TVieno's Race to Chicago

[tvieno]

With VFR not being my forte, it was a fun test of my abilities. With the exception of making numerous circles over the east side of Brookville, I thought I did rather well. The first half I dead-reckoned from take off. Just fly heading of 270*, right? With the winds not in my favor, I tried to keep my heading until I came across one of the landmarks I planned on hitting (Lecontes Mills smoke stacks), from there I followed the highway to my destination. Or so I thought. I circled over what I thought was Clarion but what was in fact Brookville, looking for my little strip of grass. After a short while, I had a feeling I was not in the right place and flew up to 3750' to get a better view and my bearings. Judging from the road and power line placements, I figured I wasn't far enough west. After following the power lines for a bit, I just happened to look down to my left and saw a sliver of brown appear from under my wing and figured that had to be it. In addition to VFR being a soft spot with me, landing a tail dragging plane is another of mine. I got it down with only one hop. And I kept it on the runway! (Well, it's a big deal to me).



Tools I used:

• FSCommander for reference only (not connected; for vectors from other airports and use of a ruler)
• SkyVector.com for VFR sectionals.

Rules I placed upon myself:

• Only 2-d and 3-d cockpit views; no external views (if the pilot cannot leave the plane, why should I).
• No GPS (Removed from the panel config),
• No using the "contact Nearby Airports" in the comm window (possible triangulation by comparing nearest airports)
• No flight plan or IFR assistance from ATC. Only flight following is permitted.

FlightLog_21-52-52.TXT


::: upon further review.. I landed at the wrong airport.

[teson1]

Hi tvieno,
excellent opening to the show, with everything I was hoping for .
Exactly the right set of mind, and sharing experiences. Nice to follow along, with just a little bit of excitement added in. Seems you had a fun flight.
Great of you to share navigation tools, tips and experiences. I care about such way of navigation, and hope to learn a thing or two here.

Just make the short hop from Brookville over to Clarion and you'll be all set to continue.

Btw, do you have a way to identify landmarks present in FSX ? Are these identified in FSCommander or elsewhere? Interested.

Another question, and i hope that is no oversight on my side:
-> Did you fly full throttle with the Stearman PT-13D Kaydet ?
Because you've been flying at about 90 KIAS only.
I've only tested one model of David Eckert's Stearmans, and assumed all others would fly at 107 KIAS as well ...

Thanks.

Gunter

[salt_air]

A very impressive flight Tony ... as Gunter said you have captured the spirit that he is trying to recreate with this fine event.

Perfect post as well ... just jump right in a get it ... I Love it!




Well Done!

[tvieno]

Hi tvieno,
excellent opening to the show, with everything I was hoping for .
Exactly the right set of mind, and sharing experiences. Nice to follow along, with just a little bit of excitement added in. Seems you had a fun flight.
Great of you to share navigation tools, tips and experiences. I care about such way of navigation, and hope to learn a thing or two here.

Just make the short hop from Brookville over to Clarion and you'll be all set to continue.

Btw, do you have a way to identify landmarks present in FSX ? Are these identified in FSCommander or elsewhere? Interested.

Another question, and i hope that is no oversight on my side:
-> Did you fly full throttle with the Stearman PT-13D Kaydet ?
Because you've been flying at about 90 KIAS only.
I've only tested one model of David Eckert's Stearmans, and assumed all others would fly at 107 KIAS as well ...

Thanks.

Gunter

I do not know of anyway to identify landmarks in FSX. I believe Plan-G has a feature like that, though I am not entirely certain. And I don't use Plan-G because FSX uses enough of my resources already and Plan-G is labor intensive which kills my frame rates.

FSCommander does have a few landmarks, but most are in Europe. However, you are able to manually enter User Waypoints. I've done it for when I flew VFR Quebec.

The reason why I flew so slow is two fold. One, I misread the rules, I thought all planes were confined to the 115kts rule. And two, I believe the ASI in the Stearman is in mph, not kts, and I had the calculation of mph to kts backwards. I thought it was 100mph to 115kts. It is the other way around. FYI, 100mph is about 86kts.

Now that I know there is no speed limit, I think I'll firewall the throttle and have at it. Too bad the pilot model doesn't come with a silk white scarf!

[teson1]

I do not know of anyway to identify landmarks in FSX. I believe Plan-G has a feature like that, though I am not entirely certain. And I don't use Plan-G because FSX uses enough of my resources already and Plan-G is labor intensive which kills my frame rates.

FSCommander does have a few landmarks, but most are in Europe. However, you are able to manually enter User Waypoints. I've done it for when I flew VFR Quebec.

The reason why I flew so slow is two fold. One, I misread the rules, I thought all planes were confined to the 115kts rule. And two, I believe the ASI in the Stearman is in mph, not kts, and I had the calculation of mph to kts backwards. I thought it was 100mph to 115kts. It is the other way around. FYI, 100mph is about 86kts.

Now that I know there is no speed limit, I think I'll firewall the throttle and have at it. Too bad the pilot model doesn't come with a silk white scarf!

Second assistant postmaster general Otto Praeger is eager to demonstrate to the public and congress that mail can be carried by aeroplanes between New York and Chicago in less than 10 hours, including refueling stops. In fact, the future of airmail may hinge on achieving that objective during the pathfinder flight.
Therefore he has decided to consider flight of airmail pilot tvieno (pilot number 01) a test flight for the opening of the airmail route to Chicago.

If you're feeling competitive you can refly the leg from GRU to Brookville 5PA9, going full throttle (followed by the short hop over to Clarion PS66).
Otherwise feel free to just carry on to Clarion and Chicago, and be along for the fun.

[tvieno]

No, no.. I'll do it as if I was actually doing it. I wouldn't have flown to the wrong airport just to take the next bus back to Jersey Shore.. (speaking of which, no one there heard of Snooki. What gives?)

But when I am done with this, I will refly the route using the DH89 Dragon Rapide.

Lastly, because I play with modifying airport sceneries in my spare time, I have updated the remainder of the airports on my trip. If anyone wants a copy just ask and I will provide a link to download them. Sorry, they are for FSX only. I'll update PS66 Clarion in a couple of days.

Click on the image for a larger view. Or go to http://s151.photobucket.com/albums/s...t%20Sceneries/ for more pics
5OH6 Johnsons Field. Default / modified




4OH8 Huffman Farm




KCGX Meigs

[tvieno]

Well, I can say the folks at PS66 Clarion weren't rightly happy after they found out I landed at the 'other' airport. I think that they have a thing against those folk over there. But I won't get into that.

It was a straight shot about 330* out 5PA9. According to SkyVector.com there are at least two towers nearby. And lo and behold, there were. Keeping relatively low and slow, I passed the towers and found the strip. There was a house right in line with the strip on final, so I steered clear of it to the right. When I flew over it, I wondered if they had any crashes.... I landed it again with one hop. I have found that the Stearman lands best at about 80 mph (according to the gauge).

[NikeHerk67]

Very nice Tony!

I can't wait to get started after this DCA rally is over.

Your airport sceneries are great!. Too bad I'm a FS9er only or I'd take you up on the offer.

You've got my interst I just might touch up those airports in the 9 version myself.

Your story about the Clarion folks was funny! It reminded me of the story of one of the actual early airmail pilots who landed in a farmers field and had to take off because the farmer came after him with a shot gun!

Keep up the good flying. You've already set the bar pretty high for the rest of us!0

[salt_air]

Glad to have you "paving" the way ... just the right info on what's important.

Great story lines and your scenery work is great as well!

Continued success in the Stearman sir ... can't wait for the next post.



Thanks for you contributions!

[tvieno]

Note: all the images are clickable for a larger view.

Today was a good day for flying. Clear blue skies, a light breeze out of the southeast, and a plane eager to fly. Loaded up the plane with 230 lbs of mail. (60 lbs of cargo and 170 for the copilot they said I would have but never showed up.) I took off to the east, narrowly missing that house at the end of the runway. The same house I almost hit yesterday. (I bet they are the kind of people that live near an airport and then complain about the noise too.)

My plan of attack was to generally fly a heading of 290* until I got to Cleveland KCLE or Cuyahoga KCGF, then follow the lakefront to a radio tower from there, a heading of 255* to the field. Knowing that I can fly full throttle, I pushed the lever as far as it would go and climbed up to 3700 feet. It was beautiful up there, nare a cloud to be seen. All was smooth sailing until I got near Middlefield, OH, (Geaugua Fld, 7G8), it got a little bumpy for a bit there and the clouds started forming. I found that the wind was pushing me from the back left and had to constantly adjust my heading. I couldn't find a rudder trim on the panels, so I made do with what I had. I found Cuyahoga and made a beeline for it. All was going good until...



The last thing a VFR pilot wants, Gingivitis.... I mean Low Visibility (in the same voice, of course). Thanks to FSX weather engine, the weather changes on you in a heartbeat. With the limited visibility, I knew I would have to get lower in order to see.

As I was cruisin' the lakefront, the weather cleared up again. (That's why I use OpenSky during the other times I fly. It is a little more consistent.)



I found the radio tower, turned my scenery up a bit to make the ground more cluttered, pointed the nose to 255* and hoped for the best. You know, I should really learn how to use a clock/stopwatch, I was getting panicky thinking I overflew the field. And wouldn't you know it, there she was on my left. I tuned to the ATIS at KCLE to hear the winds, still out of the southeast. I circled around and set myself up for a NE approach with a slight cross wind. Note the trees at the ends of the runway in pic #3. Not good.







And I put her down and kept it on the runway which a small feat because of the limited forward visibility of the Stearman.



I found that "higher" VFR navigation is slightly different than "lower" VFR navigation. At the lower altitudes, I found it was easierto see the power lines and radio towers whereas higher altitudes, it wasn't so. Being quick on my feet, I learned to look for different landmarks such as lakes, rivers, and airports to name a few.

Looking for landmarks such as major highway north of a small town and airport near a lake:


One thing I like about SkyVector is you can create a flight plan. But I used to to track where I was. As I passed a visual waypoint, I dragged the pink line to where I think I was. Each dot represents where I thought I was, with emphasis on thought. Not too shabby, eh?