MacRobertson Air Race (2019)

[keets]

Having failed miserably yet again, with a Mudspike challenge and with another opportunity for failure looming with the Christmas flight, I need to get my sorry backside back to Blighty.

“Good evening ladies and gentleman and welcome aboard this BA flight from Karachi to Cardiff. Take off will be approximately 20:15 local time and we will be stopping overnight in Ankara…”

“We’d like to wish warm welcome to failed adventurer Keets. If you do find yourself sitting next to him, please point out the toilets as he has a habit of not reaching his destination.”

[PaulRix]

I always like to think that if you aim high, but fall short, then you probably still got farther than you otherwise would have. The UK to Karachi was still quite a trek that you probably would never have done otherwise.

[NEVO]

First of all, as we totaly forgot to do that, Congrats to @ffly for reaching Melbourne !

Second, thx to all who participated on this Race, no matter if in the role of racer or follower. It was EPIC journey!

And now its my pleasure to also say : Finally Melbourne !

I will begin with customary pic of the last leg. Took off in the wilds but this time made it to the finish

Khancoban strip as viewed from the dam road in sim. Weather was not realy cool. But at that point I wasnt 100% sure that this will be the final leg, so acceptable

Heading South we njoyed high mountains again. And the altitudes from my last leg were in FT not M of course. No AUS residents here to correct me

Even overcast can be picturesque. We felt like at home there in the mountains, especially with ridge called Pilot Wilderness

Further South I was lucky to find ’ Godzilla eating something ’ as good nav fix

More important nav fix was the south coast. But not only the coast but two airports - Lakes Entrance strip to our left and Great Lakes Airfield behind us. Here we decided to try to push to our final destination

From there it was Race with the Sun

And fight with the spare time as I was distracted few times at this point. In one occasion returning to see Baw Baw National Park rise into our flightpath

Sun was rolling low but we were close at this point. Only Silvan Reservoir …

… and Dandenong Ranges National Park in our way … and then only Melbourne on the other side

[ Disclaimer : I really didnt wait for the particular lighting conditions ]

On the other side

Flemington Racecourse must be close now - follow Easter Freeway, then to Alexandra Parade, next Princs St, followed by MacArthur Rd, joining Elliott Ave and then finaly …

…short final over Racecourse Rd and landing on the Racecourse

[ffly]

Thank you! Congratulations to you to! Again, nice screen shots and AAR! You navigated through the landmarks sounding like a local

In the first picture, how did you get that kind of water? My water is just like a flat dull lifeless surface. When trying to land on water, I could hardly tell my height.

In the le410 cockpit, were you able to turn on any light?

[NEVO]

Thx!

Sry, I didnt answer your questions despite I planned to do so.

So here we go. Sun, water etc. Somewhere in the past I applied this utility on my XP install. Iirc I didnt use the new clouds textures, i.e. I sicked with the default cloud files, but the rest like sun, water etc. were enhanced using this utility :

FSE

Regarding Let410. Fully agree with your characterization of landings. Sometimes I used everything - spoilers, full flaps and side-slip - and it wasnt enough to slow her down. On other occasions I did drop like a rock and hoped that the undercarriage will take it
According to FM landing speed is 155km/h with full flaps. I wish I had more time to study it more closely
FM is easily searchable and downloadable from x-plane.hu site.

I guess I had some cockpit lights on when I tested BIAR Akureyri departure at night. But if you mean some specific lights pls let me know I will test it.

[ffly]

That makes me feel better about my landing I like the model. It’s really nicely done.

If I remember correctly, the light switch in the cockpit is not functional. And I had trouble reading the instruments when dark. Probably I missed the instruments light switch…

I tried FSE before. It dropped my fps quite significantly. So I had to give it up and bought xVision. For some reason, I got wave effects at the beginning but it’s suddenly gone now…

[PaulRix]

Congrats to all who finished. Is anyone else going to keep on trucking or should we call this goose cooked?

[BeachAV8R]

@PaulRix

Is anyone else going to keep on trucking or should we call this goose cooked?

You can close the bar…however…I’m still planning on making it! I’m fueling up in Baghdad as we speak…

[ffly]

Thanks for the reminder Soon, I hope, with the DC 3

[Bearhedge]

Nice work, congrats to the finishers! I will see if I can join you in Melbourne, it would be nice to get those last legs done. I’ve been hanging at Ko Samui for the last few months, which to be fair doesn’t look that bad:

Ko Samui

Posting the remaining route to motivate myself:

[NEVO]

@ffly

In the let410 cockpit, were you able to turn on any light?

Talking the cockpit lights. Here is what works for me. Hope it helps.

It is enough to switch Battery I or II to ON and the cockpit flood lights turns on.
Flood lights off

Flood lights on

To turn on the instrument lights I recommend to click on the yoke to hide it. Then behind the yoke there are two knobs. Right one, LIGHT II, for flood lights intensity and the left one, LIGHT I, for instrument lights intensity.

Instrument lights intensity dim

Instrument lights intensity bright

[Fridge]

I am somewhere in the middle of Australia. The scenery is … bleak … at least with the default scenery.

[ffly]

Thanks! That’s very clear! I think the inop switch I was referring to is in the overhead panel. Need to read the manual more carefully…

Sorry, one last question - what scenery addon for Melbourne, if any, did you use? The city skyline looks great!

[NEVO]

@ffly

what scenery addon for Melbourne, if any

Np, I used just ortho with default XP overlay.

[ffly]

Ok. Thanks!

[PaulRix]

The bar doesn’t close until some time after the last person crosses the finish line ;). I was just curious if anyone else was going to keep going or if we were all moving on to the Christmas trek.

[NEVO]

Cmon @Bearhedge, cmon @Fridge! The bar will run dry till you arrive

[Fridge]

Leg 25: VTNK to YCBP via AS and CBP NDBs

Aircraft: Carenado Beachcraft Bonanza F33A w/ SimCoders Reality Expansion Pack;
Addon: none
Addon: ActiveSky XP;
Addon: UltraWeather XP;

Date: 10 October 2019
Weather: Historical 10 October 2019 @ 21:15 UTC (06:45 local)
Takeoff: ~ 07:00

	Leg	Total
Planned Distance	569 nm	10315 nm
NDB Beacons Tuned	2	86
Weather ‘Situations’	0	9
Duration	5 H 41 M	69 H 16 M

Location: Airport Road, Coober Pedy, The District Council of Coober Pedy, South Australia, 5723, Australia

Briefing Notes:

Quick entry as it took me a couple of hours to get X-Plane sorted out … somewhat.

Weather was looking clear and warm throughout my path south. Nothing to keep an eye on other than the winds at 9000 feet.

Path will be south out of YTNK at roughly 180° for 249 nm to the AS NDB. From there, we turn to 165° for another 319 nm. Thats two long legs, one at 2h 30 minutes and the other for 3h 11m. Hope the virtual me doesn’t have to pee

Other Media and Notes:

Flight was fairly uneventful … after I remembered how to do things and after I got everything set up good in X-Plane again. Well, good enough anyway

Familiar cabin of the Bonanza, which allows me to use the autopilot for the long legs.

And if you were wondering what the default scenery for central Australia looks like:

It’s a whole lot of that.

Decided to try to navigate my way in to Runway 04 via the NDB. Basically, head off right of it until the needle starts to get half way to 040° (from the 169° heading) then turn in half way, and repeat. I didn’t want to overshoot it … but I did

Down and parked at YCBP.

[Bearhedge]

@Fridge Woo, back in business! Last stretch

[Bearhedge]

VTSM (Ko Samui) - WSSS (Singapore)

I managed to make a bit of progress despite it being a Friday night of a hard week at work, so that’s good.

I actually had some footage of my previous leg (before the long hiatus at Ko Samui), but as @NEVO said, this is about crawling to Melbourne no matter how, now…so we’ll scratch those shots. It’s not like I’ve got pretty orthos loaded, anyway.

I’m travelling light, so throwing the rugsack to the back of the Piper was easily done. I did a quick preflight and got rid of most of the larger animals nesting on the plane. They had made the nooks and crannies of the Arrow their home, and who could blame them? It’s not like it was going anywhere.

We had a 4 kt crosswind on takeoff, nothing serious. TOW 2420 lbs or thereabouts was easy peasy, even with the warm temperatures - we had a 6700 ft runway and only needed about 1800 ft. I did check, though - being prudent and all.

I cleaned up and settled to a 104 KIAS climb at 33 MAP and 2450 RPM.

We had a little ocean stretch for starters before heading back over land. Once at 12,000 feet cruise altitude, I set up for 65% power cruise. 2400 RPM, 30 In Hg MAP, about 12 GPH fuel consumption after leaning some 50F rich of peak.

Feet dry and descending a bit lower - a bit of weather ahead.

Crusing along a bit lower - things were bumpy higher up.

Uh oh - that’s no good! I went down low but it was still a rough ride to Singapore for a while with thunderstorms looming above and all around.

On final to Singapore.

In Singapore now. Not my best prepared flight, but we’re 542NM closer.