The Official 4th Annual Mudspike Christmas Flight - 2018 Edition

Lulz. :no_mouth:

Ha. Daoh, first cup of coffee.

It was a wild flight, so far none of us have had any sort of luck with the weather out here. Everything is either crazy low vis or some wild wind gusts! Makes for some fun approaches!

Leg 5 Ordu (LTCB) to Noshahr (OINN)

Heading further east from one small unknown airport to another small unknown airport. This is now a longer 686 nm flight over Anatolia and northern Iran.

The winds at FL290 would favor a more southern route but for safety reasons I prefer to stay north as this allows me to stay further away from Syria. The FAA proposes a 200nm safety boundary (probably due to the S300 missile system which has about this range) around Syria which I’m going to scratch a little bit in the north-eastern part.

I understand that most war activities are currently happening in the western part of the country so that the north-east should not be a big issue.

My fully packed TBM-900 together with 270 gallons of fuel is now rather on the heavy side and the CG pretty much aft and close to the landing getting even further back. I’m wondering how much of a difference it will be with such a heavy loaded aircraft…

With the long runway, the wight of course is not an issue at all…

The aircraft climbs nicely almost as if the load would but nothing unusual…

Having experienced fuel shortage in one of my previous flights and now that I’m flying over mountainous terrain with very few airports on the route I do regular fuel checks. At least every half hour or at every waypoint I compare Expected Fuel on Board vs. Actual Fuel on Board and notice that I’m always safely above the expected value.

The sun gets down soon and I fly into the pitch black night.

After about 2h and 30 minutes I have the runway in front of me.

One can nicely see the lights showing the cost line as Noshahr is at the south of the Caspian Sea. I touch down nicely (I think I finally get used to this aircraft!) and shut down on the taxiway as this is the only thing of the airport that is actually modelled.

Maybe I could have chosen a nicer airport but at night it looks ok :wink:

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I planned for my TBM-900 270 Gallons for my 686nm flight which makes about 0.39 USG per nm and 0.35 per statute. Not much of an improvement in regards to fuel/distance ratio in the last 50 years :laughing:

also considering that the trimotor is heaver and takes more load…

2 Likes

Fifth entry for the Christmas Challenge.

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Click to reveal AAR

I’ve finally decided to pick up the Aeroplane Heaven Lancaster Mk IB. We’re flying in “G for George” (AR-G, W4783) from the RAAF No. 460 Squadron. This Lancaster flew 90 missions over Germany (90!) and occupied Europe between 1942 and 1944 without the loss of a single crewmember. Retired in 1944, “G for George” was flown to Australia to assist in the War Bonds drive. Post war, it was left to decay in the open air at RAAF Base Fairbairn, before being moved to the AWM in the early 1950s.

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I have a special thing for the Lancaster. It’s one of the few airworthy WWII planes I’ve had the chance to see fly in Gatineau in the Wings Over Gatineau airshow… and then we were allowed to hop inside and visit it and talk to the pilots.



Caution: the bomb bay is H-U-G-E!

The crew enters by the side door

The Lanc’… What a truly magnificent plane.

Fueling up. There are “simulator switches” on the flight engineer panel that call the ground power cart and the refueling truck. Notice the ground power unit on the third engine: this is the first one we have to start in the start-up sequence. Nice touch from the developer.

First, we set the battery on (panel to the left of the pilot seat).

Then, we close the bomb bay doors. There’s a nice little menu that you can use by pressing LSHIFT+1, or you can just use the bomb bay lever in the picture above.

Doors open

Doors closed

On the Electrical Panel, we also need to make sure both generator and alternator switches are ON

Then, we switch over to the Flight Engineer Panel, and then set Starboard and Port fuel tank selector wheels (in red) to the No. 2 Tank. Don’t forget to lock them into position using the middle mouse button.

Checking fuel with the Fuel Contents switch.

Then, we switch on all four Fuel Booster Pump switches (DOWN = ON).

We then hold the Oil Dilution for No. 3 engine for 4-5 seconds. We shouldn’t need it, but it won’t hurt with these old, temperamental Merlin engines.

Pitot Heat ON

The engine start sequence is: 3, 4, 2 and 1.

Interestingly, this sequence order is based on the fact that only the inner engines carry generators to power the aircraft’s internal electrical systems, while the outboard engines have alternators.

So, about that engine start:

  • Setting parking brake
  • Propeller pitch levers to Full Fine
  • Fuel cock for engines 3 and 4 Open
  • Magnetos for Engine 3 and 4 On
  • Master Ignition switch On
  • Radiator Shutter switch - Auto
  • Cracking up engine 3 throttle to half an inch

Clear prop!

Flipping the starter cover for engine 3, pressing the switch… and I get a first failed engine start. I wait a minute, then try again. As the Merlin roars into life and engine parameters rise up, I get a strange tingly feeling in my groin area.

Sing, Merlin bird, sing!

Engine run-up goes smoothly, oil pressures and temperatures look good, coolant temperature looks good too.


Generators and Alternators OK.

Closing doors (LSHIFT+E), releasing parking brake setting Navigation lights On and taxiing to Runway 26

I may or may not have left quite an oily mess behind me

Cracking up the window for some fresh oil-scented air

Taxiing towards Runway 26. I use a mix of left/right throttle control and differential braking.

Taking position on the treshold

Prepar3d can look good too!

Aligning my compass. I rotate the bezel (compass ring) until the red N is opposite the cross of the needle. The white lubber line indicates a heading of roughly 260, which shows that we’ve aligned this properly with the runway heading.

Setting all my radiators to OPEN

Another british-ism: you actually have to turn on the Flaps Meter Indicator Power switch in order to read the position of the flaps. Setting flaps 20 for takeoff and a little nose down trim.

Ready for takeoff. Manual prescribes the following:

  • Set propeller pitch levers to full fine pitch
  • Open throttles eventuly and slowly, advancing the port throttles slightly to overcome any tendency to swing as you accelerate
  • Push the controls forward to assist the tail off the ground as soon as possible after opening to full takeoff power
  • Aircraft should be held in this position until at least 95 mph is achieved
  • At around 100 mph, ease the controls back to liftoff

How hard could it be? I allow my speed to build up to 130 and the aircraft flies itself off the runway.

Positive rate, reaching 500 ft. Gear up, flaps up.

Switching off fuel booster pumps

Climbing at 170 mph, steering 245, starting the clock. 106 nm to go in that direction.

Goodbye, Phoenix!

Settings for climb (Merlin XX): 2850 RPM, + 9 boost. Since these engines are old, I’ll settle for 2650 RPM and + 4 boost (Max Continuous).


View through the navigator’s office

View through the radio operator’s office

Back in the “old days”, radio and navigation frequencies used preset frequencies. The radio operator had to manually set every red, blue and yellow knob and match letter codes.

The developer also implemented a secret panel that uses a modern radio. Here, we have our frequencies set to the KSAN ATIS and the KSAN ILS.

Flying over the desert

I still can’t get over how bloody gigantic this plane is

It’s getting hot in here. The Lanc’ is like a greenhouse. Let’s use that retractable curtain.

Aaah… much better now.

Once I reached roughly 28,000 ft, I try to figure out the autopilot. As it turns out, the “Auto Controls” aren’t too complicated. First, you set the AP control lever to SPIN, and the AP Clutch lever to IN.

Once you’ve got the AP armed, you can engage it by setting the AP Control Lever to IN (FWD). Then, you can steer the aircraft using the Steering lever and set the aircraft attitude with the Attitude selector.

View from the Bombardier panel

A better view

View from the Astrodome

Are we there yet?

View from the front turret

Doesn’t look very comfortable…

So far so good. No catastrophic failures yet.

Approaching Yuma. I was supposed to come by the North but wind drift brought me south of the town instead. At least we know where we are. Here’s the Colorado river.

Gulf of California in the distance

We can observe the Planta de Energía Geotérmica Cerro Prieto ( Cerro Prieto Geothermal Power Station) on the Mexican border.

Salton Sea

Mount Laguna

Checking the fuel in the auxiliary tanks. 400 UK gal total, same as on takeoff since I didn’t use the aux tanks.

We’re still good on fuel. We left with roughly 1500 UK gal, and we’re starting our approach with about 1300 UK gal. I may have gone overboard with the fuel reserve. After all, it was a rather short trip (270 nm).

Reaching KSAN airspace. The ATIS announces that Runway 9 is in use, so I’ll have to change my initial plan to land on Runway 27.

Approaching San Diego

For the approach, the manual says:

  • At 1500 ft, set speed to 135 mph with -1 lb boost and 2400 RPM. Set flaps 25 deg. Adjust trim
  • Once trimmed, increase throttle to 2650 RPM and +2 lbs boost and lower the undercarriage. Adjust trim.
  • At 600 ft, you should be on final at 130 mph, +2 lbs boost (level flight).
  • Reduce power to -2 to 0 lbs boost to achieve a descent rate of 400 ft per minute.
  • At 150 ft, lower flaps fully, open throttle to 2850 RPM and +2 boost.
  • Once over the treshold, close throttles and allow aircraft to settle on the main wheels.
  • Do not apply braking until tailwheel has touched down. Hold stick back for the remaining rollout and apply braking.

Swinging by MCAS/NAS Miramar to get to KSAN’s runway 9

On final

Easy there… that Lanc’ handles quite sluggish during the approach.

Almost there

Bombardier is about to need a new set of undies

Throttling up since I’m a bit too slow but the descent rate is good

Good landing. I came in a bit too slow: I did a perfect three-pointer instead of landing on both main gears as prescribed in the manual. Phew!

Clearing the runway

More Southwest planes… these guys are everywhere!

Shutting down the engines

Wow… that was a hell of a ride!

13 Likes

Nice AAR with the Lanc. :sunglasses:

Wheels

Fantastic! I’d love a study level Lanc.

This AAR makes me want to do a guide for the Lancaster so bad :slight_smile: Not everything is simulated, but much more than I initially thought. I learned plenty just writing this AAR, which is sort of a mini-guide by itself when you think about it…

1 Like

If that Lancaster was available for X-Plane I would buy it in an instant! It looks amazing.

Very cool account. You have a way of telling a story and always keeping us entertained.

Speaking of XP failures… You’re going to LOVE my next post. :smiley:

2 Likes

Sixth entry for the Christmas Challenge.

Well… it’s more like Entry 6.A. A for Aborted.

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Click to reveal AAR

So here I am in San Diego, prepping my 737-200. This is old hardware, especially with that Carousal IV-A, but if I survived a trip in the 727 I think I can survive a trip in the old 737.

It was roughly 6:50 AM.

Passengers come aboard the United Airlines 737-200 developped by FlyJSim.

Ground power kicks in. Time to get to work.

I plug in my CIVA coordinates (which takes bloody forever) to Mexico.

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I fire up the APU, then the engines as the pushback cart places me on the taxiway.

Good morning Mister Sun!

Lining up on Runway 9.

Throttling up to takeoff power

Picking up airspeed

V1, Rotate!

Pff, why would someone want to retire that plane? I still see Air Inuit 732s takeoff from CYUL all the time. Look at that gorgeous, noisy-as-hell beast!

“This plane is the BEST!” (actual quote from me, a few seconds after takeoff)

“Yep, totally worth it!” (another actual quote from me)

Now, this is the part where I go “what could possibly go wrong?”

THIS! FIRE!!!


Pulling the fire handle

Turning handle. Extinguishing agent is going through engine 2. As the agent kills the fire, I shut down engine 2 and start wondering what to do.

As I settle the aircraft in a straight-and-level attitude, Now that the fire is extinguished, I go through my options.

  1. Attempt to restart engine 2, which may very well be busted with all the extinguishing agent.
  2. If engine restart is possible, I “could” try to get to my destination. However, the engine fire probably burned through most of my right tank fuel. That sounds like a horrible, horrible idea.
  3. Regardless of whether or not I can restart the engine, I’ve got to save the aircraft first. With that rationale, the safest way to go is turning back and landing to KSAN with one engine.
  4. Keeping that in mind, I’ll have to touchdown as slowly as possible since using thrust reversers is out of the question (assymmetric thrust on landing? No thank you.) I’ll have to use manual braking and spoilers to slow me down as much as possible.

Approaching Miramar

Boy are these windows dirty. I’m starting to think this engine failure might be sabotage by one of the mechanics!

I hold 1500 ft AGL and 160 kts to enter the pattern on crosswind to land on Runway 9.

The landing isn’t pretty: I miss the treshold and land long…

I’m risking it: I fear more engine 1 dying on my go around than running out of runway length.

I got lucky: I had just enough room to not crash past the runway. Looks like I get to live another day.

Sadly going back to the Maintenance Hangar

“Dear passengers, this is your Captain speaking. I want to congratulate you on surviving your first 737-200 engine failure. I’ll go punch the Mechanic in the face shortly, and we’ll be back on our way to Mexico. We will now shut down the engines when we reach the ramp, where a company bus will bring you back to the Terminal.”

Like NEW?

This IS suspicious.

So… we’ll try it again next time once the engine has been overhauled…

12 Likes

It’s cold, it’s windy and it’s getting dark. None of the variables are really in my favor, except for maybe the temperature. But that’s fine with me, one more leg after this and then it’s the big one. I plan to do both.

The landing is a bit squeamish, again the winds are not favorable. I meet the 2 Bonanzas and it’s exciting knowing that in a few short hours it’ll be over to PASY and from there we head on into Russia.

Cue next morning, 2 Bonanza’s and a TBM900 sit cold on the ramp awaiting a fillup and a pilot. We depart westbound for PASY. The TBM900 has no trouble at all making this trip, one V35 opts for a short hop to PADK and the other will set off later in the day. I wait for the Bonanza to backtrack down the runway and depart, shortly thereafter follow suit. I quickly pass him in the climb (see lights in front of my right wingtip) and reach cruise.

PASY is far calmer with the weather, relatively speaking.

A quick capture of the ILS and it’s onto the runway and into the ramp to prep for the big leg.
I happened to park beside a KC-10, 1 of 2 on the field at the time.

Several hours later, the plane is refuelled and ready to move. The flight plan is set, DCT LUMES DCT UHPP.
I delayed the departure as 2 SIGMET’s regarding turbulence and icing were in effect. I planned to arrive just after they had expired, hoping that maybe it would clear up.

Nothing but ocean below, of course that’s actually blocked by the nice layer of cloud beneath me. Overhead several UPS cargo flights pass by, as well an Air Canada flight on it’s way to Tokyo. Much like the TBM makes the V35’s look like they’re standing still, same applies to the 787 and the 767 to the TBM.

2 uneventful hours later and it’s time to descend. Pull up the charts, prep the AI systems and brief the approach. The weather wasn’t terrible, winds were variable and it was snowing and raining at the same time. Interesting mix to say the least, but also something to keep an eye on.

Passing the 11,000ft mark and the precip began to hit. Nothing major as far as turbulence or icing fortunately, it seems to have cleared up somewhat since I saw the SIGMETs earlier. (You can see the boots in action on the inner leading edge)

Following the approach procedure it’s a right turn and down from 4070ft to 2100. From there we will capture the glideslope and ride that into the field.

Fortunately, despite clouds being scattered around the 500ft mark, it ended up being relatively ok for visibility. I had the airport in sight off and on but maintained the ILS down. About 1200ft I broke out and was able to complete the landing visually. While the weather could be better, so far it’s provided a nice little challenge. I had the TBM looked over and so far everything seems to be in good order, despite several rough landings.

@Chuck_Owl Agreed, seeing Canadian North 732 depart out of CYEG is probably the best thing. Loud but glorious aircraft for sure. Good to see you got the plane down safely, that thing is a handful with 2 engines, let alone one!

8 Likes

I fully agree! The Ju-52, in many aspects a very similar aircraft, uses about 0.9 gal per statute. And yes, today speed and reliability of course are also a very important factors…

1 Like

When I saw Avro Lancaster on the briefing sheet, an eyebrow raised, surely not THE Avro Lancaster? That looks like a heck of a plane, I may have to pick it up.

3 Likes

Hampton to Pago Pago Leg 2 Continued - Keflavik to Trondheim, Vaernes: After a couple of days enjoying the Icelandic scenery (OK, we met up and went pub hopping with a couple of turboprop drivers for some airline called Mudspirit? Mudsplice?), it was time to finish leg 2.

I used the same flight plan as before and recalculated the fuel requirements using fuel planner.

FlightPlan

FP


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Takeoff from runway 29, with the tower and old USN P-3 hangar in the background.

Positive rate - Gear coming up - This jet loves to fly!

With detailed scenery you can get a good visual cross-reference as you pass over NAV Fixes

Getting close to the ING VORDME - the last navigation point for 560 Nm.
Good to see that the INS agrees closely with the plane’s VOR…when you add a couple miles for slant range to 35,000.

Close Up

The turn…next landfall will should be Norway…it’s a long North-South country…I shouldn’t miss it.

These legs were over water…I did’t bother with screen shots. The CVR was running so if you want to hear the conversation between myself and copilot (one of my cats)…

CVR Trtanscript

FO “Meow”
CAPT “Good kitty”

FO “Meow…Meow”
CAPT “Good kitty”

FO “Meow”
CAPT “Good kitty”

FO “Meow…Meow”
CAPT “Good kitty”

My copilot sights the coast first. As I pass the next waypoint, I use the Doppler system to count down the miles for TOD…it worked well and meant that I didn’t have to add another waypoint to the CIVA.

After so much time over the water, I want to do a check against landmarks to see if or how far the INS has drifted. Checking for a prominent local landmark…OK, there is off to the left… looks good, I am close to the plotted course.

I took off just after dawn, but with the short days this far north, the sun appears to have passed zenith already. (Plus I was heading east.)

Trondheim in sight to the right. My flight plan calls for passing the city and then I had planned to use a published approach…but it is too nice a day for that. I disconnect autopilot and hand fly a circling descent. There is an SAS jet on final so I do my circling northwest of the active, RWY 09.

As I dirty up I add a new item to my instrument scan–al lesson learned from @Chuck_Owl , check flaps agreement.
Flaps_Check Flaps_Check

As I turn onto final after the SAS jet I’m still a bit high…so I take it down a bit more “enthusiastically” than normal.

I’ve descended enough (actually a bit too much) and am fighting a bit of a crosswind…and I’m faster than Vref…still, it’s a long runway…

…and I use most of it on roll out. Hey, it they didn’t want you to use the whole runway they wouldn’t have paved the whole runway.

Stopped at Gate 37 and properly parked.

Disembarking the passengers and thinking about the next flight.

Right now I have a plan for ENVA to LDDU, Dubrovnik, Croatia. Why? Why not? Actually the reason is that I’ve got ORBX scenery for LDDU and I find it a challenging airport.

As far as planes go, the 707 has been fun and now that I think I’ve got the fuel dialed in (use Fuel Planner and add a 2 thousand pounds) I feel more comfortable. Still, with only one INS system…not as comfortable for long over water flights. The next leg is mostly Europe. So if I fly by the INS and keep up with the legs on the Doppler system as back up…plus there will be enough VORs and ADF for crosschecking…I will be just fine. I

Still… JustFlight’s L1011 professional has triple CIVA so that may be an idea. Or I may switch to a glass-cockpit jet.

Regardless, if I stay with long range jets I only have 4, maybe 5 legs left. That will put me into Pago Pago way before Christmas…and then what?

These are the weighty questions I will be wrestling with over the next few days. :thinking:

10 Likes

Second sixth entry for the Christmas Challenge.

After our engine failure at KSAN during our first attempt, time to try it again. I’ll keep a closer look to the engines this time.

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Click to reveal AAR

Doing the CIVA tango… again. (sigh)

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This time, I’m taking a rental.

Checking that the CIVA coordinates are entered properly and that the distances match.

Mexico Airport is pretty high… more than 7000 ft!

Taxiing… again…

According to the takeoff card, I need to make sure I don’t exceed 2.15 EPR during takeoff. I’ll try to aim towards 1.9-2.0-ish.

I pick up some speed, then I rotate about 10 kts after V2.

So far so good… no engine fire this time.

Heading towards IPL (Imperial)

I’ve always loved the bare metal look of old classic jets.

So far so good

Turning into MXL (Mexicali)

Time to cross the US-Mexico border.

Contrails

Progress

Gulf of California in the distance

Now comes the looong cruise to AMUDI, PPE (Penasco) and ZCL (Zacateras).

It’s going to be a long way to Queretaro (QET), where Bombardier Aerospace has a plant to work on the Challenger, Q400 and Global parts. A friend of mine I studied with in university actually ended up working there. With the newest layoffs announced last week, I have a sobering thought… “How many will still be working there a year from now?”

Isla de San Jorge in the distance

Now, here comes the super-boring part. Ugh.750 nm to go until ZCL.

El Alamo mountains

Still going…

The western Sierra Madre

What a breathtaking view!


Over the Área Natural Protegida Sierra de Álamos

We’re more than halfway through our fuel with 225 nm to go until reaching ZCL.

Lake Santiaguillo, near the Aeropuerto Internacional de Torreon

Finally reaching Queretaro. 95 nm until Mexico. Starting my descent.

Huapango Lake

50 miles out of Mexico, the ATIS tells me that there is yet another change of plan. Instead of landing at runway 05L, I’ll have to take 05R. The landing card tells me I’ll have to land with flaps 30 with a touchdown speed of VREF + 5 (130 kts).

There are a number of beautiful national parks on the descent path. Cumbres del Ajusco National Park, Parque Nacional Nevado de Toluca and Reserva de la Biósfera Santuario Mariposa Monarca, which is a natural reserve for Monarch butterflies.

Almost there!

On approach

Disconnecting autopilot

(Drumroll)

Coming in a little high, but power and speed are good.

Touchdown

Thrust reversers for good measure

Vacating runway

That went pretty well all things considered!

APU ON, shutting down engines.

Everyone out. It’s getting hot in here.



5 Likes

Ha! Glad to see someone learned from my mistakes :slight_smile:

In your next AAR, could you further explain things about the operation of the aircraft? Small things like engine start-up, fuel balancing, approach flap scheduling… that sort of technical stuff. I’d find it really interesting.

1 Like

From the Island of Okinawa one of the last bastions of Imperial resistance in WW2, to Taipei Taiwan one of the few nations that has directly stood up to the Red Dragon of China since its founding.

route

The trip from Kadena to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport in Taipei isn’t terribly long, 362 NM. I had contemplated island hopping a bit to get to Taiwan, but the terrain and flight wouldn’t be terribly interesting. So with that in mind, it was time to kick the tires and light the fires. Or rather follow through the 60 page expanded checklist to bring this beast to life.

The PMDG BAe Jetstream 4100 is the newest edition to my virtual fleet (this whole Xmas flight thing has not been kind to my wallet!) after someone mentioned it in another thread. She’s a short to mid range feeder turboprop, using a pair of Garrett (well now days HoneyWell) TPE331 fixed shaft turboprops. She can carry 29 passengers roughly 700 NM, and do so at a reasonable 230-260 knots IAS. Real world, they are apparently a bit cramped, and quite loud to ride in, and a “sweet” aircraft to fly. In FSX:SE, this being a PMDG bird, it’s very high fidelity, and apparently has a bit of a reputation online for torching engines.

So with that in mind, I read the tutorial carefully a few times and the relevant sections of the manual. A full startup from C&D does take a bit, mainly checking various warnings, and going through a 2 person flow, with 1 person. Engine start is anti-climatic, so long as you verify the props aren’t feathered, and soon enough we have two humming (and noisy) engines. With a total weight of just shy of 23,000 lbs we’re leaving almost fully loaded. The weather is cool and we’re almost at sea level, so the air is plenty dense.

So with enough runway to launch an SR-71, and the throttles almost alway the forward (we torqued out with another ~20 degrees C of EGT to work with) off we went. IIRC correctly, you’d probably have been able to see the house I grew up in at Kadena in this shot real world.

Banking onto track, we transition to climb power. Throttle back a bit to lower the EGT, condition levers back to 98% RPM, and if you did it right your right at max continuous EGT. She climbs out quite nicely at 170 knots IAS giving you approximately 2000 FPM initially. As an side, the JS4100 features a FMS that’s actually rather user friendly (as much as they get). Once you get that programed you can set the AP to follow the LNAV all the way down the glideslope almost.

Soon enough we reach cruise altitude of FL160, which was nice and clear. We brought the RPM to 96% for cruise and had a nice steady 233 knots IAS with the head wind.

Racing the moon.

With really not much in the way of interest happening, we eventually sight Taiwan. The FMS doesn’t do the VNav for you, but it gives it all to you on a silver platter. Simply dial in the VS as indicated, and you’re good. Now one thing about the JS4100 is that it doesn’t really like to slow down when descending. As discussed in my previous post about the F-27 fixed shaft turboprops always put out 20-30% thrust even at idle. So the idea is to “slow down, then go down.” We pull the power levels back to idle and once we hit 170 knots, start our descent.

On approach, flaps 9 (the first notch), and we’re probably already riding the ILS beam in.

Still on approach, definitely on the ILS, gear and flaps 15. She is incredibly docile following the ILS in.

And down, you can see flaps 25 hanging there, but the top of wing spoilers have lain back down at this point. One thing to be careful of on landing, when you drop the power into reverse, keep an eye on the gauges so you don’t overtemp or over torque the engines in reverse. The JS4100 is definitely not a STOL super star like the Dash 7, but that’s not a surprise.

Overall I found the JS4100 a joy to fly. It really is fun to hand fly a lot of the flight. Later testing, involving single engine operation, and even an unfeathered dead engine, she still does well being hand flown. Single engine operation with a feathered prop really doesn’t cause many handling issues at all (well expect when you go to reverse out of habit on landing).

It was a toss up between the JS4100 and the Majestic Dash 8. The JS4100 really is fun to fly, and with it’s smaller size and shorter legs, better fits what I find interesting. Now if I can just get it to work with Air Hauler 2 I’ll be all set.

7 Likes

As do I. However, the CS 707 is unfortunately not very detailed in that regard. I’ve been a bit disappointed with it. Which is another reason I’m thinking of going with another aircraft.

If I stay with the 707 I’ll try to use the real manual more…even if it really does not impact the sim…and add more of that to the AARs.

1 Like