I gave this a quick go today, @TheAlmightySnark - turned the system on, extended & retracted the flaps manually, seemed to work. I only watched the flap indicators, didn’t check outside, but all seemed to work as advertised. Maybe it’s an XP10 issue 
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Potentially! I do like the fact that it works properly, did it take a proper long time too?
Falling. So. Far. Behind!
Leg 03:15 November: Greenland to Iceland:
Still sticking to the plan. I am trying to keep the flights in the 1-2 hour range with a few out to 3 hours.
Weather looks good but I am not sure I have the settings correct. It seems to be the same weather for each flight (turns out, yes, that is correct).
On the ground in Greenland, I’m far enough north that the sun never rises very far, or for very long, above the horizon.
Getting up above the clouds.
Seriously no way to make this sim look bad 
Hard to see in this picture unless you maximize it (and it doesn’t lose details in the compression and upload) but in addition to the ice I have picked up, you can see the big dipper arcing from the wing to the prop. So, celestial navigation is possible I think.
Easier to see her as it goes from just above the windtip into the area at the wing root and fuselage.
Checking the ice with the light.
Down low circling to the approach.
I am finding that the ATC doesn’t give you the approach early enough to plan for it.
Leg 04:22 November: Iceland to Benbecula Airport in Scotland:
Looking a little closer at the weather (still messed up and repeating at this point so I am cutting out the weather planning that makes no sense ).
Still looking good climbing up away from Iceland.
Getting in between two layers:
Looking all moody:
This time I am able to see the landing light in the clouds as I descend:
Arriving at Benbecula, another leg completed.
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Ah, Benbecula.
You might like this video of the landscape made by my old boss on the air ambulance, Rather scenic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWFcZgdMNn8
Your catching up with me. Still on the ground at Cranwell trying to find an aircraft that I understand and can fly. The Citations Proline avionics almost works, but I ran out of fuel amazingly quickly. Far less than the real aircraft. Also no idea on a landing profile. I might have to use a Cub and accept being in manpad and AA range…
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Yep. A bit earlier would be nice sometimes.
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@fridge that visual icing is really cool.
I’ve managed a couple of shorter legs in the last couple of days. First I flew a quick night hop from Salalah in Oman to Mukalla in Yemen, then from Mukalla across the Gulf of Aden to Djibouti, Africa.
The flight from Salalah to Mukalla was a direct VOR-to-VOR hop of 307NM. It was mostly a simple exercise in night flying and also flying a night approach and a visual / VOR-assisted landing. I couldn’t find charts for Mukalla and I had limited time, so I basically just flew the descent on the runway heading VOR radial, hoping for a visual, which luckily worked out fine in the end.
50NM out, descending on idle on 061 radial, used the 3 x distance rule to time TOD…the aircraft was light and didn’t really want to slow down, I had to get the spoilers out later on. The ‘LOC’ annunciator light is on because I haven’t bothered tuning in the right radial on the right seat, which triggers the cross-check I think.
It was actually quite good practice to hand fly the final in the dark. I had the airport VOR DME dialled in during the final, which helped a lot - having the distance displayed assisted in making sense of the what I was seeing and getting the altitude right.
Coming in to land at Mukalla.
Climbing out the next day towards Djibouti. Unlike my night hop, I did a proper Simbrief plan for this leg and flew the INS waypoints along the way.
About to fly over Aden, the port city which gives the Gulf of Aden its name, and the temporary capital of Yemen. It looks like a fascinating place with a lot of history. Among other things, the city used to be a free port and a major trade route for things like opium, salt and liquor in the 1850s.
The city is built around a natural harbour formed by a now-dormant volcano, which you can clearly see from above.
Descending over Gulf of Tadjoura, a basin that reaches 40NM inland from the Gulf of Aden. A right turn here at the headland would take you over the Red Sea, but that’s not where we are headed today - Djibouti and its 10NM DME arc is ahead of us and to the left.
Hello Africa!
There were quite a few US tankers and transports at the airport - I’m guessing they are not an unusual sight here, given the only permanent US military base in Africa, Camp Lemonnier, is literally right next door to the airport.
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6:30am at the Djibouti-Ambouli Intl Airport. It’s already warm, 25C outside. A bit of morning fog with about 6NM visibility. The airport is quiet, although someone did just dash up to the skies in their Cessna 172, nice and early.
The coffee is really good, which shouldn’t be surprising - after all, Arabica coffee beans originate from Ethiopia, which is right next door - the Ethiopian border is just ~100km from here. A two-hour drive, less with a good car and perhaps some spare means in your wallet to avoid any misunderstandings about your situational speed with the highway patrol…
We are heading to Nairobi, Kenya, today. The palm trees were swaying gently in the light easterly wind as I got the ground power up and running and started punching in the INS waypoints. Getting to the routine of it now. I noticed that the route will see us cross the equator, which is a bit exciting.
In addition to the beer I’ve been hauling with me all the way from NZ, I accepted a cargo run of miscellaneous goods and animals to Nairobi, this time. We didn’t require a full load of fuel so overall the bird isn’t too heavy, but the landing weight will be more than I’m used to.
I think I got the gist of the generator frequency stuff now. If a generator doesn’t start at 400 Herz, you can adjust it.
Today my Generator #1 started just under 390 Hz, a bit out of the acceptable range. If this happens, the trick is to adjust the first generator to 400 Hz first, then connect it to the synch bus, so your first generator is doing the right thing.
After that, the other two generators are synched to the first by first connecting the field relay, then adjusting the frequency until the synch lights are flashing slowly in unison and parallelling them when the lights are out. Easy! 
Goodness, I would be so nervous trying to avoid burning the whole thing to a crisp in real life. Supposedly there are some safety features, but still…
The most direct route to Nairobi would have been closer to the coast, but I was keen to venture a bit further inland to see Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa and the Rift Valley lakes, so I plotted a course that would hopefully be a bit more scenic.
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@TheAlmightySnark Pretty quick, actually…that might not be realistic, I take it?
Here’s a short test video. Sorry about the funny camera angle, hard to get both the buttons and the indicators in the same view…
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That was my plan too! I’ll see you at Entebbe then I guess?
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You guess right I will most likely fly the leg tomorrow.
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It feels way too fast for a system that ought to function only on electrical motors without hydraulic assistance. Though perhaps there was a remaining pressure in the system that helped?
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It is possible, I suppose! I need to play around a little more to figure out whether that is the case - I’ll be impressed if it is.
I’m pretty sure Hydraulic System A (which operates the flaps normally) was on when I tested it, so there would have been pressure, if it is modelled like that.
I’ll test it with a cold start with engines off, that way there should be no way to have pressure in the hydraulics.
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Yeah that’s probably the issue, perhaps the alternate extend procedure opens the hydraulic valves too to use any remaining pressure it has to help the procedure. Though this is all speculation on my part.
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Well, after many years respite, I’ve been pulled back into civil flying by you guys. So, I thought I’d give this a whack.
First, of all let me say that it’s a miracle that I haven’t been killed so far as I have forgotten almost everything I ever knew about FSX. For this flight I chose one of my favorite planes, the A2A Stratocruiser. What can I say, I’m a sucker for a plane with a full bar.
My initial thought was to see what direct looked like, figuring that it would take me over some airport or another if I wound up short of dead dinosaurs.
Uh…yeah.
On to Plan C. Plan B was to stop at Ascension Island for gas. But the optimistic 4600mi max range in the books didn’t seem to be panning out in the Nav screen. Maybe I could have step climbed to stretch the gas but it would have taken someone more confident in their swimming than me. So I chickened out somewhere short of Bermuda and diverted into the Caribbean and as far along the South American coast as I could get.
Here’s me feeling all optimistic:
Going feet wet over Jersey:
Was pretty happy to see Martinique before the sun set:
Then, it got all scary. As the sun set and I entered the ITCZ, lightning started to flicker on all sides. One thing I’ll say for A2A, the sounds of the metal squeaking and the passengers screaming really adds that little bit of guilt you feel for dragging someone through the clag for several hours:
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2kicVq8]
The fun didn’t stop when we got to J.A. Pengel International Airport in Suriname. Deciding to play honest in the non-DME equipped Stratocruiser, I dialed in the ILS info and without an approach chart or topographical map to be seen, I slimed my way down the glideslope, poorly, fighting the plane the entire way.
This is the view of SMJP when I first broke out:
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2kidstM]
After three dumpster fires…um, I mean approaches in dark so black that looked like a rattlesnake’s tuchus on a moonless prairie night, I finally lined up for an approach which would at least locate the crash site within the airport boundary:
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2ki9RDy]
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Should just be a drag and drop, if they’re in png or jpg format.
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Huh, didn’t even realize that MS did this…just got all signed up for a Flickr account.
Ah well.
Leg 2:
Luckily, I learned a few things before the dawn.
Still dog squeeze weather. There must be an aircraft carrier nearby.
This time at least I had a leg that I knew I could make and it would be mostly over land:
After another enjoyable couple of hours being lulled to sleep by the Flight Engineer going, “Oooph!” and the sound of praying from the back, the weather finally cleared around the mouth of the Amazon.
Now this is more like it!
I started to relearn the aircraft and, with a few NDB cross radials, more or less managed to line the aircraft up on final at Recife International:
But I would like to send a strongly worded letter to the zoning board who signed off on this building:
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2ki9gqU]
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2kicZwQ]
Then, after a good ol’ fashioned cruncher of a landing after dumping the plane past that building, we hobbled into the ramp.
"Ramp, we’re going to need a cleanup crew in Aisle 1…2…3…
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2kicZzq]
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From Ponta Pelada I followed the Amazon downriver stopping at Monte Alegra (SNMA) and then a long 5.5 hour flight to the sea and along the coast to Fortaleza. From Fortaleza I hopped to Natal which was the stepping off point for the Atlantic crossing.
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What a great choice of aircraft! I love the classic airliners before everything burned jet fuel.
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Thanks!
I highly recommend the Strato. A2A just has those little touches like nosewheel shimmy or vibrating gauges that really make you feel like you are flying an old hangar queen.
I’ve even got a split in my number 2 torque that I need to worry over as I cross the pond.
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@Deacon211 is being modest here - he was the ORIGINATOR of the Christmas Flight over at Mudspike - so all he is doing is returning to his roots… 
That does sound like my normal days and nights at work…
That’s a cool shot right there…what a classic airplane…
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