AlyMac Posted December 19, 2022 Share Posted December 19, 2022 DC3 Airways maintenance flight #MT7-KLAS-2 Battle Mountain to Olympia Regional - 3 hours 45 minutes. Real weather and actual time - I took off from Battle Mountain with 1,421 lbs/ 191 imp gallons of fuel, climbed to 10,000ft and turned onto a direct track to Olympia. After an hour my hot tea and roasted cheese on toast arrived from my charming No1 :D . I changed tanks to Aux and out of the desert (?) and onto greener pastures. What a lovely flight I was thinking, changing track to get closer to Mt St Helens and onwards with the sun setting portside. I pulled up a google window and "Contacted" Seattle approach and departures with liveatc.net and checked the weather. All good - or so I thought. Now getting quite dark outside and the old lady on autopilot - she wandered off to stbd but went back on track with the nose waggling right and left. "Thats strange" - I thought ... then the right wing dipped more severely, the AP disconnected and all became obvious as the orange low fuel light flashed on :o Damnation...I forgot to check the tanks :oops: Selecting Right Main - no2 sputtered back into life. Clicking through the tank gauge showed less than 50 gallons in the Left and Right mains and Left aux near empty as well ! "You silly old fool - you didnt check the fuel burn ! bollocks!". Mixtures I cut right back as I still had quite a good few miles to go. This could be serious, with temperatures on the METAR at 0 degrees and snow showers - I only had my slippers on ! Looking at the map on Skyvector I was not too stressed as there were 3 alternative places to pancake close by, but I really wanted to get to Olympia - then the number one engine fuel light came on and I was now in IMC ... and at night! "Clunk-clunk" and I was back on two fans again - I tweaked the mixtures down even more and pulling the props back to 1700 rpm, cowl flaps closed I started a very gentle descent through the crap. Snow then appeared and I continued feeling quite nervous as I turned left base about 25 miles out (its only a sim' after all...). Cutting off the corner I managed to catch the Olympia ILS for 17 about 10 miles out in IMC and broke through at 4,000ft. Landed, with a sigh of relief and taxied to the tower parking with... 188.5 lbs of fuel / 25 imp gallons :shock: Credits: Capt John Lawler - the flight Skyvector - the flightplan (which I arrogantly ignored of course) Approach Plates - flightaware.com Radio Chat - http://www.liveatc.net DC-3 Dakota - Johan van Wyk Pants (underwear to my Colonial cousins) - Marks and Spencer I always keep a bottle of stimulant handy just in case I see a serpent - which I also keep handy..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Macroburst Posted December 19, 2022 Share Posted December 19, 2022 Fun flight- glad the old lady found Olympia! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rupert Posted December 19, 2022 Share Posted December 19, 2022 Great narrative! Yes, fuel burn can be a huge issue at times! BTW: This colonial cousin has shopped at a Marks and Sparks more than once or twice as well. Michael Being an old chopper guy I usually fly low and slow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ViperPilot2 Posted December 20, 2022 Share Posted December 20, 2022 (edited) Yikes! Glad you were able to get down safely! ;) Just for a reference, @ 10K' and 30" MP/2050 rpm I tend to get around 91 gph Fuel Burn. Of course, different Platform (FS9), but I was always curious what everyone else was getting in terms of fuel burn. It's stayed pretty consistent through both my regular DCA flights and when participating in the World Rally. Alan DCA2253 Edited December 20, 2022 by ViperPilot2 "I created the Little Black Book to keep myself from getting killed..." -- Captain Elrey Borge Jeppesen AMD 1.9GB/8GB RAM/AMD VISION 1GB GPU/500 GB HDD/WIN 7 PRO 64/FS9 CFS CFS2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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