127 replies to this topic

[Ted_Ball]

Currently I do a simple take off without going through the checklist. The plane is already turned on and the prop is turning. I just apply throttle and fly. I just wanted to get some miles away from Australia and fly without a long learning curve.

 

Over the next weeks I'll start to go through the checklist for cold starting the plane and more official procedures with ATC to make it more of an experience.

 

There's a very good Youtube video for all that stuff if any one is interested in flying this simple trainer aircraft...

 

 

He explains things much better than I can (I know very little). I found a 1 hour clock and Jugador - the alternator needle moves on start up.

[Mulligan]

Thanks for this thread! It's become a daily read for me.

[Jugador]

 Wow...that's wild...I was watching the startup and I noticed after he started the motor, the alternator needle hadn't moved (4.50 second mark), and I'm thinking that's not good (alternators' not charging) then he flips a red switch to "turn alternator on", and needle jumps into green.  Great thread...    

[Ted_Ball]

I was encouraged and vindicated somewhat by the guy in that video. He clearly liked the plane and when he said he liked the fact that it had no GPS justified my choice. For me it has to be a challenge for the game to have longevity. It happened with PG when I started playing nude golf. Somehow it makes me want to get up in the morning and start flying to see what difficulties will occur and what sights I will see.

 

 

 

He mentioned the 'Trim Slider'. It is designed to keep the plane flying level (or at a constant angle of pitch). As with most of the variables you can point the curser at the device and make adjustments or use the controller buttons.

 

 

 

I didn't really like the Trim Slider because it didn't hold that well so I keep trim by using throttle. I use the A and B buttons. So it's a dab of A and pull back a bit on the stick to raise the nose (pitch up) or B for down. It holds level quite well in calm weather but turbulence throws it out which it does using the Trim Slider anyway so I may as well just fly the plane without that aid.

 

 

 

Dead reckoning is a simple concept but not so easy to master. If I keep my airspeed constant by adjustments of throttle and pitch - my heading constant by the compass (obviously) - and compensating for take off and landing - I should get near enough to my destination to find it. So I mainly keep on eye on 3 gauges - Airspeed, Heading and Vertical Speed. Wind is a variable that I haven't come to terms with yet. It doesn't seem to throw me out too badly but I haven't tested dead reckoning enough times to make a call.

 

 

I was going to retell the Francis Chichester story re dead reckoning but I remembered I'd made a post on this forum with this story about 18 years ago.

 

 

Here it is...

 

 

Sir Francis Chichester became world famous in 1967 by becoming the first person to achieve a true circumnavigation of the world sailing solo from West to East via the great Capes. But in the late 1920s before he became a sailor, Chichester was a daring airman flying solo across vast oceans in a de Havilland Gypsy Moth biplane. On one trip he had to fly to Lord Howe Island - a speck in the Pacific - from New Zealand. He only had enough fuel to get to his destination and, therefore, had to hit the mark or ditch and die. His method of navigation was with a sextant and had to do calculations in an open cockpit while flying the aircraft and also had to use a certain amount of dead reckoning. Without going into detail, he found an ingenious method of surviving. The problem was that if he flew as straight as he could to Lord Howe using those unreliable navigation systems then what if he missed? What if he got to the position where he thought the island should be and had no visual contact? The question would be - which way do I turn? If he chose the wrong direction it's all over. It's an old navigational trick of course but what he did was deliberately aim to miss to the right!! When he flies to the distance of Lord Howe from New Zealand (and can't see the island) he then TURNS LEFT! Bingo.

[Goran JoeMen]

Great video but I wish he had people not speaking english as first language in mind. He talked so fast my brain hurts, trying to hang on almost gave me a second stroke lol. Not sure I can get all this stuff, sounded easier reading your posts Ted 

[Ted_Ball]

Yeah. I agree Goran - and I speak english I think. I'll post about some of the things he mentions over the weeks.

[Armand]

Maybe this link helps, Goran?

 

https://www.youtube....bed/rLJplk8KOkw

[Ted_Ball]

 

Taiwan is a beautiful island. It's like this all the way up the east coast. And it's much bigger than I thought. 

You can see Shirley's hand print on the side canopy. She knows it's there. I'm just going to leave it there and say nothing. I tried to have no co-pilot but it seems I had to nominate one. I chose a female because I thought there would be more...ummm...decorum in the cockpit!

 

A carefree trip up to Taipei in the north. Good weather most of the way and I simply followed the coast. I turned west north of the mountains into the Taipei valley using Google Earth as a map. I just flicked over to PC where GE was open and referenced landmarks. It's just like having a map on your knees so it's legit.

 

There is a Trim wheel between the seats which would be handy in real life. The guy in the video only showed the slider up towards the panel.

If I'm using the trim I hold down right button and move right stick up or down.

 

[Perculator]

Ted,

If you are flying like that with no GPS, real weather and no AP my hat is truly off to you. I could never do it. I too enjoy realism in the sim but the fact that in the real world, I believe most pilots attempting a trip such as yours would avail themselves of as much  modern technology as they could get (afford). Anyway, cheers and happy landings.

Perc

[Ted_Ball]

Thanks Perc. I tried a quick flight in a Boring 747. It's no wonder those pilots are all alcoholics. I'm drunk on the thrill of adventure. I'm going to introduce 'Failure' into the options too. Assuming I don't die in a crash landing or ditch in the middle of the ocean, I'll rely on dumb luck to carry on.

 

I had a 212 km trip over the Formosa Strait to mainland China so I thought I'd try another dead reckoning without storms mucking things up.

 

I needed a direct heading so I opened Google Earth, drew a line from airport to airport with the ruler and took a screen print. I uploaded the photo to an online protractor which is transparent over the photo.  297 deg. (WNW).

 

The Robin flies beautifully in calm weather and once I got up to speed and the correct heading at 1000 feet she kept that heading and 185 km/hr steadily with only an occasional nudge of the stick forward or back or up and down with a very occasional bump of the throttle. The 60 minute clock was handy to have. I calculated 70 minutes for the flight.

 

I didn't get a definite view of the China mainland until about 30 kms out. I kept the settings until I reached the coast to see just how close I came to the nominated airport.

 

The timing was perfect to the minute (or less). I was about 9kms south of the runway at the coast but I put that down to the plane drifting 30 deg. to the left just after take-off for about 15 seconds while I was distracted getting up to speed. I tried to compensate but, anyway, I was happy with the outcome. (Shows you why Chichester did his thing.) In clear weather, 9 kms at 1000 feet gives you a visual of the airport (which had a flashing light at the start of the runway anyway). 

[Ted_Ball]

China was an eye opener. Came out of awful weather down into the vast Shanghai plains. The landscape was dotted by what you would have to call cities among patchworks of food crops. There was nothing else. Every minute or so I'd fly over another city of a multitude of high rise apartment blocks. There were hundreds of cities - and then Shanghai CBD itself was an endless sea of apartment buildings. I make no comment. I make no judgement. I will only make observations.

 

 

I flew between (not into) the Shanghai Tower and her sisters.

 

 

I was going to fly on to Beijing - then to South Korea and North Korea - but, frankly I couldn't bear it.  So I'm going to fly from Shanghai to the volcanic island of Jeju off the south coast of South Korea and not far from Japan. 510 km and a real test of dead reckoning.

 

Then I'll have a wonderful leisurely trip up through Japan with the enhanced graphics download.

[Ted_Ball]

This is an example of traps for young flyboys. I had a 530 km flight across the east China Sea to the dormant volcanic island of Jeju. (In the previous post I said it was 510 kms. Google Earth and Microsoft Flight Sim differ in the distances. Therefore, I have to rely on MFS.)

 

I would be dead reckoning.

 

I'd worked out the heading and blithely flew off across the sea. Generally, over land, I would trim the plane and set the speed and wander off for lunch or the bathroom. I tried that with this trip but the plane would fall off the heading too much even though there was not much wind. 

 

So I kept an eye on the instruments and settled back for a couple of hours of flying - surrounded by a blue sea and beautiful weather. 

 

Then the mind starts to wander as I stare at the horizon looking for signs of land knowing there is nothing there. I started talk to myself and felt a bit like I had remembered Jimmy Stewart in "The Spirit Of St Louis" about Charles Lindbergh's non-stop flight across the Atlantic. He started to ponder a fly in the cabin and wondered whether it would add to the weight while flying around and so on. I started watching the movie again and he mentions dead reckoning!

 

Anyway, I got to the a point where I should start to see the island. I noticed a faint silhouette of an island right where I thought it would be and I was proudly heading straight towards it. At the same time I scanned the rest of the horizon and way off to the west there was the faintest hint of land. As it came a bit clearer it looked more volcanic than the one I was heading toward. I had a decision to make. Should I head to the other island or continue?

 

 

 

Or this one.......?

 

 

 

 

 

I decided to carry on and identify the first island from it's shape. It was a bit closer. I flew over it and it was clear I had the wrong island. So I turned to the west and headed to the other one. I had put in enough fuel but I had added about 40 kms to the flight. I couldn't believe I was that far off course.

 

It dawned on me that the compass on the instrument panel (that I was following) was wrong. The compass on the windscreen was obviously correct and would have delivered me close to the destination. That explains the misses I'd had earlier over shorter flights where the difference wasn't as critical.

 

As it turns out there is a dial on the instrument panel just below the compass which calibrates it to the other compass before take-off. Lesson learned.

 

 

 

 

 

That was the third life this Leo has used up. I've got plenty more.

[Ted_Ball]

[Ted_Ball]

Well, it had to happen.

 

Jeju to Nagasaki. I was off-course by quite a bit when I got to Japan and had a fair way to go to get back to the airport. The fuel warning light had come on earlier than I expected and the fuel tank was just about empty with about 20 kms to go. I had turned to line up with the strip when the engine cut out. I'd kept plenty of altitude in case of that and started to glide from a worrying distance out. I was down to 50 feet over the runway when she just dropped out of the sky because I had to keep the nose up.  It was a very heavy landing.

 

I'm not going to play the blame game but I'm confident that my new co-pilot, Yoko, will not make the same mistake.

 

(The fuel level before flight defaults to 50%.)

 

Four lives down. But really exciting!

[Ted_Ball]

I had been gliding without fuel (obviously) for about 10 seconds when I took this snapshot. It was a great indication of how much you can get away with. But I reckon if it had cut out 15 seconds earlier we would have been in the drink. I'm at about 400 feet here

 

 

 

 

I flew out of Matsuyama this morning and did a little detour across to Hiroshima. I read somewhere that they chose the city because it was in a natural bowl made by the surrounding hills which contained the explosion and made it more effective.

 

I buzzed the place where the famous Atomic Bomb Dome was supposed to be but it hadn't been rendered.

 

 

Japan is beautiful. Many big inland lakes and seas and thousands of islands with mountains and forests adding to the beauty. I don't know why the Japanese travel to Australia to be ripped off by unscrupulous tourist operators and greedy food outlets selling stuff of dubious quality and extreme prices when they have all this at home. That's in the south anyway.

 

I'm a bit taken with Japan. Sure there are plenty of earthquakes and the occasional tsunami together with nuclear power station explosions and subsequent meltdowns along with a couple of atomic bombs thrown in but, hey.....

 

The golf courses look nice.

 

I'm doing short, one hour-ish hops up the length of the country. Carefree flying and very enjoyable. I can't get lost with all the landforms etc. It's just great to fly around wherever I want and check out the scenery.

[theclubpro]

Great video but I wish he had people not speaking english as first language in mind. He talked so fast my brain hurts, trying to hang on almost gave me a second stroke lol. Not sure I can get all this stuff, sounded easier reading your posts Ted

You might can try slowing the video down in YouTube to see if that helps.

[Jugador]

You might can try slowing the video down in YouTube to see if that helps.

 I didn't know you could do that? I put it on 0.5, he sounds like he's drunk. lol 

[Ted_Ball]

I tried a night flight. There were no problems. In fact, navigation might have been easier - following lit up areas through mountain valleys and especially brightly lit airports. You can probably navigate by the stars as well. Will investigate.

 

 

The pools of light around each light source are remarkable. There was a large residence up in the mountains and the lighting around it made it look incredibly real.

 

You can't miss the airport....

 

[Jugador]

 Good stuff! 

[Ted_Ball]

I'm going to do a video of my flight around Fuji so I thought I'd better practice a capture.

 

It turned out to be my worst landing to date. I was fiddling with the capture button and had already aborted one landing when I saw how short the runway was. I was too low on approach so I couldn't throttle down too much, too early. In the end I came in too hot and didn't set her down early enough so I had to drop her in the end otherwise we would have been swimming - and I think I actually bounced. I could actually hear Yoko gripping the door handle. In the last few frames you can see me look around to see if the staff were watching. They were inscrutable.