same here 
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I am leaving AUS. Sad thing about it is that I wasn’t able to download ortho for this last leg.
From Lizard Island to Coconut Island
Departing Lizard Island
Good bye AUS
At our destination
For your viewing pleasure real Coconut Island
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Bella Coola (CYBD) to Prince Rupert (CYPR)…
Another early morning departure. It seems that the Chipmunk has attracted a small group of well-wishers… There was also a dusting of snow over night (courtesy of X-Enviro)…
Heading straight out down the valley…
The British Columbia scenery is rugged and beautiful…and there is a lot of it!
Prince Rupert airport in sight!
From here it is a short one hour flight up to Ketchikan, Alaska.
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Is that baa-aa-aa-aad? 
I’ll show myself out now. . .
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You passed through Vegas on your way up there, didn’t you?
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Prince Rupert BC to Juneau Alaska.
Not much of a report so I will for the most part just post the pics from this leg.
Over Ketchikan Alaska… Initially I intended to stop here, but I had the time and the fuel to push on to Juneau.
On final at Juneau
Parked at Juneau.
So with that leg complete, I am seriously thinking about moving onto a faster airplane for the rest of the trek. I’m running out of time. I’ll be in training all of next week, and I have to be finished with this journey before the 17th December if I am to complete it before Christmas. Hmmm.
Edit> I just plotted the route on Sky Vector and from Juneau it is over 25 hours of flight time to reach Attu Island in the Chipmunk. I’m definitely going to need something a little faster.
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Actually, I was on my way down to Alaska from Alert
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Last Wednesday I managed to get my AirFoilLabs King Air 350 all squared away with some key bindings and such an decided to brave the wide blue sky with this shiny new module. I feel somewhat intimidated by it, not just because we have real world pilots that fly it here, but it is more airplane than I am used to in X-Plane.
Unfortunately, my switch to X-Plane 11.40 (where-by I decided on a parallel install in case the new flight model was badly supported by older modules) cause Ultra Weather XP to crash X-Plane about half way through the flight. Turned out to be a license issue with Ultra Weather XP and was not handled well by either their code or by X-Plane. Oh well.
Thursday, I jumped in the pilots seat again, taking advantage of those real pilots we have to help me understand how some of the systems are used (link). It was a beautiful learning experience!
But lets focus on the flight first
This segment takes me from Regina (CYQR) to a smaller airfield just west of Calgary: Calgary Springbank (CYBW). I wanted to put myself beyond a potentially busy airfield and closer to the mountains for my next leg.
Weather was a bit of a mixed bag. Out of Regina, the weather was to be relatively good with few scattered clouds af FL077. Heading in to Springbank I expected to hit the worst weather of the trip with light snow and 5 miles visibility.I had access to an ILS for runway 35, my expected landing runway given the prevailing winds.
Given the module and it’s anti-icing capabilities, this should be do-able even for a nugget like me.
I still have no idea if ActiveSkyXP reports icing. In it’s forecast I see nothing but on the map I see the odd SIGMET in the US - but nothing in Canada, which I think is a characteristic of the reporting and data gathering of ActiveSkyXP and a lack of access to Canadian data. Oh well. We will just have to use our head noodle to predict icing in appropriate conditions (see the discussion earlier in this thread).
My flight plan is sticking to the pattern I am using for this event: VOR navigation backed up by GPS.
Time for the flight!
One of the things I really like about the AirFloiLabs modules is the interactivity. This may sound/read like a school book report but being able to go through the check lists and poke around at the features of the exterior module is simply amazing.
Whether it is interacting with the weights/balance UI…
Or stepping outside to remove the various covers, inspect the lights and engines, check the oil and the fuel. Note the green ghostly hightlighted areas - which let me know where clickable, interactive spots are.
You even get to climb those short ladders to access various positions and use a crouch feature to get under the wings to pull and sample the fuel (granted, I still have not found all of the fuel drain positions - it’s like an adventure game with hidden areas ).
Back in the cockpit and working my way through the rest of the checklists and I realize that an hour has passed and I am just starting the engines. I am going to have to take that into account when doing my weather briefings in the future! Side note: open the little windows to the right and left of the pilot/co-pilot side windows as the sound of those engines spooling up is simply awesome!
I don’t want to spoil all the fun and features of this module as discovering them was something a little special. It reminded me of toys that I received many years ago on Christmas morning - opening them up and seeing the little details and discovering everything.
I would also like to point out the checklist system, which has a couple of unique and amazing features. First, it is fully vocalized, with the ability to turn on an assistant to read out all of the steps as you go through them. It has an option to just run through it with you watching (automatic), or it will proceed from step to step as you completed the pieces (semi-automatic). It can automatically focus the camera on the position relevant for your current step or it can let you fumble about hunting and pecking for the correct switch.
There were a few places in the checklist where it paused and either I didn’t read the hint fast enough (it fades away after some time) or I just couldn’t see which switch needed to be in a different position. If you are stuck, you can click on the checklist line to ‘accept’ it and move on. In some cases I did this where I thought that the item was not ‘critical’ or I would go back and enable the ‘Camera Focus’ option to have it focus on at least the general area I should be looking in.
Flying the King Air 350 was a fun experience as well. Taxi and takeoff, with the clarity provided in the King Air 350 thread linked above, was challenging. After wheels up, the steps come fast and furious. If you are attempting the IFR flight following, dealing with ATC and the takeoff steps is a little task-saturating if you are new to the King Air - as I am. I was struggling to get the dials and switches in the right places while maintaining my course and climb-out while dealing with the radios. In the (near) future, I will take advantage of the autopilot and get things cued up before I start my takeoff roll.
Once in the air and on course, things settle down nicely.
The checklist system remains useful, and is a good reminder to start preparing for your arrival before ATC starts interfering with your concentration.
The above screenshot illustrates another great feature, allowing you to enter the details about your arrival airport and have the dial indicators adjusted automatically (well, once you push that ‘Set Markers’ button). This is a nice tool that helps you remember your approach/landing speeds without having to quote them or write them down.
Approach is fairly straight forward but I found that, on final, I was again getting task saturated and having trouble maintaining my line up while reaching for the mouse to adjust things, check items off the checklist or acknowledge communication messages.
If you are coming from other general aviation planes, the systems are not that complex; there are two engines that require more work to manage (for me), but it is the speed at which everything happens that is the bigger challenge. Approaching a destination airfield in a slow moving Cessna 172 (or the Velocity V-Twin) is a casual affair with lots of time to manage the bits and bobs while dealing with the somewhat unfair ATC (I’m looking at you CYQT Approach). The King Air 350, with its power and speed compresses the landing timeline, and you need to make sure your ducks are in order earlier than I was used to.
But! Safe and sound on the ground in Springbank, I was able to make it though the shutdown checklist and secure the aircraft.
A couple of issues that I did run into that I would like to pass on to other potential AirFoil Labs King Air 350 customers:
- You will need to map the TrackIR Enable/Disable key in X-Plane (not Track IR’s enable/disable, but the one in X-Plane) as the view system for the walk around/checklist focus interferes with the camera position. Having this on a button, instead of having to go to the config dialog and chuck/uncheck Track IR, makes things easier;
- Do not click on the first landing gear extension struct section as that attaches the electric tow dolly. Now the dolly itself is not the problem, but if you click on the dolly to move the airplane, ‘bad things happen’ to your external walk around self. I was transported to the middle of the plane and I could not get back out easily. When I did get out, the movement control was messed up. I tried this a few times and I could not make the dolly work. If you can, please let me know the magic spell to tame that beast;
- You have to crouch to get out or in the back door;
- There are a few spots where you can not couch enough to get to the checklist items you may need. I consider these advanced secret areas that only expert 100% games (though who manage to complete everything in a game) have access to;
I’d give this module a 9.5 out of 10 for the issues noted above. Really, I’d give it a 10.5 out if 10 as I really feel that this module is an 11 out of 10 kind of module. I really hope that AirFoilLabs keeps making X-Plane 11 aircraft or moves to MSFS 2020 - I may be a customer for life given the level of interaction that they pack into their modules.
I would absolutely love to recommend this module to @NineLine as an example of what can be done to make DCS more immersive but I feel that they may already have plans along these lines. If not, this is a great example of a stretch goal for DCS
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Great report, great plane @Fridge. I skipped that sales offer for now.
This year I am going the chop-chop-chopper way
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Leaving sunny coasts of AUS behind. In fact left the sun completely. And we left also Bell407 on Coconut Island ( don’t tell anybody but Bell412 is much better 
).
From Coconut Island to Mozes Kilangin Airport in Papua.
This leg is not IFR, rather ‘VFR night’ ( at least after liftoff )
Somewhere in the middle of the route my electrical system refused to cooperate and I lost GPS and all the COM / NAV radios - Inv. 2 failed. Fortunately we brought backup GPS with us
Finaly turning final
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My reason for getting to the Calgary Springbank airport around mid-week was to try to hit a weather window over the Canadian Rockies - something with clear skies, or as clear as I could manage. I thought that I might downgrade to a module a little lighter and see the sights through those splendid mountains.
Being a VFR flight with little in the way of navigation aids along my proposed route, I wanted to make sure that I could get where I wanted to go and not get lost among the peaks and valleys. I ploted a route that brought me through one of the valleys west of Calgary, along the Trans-Canada highway, through to Morton Peak and it’s VOR station (YNY) before I would turn south for Kelowna (CYLW).
If I throw in a bunch of manual waypoints I get something like this:
Realistically, I needed to plot something a little more straightforward, so this will be what I was looking for navigation-wise.
With the route planned out, time to look at the weather. I had hoped to do the flight on Saturday, when the best chance existed for a flight all the way to Kelowna. Instead, I was delayed until Sunday with the weather looking a little more challenging.
I had to be prepared to stop or turn back before i would get trapped in a valley and have ‘aviation’ challenges getting turned around :-).
If you look up at my hand-written notes, you will see a few red boxes. These indicate cloud layers that I feel were marginal. Between CYGE (Golden) and CYRV (Revelstoke) I would likely hit my ‘decision point’.
For this flight I would be using the AirFoilLabs Cessna 172SP. I had this module in my hanger for a number of months but having encountered an issue that was holding me back I left it. With the recent talk of the King Air, I dug it out again to take a look at the systems AirFoilLabs had in place - a preview of what I could expect. I flew the Cessna 172SP a couple of weeks ago and was impressed enough to push up my King Air purchase.
The checklist system is a little bare when compared to the 350 - no voice to guide you through and no automatic detection that the steps are completed. The system is adequate and better than most given the external interactions are there and the Cessna 172SP is an older module than the King Air 350.
Starting X-Plane on this cold day and the first thing I noticed were the windows foging up. I appreciate this kind of feedback and detal and getting the airplane started, with the cabin heat on, it cleared it up.
Outside we can check the fuel caps (and adjust fuel), drain and sample the fuel, check the lights, static ports, etc.
This time, a lot of the external points bring up a different checklist subsystem. It shows a nice attention to detail that has, as I stated with the King Air 350 review above, put AirFoilLabs at the top of my ‘pay attention to’ list.
Once through the preflight and engine start checklists, it was time to taxi.
Up and away from runway 35, I turned west and headed closer to the mountains, searching for the river and highway that would lead me to the valley entrance.
River is to the left in the above screenshot, and under me in the screenshot below. The Trans-Canada highway is off my left.
The ortho sceneray for the area was amazing.
Ready to turn North-West up the valley. Soon I can make out Canmore.
Taking a dog-leg left to continue up the correct valley.
Keeping track on my position was helped with the topographical maps on SkyVector (the plus symbol on the map corresponded to my guessed position.
Continuing up the valley, I came across Lake Louise Parks and went with the valley off to the left.
Off to the right I had a glimpse of the Wapta Icefield. Off to the left, the low morning sun.
Continuing on, I encountered my only AI flight of this segment: a helicopter at high (for a helicopter) altitude. At this point I am headed south and was almost ready to turn back west and head for Golden (CYGE). I know not why it has that name.
I wonder what was down this valley. No. No! Stay on target!
Over that next little hill blocking the valley is Golden and, from there, north up the valley to continue my planned route.
There it is. Golden airport (CYGE) and my fall back position if the weather deteriorated as expected.
According to my flight plan, as I continued up this valley I hoped to get the ATIS from Revelstoke (CYRV) on COM 2. I have COM 1 tuned to the Unicom channel at Golden as I wanted to keep tabs on any local traffic. As I encountered the lake and my turn back to the south-west, before I entered more restrictive valleys and a somewhat increased difficult visual identification of my route, COM2 become active and let me know that the weather in the area had not changed for the better. My decision point reached, I turn back for Golden Airport.
To my left, the valley that would have taken me to Revelstoke, and to the front left a valley that looks promising but, according to the maps, would haven given me reduced ground clearance and maneuver room. If the weather fell during this leg, it would complicate everything.
Now I could continue, I could make it over the mountains and pick up the VOR station at Morton Peak but I am going to treat this as if I was doing it for real. The main driving factor was that the weather would deteriorate as I approach and pass through/over Revelstoke and I would have had no safe options.
At this point, maybe the MSFS 2020 tech alpha becomes available and I can continue this segment there? The ortho scenery for X-Plane 11 is not letting me down, and the modules here are 100% fun. It’s going to be a tough call.
Edit: I forgot to add my ground track map. Here it is. I am pretty happy that I was able to navigate without a GPS map (though I did have the waypoints (airfields and such, not the manual ones) entered into the GPS in the AirFoilLabs Cessna 172) it did not give me a ‘useful’ VFR map or navigation aid.
EDIT #2: tense … because I tend to get confused with that.
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That 172 is a real looker. If I were teaching my son to fly…I might look into that one…
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Great AAR, awesome scenery and an airplane that I would not have thought about buying, but you have put it on my radar, that’s for sure.
I’m looking forward to the next report!
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Coming to Mudspike in 2023: Kai Learning to Fly.
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…need to keep him away from the Vigens…at first…
Moving across Papua - Moses or Mozes Kilangin WAVY or WAYY ?? to Kaimana airport ( WASK )
Ready to go
Njoying the last sunrays as we headed for the coast to avoid any high terrain
Safely at our destination
West Papua
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Out of Burke Lakefront (brrrrr…) and on the way over to Chicago. Winds out of the north on the lakefront, steady 20mph gusting to 33mph…quite brisk!
Multiple complex layers of clouds over Lake Erie and Ohio and Michigan. Running all of the anti-ice systems to keep the airplane clean…
KCGX is not in my Garmin database, so I plug it in as a user waypoint…
Over Lake Michigan…
Soon, Meigs Field comes into view. I’ve said it many times…one of my big career regrets was that I wasn’t able to get into Meigs before it closed. It was such a big part of my childhood growing up in both simulators and I lived just north of Chicago for 5 years in the mid 70s.
Taking a quick tour of the city before circling around to the downwind to runway 36…
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Legs
8 CBA4 Midway - AJ2 Eagle Plains Nov 24th, 2019
9 AJ2 Eagle Plains - EZ2 Chapman Lake Nov 28th, 2019
10 EZ2 Chapman Lake - PABN Devils Mountain Lodge Airport Nov 30th, 2019
Previous report | Teaser | next report
It’s been a while since I last wrote you a report. I was in CBA4 Midway, having just delivered a load of ~200kg of goat cheese. After my arrival, we had a few days of bad weather and I stayed with the goat cheese man in his hiker’s hut.
After a while, I was craving a place that did not smell of goat cheese. And I need to get to Attu.
I decided to hop over to the next field along the Dempster Highway to try and find a job there. As soon as there was a small clearing in the clouds, I took off and climbed in a circle to stay out of the clouds (and the mountainsides) until I was on top of the murk. I had also been checking the weather in Dawson City, to get an idea of what it was like on the other side of the mountains, and that was looking good. So I could always fly straight there as a divert, if necessary.
I Follow Roads was not an option, and since there was no useful radio beacon within reception range, I went with dead reckoning. Please don’t ask me for the exact numbers, I don’t have them on hand anymore.
I flew through a bit of precipitation, but luckily the temperature was -29 Celsius. I did not calculate the exact numbers, but at <120 knots IAS, I don’t think that gives me any icing.
The weather cleared as I got within a few miles of Eagle Plains.
A slow pass to inspect the runway and a teardrop-like turn later, I was down on the gravel, and parked in the snow. This flight took me from the Northwest Territories into Yukon.
A few days later, there was a job for me.
A student Park Ranger had had his car fail him, and needed to get to Chapman Lake. Chapman Lake is right at the edge of the Tombstone National Park, a beautiful piece of Northern Canada.
The sun over the low foothills, and the Peel River. I decided to fly the second part of the route along the Blackstone River valley, to also get some sights of the mountains already.
At Chapman Lake, it didn’t take long for the next job to appear. Finally one that would take me a good distance in the right direction. But the cargo… Not again?!
The flight plan was simple: first head to Dawson City, using the DA NDB station, then continue to the Northway ORT VOR/DME station. From there, I had to fly the 203 radial to a distance of 44.3 nm to get to Devil’s Mountain Lodge.
Flying over Tombstone Territorial Park. Beautiful sights, but did you know goats smell just like goat cheese? Really getting tired of this smell already…
Spotting Dawson City along the Yukon.
A bit of flat countryside with lots of water around Northway. Reminds me of the Netherlands, just with a lot less people per square kilometer.
And then the last part takes me into the first of the Wrangell mountains.
Descending, it should be in the next valley.
Judging by the shape of the road and the mountains, I am in the right valley, just a bit too far west.
And indeed, there it is!
And down safely. You should’ve heard the goat on landing though!
I wonder what they’re going to do with a goat up here though?
Oh… Look at this stuff. Scroll down a bit.
Welcome to Alaska I guess.
So, this is about what I did these past three flights. Really enjoying the scenery (stock X-Plane) and the plane (Propstrike free Bush mod of default C172).
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