Official 10th Annual Mudspike Christmas Flight 2024 - Discussion and AAR Thread

[Aginor]

I unexpectedly had some time this weekend so I set up my stuff, and flew my first leg.

The plan was to fly from Baden Airpark, Germany (EDSB) to Esbjerg, Denmark (EKEB).
It didn’t quite work, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

I used real time and real weather, and the Piper Turbo Arrow IV.

The EDSB scenery is by Aerosoft, I bought it for 20 bucks or so a few months ago. Not bad.

Let’s goo! There was some crosswind on takeoff. Just within the limits.

I headed northeast in order to not fly through the Frankfurt (EDDF) airspace. Of course I was aware of the not so great weather so while I flew this VFR I used VORs /DMEs in case there was too much of an overcast that I would not want to fly below.

I found a hole to climb through and continued, first at 6000ft, then just below 10k ft so I wouldn’t have to go file a flightplan.

Using navigation aids turned out to be a good idea. I am a bit rusty, and the cloud layer was 8/8 very soon. Pretty though.

My Copilot wasn’t too impressed.

As I watched the beautiful sunset I realized that this meant I had to night fly my first session in months.

Near Fulda the ground came into view again.

The moon and the plejades.

Fritzlar. The army airfield is down there. A Bo-105/Tiger base that I visited during Bundeswehrtag (German armed forces day) a few years ago.

Paderborn

Somewhere in my head a little voice popped up, telling me that it was probably unwise to fly further north if the weather looks like this, in winter, in a plane without anti-ice, at night, after having not flown at all for some time. But I am not known for listening to the little voices in my head (they rarely give good advice) so I continued. I flew around the thick clouds though.

It worked, and i had some semi-clear sky for a while, but between Bielefeld and Gütersloh I ran into that kind of weather again.

“Should I land somewhere? Nah, it will be fine” I thought.

Then, after a bit more than two hours, just as I wanted to fly past Bremen, the weather got soo bad that I could not ignore it anymore.
Especially since a few things happened almost instantaneously:

• I noticed icing on the windshield
• there were many taller clouds that blocked the moon
• there were more low level clouds so I could not see a lot down there either
• my wife told me that dinner would be ready in half an hour
• MSFS2020 glitched and deactivated the two Saitek panels that I bought (I have the radio one and the AP one. Got them in a black friday sale. I like them a lot.)

I got a little stressed and forgot to take screenshots.

So I decided to divert before things would get ugly.
But it was too late. When I tried to get a clearance to land at Bremen (EDDW) they told me that the airport was IFR only now. I turned around and tried Hatten, but it was closed. I then tried Varrelbusch EDWU, but the weather had deteriorated so much that I literally could not find the airfield.

In the real world I would have hightailed it back to the south, but dinner was waiting.
After some searching I turned around and flew back to Bremen. But unlike last year the option to get clearance despite bad weather wasn’t there anymore.
I tried to go IFR (I can land using ILS with this plane, or at least I thought that) but that option was gone as well. MSFS had glitched again, and I could not talk to the ATC anymore. Never happened to me before, and this was definitely not the best time. I decided to ignore that problem (I am good at that) and used the Bremen VOR/DME to locate the field.
I made it, but it wasn’t pretty. Lots of cursing involved. I think my kids might have learned two or three new words today…

I got blown so far off course (it turned out that I didn’t really know how to use the ILS anymore) that I approached Bremen from too far south, and went for the short runway 05 with a good crosswind component.

When I had finally spotted the runway I decided to not try from another direction but land right then and there.

I got down in one piece, but after two bounces and a few drifts that would have made Colin McRae proud. I used the whole runway, both in length and in width.

Finally parked after 2h 40min and 320nm. And it is snowing. Well, this is the Christmas flight after all.

So yeah, didn’t make it to Esbjerg, but I lived. The next leg will take me to Denmark.
I am still not sure if I will make it before Christmas, most likely I’ll finish around New Year, as I often did in previous years.
Thanks for reading!

[Stormy801]

@Aginor

my wife told me that dinner would be ready in half an hour

Great AAR Aginor

[Harry_Bumcrack]

@Aginor

but after two bounces and a few drifts that would have made Colin McRae proud. I used the whole runway, both in length and in width.

You have just described a ‘normal’ landing for me

[Deacon211]

Great report!

[Harry_Bumcrack]

Part 26 - B is for Bertil and Balconies

And hopefully Beer.

I have three, maybe four, aircraft that I have already flown this year that would get me to Svalbard in one hop from here.

But there is one place that was always going to be on route and that is Tromsø.

I’m on my way @Troll, so I hope those beers are on ice? Shouldn’t be a problem this time of year

Time to rattle some windows

An early start, not that it matters!

I figure if I follow a compass heading of 20 degrees until I pick up the coast again, I can VFR it from there. And I can just barely make out the coast.

Bodø. Would have been a stop if there was time, but it makes a convenient landmark/waypoint

Tromsø in sight. Approaching from the South, but I have a feeling that this will be a missed approach

Hello Mr Troll & family.

Taking a leaf out of @Deacon211 's book, I ‘decide’ to slam it down onto the runway from about 20ft.

Parked. Time to hail a cab and find this famed balcony. One leg to go.

[Stormy801]

Nice work, Harry! Have one for me.

[Troll]

@Harry_Bumcrack

Hello Mr Troll & family.

Welcome to the far north!
Here’s a can of Mack’s extra mellow Christmas Beer.

[Harry_Bumcrack]

@Troll

Christmas Beer

You are my new favourite person

[Troll]

Looking at your pics I’d say there must be a power outage… Here’s how Tromsø usually looks at night.

[TeTeT]

Another weekend, another leg on my way north to Spitzbergen. This time I try FS2024 once more, the A400 got sound back. So I fly a short leg from Bodo to Narvik to see if everything works as supposed.

My first take-off ends not well. Somehow the engines 1 and 2 work opposite on throttle vs engines 3 and 4. So I end up reverting the axis on throttle 3 and 4, and the next take-off works well.

The cockpit offers much more bling than the venerable Condor, but what to with all of this?

For quite a while I fly with the landing/taxi lights on …

Even after turning off some, there’s still one at the tail which escapes my attempts to turn it off.

I don’t think my attempts to get the autopilot working ended well.

Nevertheless the view is quite spectacular.

On my way to Narvik airfield!

The usual less than stellar approach and landing, using the full width. And who forgot to turn the lights back on?

Now in Narvik I realize there are two legs to go, really. Narvik-Tromso, as I cannot withstand a nice brew waiting there And finally Tromso-Svalbard.

[keets]

@TeTeT

there’s still one at the tail which escapes my attempts to turn it off.

It’s part of the Nav lights. It had me foxed for ages on one of my flights. Initially I thought we had a leak somewhere.

[Harry_Bumcrack]

Nice. But I still prefer the Condor.

[Troll]

@TeTeT

On my way to Narvik airfield!

That’s Harstad-Narvik Evenes Airport, and now AFB.
It’s situated between the cities of Harstad and Narvik.
Narvik used to have its own STOL airport, which was decomissioned in 2017. That was quite the place!

Takeoff WF853 Narvik lufthavn

[TeTeT]

Yeah, most likely I will revert to the FW-200 for the final two legs. I wonder if the recon/maritime version flew from Narvik to scout the arctic convoys.

[Troll]

@TeTeT

I wonder if the recon/maritime version flew from Narvik to scout the arctic convoys.

No, but I believe they operated out of Kirkenes, Banak and Trondheim.
There is a FW-200 wreckage not far from your virtual position.

https://flyvrak.info/salangen.html

[BierRunner]

Okay, picking up from Quebec and heading up to Sept Iles. Supposedly the farthest North you can drive on paved roads.

A little chilly to start:

Took a bit to find the defrost but I managed to clear up the windscreen.

Eventually the sun cam out and I was rewarded for my risky departure.

And successfully made it to my destination.

One more positioning hop and then the jump to Iceland.

[Torc]

OK, I just lost a month - November was busy! So here’s a recap of where we are and how we got here:

Currently sitting at Doha International Airport (OTBD). The plan is “Go West”. I’m really pressed for time now, so we won’t be having any of the attempts at cultural or architectural research that are almost universally denied by MSFS2020’s abilities to put a bunch of small houses over a tank farm, a block of units over a triumphal arch, or just generally have poor weather over cities while the surrounding terrain is suspiciously CAVOK…

The plan for today is to get to Egypt, so we can finally make our way into Europe. You might see various different destinations set in the FMS during the flight (the winds aloft … you’ll see) but we ended up at Sharm El Sheikh International Airport (HESH).

The route for today. We’re going to be making a long flight over central Saudi Arabia, which isn’t particularly detailed in MSFS2020 - but it’s night time anyway so we’ll just go with it

Lining up for another nighttime departure

And we’ve got a beautiful full moon to light our journey - let’s go!

As we climb out over Doha and turn on track I’m trying to find a decent cruise altitude without too much headwind

That’s a lot of red traffic lights… or are they meant to be tail lights?

OK… 78 knot headwind at FL220

This might take a while!

After crossing something Google assures me is still called the Persian Gulf, between Qatar and Saudi Arabia, we make landfall and head inland over Saudi Arabia.

Passing south of Al Hofuf, home of the Ibrahim Palace - a historic fort.

Passing over Riyadh, turning northwest on track to cross Saudi Arabia for our destination in Egypt.

King Khalid International Airport to the right of frame.

Crossing the centre of Saudi Arabia, there’s not much to look at during the night time in this sim …

But the moon is pretty spectacular!

80 knot headwind …

My groundspeed for this leg is destroyed … I’m pretty much getting my IAS as groundspeed throughout this flight.

Crossing the Red Sea

Sunrise is coming…

After not descending in time (I was planning on continuing to Cairo - but I had to run out to pick up Christmas presents ) I turn onto final for Sharm El Sheikh

Just as the moon sets over the hills:

After a totally safe landing that was definitely on the centreline we park up with the smaller aircraft

As the sun rises over Tiran Island in the distance

Another 1,000nm closer!

[Harry_Bumcrack]

Part 27 - 'tis the season

This is it. The end is in sight… Well it would be if the sun ever rose this far north at this time of year

Tusen takk for ølet @troll You do live in a rather spectacular part of the world (even if someone has stolen all your street lamps). If you ever feel like sweltering on Xmas day, you are more than welcome here.

But, time to get going and this is as much ‘daylight’ as I’m going to get.

I’m going to finish this in something that is easy to fly, especially when you let the AP do said flying for you.

Setting up my approach and I ran into a bit of a navigation glitch that sent the AP haywire? It was either @Deacon211 's South Pole aliens, or Santa didn’t want me flying too close to his village (c’mon, we all know he doesn’t actually live at the North pole)

With a bit of a ctrl-alt-del cheat I managed to set myself up on a 10NM approach and although it is as black as beelzebub’s backside with only lights to guide me in, managed to land… Quite nicely BTW. Maybe I need to do this more often

Addendum

I had figured out by the time I got about halfway across the US that I had probably bitten off more than I could chew. This was definitely a challenge and keeping it ‘interesting’ by using a variety of aircraft helped, but didn’t help. If you know what I mean… Post-It notes with manifold/torque, RPM and TAS settings for take-off, ‘best cruise’ landing, etc plastered all over my desk so I could take a quick peek from under the G2. I did get them mixed up on more than one occaision

I very nearly didn’t complete this year’s flight. Mainly due to a growing lack of motivation.

As easy as it would have been to call it quits though, this wouldn’t be the first time I have given yours truely a metaphorical slap upside the head and reminded myself - you wanted this dickhead, push on, dig deep, it’s only three weeks… a few more days of effort, a few more pilot handbooks to read.

But I didn’t give up and this time the only ‘injury’ was a numb arse from my simpit chair.

At least this time I made it.

So concludes a marathon of sprints.

My route for this year:

YCOM → YSBK → YBRK → YBCS → AYPY → AYNZ → Arr: PGUA / Dep: PGUM → RJTT → RJTY → RJAF → RJNT → Arr: Beach at Niigata / Dep: RJSN → RJSS → RJSK → RJCH → Arr: Bechevinka Inlet / Dep: UHPP → PADK → PACD (WPT/ALT) → PANC → PAYA → CYYJ → KOAK → Skywalker Ranch (WPT) → KSUU → KMSP → CYYR → BGBW → BIKF → EKVG → EGOV → EGFD → Mach Loop → EGFD → EGVN → Renault Graveyard (WPT) → EGXU → ENZV → Troll’s Balcony (WPT) → ENTC → ENSB

Which looked something like this

For a grand total of 16,800 NM + change

Last year I completed my second consecutive Mudspike holiday flight, which made it a habit. This year is three in a row, so it is now a tradition… One I will do my best to uphold.

On that note:

I’m going to have a whisky and then go looking for Iorek Byrnison, maybe he can guide me to Santa’s village

God jul og godt nytt år

[Harry_Bumcrack]

Nice one. I was wondering where you had got to?

[Torc]

Congratulation on finishing! I think that’s a longer distance than it will take me, and certainly flying so many different aircraft is a challenge in itself… keep a beer on ice for me (which I guess just means leaving it out on the tarmac somewhere )