Use this thread to post your screens and/or descriptions of you flights!
1 Like
For what itās worth - Iām planning on flying from my home airport of Gastonia NC (KAKH) - all the way up to CFS Alert (CYLT) via a few stopsā¦
Iāll be using X-Plane and the Avro Project RJ70 for the flight. Since X-Plane doesnāt feature high latitude terrain, Iām filling in the area (grudgingly) with some expensive terrain/mesh for the regionā¦
http://secure.simmarket.com/hsimulators-greenland-mesh-v1-x-plane-10.phtml
BeachAV8R
1 Like
My Xmas Flight plan is fairly bizarre, as youād expect.
Iām planning on going from the base Canadian Forces Station Alert, which is on the tip of Nunavut and then head straight for Santaās Grotto (no spoilers please).
Iām using FSX, with the CFS Alert scenery here:
One problem is that this time of year the entire flight is going to look like this, so I may need to use some Elf Magic and lightening things up a bit:
Now, Alert to Santaās Workshop is actually not that far, so Iām going to need something without a lot of speed otherwise itāll be over too soon. Picking the worse thing I can think of, hereās what Iāve got so far:
I think Iām going to need a warmer jacket.
Because the Wright Flyer is a little, umm, āstallyā my plan is put myself with an oxygen canister and mostly glide the entire way to the pole. Iām running the numbers involving Sine Law and unrealistic heights, but I think I can make itā¦
Those Elves wont know what hit themā¦ 
Download links for others:
Scenery: Canadian Forces Station Alert Scenery for FSX & P3D
The Ol Flyer from FS2004: Simviation FSX Add-ons - Vintage Page 18
3 Likes
Iāll be flying a Concorde from Tucson to Edmonton International and. The flight will be over land, so sound barriers will remain unbroken.
1 Like
@fearlessfrog - Santaās Grottoā¦ I hope it is at Hugh Hefnerās place and I hope you send picturesā¦
@EinsteinEP - The Concorde will be coolā¦canāt wait to see that AAR!
Looks like itās going to be the F-14B from the Dallas metropolex. Plenty of probe and drogue practice.
1 Like
Ah man, I think Iām in trouble here already.
Alert base to North Pole is about 507 miles.
Wright Flyer glide ratio is 8.3.
So say starting at 40,000 feet (thanks B-52 buddy maybe?) and with a hefty recorded top speed of 26 MPH, then thatās a glide distance of:
ā¦55 miles.
Iām going to have to crash at least 10 times then. Either that or start at 320,500 feet with a glide time of 16 hoursā¦ Hmm, now there is a SpaceX launch today. 
3 Likes
2 Likes
By the wayā¦an additional āruleāā¦feel free to alter your sim settings to fly the trip in the summer if you like to allow for more daylight time. Obviously, at this time of year at the high northern latitudesā¦most of the day is going to be dark. In order to take better screens, you are welcome to use a different season to provide for more daylight.
I really like this idea and would love to participate!
However, I have only flown LOMAC, Flaming Cliffs and then DCS for the past years. Although you included it in the rules, I live more than a thousand kilometers from Georgia, and even further away from Nevadaā¦
It would be really hard to prepare something that comes even close to the original plan for the Christmas flight.
So, I decided to dust off the CDs and DVDs I used to play X-Plane on when I was less than a decade old.
X-Plane 7 and 8, here we come!!!
Hope it works on Windows 7
Unfortunately, I forgot to take a screenshot but the first memorable moment was when the installer asked me if I wanted to install low earth orbit bitmaps, warning me they would take up a whopping 450 MB on my hard drive. Ha ha ha, so cute
1 Like
Compatibility problems, as expected. Letās see if we can solve these, otherwise Iāll just fly as long a north-south route as possible through the Caucasus in an Mi-8.
EDIT1: Hey! The downloader which gives the 8.64 demo does run. I hope upgrading the dvd 8.06 version with v7 scenery will work too, if I let the update do its thingā¦
Last edit before the actual AAR: It works! X-Plane 8.64 with v7 scenery actually works on Windows 7. I downloaded some planes and test flew them a bit. This will be an unusual flight, but itās very nostalgic to me and I hope youāll like it.
1 Like
Awesome! You know - DCS would work just fine tooā¦ Batumi to Krasnodar or something would work just fineā¦
Alrighty - Iām all planned up and ready to embark. Iāll be hopscotching my way up through various communities throughout Canada and Greenland on my way up to Alertā¦delivering crates of Eggnog (spiked or not? hmmā¦depends on Customs I thinkā¦) Total route mileage looks to be around 5357nm (!) and Iāve never been to some of these airports because they are fairly austereā¦which is why I picked the RJ70 for its short field performance.
Iāll post up photos along the way - and you might be able to follow along (when Iām enroute) on the x-IvAp map here:
http://xfsd.ansorg-web.de/fsdmap/
Here is my hopscotch route:
That first leg is a whopper at 1632nm - but according to the RJ70 charts, it should be doableā¦hopefully with a slight quartering tailwindā¦
The forecast is a bit grim thoughā¦there is an RNAV and NDB approach at Arviat - but minimums are 540 and 1 1/2 milesā¦so it could get interestingā¦
METAR CYEK 222300Z 16008KT 12SM -SN OVC013 M11/M12 A2957 RMK ST8 LAST STFD OBS/NEXT 231300
TAF CYEK 221738Z 2218/2306 29008KT 3SM -SN SCT020 OVC040 TEMPO 2218/2224 1SM -SN OVC020 FM230000 19010KT P6SM IC OVC020 TEMPO 2300/2306 21/2SM -SN PROB30 2300/2306 1SM -SN
Wellā¦here we go!
BeachAV8R
1 Like
Making good timeā¦lots of crosswindā¦should have the fuel thoughā¦this thing sips gas at FL340ā¦
Shame Iām flyingā¦or Iād take a pull on that eggnogā¦
BeachAV8R
1 Like
Winds 249 degrees @ 94 knotsā¦!
Solid undercast nowā¦probably be that way most of the rest of the wayā¦ Fingers crossed for approach minimums!
Short hop across Hudson Bay and Iāll be arriving at Arviat. Probably start my let-down about 30 minutes out to allow for an orderly descent since I donāt know this RJ70 very wellā¦ Terrain around Arviat is flatā¦ MSA within 100nm is 2000ā, so that is what Iāll let down to, then 1,200 and Iāll just pick up the NDB inbound course to runway 33, then plan to circle to land 15 unless the winds are calmā¦ Showing 42 minutes to arrivalā¦ Will probably have to run the engine and wing anti-ice throughout the descent and approach judging from the temperatures and precipā¦
My flight of choice is from Tucson, Arizona, USofA (Home of the Sonoran Hot Dog!) to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (Home of Manulife Place!) to pick up an as of yet unspecified gift. Although there are a few more airports further north than Edmonton International, CYEG, none of them (within a reasonable flying distance) have a long enough runway to support Concorde, my aircraft of choice.
The terminal at Edmonton International may not look like much, but it has Starbucks and a Chiliās Express!
Without a doubt, the absolute hardest part of flying Concorde is getting ready to fly Concorde. Hours of digging through charts, looking up routes, checking weather, re-looking up routes, re-digging up charts, etc. Of course without Concorde Performance System, itād take 10 times as long, so Iām very thankful for that tool (although the website seems to have been infested with malware recently! CPS users beware!).
These views donāt include all the information needed to fly this route, but here is most of the info in a handy .pdf file.
KTUS-CYEG 20151222 1730Z.pdf (2.2 MB)
Iām using REX Soft Clouds for textures, but Active Sky Next for my weather engine and although thereās a lot of clouds between the Old Pueblo and Canadiaās Festival City, the weather actually looks fine for flying ā at least IFR, that is.
As for walking around, though, the forecast predicts -23Ā°C, which is awfully cold in Arizonan degrees. Iāll need to pack my cold weather clothesā¦wait, do I have any of those?..
2 Likes