Back to Loch Ness but now with this scenery installed:
https://flightsim.to/file/4776/the-mystery-of-loch-ness
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A twoâfer today.
A thing I learned is that a saved MSFS flight in the air loads up perfectly fine. A saved MSFS flight that is on the ground, not at an airport will teleport you to the nearest airport. Needless to say if you had parked your Osprey in the local village parking lot, versus the GA ramp 45 nm away, this is ⊠inconvenient. Some judicious use of the slew function later, and weâre back where we should have been in the first place.
Nothing new to report on this leg, mainly following the magenta line over to Quito, and admiring the lighting and the sunset colors. A real working FLIR system and NVGâs would be incredible, but I imagine thatâs a way off.
Since weâre going to be flying something without synthetic vision, weâre waiting for the sun to arrive.
Weâre flying a vacation party down to Chiclayo Peru to enjoy the beaches in Pimentel. Also there is an ostrich zoo (I would totally visit an ostrich zoo). As we are going to be using the 414 with the garmin 530 panel, I decided to plan a radio nav flight, which considering how scare VORâs and NDBâs are in the Andeâs itâs a bit sketchy.
Loading up the luggage.
And weâre off, climbing out at 39 inches of manifold pressure, we are able to get above the sky rocks without any real issues. Quito falls away behind us.
The 530 equipped 414 version, should have a working weather radar, but among a few other things it is non-operational ATM.
I plotted a decent route, but found out about 45 minutes into the flight that one of the VORâs in little nav map doesnât exist in MSFS. Fortunately there was a VOR in MSFS that I missed in little nav map that worked just fine to keep me on course.
Weâre at FL220 and only about 4-5,000 feet above the surrounding terrain and farms.
Finally crossing over the last of the Andes and heading into the coastal plains. For whatever reason the autopilot NAV function is inoperable in this panel version. VOR or GPS will not engage, not a huge deal as the indicators still work, just something to be aware of if youâre going to set it an forget.
I apologize for the lack of approach and landing shots. In the following screen shot you might notice what all had me occupiedâŠ
If you caught the âgear unlockedâ light above the gear indicator only showing 1 locked wheel you are correct! I ended up doing a variety of different gyrations to try and get three green showing, with no luck. I finally ended up using the emergency landing gear system to get the aft gear down, but still no luck on showing locked. With that in mind I put her down very gently, and everything seemed fine. I did not have failures enabled, so I am curious what exactly happened there. On the other hand, it was a treat to get to exercise some airmanship to handle a very realistic situation.
Down safely. Any landing you can roll away from right?
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Cool report. Iâm just impressed you checked the gear indicators!
Iâm a terrible virtual pilot. 
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As I mentioned earlier, I have been plodding along on short 30-40 minute hops and getting closer to my destination. The last flight, though, had my thinking back to a lot of the posts that I read in this thread, and had me smiling.
This latest leg (#22 by my highly inaccurate counting) was taking me from KEMV near Emporia, Virginia, to KIXA near Halifax, North Carolina.
There wasnât a good NAV beacon to follow, so I figured, with the clear weather, I could just follow the I-95 down, off to my right. You will notice I-95 as the double grey line top to bottom (and bottom to top, I guess) off to the right of my proposed path. SO, obviously, a VFR flight using the road as a guide was in order.
One thing that I didnât take into account was how hard it was to identify I-95 in MSFS. In XP12, with itâs âsparseâ vegetation and scenery, itâs pretty easy to line up what you see on a map with what you see in the virtual world, but in MSFS, I found it somewhat hard to identify.
And, please excuse the steam screenshots which capture my monitor view instead of a good VR view.
I found a highway, running roughly north-south but it was farther west than I expected - just off to the right in the screenshot above.
I wasnât sure if this was I-95, though it did have the hallmarks of an interstate with itâs controlled access and rest stop areas.
To compound this uncertainty, the visibility started reducing due to haze.
Thatâs a good landmark down there, if I had any way to search online for it during the flight, I would have been reassured on my path. Turns out it is a Lowes distribution center.
It was reassuring to find the rive, just beyond it, as that made me feel that I was in the right (as planned) area. The next struggle, however, was to find the airport in the increasing soup below me. I thought that this clearing was going to be it, but I was wrong.
In the end, just a little farther on from the clearing, you can just make out the runway. It doesnât have any lights on, 'cause that would be helpful and all.
In the left eye of the previous screenshot, you can see the runway threshold, but what I was trying to capture in this frame, and failing, was the amazing sense of perspective as I was approaching the runway with the low hills and trees passing off of my right, with the setting sun in the background. That screenshot does not do it justice.
Is it weird that the haze seems to have disappeared as I was taxing? I am not using any mods, but the weather didnât fit with what I expected. Granted, my primary source of weather info is the ATIS and LittleNavMap, neither of which mentioned the haze.
Oh well, with a bit of luck, sometimes we even make it where we intended
For the rest of my journey, since my last report, here is a view of my route:
I was sticking with the Lama for most of the route, but when the helicopter update dropped for MSFS, I started bouncing back and forth between the MSFS and XP12 versions of the Cabri G2 to compare the flight models. I also popped in to the VSkyLabs XP12 R22, R44 and R66.
Here is a small selection of screenshots.
Went searching for this helipadâŠ
And found an unusable location in the trees. This happened for most of the helipads, and I ended up abandoning the attempts to lad in small, weird spaces.
Found an âokayâ one here:
R22 Time:
And the R44⊠VSKyLabs has a nice quick checklist system available:
And the R66:
Back to the Lama ⊠with some sort of explosion happening to the sun setting in the west.
Small locations are even harder to identify in MSFS. I was not sure this was even the place until I checked the map after shutting town.
Thatâs all for now. Itâs harder to make funny mistakes when you are only going ~30nm in each hop
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Great report! Iâm dying to try some of the old school helos in MSFS!
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Oooh, one of THE MOST notorious speed traps in the United States.
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Leg 35 CFB Goose Bay, Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada (CYYR) TO Fredericton Intâl Airport, Lincoln, New Brunswick, Canada (CYFC)
Brought to you by todayâs word:
Switchpiggery: (Noun), the act of being a Switch Pig
Todayâs leg takes us on a 506NM leg from Goose Bay, across the Great White North, down to see @Fridge in Fredericton.
My initial thought had been to do an IFR flight plan down across the eastern edge of the continent. But I was quite surprised by how few NAVAIDs there were to be had up north; really only one along the direct path to my destination.
Ah well, no matter. I donât plan to be in any one place for too long! 
Back to the Starfighter, now in RCAF livery.
So pretty. Letâs see if my landings equal my takeoffs this time.
SpoilerâŠ
They donât! 
Because the SSW 104 behaves better from a cold start, I initialize on a parking pad.
Fredericton is 506NM from Goose Bay.
My parking pad is 507NM from the runway!
Iâm not saying that I may have taxied across some grass to get there.
SpoilerâŠ
I SO taxied across some grass to get there!
That chore complete, I finally got into the air and turned south.
Crossing the Churchill River, my first landmark.
And my last for a good long while. Man, it looks cold down there!
Literally the first 40% of the trip coasted over vast stretches of snowy forest. Itâs kind of amazing to see that there exists that much primeval forest in the world.
Finally, after the better part of an hour, I see the first signs of civilization; Route 138 just east of Havre St Pierre.
You do not want to break down here, Iâm thinking.
Ile a la Chasse, and the waters of the Detroit de Jaques-Cartier.
and on to the frozen approaches of Ile De Anticosti.
My first act of Switchpiggery
Sorry.
comes when I run the pylon drops dry. I selected the tanks, I programmed and reprogrammed the required switch in the joystick configuration screen, but for the life of me, I could not get those tanks off!
Well, Iâd have liked to have gotten rid of that drag. But I feel like Iâm doing pretty well on the gas. Maybe it wonât make a difference.
Besides, Iâve just crossed the other half of the St Lawrence, Iâm about come ashore on the Gaspesie Penninsula (I may be mixing my French and English place names here), and I still have full mains and tip tanks to go.
What could possibly go wrong? 
I begin to feelâŠsaucy and indulge the desire to get down in it, if you know what I mean.
Much to my surprise (to say nothing of the Tower controllerâs) I go blasting over the GaspĂ© (Michel-Pouliot) Airport with a bag of knots.
One brief jaunt over the Baie de Chaleurs and I cross my last major checkpoint, the Miramichi River.
As you can see, Iâve managed to drop my tanks.
Turns out thereâs a switch that I missed behind the stick
âWhy is it always behind the stick?â
Now, clean(ish), and with a full main tank, I decide to throw the coals on the fire for the last stretch.
Besides, not really having spent much (any) time calculating my landing rollout, I really didnât need to bring extra gas into the break.
And, suddenly, it was green. After so much snow and ice, I felt my feet finally start to thaw in my flight boots.
But with the warmer temperatures, came mist. I only barely spotted the field due to its proximity to the river.
With plenty of gas, I circled over the top, picking my best combination of wind and runway length.
That done, I set myself up for a nice low break.
And thenâŠthe feces hit the oscillator.
I made a normal pitchout at about 450 knots. My greatest concern was being able to slow down.
#irony
I pulled the throttle back to idle, popped the boards, and put on an oblique 5Gs into the downwind.
The airspeed dropped like a rock. I went from 450k knots to under 200 in a matter of seconds.
The stick shaker went off. The aircraft tumbled tailplane over teakettle.
And I was heading for the dirtâŠ
Out of reflex, I tried to unload the AOA, jammed the throttle to the firewall, and tried to put the boards in.
The engine spooled up. But soooo slowly. The aircraft was not flying, but it stopped tumbling. I noticed the speedbrakes were still out. I jammed the toggle again.
I pulled to the edge of the shaker. It was the best lift I was going to get.
I hit the trees.
So.
That went other than expected.
So, what happened? Well, the deceleration on the Zipper was considerably more than I expected. The speedbrakes in particular seem to work better than any I have ever seen.
Itâs difficult to say whether getting them back in would have made a difference or not.
But I can only guess.
Because I wasnât hitting the switch to put them back in.
I was a victim of my own Switchpiggery.
Again.
One challenge in the way I have my HOTAS set up is that, due to the throttle throw, the forward/aft speedbrake switch becomes an up/down speedbrake switch at idle. Itâs also a four-way switch, which doesnât help. Even trying to feel the switches unique texture doesnât really make it obvious which witch is which.
In the end, it probably took only a few seconds to figure out that I wasnât hitting the switch correctly. But, with the slow spool time and the airspeed deficit, there just wasnât enough altitude to recover.
After slewing my way back up to altitude and getting the aircraft flying again, I turned inbound for a landing.
I have to say that I also underestimated the approach speed of the Zipper. Even a shade below 190 knots would bring the shaker back on.
But, once I accepted that, I could fly the aircraft, a little clumsily, to a landing.
There was to be no power reduction until the absolute last second before the mains touched down!
Well, that was illuminating!
And here we are, Fredricton. Couple of good lessons here. I think that the Zipper flies a little oddly in SU11, but I almost certainly should have checked a few numbers before I took her up.
And, of course, the Switchpiggery speaks for itself!
And for you, @Fridge, I pull a genuine, slightly cracked, Nutcracker from Baden out of the wreckage.
Donât mind the charring.
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Nice!
I think that a landing event like that needs some whiskey to calm the nerves. The Lunar Rogue here has over 500 single malt and premium blends - enough variety to keep anyone happy
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Thatâs enough for me to walk there!
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OK, Iâm clearly not smart enough to multiquote.
But thank you!
nice reports gents!
in the preparation for something fast I took IndiaFoxtEcho S-211 (XP11 freeware) for a ride. works nice in XP12
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I had a similar experience yesterday evening with SU11 & DC-6.
Finally the moment came when all the conditions were such that I could progress a bit with the flight (kids in bed with the little one finally not waking up every hour or so, house-related work done⊠ya know what I mean )
DC-6 is not an aircraft that one jumps in, fires it up and flies away so I spent some time preparing the flight. When in cockpit going through the checks (looking after what the AFE does) I could actually hear the circuit breakers popping and could see corresponding effects on the aircraft instrumentation and systems. Interesting. Who cares? 
So when the AFE called Flaps 20, I could see the flap lever moving but neither the needle on the flap indicator nor the flaps themselves. AFE finished his checks nonetheless and we were ready to go. Were we?
Anyway, take-off power, rolling, rotating, flying away⊠speed picking up quite slowly (no hydraulics meant also no gear retraction)⊠and within a minute or so we lost all engines and aimed at frozen ocean (thanks Asobo! ) to crash land.
Fortunately it was a rather short walk back to Narsarsuaq (I was able to spell it without looking at a map ) to check whether another DC-6 is available.
The latest version of DC-6 is now freshly installed in my MSFS so when the time comes again I am ready to make it a success!
Sorry for no screenshots.
Thinking about the experience, it was actually quite cool and a testament to how good the DC-6 is. Now imagine if the AFE reacted also to the failures. Something like: Flaps 20⊠errr Captain, we have a problem!
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Hehe, I know the feeling.
I had a no flap issue in the DC-6 as well back near Tahiti. And, just like you, it took a reinstall to fix it.
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Gentlemen, you do realise you have created a monster donât you?
This guy was giving away a Gulfstream G-IV and I figured if I can take off and land OK in a EuroFOX, then I am so going to crash this party
I even managed to create and upload a flight plan, get airborne and think I have sussed out the autopilot? I hope so because there is nothing but miles and miles of ocean between here and my destination⊠and I really need to pee
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For some odd reason, I hit my keyboard short cut for gear, and said âthree greenâ and actually looked for once. Not gonna lie, that is not my usual approach to civilian flight simâing. Usually unless Iâve been shot at I donât bother to even glance at the gear indicator.
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Well, you are in the right aircraft for it! Some of those Gulfstreams have gold bathrooms!
For the rest of usâŠ
That sounds like my usual method. 
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arent you afraid that high !?
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OK, so I have somehow managed to complete the first leg of my journeyâŠ
Leg 1 was supposed to be:
Yeah, I can hear you guys now, âWTF was he thinkingâ. Well, my greatest failing in real life is that I tend to be a âgo large, or go homeâ type of guy (which is why I would make a shite pilot IRL). On paper, the G-IV can make that (just) and as I have just re-discovered there is a difference between theory and realityâŠ
So there I am, happily cruising along, AP doing its thing and about now am thinking, maybe I should have gone the other way (i.e. flying East to West) because I even though it would have taken longer, I could have done shorter legs and be chasing daylight instead, because it is getting awfully dark out there.
Long story short. A bit later and a bit under half way into the flight and I have used a bit over half my fuel⊠Hmm, I ainât going to make it am I?
The silver lining in this cloud (if I could see them, it is now pitch black out there) is that I included NWWW as a waypoint. A quick search with Google ( @Deacon211 Gulfstreams not only have an awesome loo, you get a pretty good internet connection as well ) and I was able to reprogram my FMS to give me a direct approach into La Tontouta. First attempt - too fast and too low.
Yeah, I would really rather be doing this in daylight⊠Despite the go around I managed, just, to get it down with a long landing and even with full reverse and hard on the brakes nearly ran out of runway.
I will just park it here if thatâs OK with you chaps while I change into a fresh pair of trousers and contemplate my next move.
For the purposes of full disclosure; This flight was completed in two âepisodesâ. Yesterday I ran out of time so used the flux capacitor/time dilation device that my G-IV seems to be equipped with and resumed the flight today. I was using real time, but reset it so that I landed at NWWW at the same time that I would have if it had been a continuous flight.
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