Thanks for the link and the tip!
I’m trying to work from home from about 3-4pm NZ time today and take off around then, i.e. in about 3-4 hours time from now.
The forecast shows a 15-knot Easterly on the surface and about a 10-knot Easterly at 6400 ft. My heading will be NW (304) so I guess that means the wind will be pushing me West but may have a decent tailwind component? I haven’t taken winds into account before.
You should try to determine your ground speed to calculate your flight time and fuel burn. There is an online E6B that might help. I just threw in some rough numbers. You will want to tweak them.
You should also take magnetic declination into account.
https://www.google.com/search?q=magnetic+declination&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us
I finally got the PC-12 out of the paint shop in Greenville (with the newly installed GTN 750 and new paint) and decided to fire it up and head out for the Christmas flight. For a short test, I took her on a short 67nm flight from GYH to one of the iconic airports of North Carolina…Mountain Air (2NC0). A golf retreat nestled in the high mountains of NC - it is not an airport to be messed with in poor weather or gusty winds.
I do love the GTN 750 - it is really, really nice…
…but I’m learning quickly that @chipwich is spot on with the PC-12 and after this short flight, the problems I’m encountering with it outnumber my love for it. The taxiing with the current engine modeling is really difficult to deal with (low idle and lots of beta seemed to help)…
But gosh…it is a beautiful aircraft (some Carolinas Ortho going on in the background there)…
Passing over Lake Lure just southeast of Asheville, NC…
Asheville, NC off the left side…
Coming up on the Black Mountains, which holds Mt. Mitchell, the highest peak east of the Mississippi in the Continental US (for some reason, people think the Presidential Range has higher mountains)…
Coming across Mountain Air to set up for a visual approach. I featured this airport in a Challenging Airports article once - a fun little strip with a ton of slope, carved out of the side of a mountain. The package is not totally compatible with all my add ons (ortho, mesh, etc…) so some of the slopes bordering the airport aren’t true to life…but it’s close enough.
The airport itself is modeled nicely…that is the actual slope of the runway, and why everyone lands uphill…
On the downwind over the valley…
Gear going out…
Rolling out on final, full flaps, gear, settling around 95 knots…
Not a lot of room for lateral deviations at Mountain Air…
Touchdown, plus slope, plus braking and prop reverse bring us to a stop in just five or six hundred feet. You usually have to add power just to get up the hill…
Time for a round of golf…!
But I regret to say I’m probably going to have to park the PC-12 until a true XP11 version comes out. In addition to the really quirky ground model, I feel there are lots of problems with the engine modeling, electrics, and there are some pretty frustrating “Carenado-isms” in the cockpit with the scroll wheel and the odd way they choose to manipulate things that actually really turn me off to this aircraft despite the love/hate feeling I have.
So I might have to run it over to Asheville, put it on the market, and pick another aircraft for the Christmas flight. I know…time is running out…!!
Yeah, those were all of my issues as well. Baring some secret sauce, the PC-12 needs to go to the hanger, along with the B1900D, Phenom 100, and Kodiak. At least now Carenado/Alabeo/Thranda have a starting point with 11.10 being in rc1. On the other hand, really great screenshots and fabulous little airport.
This is actualy called proper IFR - I Follow Road 
For the flaps extension speeds no need for POH. Try to check the airspeed gauge. There should be a white arc field depicting the correct speeds for flaps extension. And iirc 85 is the max speed for any flaps 
(in C172 oc)
The local mechanic kindly sold me some floats and fixed the flap - I was good to go. After visiting the local avocado orchards to take some fresh produce to the folk of Norfolk Island, I departed Kaitaia in the mid-afternoon and headed NW towards Cape Reinga along the 90-mile beach.
There was a cloud overcast at circa 4500 ft - I wanted to stay in VFR so rather than climbing to my intended cruise altitude of 6500, I stayed just under the cloud layer.
Initially I set the heading bug to 308 to account for the Easterly winds while I figured out how to use the Garmin 530, however after reading through the manual a bit I switched the AP to GPS mode rather than trying to find a tiny island 450 miles away on my own skill. Maybe one day.
The flight to Cape Reinga was relatively uneventful, I was playing with the mixture settings and found that with the favourable tailwind I had I could cruise over ground at over 100 kts at about 6 gallons per hour, even less. Comforting.
Shortly after leaving New Zealand mainland behind, I saw the Three Kings Islands to my left, so named by the explorer Abel Tasman in 6 January 1643, who only three weeks earlier had become the first European to see New Zealand.
The weather was starting to look quite promising shortly after, with lovely sunshine breaking through the clouds. The elation was short-lived, however - I was reading the GPS manual and looked up to find that I had entered full IFR conditions! Well done. The clouds must reach a bit lower here, I figured and entered a gentle 500 fpm descent to find some clear air. 4000 ft - nothing - 3500 - still in the soup - 3000 - can’t see a thing - 2500 - nope.
At that point I decided that since I’m already flying IFR, rather than further ruining fuel economy by descending further, I’ll climb up to my original intended cruise altitude 6500 and worry about shooting back down through the clouds to find the tiny little island later.
The cloud tops were at 6000 ft or so and I had a rather pleasant flight above them with only some trepidation about how I was going to get back down.
I prepared the Garmin 530 for a GPS approach to RW11, since the wind continued to be Easterly. The descent through the soup was relatively organised until I got down below 3000 ft and the engine started losing power. I had an interesting 10 seconds at 60 kts airspeed until I understood to adjust the mixture back for low altitude.
Still flying in full IFR conditions, I was trying to understand the GPS symbology about the approach when the system started to seriously overcorrect both ways, snaking away towards the airfield with turns banking well over the 2-minute turn lines.
I disconnected the AP, levelled wings and continued a steady descent, waiting to see through the clouds and trying to make sure that there was no way I could accidentally steer into the hills North of the field.
I was very relieved to finally pop out of the cloud about 1 mile before the runway threshold, too high and to the right off runway. I wasn’t properly aligned and had to go around, but no matter, the little bird turns on a dime so there was no need to go back up into the soup for approach, I could just whip her around under the clouds and set down.
Apparently the Norfolk Island RSL offers cheap wine and a meat raffle on Friday nights so I’m off to the pub.
Unfortunately due to my day job, having used the local time & weather for my flights has resulted in some rather dull night time screenshots. Anyway, here goes:
Norfolk Island (YSNF) - Lord Howe Island (YLHI)
My next stopover will be at a tiny volcanic crescent in the middle of the Tasman Sea which goes by the rather proud name of Lord Howe Island.
The weather was frankly looking a little less than ideal for a night time stroll with cloud overcast and some decent winds, but then again what’s the worst that can happen? I have my trusty floats and an EBIRP should I need to fail to find my way. Also the winds are going in the right direction, which should cut my travel time a bit.
So we’re off west, into the sunset. Next stop Lord Howe Island, 484 NM - our longest leg yet.
I had to get up to 8300 ft to get some clear skies but that seemed to be no problem for the Cessna.
An hour or so into the journey I spotted strange lights under the haze, like a runway. I was rather confused, as YLHI was still hundreds of miles away and as far as I knew I only had fish underneath me, no land.
As I got closer, I recognised the shape to be an aircraft carrier! Luckily for me no Hornets flew up to bother me and the carrier group was happy for me to fly over them. I had no idea they were so accommodating.
I had a strong Easterly wind pushing me along, which added a good 10+ knots to my ground speed…this was great, but it seems the GPS autopilot has no authority over the rudder, so I had to either be in a massive sideslip or stand on the rudder constantly. In addition to that, if I increased my speed from 100 kts to 110 kts airspeed, it seemed the AP lost the ability to maintain direction in the wind and started doing big turns all over the show. So - I stuck with a sideslip at 100 kts IAS, maintaining 110 kts across ground (well, water). I have to say I’ve felt safer, I felt a bit like a leaf in the wind.
Finally I started my descent through the clouds towards Lord Howe Island. This island has a lot higher cliffs than Norfolk Island did, so I paid attention to the approach charts.
A stiff crosswind at 15 kts made the landing interesting - looking back I perhaps should have just landed in the water but I had no idea about what the coastline was like. The last-second line-up from my crabbing could have been prettier and the wheels probably got a good twisting but we got down safely.
Lord Howe Island (YLHI) - Coffs Harbour (YCFS) on mainland Australia
This leg sees us finally completing the Tasman Sea crossing.
I was lamenting the slowness of the Cessna at the local pub, when an older gentleman approached me and suggested I’d ferry his Beechcraft Baron over to the mainland instead. I jumped at his offer and instead of having another beer, I hopped in the Baron and pushed on.
I was searching my way around the dark cockpit for a little while before finding the battery and floodlight switches; luckily from there on things appeared reasonably straight forward even though I had never flown the bird before.
The Baron is a lot thirstier than the 172 - almost 15 gallons per hour per engine after leaning the mixture in comparison to the Cessna’s 5 gallons per hour!
Still, it was a very pleasant ride in comparison and I was much more comfortable - the yaw damper worked wonders and I wasn’t too uncomfortable despite flying most of the trip in bad visibility. Powering away at 160 kts felt amazing too!
Coffs Harbour had decent visibility once I’d broken out under the clouds and the approach was quite easy with the well-lit Australian coast line improving my situational awareness greatly.
I am looking forward to some Northwest-bound coastal hopping - the fastest way to Christmas Island would be over the desert but I may opt for shorter, more interesting flights along the coast rather than long legs with nothing but miles and miles of burnt red sand and poisonous creatures underneath.
Nice write up @Bearhedge! I am really enjoying riding along with you on your journey.
One concession I have made on my trip is that I am not using actual local time even though the weather is ‘real-world’ in ‘real time’. The scenery along the path of my trip has been quite stunning and I wanted to take it all in.
Since my last report, the popularity of the Dornier Do 228 within Mudspike circles has increased significantly, with @BeachAV8R’s Mudspike Air Cargo doing a trial and @chipwich’s Pawleys Island Brewery using one for their Christmas Flight.
As usual, I am replying to my previous report so as to link the story.
My fellow Dutchmen had apparently just left to get a cup of chai just before departure, but starting up the Dornier proved very easy. Cold and Dark, but no Challenge. I flipped all the electrical switches: batteries, master switch, inverters, generators. Then on the starter panel: ignition to start, starter switches and the engines roared to life!
Don’t forget the smart lock on the propellers! Luckily I had read up on that so I knew I had to push the throttles to reverse briefly to unlock the propeller pitch.
The only thing I couldn’t get working was all the fancy nav gear: radios, GPS, and FMS were still dark.
Just before my flight crew arrived, I found the Radios master switch on the center pedestal just above the flaps.
Then the mountains themselves came into view…
Nice wind plots…and interesting figuring. Those winds do not look particularly favorable eh? Definitely would be nice to find a long stretch of reaching. The North route looks like you could find a lot of stuff (like land stuff) to run into. 
Oh dear…only half a million items being moved. This is taking a bit. And I haven’t even plunged into the orthos yet… 
Thanks for your kind words!
I held off on posting it for so long, I felt it needed more story and was not “Post-Of-The-Year-like” enough. A compliment from the master himself is just what I needed to feel content with it.
It is quite an experience to follow the ‘persistent’ sailing journey you are making. Hats off for (at least partially unintentionally I assume) making it so exciting.
I am very interested to see how you will progress, and what stories you will tell us along the way.
This blog does feel at times like I am submitting an essay for critique. Let the bar be raised and and all attempts praised! Our English literature profs would be proud.
It really does take the pressure off when sailboats and sailplanes embark on this journey.
Gonna take a short test hop…but at least on course westbound from AVL to RHP in this crappy weather. Testing out some avionics that a friendly modder installed in my EV-55 Outback…!
Track me in real time: http://xfsd.ansorg-web.de/fsdmap/
Hmm … Just looked at this and it seems you are just overlying ’ Skinny Dip Falls’ 
Awesome Chris! SkyMax Pro with RealWeather connector? It looks like your ship has some icing equipment. You will need it.
Still a wet snow coming down in Atlanta.
Yeah…RWC and the NOAA plug-in are acting funky though. I’m seeing some failed weather downloads and the weather is only sometimes matching up with what the reality is. After I got about 30 miles west of Asheville, the weather cleared up, but the AWOS reports out that way don’t show that.
But whatever the case…it was a great flight - really enjoying the ortho stuff…
Will post up a full (short) trip report. The modified EV-55 has some somewhat serious issues with autopilot functionality…so I need to find a workaround for that. Perhaps going back to the standard EV-55 and just using the pop-up GNS 750 (which is an awesome piece of kit…!)
Alrighty - gonna make some more ground to the West. We’ll see how it goes - live track here:
Alright - settled in at 14,000’ (we’ll have to assume I have some O2 onboard)…3,400 lbs. of fuel onboard with the engines burning 242 lbs/hr (484 lbs/hr total) - gives us a range of 1,200-ish nm at our current groundspeed of 176 knots. We are on top of most of the weather here…with heavy cloud beneath us.
Until I can get my friend to work out the autopilot integration with the GTN in the 3D panel, I’m gonna stick with the 2D GTN 750. I’ll be writing up a main site review on this thing - it is fabulous!
Heading for Salina, KS. Why? Well, that’s where I was born…! Just down the road from Ft. Riley where my Dad was stationed…
