Route 66 Air Rally

[PhrogPhlyer]

46 minutes ago, JSMR said:

Hmmm strange. I never noticed it... 

Sooo, counting down from the fingers on my left hand...  !0, 9, 8, 7, 6 plus the fingers on right, 5 = 11?

[Buck Turgidson]

18 hours ago, JSMR said:

Approaching KTDW. Gusty winds from the north. 

I noticed this too, 03010G15.  I was surprised how close the city centre is to the airport.

[Sirrus]

My mathematics tutor always taught me that zero/0 is not a number, it merely signifies the absence of an integer and separates the sum of positive numbers from the sum of negative numbers. Technical or what?

She also had a proof that 2+2=5!

[Buck Turgidson]

Leg 5 56 planned 54 actual.

 

 

Forgot to do take off shot.

 

 

Getting closer to the handle and starting to see nice arroyos.

 

 

I was doing ok on time so I dropped down to legal min altitude and off course slightly to get these carbon eaters in action!

 

 

Called into Amarillo to cross air space at 2k agl.

 

 

 

Tuning to Tradewinds.

 

 

My landing shots didn't take but I landed on the short strip.

 

[Buck Turgidson]

Leg 6 planned 1:25 actual 1:21.This flight was a CF from the get go.  Mighty 2020 did not have 0E0 as an airport even though it is clearly on the map as shown!  Not a problem since I can land anywhere smooth enough but it wont show as a landing.

 

 

 

 

 

This time I made not of planned time and had some confidence of hitting it since I had quartering tail winds.  I set my timer, began roll out and promptly reset the timer to zero without noticing!

 

 

Good detail around Amarillo.

 

Crossing TCC I noticed my timer!  Then I kicked my self for not checking the clock as back up.

 

 

The auto lean auto rich switch doesn't work so pulling mixture manually.

 

 

Starting to see some cool terrain features.

 

 

Here is where the trouble starts.  Run through the landing settings as I turn in for final.  I hear the gear cycle and saw the handle next to my right eye is set.

 

On short final I notice no three greens!  So I cycle the gear again, hear the proper noises and see the gear handle move.  Getting closer now and still no greens!  Power up, level out, flaps to 15 and I start fishing around looking for the manual pump behind the seats.  There is a reason that these complex systems had a copilot and an engineer!

 

With all my digging around with head down, I pulled the aircraft up.  Looking up just in time to see the left wing fall off.  Ok, time to earn my paycheck!  A lot of thoughts go through and time seems to slow down.  I start the stall recovery pretty low, maybe 800 feet (guessing as I didnt look at the altimeter).  Get symmetrical flow on both wings and start the gentle"ish" pull out and the F&^@@# gear decides to deploy!  I am now wishing the right wing had dropped  giving me an extra 80 feet of clear space since the plane rotated towards the hangers and thinking this may be the end of the race.  With a miracle I clear the trees and hangers and climb out.

 

 

Go around completed and flaring to land.

 

 

Taxi over to the hanger and shut down.  The terrain seems to be modeled very detailed for an invisible airport but the taxiways are rough with 1 foot steps across them.  This bloody flight gave me an actual real life neck ache!  Almost bought it on a milk run!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Bossspecops]

Hmmm, I could have sworn I posted my estimated duration for Leg 4 earlier this evening, but it's vanished. 

 

Anyway, it was 1 hr 12 mins, but I was a tad late. I flew the leg this evening, and I'll post a full report in the morning, it being almost 11 pm here in UK now. 

 

My Leg 3 flight's not on the big time sheet either, and my V time for that was 1 minute late. 

[PhrogPhlyer]

58 minutes ago, Bossspecops said:

My Leg 3 flight's not on the big time sheet either

Just do what you're doing, let me know what I miss,

Between the ongoing literary efforts, jokes and flops, screen shots and trying to do some flying, I'm surprised I get any of these correct. 

[PhrogPhlyer]

4 minutes ago, Sirrus said:

patience and understanding.  Thank you.

You are most welcome, and as for patience and understanding.. oh yeah, yup! 

[Melo965]

13 hours ago, TomPenDragon said:

Thanks, man!  It's nice to actually be able to see it, rather than just imagine it.

 

Glad to oblige.

 

[Buck Turgidson]

Leg 7 was going test a few systems I had not used before on this plane.

 

Planned 55 actual 1:04  Mercifully, this will be my last for a few days til the wind changes.

 

I had to faf about ferrying the aircraft from the nearest which is 1n1 and set up a teleportation near the hangers at 0E0 since it is not "in the sim".  Then hit the teleport and hope the aircraft doesn't register a crash.  All worked well and it gave me a good time from wheel up in 0E0.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wx is going to be marginal climbing out but is reported as better after ABQ.

 

 

Report in as I climb out to transition ABQ airspace.

 

 

Right on the edge of the clouds so I pull about half carb heat on for the whole flight.

 

 

To keep the frost off the wind screen I set the cabin heat to hot.  Also fired up the O2 and let it run for a few minutes to clear out the legionnaires fungus.  Made use of O2 after 10k even though legally I didn't need it for this flight.

 

 

Crossing ABQ

 

 

 

 

Nice little lava cone close in at 9k feet.  Due to running this VFR, I vectored my radial outbound to clear that big mtn off my left wing in the clouds.  Wouldn't want to see goats in the clouds.  This cost time but after yesterdays fiasco I was feeling a bit cowed!

 

 

Dropping into the valley towards Gallup is beautiful.  I culled at least 20 shots.

 

 

Runway in sight and three greens.

 

 

 

[Melo965]

19 hours ago, Bossspecops said:

I'm planning on flying Leg 4 today, estimating 1 hr 14 mins. 

 

Found this on a previous page.  Is this what you were looking for?

 

[Bossspecops]

4 hours ago, meloscanlon said:

 

Found this on a previous page.  Is this what you were looking for?

 

 

It was Melo, maybe I was looking on the wrong page. I updated my flight duration last night as the winds had changed at my departure airfield, but I missed it by a couple of minutes. 

[PhrogPhlyer]

Day 24 Standings.

Really enjoying seeing the differences between the various flight sim versions.

For me, it reinforces that as long as you are having fun, there is nothing I'd criticize for any of these.

Well done everyone, keep having fun.

Also, it's time to "Help the Official Officious Air Rally Official!"

Please let me know exactly what I'm missing or have incorrect on the standings board.

I'll update on tomorrow board.

Thank you.

 

 

[Bossspecops]

Flew Leg 4 y'day evening, and by now I've flown over 4.5 hrs across them USA, and not come across any ocean at all, not something you can do in the UK, even in an aircraft as slow as a Lysander!  There's lots of water though, lakes and hefty rivers all over the place.

 

My FSTramp flight plan reckoned it'd take me 1 hr 12 min for the 193 nms to Cordell Muni, which didn't sound too bad, and of course I had oodles of fuel with that big belly tank too. 

 

 

 

Here I am about to start the 870 bhp Bristol Mercury radial on the ramp at KGCM. The 'virtual Tower' there was SO close to my parking spot that the view from there showed only my windscreen!

 

Checking the weather showed winds from the North so I headed for the 35 runway and took off as only a Lysander can. That meant a ground run of maybe 8-10 fuselage lengths and she was up! I could have taken off on the ramp! I may do just that on one of the later Legs too. 

 

Turing south west I checked my radio nav system was hooked onto the Tulsa VOR beacon and I climbed up to the recommended 4500 ft. I wasn't so much as '24 hours from Tulsa', more like 4 MINS from there, and what a hefty place it was too!

 

 

By far the largest place I've flown over, on this Rally anyway, and with an equally impressive main airport over to my right.

 

 

The countryside in these parts looks a LOT better with the calendar set to July than it did when I had it set to November for Leg 3, and I think I'll stick with July in future. Once again I passed over a massive lake, quite a common feature here it seems.

 

 

Shortly afterwards I passed a small field which FSTramp told me was called Stroud Municipal. Now Iive just across a river (the largest one in the UK) from Stroud over here, but it looks NOTHING like Stroud Oklahoma! Oklahoma seems to have been ironed flat to me, whereas Stroud in the UK is spread over the slopes of a pretty deep valley.

 

 

Stroud OKE

 

 

 

Stroud UK

 

En route west I came across this long and VERY straight freeway,, so could that be Route 66 itself?

 

 

After that I was homing onto the TRW VOR just south of Oklahoma City's Will Rogers World Field, but first I needed to keep clear of the USAF base at Tinker AFB just to my south. After a bit of 'Say again aircraft type' from their ATC they gave me a flight following clearance and I trundled across their airspace. Sadly I didn't catch sight of any of their E-3 Sentries or KC-135Rs as I passed, mainly because my Traffic Global programme just won't run at the moment, while at the same time limiting all other AI aircraft in my sim. 

 

 

 

 

 

Oke City Airport itself is SERIOUSLY impressive, even more so than Tulsa, but my aircraft type didn't faze them a bit, they just wanted to know how long I'd take to clear their southern approach paths! 

 

From here it was pretty much a direct shot west, 263 degs rather than 270, but all the time I'd been flying this Leg I was worried about making the time as every check showed I was going to be late. Maybe the drag of that hefty belly tank doesn't get transferred across to FSTramp, but I kept on cranking the throttle forward until I was running +6 boost on that last sector and was cruising at 170 kts to try and make the time.

 

I'd laid in a nice curved approach to the 04 runway to make the best of the wind from the north east, but I reckoned I'd never make the time using that, and called ATC to request a landing on the 35 runway. They OK'd that so I turned in more sharply and got lined up pretty well while making allowance for the crosswind effects.

 

 

You can just see the Lysander in the pic above, but that camo works amazingly well, even in the Mid-West USA. Touch down could have been better, but I knew I was already late so was on the brakes pretty fast, and the Lysander's amazing short field performance brought me to a halt at 1025, 2 minutes late on my ETA. 

 

Taxi-ing to the ramp took a while as I'd stopped very sharply and here I am parked up prior to Leg 5, but that may be later on, or it may not be till Monday. I've got a date with a Concorde tomorrow, yes really. 

 

November the 26th will be the 20th anniversary of the last ever Concorde flight, and I was there to watch G-BOAF land at Filton to go into history, and she's now in a museum hangar there, and I'm going to see her again tomorrow. 

 

 

Here I am after shutting down at F36, final flight figures below.

 

ETA = 1023

 

ATA = 1025

 

V=2

 

Fuel burn = 56 galls.

 

But I've still not used all the big belly tank.......

 

[Melo965]

4 hours ago, PhrogPhlyer said:

Official Officious Air Rally Official!

 

Hi PP.  I know the original Route 6 Air Rally is slated to end at midnight on November 30th.  I plan to make that deadline, I can just do it if I fly one leg every day (and even have one day to spare)  Which I might need as I will be at the Dentist on Tuesday for work on three teeth.

 

My reason for this post is to ask if Kit, etc. - All the people who got started after November 1st can have a full 30 days to complete their flights.  What say YOU, or anyone else, please comment.

[Melo965]

I am going to take a page from Tom's playbook and fly first and write the report later as the end of the month is approaching.

 

Leg 6.  Tradewind TX (KTDW) to Moriarity NM (0E0)
206 miles.  Estimated time = 55 minutes.

 

Here is the final picture from this leg, more to follow.  Parked at Moriarity NM (0E0).

 

This flight definitely did not go as planned as you will read later, but the result was good as far as the contest goes.

 

Leg 6.  Tradewind TX (KTDW) to Moriarity NM (0E0)
206 miles.  Estimated time = 55 minutes.

Actual time = 55 minutes.  V0

 

[Melo965]

I belong to a Virtual Airline called Platinum Airways.  It is an open sky airline, basically fly anything you want, any where, or any way you want.  I often fly in that last category!

 

When I went to log the flight from Tradewind TX (KTDW) to Moriarity NM (0E0) the reported distance between the airports was 6775 miles!  The actual distance is about 206 miles.

 

It turns out their Latitude and Longitude coordinates for 0E0 were reversed in the database.

 

[PhrogPhlyer]

1 hour ago, meloscanlon said:

What say YOU, or anyone else, please comment.

I'm fine with extending the end date, but I would say that in fairness to those who've been here from the beginning, we shouldn't stretch it out too far. So let's say the rally will run through Sunday December 10. At midnight Pacific time. At that point, the standings ARE the standings.

[taoftedal]

1 hour ago, PhrogPhlyer said:

So let's say the rally will run through Sunday December 10. At midnight Pacific time.

 

Sounds good to me ... 

[jgf]

This has always been a light hearted affair and rules have been lax;  how many entrants are strictly "Any general aviation and light commercial aircraft from the 1930’s through the 1960’s".  Some people weren't even aware of this project til mid-November, so I've no issue with stretching the rules further.  If we are to be stricter, let that come with the next flight.

[JSMR]

On 11/24/2023 at 4:49 PM, PhrogPhlyer said:

Just do what you're doing, let me know what I miss,

Between the ongoing literary efforts, jokes and flops, screen shots and trying to do some flying, I'm surprised I get any of these correct. 

Yeah I went back over my flights and realised mine are all V0. Just hand me the trophy now.

[JSMR]

“Rules were made to be broken” - Nun #3. Somewhere west of Tulsa…

[PhrogPhlyer]

Everyone,

Let's start with what this Rally is all about, getting as many people as possible to share their various aircraft and sim versions with each other, and to have some fun along the way.

 

So a few comments:

1. I took on the task of moderating this particular rally in part to learn more about all of you, and at the request of ViperPilot2 who had just finished a wonderful job of moderating the last challenge.
2. During the development period, on another thread, many of you shared your thoughts and ideas as to the route and conditions for the rally. I codified these into the initial posting of this thread.
3. Along the way there have been numerous requests for tweaks and clarifications, of which I believe every request has been accommodated.
4. Late into the rally we had two additional contestants request entry, to which NO ONE voiced a no. Especially in light of bringing the XP-11 and MSFS 2020 perspective to be shared with us. I saw this as an amazing positive. I didn't know that others across the FlightSim community were reading and enjoying our rally and shared banter.
5. It was then requested that these entrants get a full 30 days. Understanding that our non-sim lives do make it difficult to put the time into these fights, and also recognizing that we have all been anxiously waiting for the rally's checkered flag, and not wanting the rally to roll into the Holidays, I made a decision to extend the the end date by 10 days. 
6. Somehow that decision has now devolved into personal attacks and and allegations of cheating. I can assure you that had I not been performing the moderation tasks (along with some illness and also an actual family emergency that took me away for a few days), I would have used that time to fly.
7. Of the ten who have actually started flying, only five have completed the rally.
8. For the remaining five, please make every effort to finish as soon as possible, for what I feared when I set up the initial thirty day period has proved true, that is was too long to hold interest and comradery together.
9. I will continue to post the standings to the best of my ability. And will continue to read and enjoy all of your exploits as you "Get your kicks on Route 66."
10. Thank you for all your flying, writing, jokes, support, and general sharing of aviation fellowship. Let's get back to that, and have fun.

Respectfully,

PhrogPhlyer 

[mrzippy]

You can always settle it with !

[PhrogPhlyer]

7 minutes ago, Sirrus said:

So this is the American way...

I am not sure why we have to make this a personal attack.

I have accommodated MANY requests throughout this rally in an effort to get as many people involved as possible.

Calls of justice (or do you mean satisfaction) and cheating are just uncalled for.

Please let's keep this simple and always keep in mind this is about sharing our joys and sims with each other.