I’m on the road right now, so I cheated a little bit and flew my first leg a few hours before the official start. My intent was to get all the way to Rome, just as the real DC2 “Uiver” did on it’s first leg. Unfortunately, I ran out of time and ended up stopping well short at Strasbourg.
As others have mentioned, some of the NDB’s have extremely limited range, really only good for a course correction within a stone’s throw of the beacon. Others are completely missing from the database. Basically, if I am not picking up the NDB at the expected time plus 5 minutes or so, I have been dialing in a VOR, which on the VSkyLabs DC3, you can use just like an NDB.
Departure from Mildenhall was uneventful. My first visual reference point was RAF Wattisham, which lies directly on the course to my coast out point at Felixtowe. I elected to stay at 5000ft rather than climb up to my planned cruise altitude, so that I could stay visual with the ground. That put me a little ahead of schedule, but I easily was able to identify Wattisham. Felixtowe is a large shipping port, just beyond Ipswich. With OrbX TrueEarth scenery, there was no mistaking it. So far so good. I crossed the channel and after awhile, I could see the Belgian and French coast. My coast in point was at Ostend , which has a NDB. I passed the coast in point still a little ahead of time, but knowing precisely where I was.
Continuing on the same course over Charleroi, Belgium I was feeling pretty good about how the flight was progressing. The next reference point was Luxembourg. I got within 50 miles and still had not picked up the NDB there, and then “Real Life tm” intervened and I had to go AFK for a bit. I let the sim continue on, but was away a few minutes more than I had anticipated. By the time I returned to the PC I was somewhere past Luxembourg, and with no NDB to help, I found myself searching for a visual reference. Fortunately I had drifted a little north of course, and found myself over a prominent river (the Saar River). I was able to identify a man made dock near Wallerfangen Germany. I then continued down the river to Saarbruken before making a turn towards Strasbourg.
At this point, it was getting late and I had an early airline flight to catch the next morning, so I decided to land and call it a night. I’ll post screenshots when I get home from this leg. From here, if time permits, I will push on down to Corfu (seeing as I have the FlyTampa scenery for the island). After that, maybe on to Cyprus. It will be next weekend before I can continue the journey though.
Edit> some screens from this leg:
England’s green and pleasant land
the port at Felixstowe :
Crossing the channel and on into Belgium:
The weather at Strasbourg deteriorated just as I arrived.
Down safely, and parked next to two strangely familiar aircraft.
