The official 3rd Annual Mudspike Christmas Flight - 2017 Edition

Watch out for the reefs around Christmas Island…! :rofl:

I’ll have this sim on standby: Articles - Mudspike Forums

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Well I was going island hop across the pacific in this thing.

but machinations are afoot. Despite similarity to last year, I may be trading it in for something more… phabulous

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Oh dear. He’s going to bomb Christmas Island… We might need someone to get there early and defend it…!

That’s a phantastic idea. Sorry that I didn’t think of that :smile:

So what’s the idea here - pick a point, an aircraft and a sim and set off, or are there rules?

Pretty much. I believe that it is customary to sortie from the airfield nearest your home, ideally using real weather, and blogging your progress here. Equipment, methods of navigation, use of time acceleration, custom skin, etc are up to your interpretation of the spirit of the mission. In other words, it’s your journey to make as your imagination allows.

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Do you think the Christmas Island runway is long enough for an A320 or a 737? I might give this a try this year :slight_smile:

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Yes. Already tested the x737. Plenty of length. Virgin Australia operates A320s there.

Edit: More to your question, the Mudspike Annual Christmas Flight is an excellent way to learn an unfamiliar aircraft, since even one with long legs, will require 19 - 20 hrs of flight time. Case in point was my using the Cpt Sim B777F last year. While I didn’t have complete grasp of it by McMudo Station (never did get APP mode to capture and hand flew all approaches), I could at least start, takeoff, use the FMC to fly the planned route, and shutdown the beast. I also learned that P3D had reached the absolute limits of what was capible with 32 bit programming.

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No rules. As @chipwich said - we typically try to fly from the airport nearest our real location in the real world. So obviously, with 9,200 nm to Christmas Island for me…I probably won’t be flying an ultra-light… :smiley: But feel free to skip legs or use a supersonic aircraft or even swap out aircraft if you want to make it interesting. In previous years, I’ve used the C-17 when we went towards the North Pole, the Avro RJ, and a few others. As we speak, I’m going through my airplane inventory trying to settle on this year’s mount…

If I’m able to get a new video card installed, I’d actually considering either that, an Albatross, or a PBY.

That’s the main problem now, for me, too. I’ve narrowed it down to 15 and P3Dv4. Which I use would also depend on whether to start from Fenland - the nearest civvy airfield (although there is a grass strip about a mile from my house, along the side of a rugby field, that supports anything from HM Royal Helicopter fleet to Bird Dogs at the annual summer meets) or the closest military base, Coningsby. As that’s home to the BBMF, it could be interesting… :thinking:

Christmas Island has a 6900 Ft runway, 150 ft wide. Not too bad at all. No ILS though.

Nice thread and great advert for X plane 11 and flight sim world. Shame DCS dosn’t cover the world I would enjoy the chopper ride :slight_smile:

No ILS? Oh boy… gonna have to land manually then!

As long as I follow the flight director above the decision height I think I’ll be fine though.

Still trying to settle on my ride. I’m really liking the FlyJSim 727-100…although…err…my dual throttle HOTAS led to some asymmetric thrust problems. I’m sure it will buff out…

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hope the beer’s ok!

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These are my top three contenders for the Christmas Flight…

I’m partial to the 727-100 though for the short field capabilities in case I want to visit some interesting places enroute…

Hard to not like that cargo door on the DC-8 though… :thinking:

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Yeah - all my planes have had to be whittled away due to the distance - didn’t think of that, as most were props.

I’ll have to try out the Razbam Harrier again and see if I can get it working in P3Dv4 - otheriwse, I’ll have to have a rethink.

There are some nice rotorcraft for XP, but at 140 kts, you should have left yesterday :slight_smile:

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No such thought had crossed my mind, but now that you mention it… :thinking:

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