Welcome to the 2019 MacRobertson Air Race - a reenactment of the 1934 race from England to Australia (also known as the London to Melbourne Air Race).
General Overview
Pilots will select an aircraft (or series of aircraft) and complete the route from Mildenhall in the UK to Melbourne Australia, in the fastest time possible as governed by the rules. All pilots should compete in the Spirit of Fair Play (SoFP), taking no action that would intentionally garner them an unfair competitive advantage over their rivals.
Simulator
Any simulator may be used provide it covers the land area being flown over (you want to take a Yak-52 across the Persian Gulf, totally good with it). Simulators can be changed at any time. Any scenery, land class, etc is allowed as the pilot prefers. Scenery choices should be made to increase the flying experience and not to confer an advantage.
Classes
-
Experiential class - Anything you have in a sim is good to go (if you want to fly an SR-71, or do an orbital insertion, go for it).
-
Air Race class - pre WW2, encompassing any AC built and launched prior to 1939.
Route
- RAF Mildenhall (EGUN) - Start
- Baghdad (ORBI)
- Allahabad (VEAB)
- Singapore (WSSS)
- Darwin (YPDN)
- Charleville (YBCV)
- Melbourne (YMML) - Finish
As well, @fearlessfrog has enabled our forumâs Locations Map to allow us to update our Event Location throughout the journey:
You can also access the event map by going to your âhamburger menuâ (the three horizontal line menu) in the upper right corner of this page next to your user icon, and selecting USERS from that drop down.
âTo fill in your current location in the Event, update your Profile to have a âMap Locationâ. You can enter in a Lat/Lng or an address, and it will work out what you mean. Donât forget to hit âSaveâ when it looks OK.â
Rules
-
Launching from RAF Mildenhall, you must land at each checkpoint (airport, or rough field landing is up to the individual flyer), with the ending point being Melbourne Australia. Any intermediate stops are solely at the discretion of the pilot. Route selection besides reaching the listed major checkpoints is entirely up to the pilot.
-
Time acceleration - Time acceleration is allowed, and any acceleration setting desired my be used.
-
Timing - Pilots will be responsible for tracking their own time and mileage. They should post a running total of both with their reports, though this can be amalgamated if several legs are flown and reported in one post.
-
Reporting - Pilots should, in their best 1930âs news writer impression, report their travels along the race route.
Unless youâre flying in the Air Race class, thatâs it for the rules.
Air Race class
All pilots should compete in the Spirit of Fair Play (SoFP), taking no action that would intentionally garner them an unfair competitive advantage over their rivals.
-
Planes may be changed at any time so long as it is eligible for the Air Race class.
-
Navigation - As we are somewhat simulating a 1930âs airspace environment, GPS, SatNav, Radar Nav, etc didnât exist. Pilots are PROHIBITED (with the emergency section listed below) from using any map, gauge, etc that displays their position without requiring manual calculation by the user except as listed below for Radio Navigation. For example the default FSX GPS gauge and flight tracking map are a no go. Using a Sextant gauge, taking a star shot, plotting it on google maps, etc. is totally good. Addon GPS or nav systems, inertial, doppler, etc, are prohibited as well. In short in the SoFP if something is automatically doing navigation for you, itâs prohibited. *Remember weâre trying to capture the spirit of the 1930âs when even accurate paper maps could be a rarity. Getting lost is half the fun!
-
Radio Navigation was a thing back then, but to be honest, Iâm am not terribly familiar with what was available back then. Early RF options basically could fix and locate radio signals similar to an NBD, including local AM stations. For our purposes the closest capability we have to that is NBDâs. NBDâs may be used for navigation purposes, provided this does not run afoul of the preceding paragraph.
-
Emergency Navigation Assistance: We are all probably going to get lost (well I am at least). To simulate the real world capability to land and simply ask âWhere the heck am I?!â safely landing your craft will allow for the use of a real time/exact location system (default FSX map or GPS for instance).
-
Autopilot - Any pre-WW2 craft that was equipped with some manner of âautopilotâ may use it during any portion of flight, provide it behaves in a reasonably similar fashion as it did historically.
-
Weather - Real world weather should be used at all times, except if in True Explorer Spirit⢠the pilot elects to have more difficult weather. If real world weather is not available for that area, default seasonal weather (if your sim has that) is allowed, or if that is not available, cloudy (but VFR) weather as determined to be in the SoFP by the pilot will be used.
-
ATC - ATC will not be used in a manner so as to gain an unfair advantage. So no IFR flight plan, where you donât have to do any navigation, etc.
- Thanks to @Jenrick for proposing this race and coming up with the proposed rules! Good luck pilots!
