I still don’t know why I attempted this. I usually fly everywhere with at least two of everything: Two jet engines, two navigation radios and a choice of two meals (beef or fish). So quite why I attempted to travel from Dublin to London in a Sopwith Camel I’ll never know.
I suppose that after almost three years of FS98 I suffer from delusions of adequacy, moving around the world with a lot of help from VORs, ILS beacons, and a stack of Jeppesen maps. Not to mention my very best friend - the autopilot.
But the Sopwith Camel has no navigation radios to tune in, and no autopilot. Worst of all, (for someone who flies with a mouse and a keyboard) the autocoordination must be selected off. That’s because taildraggers have to be steered around on the ground using the rudder. Needless to say it took much persistence just to begin to come to grips with this winged heap of nostalgia.
The Preparation
One thing that I discovered is that the Camel required an extremely flat final approach, (it has no flaps) otherwise it would bounce, and bounce, and bounce all the way down a ten thousand foot runway! So how flat? A rate of descent of about 5 feet/minute seemed about right. Though it’s hard to tell because the Camel doesn’t have any roc/rod instruments either.
So, after only two successful landings (that’s 2 out of 25) I boldly decided that I was ready to fly to London City airport. To paraphrase Homer Simpson: "2 out of 25…Hmmm I like those odds!"
If I didn’t get lost, the total distance would be about 250 nm. I would initially head out on 130 degrees. Problem is, all I know about "ded wreckoning", is how to spell it. If I managed to get close to the Greater London area, I should be able to stumble on at least one of the many airports there and get my bearings. I should then be able to find the Thames River and make my way to my destination. Gee, what could possibly go wrong?
So on Sunday October 28 I checked the weather for both Dublin and London and found that the wind was blowing from the southwest at somewhere between 28 and 38 MPH. I cannot even taxi the Camel in a wind of more than 10 kts because it tends to tip over. Striking a wing tip on the ground registers as a crash.
I just had to wait. Great Britain was in the grip of its worst storms in thirty years. In fact, I had two and a half weeks to come to my senses and abandon the whole trip!
But of course I didn’t. After all, this is just a simulation, and the worst injuries that I ever suffered while flightsimming were when I attempted a backcourse approach into Kaoushiung’s Rwy 27R in low visibility. (Go on try it I dare you.) And all I suffered then was a crushed ego, dislocated pride, severe embarrassment and a broken heart. Brain damage is something that I no longer fear because we all know that it is a prerequisite for really serious simming.. No, my greatest fear is having to sit still while my whole life is replayed before my eyes. (A severe case of death by boredom)
The Journey
By Wednesday November 15, the westerly winds had calmed down to just 8 kts at Dublin and 2 kts at London. However it was raining, with just 5 miles visibility, and there was a cloud base of around 2000 feet. Before I set off, I set the tower view to the coordinates at London City. I hasten to add that I did this just out of habit, not to use it to "cheat" later on if I became hopelessly lost. (Trust me, I’m a flightsimmer.)
8:05 am: With the fuel tanks filled to the brim (40 gallons), I swung around and taxied out to Rwy 29. At the threshold, I gave it full throttle but it wouldn’t go past 1600 rpm! No worries, I’ve encountered this problem before. The solution is to SELECT AIRCRAFT "Cessna" move the mixture control to full/rich and then SELECT AIRCRAFT "Sopwith Camel". Full throttle again and this time I managed a smooth liftoff. I gradually gained altitude as I gently banked around to the southeast. Unfortunately, the flight almost ended there and then, as I cut across the path of an Aer Lingus 737 which was departing on Rwy 28. (I’ll tell you what, the day they build wake turbulence into the FSTraffic program, I’m a dead man.)
Now heading 130 degrees, I skimmed along the bottom of the cloud base at about 1800 feet and dared not go any higher. You see, there is no artificial horizon in the Camel and no way to tell which way is up when you’re in a cloud. So 1800 feet was to be my cruising altitude for the flight across the Irish Sea!
8:43 am: By now I had discovered that there is no way to increase the simulation rate in the Camel. I reached the Welsh coastline, so if I was still on track, then I was already 70 nm closer to my destination. The fuel gauge was showing a tad under four fifths total capacity. This meant that I should just about have enough fuel to go the full distance. Great! Simply spiffing in fact. (That’s a very British expression and I can’t wait to see how it looks after being put through an American spellchecker.)
8:56 am: I had crossed Cardigan Bay and was over land again. But there were hills looming up ahead. As I crossed them I found myself squeezed between the tops of the hills and the underside of the clouds. I had a horrible feeling that the green figures 42 on my map were indicating the minimum safe altitude (4200 feet) to travel over this terrain. I encountered two more sets of hills over the next 50 minutes. I had to fly between the peaks, some of which were higher than the 1800 feet at which I was forced to fly.
9:50 am: The fuel gauge was now showing slightly under two fifths capacity, and I figured that it was about time for me to change course to 105 deg. The cloud was now breaking up a little, but visibility was decreasing markedly as I slowly approached the outskirts of the city. Even so, I started to relax a little. No, I wasn’t getting over confident, it’s just that I started to get one of my silly ideas. A few minutes later, I’d decided that this silly idea was actually quite a good one, and I could feel myself starting to smile. (This is something that I rarely do as it looks hideous and tends to frighten small children.) A little while later I’d upgraded this "good" idea to "brilliant". I’ll tell you about this brilliant idea later but first I had to find some landmarks and establish my position.
10:07 am: Visibility was now down to 2.5 miles, and the fuel gauge was showing one fifth. I decided to take a punt and turned right to 130 degrees again to follow a major road. Four minutes later I spotted a small airstrip next to a string of lakes to my left. I banked to go over and take a look. There was one bitumen strip with no markings and one grass strip. Was it Northolt? Leavesden? I circled back to pick up the road again, now heading 165 degrees. Soon after, I saw a massive airport straight ahead. I had wandered into the airspace over Heathrow, and I wondered if they had the authority to launch surface to air missiles to take out clowns like me. Oh well, at least I knew where I was now. Directly over the Terminal buildings I turned left to 090 degrees and flew between the parallel runways with big jets heading towards me both to my left and right.
10:25 am: I could see Battersea power station straight head and Big Ben further up and to my left. What now? Should I make a small diversion for a barrel roll over Buckingham Palace? No, that would be unseemly behavior for a man of my age. Besides , the fuel situation by now was critical, so I elected to maintain my heading and fly under the top gantry of Tower Bridge. (You see, you’re only young once, but anyone can be immature.)
10:30 am: Rather stupidly now, I was lifting myself up off my seat in an attempt to save precious fuel. And then, 2 miles ahead, I saw an aircraft rising up from behind a tall building. That must be London City Airport! Now flying downwind and parallel to the runway, I started to smile again as I descended to just 500 feet. I knew that the fuel could run out at any moment, but as I turned left on base, and then left again on final I decided that it was it was appropriate to bring my brilliant idea into play. Unknown to me there was a London City Airways BAe 146 bearing down on me from behind, but it didn’t matter because I had already decided that whatever happened during the next couple of minutes, would be my secret.
Bill Smith
Perth, Western Australia.
