Bush flying with Draco…
Nice!
Where?
It’s the Hayfork California scenery by OrbX. Nice little airport, with the added bonus of including some nearby bush strips…. and they are short!
3 Likes
Berlin Airlift?
I did not expect it to be SO easy 
I have to say that the DC-6 is still a great aircraft even after all these years 
(MSFS 2020 by the way; the DC-6 has not yet made the conversion)
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I managed to get the DC6 up and running in 2024 yesterday (in preparation for my new yoke arriving). I just copied my 2020 install across to the 2024 community folder and it seemed to work just fine. I haven’t tested many of the systems yet, but it’s certainly flyable.
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Have you noticed any lag in needles movement? I got that when I tried the last time (before any SUs).
Haven’t tried since.
My apologies for the late response… I just tried the DC6 and I’m not seeing any lag with the instruments. It was just a quick test though.
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I picked up the Black Square Starship this afternoon. It’s definitely a work of art. I will need to do a lot of reading, but I did manage to get the airplane from Austin Executive Airport to Aspen, which is where I saw my only Starship in the wild.
9 Likes
I held off on the Starship, due to having a short weekend to try it out. I’ll have the week to RTFM, and the wife is visiting family this weekend. Hopefully I’ll have plenty of time to try it out.
@PaulRix Initial thoughts?
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It’s very obviously a labor of love… lots of detail and complex systems depth. There is a lot that can fail, the avionics are meticulously modeled, and they are kind of clunky to use. You can see how advanced it was at the time (I used to fly a 1983 King Air B200 and it must have seemed like something out of a science fiction movie back then). However, the avionics are not what we are used to today. I like it. I think they had me when I saw that St Elmo’s Fire is modeled when you are flying near a thunderstorm. I don’t think I have ever seen that in a sim before…
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Checked it myself and indeed - the lag is gone.
Looks like I will be flying the Berlin Airlift in a DC-6 (ehm… DC-4) in MSFS 2024 this evening.
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And in the meantime… Saint-Barthélemy
The jet on the apron looked a bit out of place. Must have been a pretty strong headwind when it arrived 
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When I did my first test flights in MSFS2024 I noticed a business jet parked at Hangensteiner Hof Airfield, a glider field with 544m of grass runway…
(It disappeared while I circled back to take a screenshot though).
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Swapped to a C-130 for one of the legs in my Caribbean outing.
Looks like I have either underestimated the length of the runway (TJCP @ 2600ft) or overestimated the performance of the C-130.
I needed every inch of that tarmac.
The take off was successful in the end and while it was a hair-rising experience, luckily it was not a tree-clipping one at the same time 
En route towards TJIG in Puerto Rico. I just copy-pasted the C-130 to my MSFS 2024 installation. It works almost OK. Only the engines cannot be fired up from cold and dark and in flight, they tend to shut down randomly.
The weather deteriorated a bit but one VFR traffic pattern later I safely landed in the light mist…
…however on a different airport than planned 
6 Likes
Have to share a story with you…
I bought a F-104G from SSW some time in 2022 because I saw the jet on a display in a museum in Hermeskeil and was fascinated by it. But I never flew it.
Until yesterday night.
I watched a YT tutorial, flipped through the checklist and spawned in Spangdahlem AB. With real time wearher as always.
METAR ETAD 062155Z AUTO 22007KT 9999 OVC004 14/13 A2973 RMK AO2 SLP058 T01400130=
I managed to fire the jet up somehow, taxied to the active and opened the throttle…
I missed the seat-of-the-pants feedback, obviously, but felt like sitting on a rocket.
The F-104 sliced through the low overcast like a hot knife through butter and in no time I was nearing FL200.
With overcast spreading as far as human eye could see.
As a seasoned sim-aviator of course I decided to return the jet to mother Earth rather than cowardly hit Esc key.
I know the area from RL. Good. But the overcast did not help. For some reason, the DI was not moving (surely my fault) and in such a jet I was not even looking for a whiskey compass (not saying there is none, I just dunno).
I spotted few holes in the clouds and after checking position of the Sun (it was early morning in the sim) I aimed at one in the general direction of Luxembourg which sports 4 km long runway.
Clearance between ground and overcast was pretty thin (OVC004) but in a while a saw a city looking just like Trier right below me. I sticked to the highway that I knew so intimately from the ground level and almost kissing the trees pushed towards Wasserbilig and on to Luxembourg.
All that at almost 400 kts.
ELLX appeared shortly after. I recalled that I should not slow down much below 200 kts and managed to put the F-104 down relatively safely without scratching (much) the tip tanks.
‐-----------
I am a long time simmer.
But this was hands down THE MOST TERRIFYING EXPERIENCE I’ve ever had in a sim. Mind, I am flying in VR.
No screenshots. Sorry. You probably understand why
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The SSW F104 is a lot of fun to fly! You should try a deadstick landing from about 30000ft. She doesn’t glide too well…
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I guess now you know why so many pilots killed themselves in the 104…
Stuff happens fast, down low, at that pace.
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I agree , SSW 104 is fun and looks pretty good in the sim . I have also FXP 104 for XP12 , but SSW 104 just cut it for me .
looking forward to the DCS rendition by Aerges .
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