find the flight model better in DCS. I am not sure if that is because Taog may be using a ‘template’ flight model, augmented with changes around the size and characteristics of the model, but it feels a little less stable in DCS and that is what I would expect.
Of course, please remember that I am not a pilot, let along a helicopter pilot. Never even flown in one
Second leg is a bit longer, but this time I am going with Taog’s SA 315. Granted, she is a lot lighter and twitchy that the UH-1. And when switching, it takes light hands on teh controls not to go all over the place.
I went all over the place as soon as she jumped into the sky
Also. Using the external camera in VR and it is … difficult … to maintain good control
I really like this helicopter. Model is good. Systems are simple. Joy to fly.
Coming on on the last ridge line, roughly 5500 ft in elevation, before I start hunting for that destination airport.
Which, again, eluded me until I was almost over it.
Next screenshot is me looking over my shoulder as I come around for a landing, making sure I am descending nicely and keeping the speed in check.
On final.
And, look at that! A helipad! Think I landing a little short.
Ok. Maybe a lot farther short than I thought.
LFPO LFSD LSGL LIMC LIPZ LIPQ LDOV LYBE LYNI LBSF LTFM
5 Likes
I have been remiss in not posting reports but I have flown from London to Lydd, then on to Paris Orly in the Aloette III, Paris Orly to Dijon in the Huey and last night I flew the short hop from Dijon to Lausanne in the Nemeth Schweizer 300C.
London City to Lydd. The Aloette II resplendent in Swiss colors. In London the weather was severe clear but as I reached the south coast, the visibility dropped to zero and I ended up feeling my way in. I decided it was best to wait for the fog to burn off before starting across the English Channel.
Lydd to Paris Orly: With the weather much improved, I departed Lydd and flew up the coast to pick up the railway line and followed it to the entrance of the Channel Tunnel.
From there I continued up the coast to Dover before dashing across the channel at it’s narrowest point.
I coasted in just west of Calais and then located the French entrance to the Channel Tunnel.
A short flight across the French countryside quickly brought me to Paris, and after a quick flypast of the Eifel Tower, Paris Orly airport came into view. I have to say that flying a helicopter on this trek really makes you appreciate the scenery.
Paris Orly to Dijon:
I really like TOAG’s Huey…
Dijon to Lausanne:
The Nemeth Schweizer 300C is a squirrely little contraption. I’m not sure how realistic the flight model is, but it’s flyable if you are gentle on the controls. It can be a handful if you don’t pay attention.
I was surprised at the extent of the forrested areas on this leg. Not a great place to be if you were to lose your single piston engine.
The terrain is starting to get more ‘interesting’
And there are some pretty big mountains on the horizon…
Lake Geneva comes into view.
Landing at Lausanne.
.
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Paul, you are the master of star- and screenshots!
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@PaulRix great job!
I thought the same thing about getting down in the weeds…it really gives you a different perspective on MSFS. Literally!
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I think most of the credit has to go to Asobo… and I am guessing that MSFS2024 will give us all some even better eye candy to play with. 
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Next leg! This time I am going to try to be more honest with the VFR flight, and not reply on the LittleNavMap … map … to keep me confident in what I am doing.
The plan is to follow the highway until it turns to Sion. At that point, there is a small (ie: not small, but relatively small) hill. The arrows are … misleading on the left, The plan is to find that, get around it, and then take the left or right path.
The right path is a little easier, allowing me to follow a highway, reinforcing that I chose the correct valley to follow or, on the left, just a valley. Both lead to a lower set of hills around 2700 to 2900 meters. Both should allow me to cross easily, as long as I keep my altitude in focus.
For this leg, I am using the Taog Alouette III. I have never flown this one … really, my flight hours in all of these helicopters is relatively light. The model is beautiful, and the Canadian Coast Guard skin is appreciated
I forgot that starting from a helipad has you started with the engine going, so I had to stop the helicopters slow spin with whatever power/collective/rudder setting MSFS puts in.
I am a fan of all of Taog’s helicopters and would recommend them all.
Up and off the airport and meeting up with the highway that I am going to follow south.
The scenery is great and the highway easily visible. I slowly figured out how to turn off the aircraft icon and track.
The ‘small hill’ I mentioned earlier is in the right eye part of the shot below. I am using the map here to make sure that what I am seeing in the scenery matches up. Highway turns off to the left here and the smaller highway follows the flat land ahead to the right, and curls around to pass right-to-left in front of my navigation hill.
In the above shot, I am coming around the back of the navigation hill. Off to the left is the … right path on the map. Yeah. Unfortunate naming based on perspective :-). In front of me is the left path that I pan on taking. For the next while, until I cross the saddle between the hills, and see the terrain that I expect on the other side, I will be unsure that I am in the right valley
Next two shots are traveling up the valley, worried and anxious.
I picked a saddle that seemed lower than the others. Crossing with the tundra-like hills on the right, my imagination fills in the details from my experiences - Newfoundland has a lot of lower altitude tundra that reminded me of this area.
Also discovered this little pond at the top, which is amazing! Would love to visit that in real life!
Descending down the other side and starting to match up what I see with what the map provides.
and, below, everything is matching up.
One of the challenges was that the highway on the other side tended to disappear in really inconvenient tunnels. Well, inconvenient from the point of view of VFR navigation but probably a lot better for the land crawling automobiles.
On final with the destination airport. And for one of the first times ever, I notice my shadow preceding me on my flight path.
And again. Another airport employee that obviously has not been informed of my hover and landing skills.
But in this instance, I don’t end up with them running for their lives!
Turning back on the flight track and comparing that to the plan. And I am pleasantly surprised that I didn’t get there by accident. Which is … not the normal way this goes for me
And here is the plan in more VFR detail as I was deciding on the route.
Happy with the flight and the module was amazing. Looking forward to the next leg!
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Nicely done! 
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For the Lausanne to Milan leg, I pulled the Cowan Sim H125 out of the hangar. This orange white and green livery reminds me a little of the paint job on the Challenger I fly. You certainly can’t miss it on the flightline.
Initially I fly along the shoreline of Lake Geneva
At the eastern end, I turn left, and start climbing.
I soon reach Sion and decide a minor detour is in order.
I climb up a steep valley…
and climb some more… almost there.
and there it is… the Matterhorn.
After a quick orbit of the summit, I press on. The mountains start to get a little smaller and Italy beckons in the distance.
Descending towards Milan.
Approaching LIMC
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Beautiful!
My one regret on that leg was not going to see the Matterhorn.
I confess that I didn’t quite know how close I was at the time.
I would still love to find a good world atlas.
Leg 6:
I was looking at my progress and the length of the next leg to Trieste and thought it a bit short at only about 60NM. The difficultly was of course that the follow on leg was quite long, so combining the two might exceed the max continuous operating limits of my behind at over 250NM.
Plus, when I plotted it over the existing rail system, it became considerably longer.
Then I felt an itch, a feeling I’ve not felt since…
…well, since Post 17 at least.
OK, someone had to do it.
I blame @PaulRix
Honestly, with this plane being:
A. Vintage.
B. Quirky.
and
C. VSTOL
I’m surprised that I had managed to avoid it for so long!
So, with literally minutes of study (not enough BTW) I staggered into the air.
Hey, is that a pitot boom, or are you eating a banana? 
Even with two Pegasus engines, I’m a bit dubious at this thing’s vertical capability.
Fun though, it takes off like a rocket!
Hooking a left over the causeway, I put Venice in the rearview and set off towards Trieste.
The view is great…everywhere other than straight ahead!
Still, I manage to find the tracks.
At a very leisurely 300KIAS, I cross the Soca River in no time,
and turn south over Monfalcone. After leaving the immense plain of what I guess is still the Po Valley, it’s interesting to see the sudden forested hills of Slovenia and Croatia stretch unbroken to the horizon.
Trieste on the nose. This boom makes for a pretty good pointer!
Once over Trieste I turn inland.
Interestingly, although I wouldn’t call the terrain here mountainous exactly, certainly not by Alpine standards, the rail system took some very circuitous paths through the hills.
Looks like my 401k performance!
It makes me wonder what exactly drove the rail design. Perhaps I’m just exhibiting “Aviator’s Conceit”, whereupon no hill looks steep from altitude.
Now, if I had to run it…
Fun though the Dornier is, it might not have been the best choice for this journey. Even at 1000ft AGL, the tracks become exceedingly difficult to follow. And the fact that this thing turns like the Titanic makes getting down in the weeds a risky proposition.
There were a few switchbacks, like this Oxbow into a box canyon in Rakek, that I wasn’t even going to try. I bailed out of this one in a hurry.
Eventually, the railroad hits one of its main anchors, Ljubljana.
Followed by the second, Zagreb, easy to spot in the distance for the isolated Medvednica mountain range at whose base the city sits.
One thing that I recall standing out from the one time I flew into Hungary IRL was the unusually slender field patterns; much different from the patchwork or even circular plantings that I was accustomed to in the States.
As I leave the hill country behind for the rich farmlands, the rail bed becomes easier to find, and follow. I do feel another small pang of regret for the historical sights I must be missing along the way, too indistinct to spot unless I knew where to look.
Beautiful country though! Beautiful weather as well…which always makes me a bit suspicious of MSFS.
As I approach the Vinkovci/Sopot Airport, I begin to configure. I confess, I don’t see it.
Ah, that would explain it!
Well, it’s called “Helifest” for a reason, I guess!
It should go without saying that there was no way in Hell that I was going to make it.
Thus, I got to practice my Go Around…twice!
Eventually, I do manage to keep the field in sight and coerce the ship into slowing down. I’m almost certainly not doing something correctly, and the fact that this 2 to 10 turbojet aircraft sips gas like a motor glider also raises the possibility that the auto FO is only giving me the amount of vertical thrust that I can afford at this weight.
Still I get her down to about 80KIAS, which should be acceptable on this runway. I think.
She stops quickly enough though. I don’t think the FO even put reverse thrust in!
Finally, I pull her in to the terminal (which is probably smaller than the fuselage) and drop the ramp.
Wait a minute, where’s the cargo? What do you mean, you thought I was supposed to load it?
Now, we gotta go back!
9 Likes
LIMC (Milan) to LIPZ (Venice) in the Cowan Bell 222B. I think the 222B has to be the best looking helicopter period. It looks substantial and yet sleek at the same time.
The Cowan 222B comes with a nice HeliSimmer livery which I thought was appropriate for this trek.
The Italian countryside slips by as we head east.
I’m jumping well ahead here… approaching Venice.
Someday I am going to have to see Venice in person. It looks amazing in the sim.
As the sun gets low to the horizon it is time to head to the airport.
9 Likes
Text for these soon
My next leg will take me from LIMW down a valley and east to LIML. My plan is to follow the highway again, east out of Aosta and then turn south with it until we spill out onto the plains south of the mountains. At that point, I am going to turn east and search for the LIN beacon to guide me to Milano and LIML.
And the flight was pretty much what I expected … but I didn’t expect how far off course I would be from not tuning the beacon at BLA. As you can see, I started hunting east after heading south farther than I anticipated and got lucky to end up over Cerriene by accident (as I was out of range of the beacon I was hunting for (LIN).
For this flight I am using the CowanSim Bell 206B3. I may be a few patches behind on that one because the checklist only contained 4 items in the pre-start page … and no other pages.
But it kinda looks like a slim Huey, so I will give it a go. Turns out, starting is as easy as turning the battery on, pressing the started button and rolling on the throttle as the engine and rotor stabilize. I am not sure how I feel about that, because it seems a little too push-the-start-button-magic. But then again, a lot of the other helicopters that I have used have not been all that systems intense anyway.
Above, I am finding my highway and following it onto the plain. Not much to show, really. Scenery was quite good and the valley flying gives a good impression of speed.
In the next screenshot, I have stumbled on the airport co-located with Cerriene and the BLA beacon, and my nav radio has jumped to attention as it points me toward LIN.
And of course, there is a highway that I can follow. I managed to find this large intersection. You can see in the next image, that it is fairly obvious where I am on LittleNameMap (mouse pointer over the intersection) and in the second image below, the intersection itself.
It was a surprise to see this large aircraft appear off my right side. I have nav traffic from other players on and maybe this person was checking out what the really slow contact was
This was a weird structure that appeared on the west side of Milano. At first I thought that it was something being built that the satellite had caught mid construction. But! It’s the San Siro Stadium - the largest stadium in Italy! It … probably looks better from the ground. Yeah. It doesn’t
Approach in to LIML was uneventful. Landed on the runway, was asked to vacate the runway, landed on a taxiway just past the runway incursion line, was asked to contact ground and taxi. I usually can’t find the parking spot that they are directing me to, but I found a fueling area that would make due.
5 Likes