The official 3rd Annual Mudspike Christmas Flight - 2017 Edition

My final flight, WICC > YXPM. What a dreadfully boring experience… Fortunately the Bell 407 flies like no tomorrow. Unfortunately I took it as a 4 hr range when pushing her for all she’s got. This is not true. Made it with about 15 minutes of fuel to spare. Flying long distance over the ocean is maddeningly boring, how do navy pilots do this?! I was a bit lazy and did a straight into the nearest MX hanger for some christmas BBQ! :wink:

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Whenever one of us at work get paged out for a long-ish trip…we all complain about how bad it is…then we look at the ex P-3 driver that flies with us, and we blush and murmur our apologies…

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I love flying, but I hate flying in a commercial setting. It’s why I never opted to go for commercial training(also a good idea since my eye sight destroyed itself in months unexpectedly). Anyway, I staved through by counting down the numbers. Pretty much the same way I do boring repetitive maintenance tasks.

You should buy that P3 driver a beer! Respect for that kind of flying!

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To be honest, I am amazed at how quickly the time can literally fly by when you are flying a long haul trip. If you are oceanic there are the regular tasks of obtaining clearance (for the Atlantic) position plotting, HF and SELCAL checks, filling out the Nav Log, routine systems checks etc etc. Then there is the usual cockpit banter, plus the FA constantly trying to feed you (especially if the pax are sleeping). On top of that you have weather to look out for… So there is plenty to keep you occupied if you look for it.

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I suppose so, besides you’ve got eight hours to get wasted and sober up so that helps :wink:

The company I work for has a 12 hour bottle to duty on rule, which effectively means 13 hours bottle to throttle. Of course, once we get to a destination after a long flight, it usually means we are done for a few days ;).

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After a nice drive to the hotel in Snark’s BMW, and a good day’s rest (can’t seem to adjust to the shifting timezone), we departed again, on Christmas Eve.


Departing the city of Jakarta


Overflying those beautiful mountains

Then turning towards our destination as the sun set


On course, leveled off, autopilot set. What could go wrong?


It was probably somewhere on this dark flight that the right engine decided that its contribution to our propulsion was unnecessary.

The descent went very smoothly. I suddenly noticed we were only 50 miles out from the first waypoint of our arrival. I felt like we could descend at a higher rate this time without overspeeding (probably thanks to our right engine’s earlier decision, which still went unnoticed).


It was somewhere around this point, when I throttled up again to maintain altitude, that I was surprised I had to push full throttle to do that. Even though gear and flaps were extended, that was still an unusual amount of power.

While going down, we tried the whole sequence I did over the Strait of Malacca, as Henk was looking up the booklet. Nothing worked.

It was not until we were a few meters off the water that Henk and I looked each other in the eyes and shouted: “Airspeed above 92 knots indicated!”
The realization hit hard, but too late, and not half as hard as the surface of the Indian ocean. We were smacked against the windshield violently, but the adrenaline kept us conscious.

We quickly left the plane through the cockpit windows/doors and climbed up onto the roof with the emergency package. We used the radio to warn the emergency forces on the Island.

I realized I had failed Santa miserably. I had not just lost a plane, and possibly my life and that of a brave Dutch Coast Guard pilot, but it was all in vain. The packages were sinking, and getting wet and wasted. It was all for nothing.

I must have sat there in that mood for quite a while, beeping at the radio and rattling of all the emergency messages I knew, because when I left this weird state of consciousness, I was suddenly aware the sun had risen.

Also, Henk was chatting with a blonde on a sailing boat and voices were asnwering my monotonous request for help over the radio.
One of them was @BeachAV8R’s. I told him the approximate location on the descent where we hit the water, and he was off.
Then the other voice asked me how I felt. I fell apart and told him how it had all been for nothing and how sorry I was and what a fool to think I could just grab a plane and make such a dangerous flight.
He said: “We spoke before. In Lukla: you were much more optimistic then. You must have learned a lot on this journey, but: never lose hope! Failure is the best teacher, and by the way: have you thought about why the plane still hasn’t sunk?
I, Rudolph, realized how dangerous it would be to let you fly the packages all the way and that’s why I sent you to Bhutan. There were no more packages there, just a few helping hands who packed them safely. I thought you would either crash into a mountain or into the sea so they are all packed in 42 layers of bubble wrap. Now, be a good boy and help Henk to get them into that girl’s boat.”

So that’s what I did and why Chris found me like that

Thank you for saving me, @BeachAV8R and Rudolph!

Merry Christmas everyone! :christmas_tree: :christmas_island:

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Dohh, I wanted to be the first one to use it in this thread :slight_smile:

Mary Xmas everyone!
After weeks of lonesome drinking on the island I got lost somewhere so I dont know who already arived. Once I find my way back to airport (some more than hundred posts late with reading this thread) I will greet you all.

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See, it never pays to get there early. The first arrival has to set up the bar tab…

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Uh oh…

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rolls away from underneath Beach’ burned piston engine

Say what now?! I think I saw some fine scotch a mile that way! Be right back!

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Especially since the guy bringing the beer is going to be late to the party. Hoping to knock out another leg tonight. Currently being held hostage by in-laws.

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I brought my entire CPU, monitor, Rift, and all accessories to my parents house this morning at 4AM (6 hour drive). Gonna demo some VR stuff to the assembled family…

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Does your wife ever say “Chris, I think you have a problem” or has she long accepted things like this? :wink:

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I made it! Well, there were a couple of mishaps that I miraculously survived, but hey, we can laugh about it now; it’s all over! I made most of the trip flying the NGX 737-800, but also flew the X-Plane King Air, and the Milviz DHC-2 for a few legs. I’m new to the 737. So, I thought the Christmas flight would be a great way to get some time in. Actually, I’m new to airliners; it’s been combat simulators for decades and GA in the last few years for me.

I departed my home airfield of Pennridge Airport (KCKZ), above. It’s was a rather dicey take off, so I only carried minimal fuel and cargo to get off the ground and make the short trip to the Allentown airport (KABE). This is where my Skyvector overall plan starts.

I made a few changes to this plan over the course of the journey – some planned some not. I intentionally bypassed FHAW, taking the direct route to GLRB instead. But, I’m getting ahead of myself.

My first significant leg was out of Allentown, PA. The lightning below was an ominous foreshadowing of what was to come.

Note: I’m running P3D v4 with Active Sky.

I noticed the autopilot really yanking the yoke around as I was making my final few turns in toward the airport. It was REALLY bumpy.

It ended badly with the aircraft coming apart.

But, hey, I landed on Marvin Musquin’s freshly made practice track, on the downside of a big tripple and walked away unscathed. There was nothing for it but to borrow the factory KTM 300 and make my way to the airport off road. Good times!

So, I borrowed a 737 from American and went on to Port Au Prince that night.

A little fog the next morning was no factor.

I chose this route because I wanted to hit several locations in Europe where I’ve never flown. Lisbon Portugal being one of them. And never mind that little mess over the atlantic where I was flying the X-Plane 737 and disengaged the autopilot and was rewarded with an immediate maximum nose down yoke. Luckily, the plane didn’t come apart and we were able to deploy life rafts and row to shore.

American didn’t seem to mind.

Out of Lisbon:

Landing in Paris:

I like the Hud!

Parris is nice, but I readied my shotgun and chainsaw when I saw this:

O.K. At this point, they took away my shotgun, my chainsaw and my 737. :frowning:
Something about losing two aircraft, yada yada yada…

So, I borrowed this fine aircraft and moved over to X-Plane again.

This was another deviation from my original Plan. I decided to fly into EDDK, where they happen to have a nice Christmas village.

I refueled and wanted to get in the air ASAP to make the flight to LOWI before dark.
Kind of had to jump in front of this guy. Sorry buddy!

Beautiful evening in the King Air headed for LOWI.

Turning final:

Now, flying out of LOWI, I had an unplanned emergency landing at AVIANO.
I flew out very early and the sun was starting to rise. Then I noticed it was starting to get dark again.
Hmm. I realized I was starting to pass out, so, not having time to figure out where the oxygen mask was or how to fiddle with the cabin pressure, I trimmed for a very gentle dive and went to sleep.
Woke up (the screen came back) at around 11,000 feet. Somehow I had skrewed up my trim controll and could no longer set the trim ??? so I diverted to AVIANO.
I didn’t realize that’s where I had landed until I saw this view and thought it looked familiar:

I had seen this mountain profile many times back when I was flying the F-16C out of here.
In fact, I think the first Christmas flight Mudspike did, I chose to fly BMS as far north as I could get (though, I didn’t upload anything). And the guys across the water didn’t like me flying there and fired on me! Can you believe that?! Firing on a Christmas flight. So, I had dropped a few munitions on them two days before… But this was Christmas. Come on guys!

I’ve completed this year’s flight (in fact I finished on the 19th, but no time to post), but will have to post more later as I’m out of time this morning.

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Nice report! Look forward to reading about the rest of your journey.

Also, I would love to read more about that BMS Christmas Flight long ago if you have more to share. Perhaps try making a new topic in #screens-aars for that purpose?

:nerd_face:That looks awesome. X-plane really handles low angle lighting well.

@Freak I went and looked for my old screenshots on the PC I was using for BMS – now my oldest son’s PC and couldn’t find anything. It’s a shame too, because I had some pretty cool stuff on there. Guess I’ll just have to make more.

Picking up where I left off…

Heading south after skirting the northern Adriatic, I passed over LDSP.

Continued VOR navigation south eventually reaching Athens Greece. From there I headed northeast to try my hand at PARO airport flying the Alaska Airlines 737-800.

I knew it was going to be tricky, but no one told me the runway was in a hole.

Had to go around on that attempt and try again knowing I had to be dangerously slow…

I ended up overrunning the runway a few feet (well, you know), but I made it!

Taking off was again pretty dicey. Considering the stone wall I was facing:

I loaded 10,000 lbs fuel to make it to my next stop in Malaysia (I think) and made with no drama other than some IMC conditions.

Out of Bhutan:

I did a few hops in the DHC-2 Beaver so I could get a look at the landscape:

This one is flying west across Jakarta

Though I was trying to make the flight with simple nav aids, I had the Garmin GNT-750 installed and I missed that mountain.

My flight planner clearly showed a runway here:

Thankfully, there was a divert field a few miles south.

I went back to X-Plane and the King Air for the remainder of the Christmas flight.

It was really bad weather all the way in.

I thought I had gotten behind a landing aircraft here:


See the light ahead of me?

Turns out it wasn’t an aircraft, but the runway lights!

This was a very bumpy ride with a lot of gusting winds. Awesome fun!

Here I am on the ramp.

Thank you for the opportunity to participate I had a great time planning and flying!

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Nice AAR! That makes two of us who made a detour through the Himalayas.

Whew. What started out as the Mudspike Christmas flight turned into an around-the-world trip. My first. In a C-130 Hercules. Many, many issues along the way–replaced engines, parts, pumps, tires, etc; a couple of emergency diverts; route changes. 15 days, 14 legs, 22,973nm, about 90 hours of stick time in the C-130. Don’t think I’ll be doing that again anytime soon. :dizzy_face:

Made it to YPXM in time for Christmas, and made it home to KTUS in time (just) for New Years Eve. Borrowed a gate from Southwest:

Route was westbound:
KTUS-KSAN-PHTO-PLCH-NSTU-NVSS-YBTL-YPDN-YPXM-FJDG-FSIA-HRYR-DIAP-SOCA-MMUN-KTUS

map

Happy 2018, Pilots!!

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