Official 7th Annual Mudspike Christmas Flight 2021 - Discussion and AAR Thread

[Aginor]

I won’t promise that I will make the whole flight this year, but today I flew one leg at least.

IFR, Baden Airpark (EDSB) to Gibraltar (LXGB) in the Citation Longitude.
Real time, real weather. Weather in my area was great but I knew that in Spain it would be less great.

Off we go! As always I am impressed how this plane climbs. It feels almost rocket-like if you aren’t carrying a lot of weight around with you.

The autopilot acted up a bit (I thought that was solved?!), it kept swinging left and right, not finding the correct course when there was a crosswind component.
I was annoyed by it, so for most of the flight I just switched to HDG and did the correction myself.

Leaving Germany for France, that’s the Rhine down there.

The Vosges. Beautiful mountains and woods. The shining lake off my left wing is the Lac de Longemer.

You can see the Alps from up here (FL 360 at that point)

Tavaux. The square lake is part of a salt mine.

These mountains in the Auvergne region are former volcanoes.

Toulouse. Airbuses are made here.

The Pyrenees! They look awesome!

This shot was taken as I crossed the border to Spain, and almost simultaneously the prime meridian.

Zaragoza

Near Calamocha, some bad weather in sight. I wondered whether I was flying high enough at FL420

I was, but barely.

Sadly I couldn’t see a lot of southern Spain as this was quite dense.

Descending, near Granada. This time I didn’t screw up the descent like I usually do.

Malaga, and behind the mountains Marbella.

Gibraltar in sight, I flew a proper approach for once.

High on final, but landed OK, using my thrust reversers.

…and then a bus (I checked, it wasn’t an airbus) stole my parking spot. Pulled into it right in front of me!

Anyway, I am parked now. Next leg is from Gibraltar to Tenerife (GCTS). Thanks for reading!

[PaulRix]

Some nice reports over the last several days!

I have been messing around with NeoFly and ended up with a DC6 at MRLB. While learning about using AI pilots and markets, I sent the DC6 on several hops around the region, the last of which ended in Panama. So I decided to leave it there, and I will push on by other means to catch up…

I picked up the Islander last night and found an Air Panama livery on flightsim.to . We will say that it needs to be ferried back to Panama City . Here she is sat on the ramp, fueled up and ready to go.

Climbing out from Liberia International Airport (MRLB).

The panel is nicely done. I was able to get the GTN750 shoehorned into the GTN530 box. Maybe at some point Blackbox Studios will support the 750 natively for this airplane.

With NEXRAD and terrain layers selected, I can see that I will skirt some high ground and for now at least, there is no precip directly ahead.

A broken layer of cloud hiding the Arenal Volcano.

Passing the Arenal volcano.

One of the nice things with the GTN750 is that you can pull up text weather. Here we are looking at the latest METAR for Panama City. So we have some drizzle and cloud, but right now it looks decent enough.

I decided to fly along the coast a bit rather than head straight across the ocean.

This is Limon, still in Costa Rica.

When I reached Bocus Del Torro, Panama, I set course directly for Colon, which is on the Atlantic/Caribbean Sea entrance to the Panama Canal. NEXRAD suggests there is some rain out there.

It was a bit gray but not too bad.

The entrance to the Panama Canal. Looks like there are a few ships transiting.

From here, we simply follow the canal, which to start with, is a large lake with a lot of small islands.

Hmm, the latest NEXRAD image shows a bit more than drizzle at the destination.

Continuing along the canal…it’s definitely getting murky up ahead.

As I get close to the city, I’m not seeing much but then in the cloud and mist, I see an airport beacon.

On a right base with the PAPI and runway visible…

Touchdown…

It looks like I landed not a moment too soon as the weather is definitely deteriorating.

Safely shut down on the ramp.

Quito, Ecuador should be my next stop.

[Deacon211]

More awesome reports guys! I love the cloud shrouded terrain in all your shots….another thing MSFS seems to really capture well.

I need to find some mountains!

[NEVO]

had some time so decided to go flying instead of tweaking

few short hops from Salzburg LOWS to Innsbruck LOWI

[jenrick]

Ooh what Helo’s are you using?

[NEVO]

first two are from CowanSim team, MD500 and Bell 222. the last pic is the nice freeware Bell 429

[Bearhedge]

I’ve had a busy couple of weeks with no flying done and a bit behind on reports too…so just quickly dumping a few selected shots and summaries of flights here while flying another leg tonight:

AYGD (Gimi) - AYGA (Goroka)

This was another bush hop in the rain to Goroka, the capital of PNG’s Eastern Highlands Province.
The weather was rubbish to start with but the destination valley was actually much better.

The taxi path to parking was interesting…there was a super steep downhilll from the runway to the parking area and you also had to cross what looked a lot like a public road!

AYGA (Goroka) - AYMH (Mount Hagen)

I took the Pitts for a spin for this leg, as the weather was good. The visual navigation didn’t look too hard, just over some hills and across some plains…and it wouldn’t have been very hard, had I not realised very late in the game that I should have pulled back the RPMs and done some leaning…I almost ran out of gas and had to gingerly nurse my way to the destination.

I picked the nearest runway for a straight-in landing - got there and the engine didn’t even quit on final, so that was fortunate! Entirely self-inflicted excitement…

AYMH (Mount Hagen) - AYMR (Maramuni)

Another afternoon flight in the mountains - the thunderclouds were particularly gnarly-looking. The plan was to fly NW to another small air strip and hopefully find a hole to drop in.

There was a wall of angry looking thunderclouds right over the destination.

I circled the area and saw a few spots where you could see the ground, but really nowhere enough to get through. I tried descending into the cloud and into the valley, but it got simply too dicey and I decided to divert to the coast in hopes of some better weather.

The nearest suitable airfield that wasn’t taking me entirely the wrong way was Wewak (AYWK). The weather there was fine, luckily.

From there I took a quick floatplane evening excursion to Kairiru Island nearby. That was a wonderful little flight.

From Kairiru, I continued along the coast for a bit with the little floatplane aircar, which I kind of hated, so not going to dwell on that. I flew that thing to a small beach next to Tadji airfield.

TAD (Tadji) - WAJJ (Yayapura)

My next flight was to take me across the border to West Papua, which is part of Indonesia.

It was a nice, uneventful stroll along the coast. Looking inland, I could see the familiar thunderheads forming…the bush pilots out there wouldn’t be as relaxed as I was.

I flew over the beautiful Yos Sudarso Bay on my way to the Yayapura airport.

This flight marked my last flight in PNG - I still have a long way to go, so need to keep moving rather than doing more detours…but I’ll definitely go back to those bush strips another time, I did not get enough!

[Deacon211]

All you guys have these sweeping, majestic, adventurous flights that make mine look about as exciting as driving my Vespa to Starbucks for a steamed milk.

Great stuff!

[Aginor]

I enjoy yours as well!

Mine could get a bit boring because @apollon01 is flying a very similar route in the same plane, just picking more exciting locations.

[PaulRix]

I think that the mountainous terrain helps make things more exciting…plus the weather is always interesting when you hit the intra-tropical convergence zone. Sweeping, majestic, adventurous flights are in your path…but only once you get past Florida …

[BeachAV8R]

Great report. The GTN 750 is one of my favorite real life boxes. If I had a plane…I’d have one in it…

[smokinhole]

@NEVO

first two are from CowanSim team, MD500 and Bell 222. the last pic is the nice freeware Bell 429

Represent (X-Plane) my bruddah! I am begging off the Christmas long march again this year.

[apollon01]

Given the relative proximity of Luxembourg and Baden Baden, it is no surprise we follow each other

Btw. in your AAR you hit a lot of places I know from real life:

• EDSB - been there done that
• Les Vosges and le Lac de Longemer - that’s where I spent a week with my family in September. I could even point a finger on the screen where our chalet was
• Toulouse, Los Pirineos… you name it…
• Zaragoza - I was there for work once and heard people say that “el viento nace en Zaragoza” (the wind is born in Zaragoza). True. It was windy down there… though on one occasion I was overflying this territory in a C172 and I, together with one departing WizzAir, was the only traffic in the whole area.
• Granada - I made some comments in my post so yeah… great place.

Btw. what FL do you usually fly with the Longitude? I tend to settle on FL380 as the TAS seem a bit better than when above FL400.

[Aginor]

I looked up the real life stats of the plane some time ago and they seemed to suggest to fly at FL420 for best performance, but yeah, it seems it could be optimal to fly a bit lower.
Of course depends on the winds as well.

[PaulRix]

@apollon01

Btw. what FL do you usually fly with the Longitude? I tend to settle on FL380 as the TAS seem a bit better than when above FL400.

Spoken like someone who doesn’t have to worry too much about fuel burn, or cost per gallon/Litre/liter…

[apollon01]

Yes

The only real cost for me is the time so there you go…

[PaulRix]

Then TAS is your friend unless the winds are more favorable higher.

[NEVO]

left Innsbruck LOWI in search for some adventure called Locher airfield. picked something short field capable.

this have to be it

down in one piece

@smokinhole

Represent (X-Plane) my bruddah!

Its so hard!! just look at the below MSFS representation of that place, cant look again on my XP shots

[PaulRix]

@NEVO

Its so hard!! just look at the below MSFS representation of that place, cant look again on my XP shots

This is exactly why I made the switch. I guess it could be argued that I’m a bit shallow . I think it will be easier for Asobo to improve their flight modeling than it will be for Laminar to bring the graphics up to MSFS standards. I doubt flight modeling in MSFS will ever be quite what it is in X-Plane, but I can live with “believable”.

[Deacon211]

More great reports! Personally, I have to say that X-plane still looks good for an old girl. I never went deep on X-plane scenery so the switch was a no brainer for me. Otherwise I’d have a hard time leaving!

Leg 8: NAS JAX to Patrick AFB

I knew that I was going to be flying past Cape Canaveral today so I went looking for something appropriately NASA related. But no joy.

So I chose the Ryan ST-A again with a National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA, predecessor to NASA) livery; once again courtesy of Jan Kees. This aircraft was used as a test bed for “for research on flaps, slats and internally balanced ailerons in between 1938 and 1947”.

Remember that this was a test aircraft…it will prove ironic later on.

I take off Runway 28 and head east over the St Johns River towards the coast.

Another spectacular dawn.

Turning south I come upon St Augustine, the oldest continuously occupied settlement of European origin in the continental United States. Visited by Ponce de Leon, so some say, though I didn’t feel any younger flying over it.

Daytona Beach, home of screw top Vodka and poor decision making.

Those two are related…

I speak from experience…

Ponce de Leon Inlet Lighthouse.

Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39B. Only 22 years between this aircraft retiring as a testbed and man landing on the Moon. Kinda’ makes you think.

At this point I was looking mightily for the majestic grandeur of towering launch gantries and the massive Vehicle Assembly Building. This weird tenement was all I could find.

When I had reached Port Canaveral to the south of the space complex, I realized that I must have somehow missed the Space Center proper.

Well I didn’t fly all the way down from Boston to Cape Kennedy to leave without a selfie!

So…back we go!

Man! This runway is short, but will you look how wide it is!

I found it! The VAB!

…

It, uh, looks a lot taller on TV…

Clearly, this must be a security thing, 'cause this place is modeled down to the $10 ripoff bags of “Space Ice Cream” in the gift shop!

And so, I left Cape Canaveral; a little bit wiser. And a lot shorter on gas.

Also, there’s a non zero chance that I may be receiving a letter from the FAA. Or CAA if you want to be all old timey.

Southbound again. Cocoa Beach Country Club out on the manmade peninsula…these cats are clearly serious about their golf!

Risked a few Junebugs in the teeth to spot Patrick AFB south of Port Canaveral.

Spotting the quartering tailwind, I decided to do a Sierra Hotel low pass and teardrop pitchout to the abeam for Runway 3.

I remember that anytime I intend to do anything sporty it usually turns into a helmet fire…

Bah! It’ll be fine.

Low pass. Correct for wind…

Aaaaand pitchout!

Looks pretty good, doesn’t it?

Funny that there aren’t any more pictures following this one, isn’t it?

Remember when I said that the fact that this was a test bird would prove to be ironic?

Yeah. So, you know how when you hit active pause to freeze the screen the aircraft stops completely motionless except for the throttle and its effects?

So let’s see. Idle thrust and oh, say 30 degrees nose high, held for well let’s just call it 30 seconds…

As soon as the external camera started acting funny, I knew what was going to happen. With nothing for it, I hit unfreeze, shoved the throttle to the stops, and did the most amazing zero airspeed Lomcevak about 200ft over the downwind numbers.

I almost pulled it out.