[Club Chachapoya] Round the World flight by Lancaster

[Bossspecops]

I mentioned my plans to do this in the Oz Rally FBO a while back, but now I've started the flight itself. and its backstory takes some telling.

 

My youngest daughter is a Warrant Officer in the RAF and she's based at RAF Shawbury in the West Midlands of the UK. A while back she asked me if I'd like to come as her guest to their 'Aries Night Dinner', and never looking a gift dinner in the mouth I accepted, not having a clue what it was really about. They have the dinner every year to commemorate the first ever flight around the world by an RAF aircraft that took place in 1944, and it was flown by a Lancaster, PD328, which was named 'Aries'. The aircraft was part of the RAF'S Navigation School based at Shawbury and made many significant flights during its time with the unit. The 'Aries Night Dinner' is an occasion to make awards to the station staff etc. and was a very good event.

 

As a result of that dinner I looked into the history of PD328 later on, and amazingly last month's 'Flypast Magazine' had a feature on 'Aries' and its successors as well, and after my FSX RTW flight for the Oz Rally I decided to re-fly 'Aries' flight in FSX. 

 

It didn't turn out quite as easy as I figured of course, primarily because when PD328 made that first RAF RTW flight it was pretty much an 'out of the box' Lancaster with all its turrets in place and painted in the then standard camouflage scheme. Much though I like Lancasters, I liked 'Aries' later look even better as after WWII she'd had her turrets removed, and the nose and tail replaced with the low drag civilian Lancastrian items, and had her mid-upper turret replaced by an extra astrodome, but she still carried her H2S radar scanner under the belly, and had all the paint stripped to fly in an all natural metal scheme.

 

There was no chance I'd find an FSX model of 'Aries' just like that of course, but I did find an excellent Lancastrian by Paul Edwards and Manfred Jahn, file name 'Avro_Lancastrian_ii' on Avsim, and the NMF finish of these aircraft looked well nigh perfect for what I had in mind. With the aid of my daughter and the Flypast mag article I got enough info together to do a repaint of Paul & Manfred's aircraft into something that looked a bit more like 'Aries', even if it didn't have the extra astrodome or the H2S scanner, but it was close enough for what I wanted.

 

So y'day afternoon I set off on yet another RTW flight, the first leg flying from Shawbury to Prestwick in Scotland, just a short trip to figure out fuel burn rates at various altitudes etc. The magazine article listed most of the airfields that 'Aries' used on its record breaking flight and I'm gathering sceneries for all the ones I can find of course, Shawbury being OK as it stands in FSX and the Prestwick scenery is quite a bit better than standard.

 

I used Active Sky real world weather and FSTramp as a flight planning and auto-pilot tool, and I'd also updated the Lanc's panel a little bit as well, and will do more as the flight goes on I expect, as it doesn't even have a clock on it at present!

 

Here's 'Aries' sitting on the ramp at Shawbury in her new markings, and no, I have NO Idea what the 'F GFA' codes mean on the fuselage. 

 

 

It was a lengthy taxi to the 18 runway threshold, but eventually here we are ready to go on this VERY long flight!

 

 

It's only just over an hour's flight to Prestwick and on this leg I flew at 10000 ft and approx 200 kts, flight plan below.

 

 

The Lancaster panel is pretty basic, but has quite a complex and informative pop-up fuel panel as well, which enabled me to keep track of the fuel flow etc.

 

 

At 10000 ft over the UK at this time of year there's very little chance of seeing the scenery and so it proved, mostly it looked this out outside.......

 

 

I did spot a few lakes en route, as I'm prone to do even if I can't do any splash-and-goes on this flight! This one's Ullswater in the Lake District.

 

 

Here's 'Aries' making the only major turn on the trip as she headed for the Scottish coast line south of Ayr.

 

 

And as I approached the coastline I flew over a Scottish Loch too, Loch Doon.

 

 

Heading north up the coast and descending I just caught a glimpse of Prestwick over to starboard before making the 180 turn to land on its 21 runway.

 

 

The FST auto-pilot made its usual over enthusiastic descent and I took manual control as soon as I was lined up, but a little low for safety. And yet again some gawp has plonked a tree RIGHT on the runway centre-line, this one in the middle of the Calvert lights even!

 

 

I gentled her onto the runway in pouring rain and soon turned off to head west to a large hangar in that direction, but en route I spotted an oddity on the far side of the airfield....

 

 

It was the singular Antonov An-225 Mrya, and I know for sure that the Russians bombed it to scrap last year. Hm...........

 

 

Anyway, that was the first leg complete and I'd collected some fuel burn data for flight planning on later legs.

 

The flight took 1 hr and 12 mins, probably the shortest one of the whole exercise, and I flew 233 nms. The fuel burn worked out at 424 gals/hr, which I guess isn't bad for four thirsty Merlins.

 

Next stop Reykjavik in Iceland, quite a bit further away, maybe three times as far............

[Bossspecops]

Flew the second, over water leg y'day, and pretty boring it was, apart from the landing..............

 

Prestwick is a big place and there was some lengthy taxi-ing to do before I got to the threshold, the SAME threshold as the one I landed on two days ago. Active Sky would have me believe that it produces real world weather, but I've lost all faith in it as I just don't believe that Prestwick had exactly the same wind direction and rain for THREE WHOLE DAYS! Pull the other one Active Sky. 

 

Here's the FST flightplan, pretty much a straight line once I was clear of the Scottish coast.

 

 

Sitting on the soggy ramp ready to start, and I've only just noticed the wheel chocks that appear when I have the parking brake on, neat, eh?

 

 

As the flight was 'only' 750 miles or so I didn't bother with totally filling the tanks. 'Aries' has the long range tanks that were fitted to the Lancastrian airliners so there's lots of tanks to check on! And just for a change I decided to use FSX's 'Reliability' feature and generate a random fault or two. BIG mistake, see later.............

 

Here's 'Aries' on her take-off run, totally side on and the starboard side too, a rare view. 

 

 

Making a 180 south of Prestwick I headed back up the coastline, saying goodbye to mainland Britain for some time I suspect.

 

 

And crossing the last outposts of my home country, the Isle of South Uist, next stop Iceland.

 

 

For this leg I flew at a cruise height of 15000 ft to see what the fuel burn was at a higher altitude, and with the N Atlantic cloud cover at this time of year, visibility was minimal!

 

 

After a considerable time I started my descent and the Icelandic coastline appeared through the clouds just as I crossed it, a mere co-incidence.

 

 

Iceland's a fairly mountainous country and I did some serious checking to ensure my flightpath didn't co-incide with the surface before I reached Reykjavik. You can see some of the hills in this pic.

 

 

Some were quite a bit higher too! I just squeezed past this one.

 

 

My flightpath was almost straight in to the 22 runway at Rekjavik and I started to lower the flaps as the city hove into view. INSTANT disaster as only the starboard set deployed, and 'Aries' rolled heavily to port! I managed to pick her up again, but doing a landing like that was out of the question. Check the pic below, only the starboard flaps are down! 

 

 

Making a flapless landing was the only sensible solution, and I managed to get her down on the numbers, but at a pretty high speed, and I needed LOTS of brakes!

 

 

There wasn't much runway left by the time I'd come to a halt and I had to do a 180 to get back onto the taxi-way, not my fave activity with an aircraft as large and unwieldy as a Lancaster!

 

 

Taxi-ing to the ramp I found the dreaded 'Reliability' throwing me yet another curve ball as the engines all suddenly stopped because they'd run out of fuel! There was a fuel leak according to the 'Reliability' page, and checking it showed it could empty all 3700 gall in about a minute!!!! That's not a fuel 'leak', it's a fuel TSUNAMI!

 

Of course that screwed up my data for the fuel burn, but an en route check had showed the rate to be exactly the same as it was while cruising at 10000 ft. I'm not sure that's correct as I'd adjusted the boost to give the same 210 mph airspeed and I've have thought the burn would have been less at a higher altitude.

 

Can anyone throw more light on this?

 

 

That was the end of my 'Reliability' trials, if they're going to be that frequent and as bad as that I'll never make it all the way round the planet!

 

Next stop is Montreal, at what used to be the old Dorval airport, now called Montreal Trudeau Int., and that's a LONG way away from Iceland, over 2000 miles, and it'll take a while too.

[Rupert]

What a great idea!  And the discussion is already very good as well.  Watch out for those Phantom Trees!!  They seem to show up from time to time in every sim I've ever tried.  In which case a higher approach usually helps.

 

Ill be following your flights at home with one of my or Jan's aircraft as well.

 

Michael

[Melo965]

4 hours ago, Bossspecops said:

Here's 'Aries' on her take-off run, totally side on and the starboard side too, a rare view. 

 

 

 

Looking very good from every angle.

 

[Bossspecops]

1 hour ago, Rupert said:

Watch out for those Phantom Trees!!  They seem to show up from time to time in every sim I've ever tried.  In which case a higher approach usually helps.

 

Yes indeed.

 

And if there isn't a tree right on the centreline, someone's built a tower block there instead! That's what it was like at Reykjavik, but I was too busy keeping 'Aries' the right way up to take a screenie that time. 

[NMLW]

Very nicely done!  Glad you missed that errant tree.

[Rupert]

6 hours ago, Bossspecops said:

Yes indeed.

 

And if there isn't a tree right on the centreline, someone's built a tower block there instead! That's what it was like at Reykjavik, but I was too busy keeping 'Aries' the right way up to take a screenie that time. 

I just flew in and did a Touch and Go on 13 and then 19 with P3D and found no obstructions in sight on either end of either runway.  I guess it's the difference in sims.

 

Again Ill say I'm really enjoying your flight shots!  Hopefully I'll find what my glitch is and be able to post again soon as well!

[Bossspecops]

Yes, different scenery packages on the same sim can make a difference too. There's quite a difference between FSX and later versions of P3D, or so I'm told anyway. 

[Bossspecops]

OK, here's a problem......................

 

I started on Leg 03 to Montreal this morning and all went well, cruising at 10000 ft, for maybe 1.5 hrs and then the engine revs started to falter. This Lanc has no carb de-ice, or it hadn't anyway, so I figured I'd come down to 5000 ft for the rest of the trip, which I did.

 

But after another 30 mins it happened again, engine revs wavering but nothing else untoward from what I could see, and the aircraft then slowed and stalled and before long it had ditched the Atlantic! I checked the Fault Screen, but nothing showed up, so I reloaded the saved flight some 10 mins before and tried again.

 

EXACTLY the same thing happened, so somethings causing the engines to lose power, even though it's not visible.

 

Anyone got any ideas?

[defaid]

An interesting flight and a nasty place to have to ditch. I'd be inclined to fly it again from the save and check...

 

Fuel quantity, oil pressure & temperature (probably not if all engines are affected), coolant, (over)boost, changes in aircraft weight though I doubt airframe icing even in MS's world would produce a sudden deceleration, prop pitch & rpm (not sure about this in a Lanc), EGT and cross-feeds & empty fuel tanks. If it is carb icing then at those latitudes and depending on the season, 5000 feet may still be too high -- check OAT too.

 

I'm not familiar with FSX interface but if you can't monitor stuff on the fly, try Hervé Sors' AFSD. You can run multiple instances concurrently to watch or log all sorts of aircraft parameters while you fly.

 

D

[sfgarland]

Sounds like carb icing.  Keyboard key "H" usually works, even if in RW the plane did not have carb heating.  I have had that situation many times flying in the Canadian latitudes, esp. with real weather enabled.

[Rupert]

7 hours ago, Bossspecops said:

Yes, different scenery packages on the same sim can make a difference too. There's quite a difference between FSX and later versions of P3D, or so I'm told anyway. 

That's correct.  But there are also several differences in older and newer versions of P3D as well.  Most but not all, are improvements.

[Bossspecops]

29 minutes ago, sfgarland said:

Sounds like carb icing.  Keyboard key "H" usually works, even if in RW the plane did not have carb heating.  I have had that situation many times flying in the Canadian latitudes, esp. with real weather enabled.

 

Yeah, I thought that too, and fitted a carb heat switch prior to my 2nd attempt, but the same thing happened. I tried to find an indicator light to say the carb heat was actually on, but with no joy. 

2 hours ago, defaid said:

An interesting flight and a nasty place to have to ditch. I'd be inclined to fly it again from the save and check...

 

Fuel quantity, oil pressure & temperature (probably not if all engines are affected), coolant, (over)boost, changes in aircraft weight though I doubt airframe icing even in MS's world would produce a sudden deceleration, prop pitch & rpm (not sure about this in a Lanc), EGT and cross-feeds & empty fuel tanks. If it is carb icing then at those latitudes and depending on the season, 5000 feet may still be too high -- check OAT too.

 

I'm not familiar with FSX interface but if you can't monitor stuff on the fly, try Hervé Sors' AFSD. You can run multiple instances concurrently to watch or log all sorts of aircraft parameters while you fly.

 

 

I did just that from my saved flights and it happened all over again.

 

Fuel was OK, the fuel panel tells you everything there is to know from that aspect. I was running at 10 psi boost in the cruise, whereas max boost for take-off is 14.5 psi. Does that sound reasonable?

 

I'll have a look at AFSD, thanks.

[Bossspecops]

Cooer, I got AFDS and what a mine of info that gives you, thanks for the tip.  

 

Having installed it I've re-started the flight from a saved position just east of Greenland and so far nothing's gone wrong (famous last words.............)

 

Sadly the real world head wind means I won't make Montreal with the current fuel, so I'll divert to Goose Bay and refuel en route, but that may be tomorrow as I've some hours to run yet. 

[Rupert]

On 5/26/2024 at 5:13 PM, Bossspecops said:

I mentioned my plans to do this in the Oz Rally FBO a while back, but now I've started the flight itself. and its backstory takes some telling.

 

My youngest daughter is a Warrant Officer in the RAF and she's based at RAF Shawbury in the West Midlands of the UK. A while back she asked me if I'd like to come as her guest to their 'Aries Night Dinner', and never looking a gift dinner in the mouth I accepted, not having a clue what it was really about. They have the dinner every year to commemorate the first ever flight around the world by an RAF aircraft that took place in 1944, and it was flown by a Lancaster, PD328, which was named 'Aries'. The aircraft was part of the RAF'S Navigation School based at Shawbury and made many significant flights during its time with the unit. The 'Aries Night Dinner' is an occasion to make awards to the station staff etc. and was a very good event.

 

As a result of that dinner I looked into the history of PD328 later on, and amazingly last month's 'Flypast Magazine' had a feature on 'Aries' and its successors as well, and after my FSX RTW flight for the Oz Rally I decided to re-fly 'Aries' flight in FSX. 

 

It didn't turn out quite as easy as I figured of course, primarily because when PD328 made that first RAF RTW flight it was pretty much an 'out of the box' Lancaster with all its turrets in place and painted in the then standard camouflage scheme. Much though I like Lancasters, I liked 'Aries' later look even better as after WWII she'd had her turrets removed, and the nose and tail replaced with the low drag civilian Lancastrian items, and had her mid-upper turret replaced by an extra astrodome, but she still carried her H2S radar scanner under the belly, and had all the paint stripped to fly in an all natural metal scheme.

 

There was no chance I'd find an FSX model of 'Aries' just like that of course, but I did find an excellent Lancastrian by Paul Edwards and Manfred Jahn, file name 'Avro_Lancastrian_ii' on Avsim, and the NMF finish of these aircraft looked well nigh perfect for what I had in mind. With the aid of my daughter and the Flypast mag article I got enough info together to do a repaint of Paul & Manfred's aircraft into something that looked a bit more like 'Aries', even if it didn't have the extra astrodome or the H2S scanner, but it was close enough for what I wanted.

 

So y'day afternoon I set off on yet another RTW flight, the first leg flying from Shawbury to Prestwick in Scotland, just a short trip to figure out fuel burn rates at various altitudes etc. The magazine article listed most of the airfields that 'Aries' used on its record breaking flight and I'm gathering sceneries for all the ones I can find of course, Shawbury being OK as it stands in FSX and the Prestwick scenery is quite a bit better than standard.

 

I used Active Sky real world weather and FSTramp as a flight planning and auto-pilot tool, and I'd also updated the Lanc's panel a little bit as well, and will do more as the flight goes on I expect, as it doesn't even have a clock on it at present!

 

Here's 'Aries' sitting on the ramp at Shawbury in her new markings, and no, I have NO Idea what the 'F GFA' codes mean on the fuselage. 

 

 

It was a lengthy taxi to the 18 runway threshold, but eventually here we are ready to go on this VERY long flight!

 

 

It's only just over an hour's flight to Prestwick and on this leg I flew at 10000 ft and approx 200 kts, flight plan below.

 

 

The Lancaster panel is pretty basic, but has quite a complex and informative pop-up fuel panel as well, which enabled me to keep track of the fuel flow etc.

 

 

At 10000 ft over the UK at this time of year there's very little chance of seeing the scenery and so it proved, mostly it looked this out outside.......

 

 

I did spot a few lakes en route, as I'm prone to do even if I can't do any splash-and-goes on this flight! This one's Ullswater in the Lake District.

 

 

Here's 'Aries' making the only major turn on the trip as she headed for the Scottish coast line south of Ayr.

 

 

And as I approached the coastline I flew over a Scottish Loch too, Loch Doon.

 

 

Heading north up the coast and descending I just caught a glimpse of Prestwick over to starboard before making the 180 turn to land on its 21 runway.

 

 

The FST auto-pilot made its usual over enthusiastic descent and I took manual control as soon as I was lined up, but a little low for safety. And yet again some gawp has plonked a tree RIGHT on the runway centre-line, this one in the middle of the Calvert lights even!

 

 

I gentled her onto the runway in pouring rain and soon turned off to head west to a large hangar in that direction, but en route I spotted an oddity on the far side of the airfield....

 

 

It was the singular Antonov An-225 Mrya, and I know for sure that the Russians bombed it to scrap last year. Hm...........

 

 

Anyway, that was the first leg complete and I'd collected some fuel burn data for flight planning on later legs.

 

The flight took 1 hr and 12 mins, probably the shortest one of the whole exercise, and I flew 233 nms. The fuel burn worked out at 424 gals/hr, which I guess isn't bad for four thirsty Merlins.

 

Next stop Reykjavik in Iceland, quite a bit further away, maybe three times as far............

What a wonderful Real World backstory to your flight!  And yes, from what I can discover your paint job looks correct as well!  I look forward to many more exciting posts!

 

Michael

[Bossspecops]

As recounted earlier, my third leg didn't quite go to plane for various reasons, not the least being the total failure of the engines to produce enough power for me to keep flying!  For some obscure reason installing a copy of AFSD seemed to frighten them into behaving and I had no problems after doing a saved re-start, apart from almost running out of fuel mind you......

 

Here's the (almost.....) full story.

 

Starting from Reykjavic in the early morning, around 7 am, was a bit of a shaker but it was about a 2200 nm trip and that would have taken 9-10 hrs depending on the weather, and obviously I had the tanks brimmed to the overflow valves!

 

 

As the wind remained in the same direction as on my arrival a couple of days ago (a most unlikely situation I'd have thought, but there it is....) I had to use the same short 24 runway, so taxied to the extreme easterly end, but found there was no turn round area, and had to take to the grass. Not really a problem as a Lancaster was designed to fly from grass fields originally with BIG wheels and tyres.

 

 

Take-off was slow and loooooooong, and I only just lifted off before going off the end! 

 

 

It was relaxing to get the gear and flaps up and start to climb to my cruise altitude of 5000 ft for this leg, and en route to clear Iceland I could see the huge US airfield at Keflavic over to my 

port side. Nowadays it's THE major airport in Iceland of course.

 

 

My flight plan was essentially a straight line across the tip of Greenland and across the Labrador Sea to the Newfoundland coast and on to Montreal across Quebec and Ontario.

 

 

About 2/3 of the way toward Greenland I ran into the engine problems, and had to virtually ditch in the North Atlantic, but that was solved by the good folk here and I was able to re-start later on. Continuing toward Greenland., with four working Merlins, I was amazed to see an iceberg down there! OK, it was only a little one, but I didn't think FSX included them in its repertoire.

 

 

And looking up from the iceberg I could see the Greenland coast on the horizon, and a forbidding sight it looked too!

 

 

Crossing the coast it looked even MORE forbidding, ice and snow in all directions, and where it wasn't white, it was dark grey, very unwelcoming looking rocks.

 

I have a slight family connection with Greenland as in 1952 an RAF Handley Page Hastings from 47 Sqdn, my Dad's unit, made a forced landing on the ice cap there while trying to drop supplies to the British North Greenland Expedition, and had itself to be supplied by air drop from the squadron to keep the crew alive until they were rescued by a USAF HU-16 Albatross and a JATO assisted C-47 some 2-3 days later. My Dad went on some of re-supply drops to the crashed Hastings and described the territory vividly! 

 

 

I had NO intention of getting anywhere near that cold and frozen ground I can tell you, and carried on across the tip of Greenland and on toward Canada. It was a very long and boring trek, with fairly frequent checks to ensure I was on track and that all four engines were behaving themselves, and eventually Newfoundland hove into view, and was I ever pleased it did.

 

 

My constant checks on the aircraft's systems indicated I'd not have enough fuel to reach Montreal so I filed a revised plan for Goose Bay where I hoped I could refuel, and this needed just slight change of heading to port and soon I was passing Indian Harbour and along Lake Melville toward Goose Bay. The airport itself is quite a bit larger than the nearby township of the same name and it stood out quite clearly as I descended.

 

 

With the usual moaning and groaning I got 'Aries' to lower her gear and flaps and I was soon down on that MONSTROUS runway, the exact opposite of the one I'd taken-off from on Iceland! Incredibly the singular An-225 Mrya was here as well! But  then it's a lot faster than a Lancaster and didn't stop off at Reykjavic I expect............ 

 

 

Goose Bay is a BIG place and there's lots of parking places so I chose a hangar large enough to squeeze 'Aries' into and shut down. What I couldn't find was a refuelling bay, but they must have one here somewhere, mustn't they?

 

 

Once I've topped up the tanks I'll be off to Montreal as originally planned, hopefully.

[Melo965]

17 hours ago, Bossspecops said:

With the usual moaning and groaning I got 'Aries' to lower her gear and flaps and I was soon down on that MONSTROUS runway

 

 

Good job!  Glad you are back on course without any further mysterious engine problems.  The Merlin is as a rule VERY reliable and the odds to have all 4 fail at once is normally almost unheard of!  

 

[Rupert]

On 6/1/2024 at 11:36 AM, Melo965 said:

 

Good job!  Glad you are back on course without any further mysterious engine problems.  The Merlin is as a rule VERY reliable and the odds to have all 4 fail at once is normally almost unheard of!  

 

I Agree on all points!  As to 4 failing to burn and turn, I'd think fuel quality! 

 

Thanks for a great thread and backstory.  I intend to enjoy every post!

 

Michael 

[Bossspecops]

Here's the next Leg, after a bit of a delay.

 

What I'm calling Leg 03b went from Goose Bay south west toward Montreal, landing at the old Dorval Airport, now named Pierre Elliot Trudeau Int. Airport. I think Dorval sounds a lot better actually, less of a mouthful. 

 

As I mentioned when I arrived at Goose Bay, there didn't seem to be a refuelling station anywhere, and I still couldn't find one, but the Canadian CAA sorted it for me as they sent me a tanker! 

 

 

Just for a change Active Sky had changed the wind direction and I had to taxi way over to the west end before take-off, but even with a full load 'Aries' lifted off in well under half the runway length. Here she is just getting her wheels up passing the Tower.

 

 

Turning south west I cleared the eastern boundary of the airport and waved goodbye to Newfoundland.

 

 

My flight plan was pretty much a straight line until I reached the entry point for Dorval's STAR for the 09 runway, and tracked across Newfoundland and a chunk of Quebec.

 

 

I was expecting much of the ground below to be forested, and it certainly was! Trees as far as the eye could see in all directions!

 

 

However once I'd reached my 7500 ft cruise altitude, as recommended in the very comprehensive Pilot's Notes provided with the FSX model, the ground was invisible as I was over constant cloud.

 

 

And thus it stayed for some hours, checking on the DR nav now and then and ensuring I was homing on whatever beacon was in range until a break in the cloud showed I was over water, and the GPS reckoned it must have been the west end of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. I was soon back over cloud though, and started my descent following the STAR flight info.

 

 

After a short while I was over the water again, and this time a lot nearer Montreal, so it must have been the St. Lawrence River itself.

 

 

When clear of the cloud I could just see Dorval over my shoulder, but we needed a long downwind leg before turning base and then onto the approach.

 

 

 

The turn onto base was the only serious turn on the whole flight so I reckoned it deserved a pic all of its own. 

 

 

And eventually on the approach to 09. The more observant of you might notice that I've updated 'Aries' textures as I figured an important unit like the Empire Navigation School would have its badge visible on both sides of the aeroplane, and now it is, even though I can't find proof that 'Aries' actually carried the badge on the starboard side.

 

 

Closing in on Dorval in the mist I could see I was lined up reasonably with the 09 runway, but no-one had told me that it was closed! It's been designated as a taxiway now, but back when 'Aries' made her flight it WAS a runway, so I used it as such!

 

 

Closing in even more I saw to my amazement that there WASN'T a tree or an apartment block on the runway centre line. Perhaps they'd taken them down when the runway was closed?

What there WAS was an errant 737 making what seems to be a cross wind landing on 06 just as I'm on finals! Gee thanks!

 

 

Landing was a cinch, lots of room even though 09 is the shortest of the three runways and I was directed to the cargo ramp as they had no way of supplying AVGAS for me on the all jet fuel ramps and jetway ramps. So just for once I parked up next to another aircraft, a nice change.

 

 

That Leg took me just over 4 hrs, and confirmed my previous fuel burn rates were a bit high when I wasn't following the Notes. Now I am I can save a bit of fuel hopefully.

 

Leg 04 is just a short hop to Washington DC, only about 450 nms away and I'll be landing at what today is called Joint Base Andrews. How about that for living the high life then? 

 

[Melo965]

1 hour ago, Bossspecops said:

I've updated 'Aries' textures as I figured an important unit like the Empire Navigation School would have its badge visible on both sides of the aeroplane, and now it is

 

 

Looking really good with the improved paint job!

 

[taoftedal]

On 5/26/2024 at 4:13 PM, Bossspecops said:

I set off on yet another RTW flight, the first leg flying from Shawbury to Prestwick in Scotland, just a short trip to figure out fuel burn rates at various altitudes etc. The magazine article listed most of the airfields that 'Aries' used on its record breaking flight ...

 

Just wonderful Bosss!  Thought I might track along side as you cross North America.  In doing so and keeping with the 'British' theme I pulled out my Hawker 800XP (with a pedigree all the way back to the Jet Dragon days) and flew the Goose Bay-Dorval leg.  Even at FL340 it was a pretty trip through the late afternoon following the St. Lawrence into Montreal.

[Bossspecops]

Oh neat! I bet you were cruising a bit faster than I was at 185 kts. 

 

In the RW 'Aries' flew the Washington DC leg to San Francisco, and I'm assuming that would have been to Travis AFB, in one hop! I'm not actually sure my 'Aries' will manage that, but I'll check very closely on the burn rate en route to DC and decide if I have to make a fuel stop somewhere in the mid-west.

 

I'll probably head down to DC today some time, hope the weather is a bit brighter as Iike to SEE where I'm going.

[Bossspecops]

Would you believe that Fox News won't let me read that item about the Perfect Landing fire? Apparently us Brits must be considered either too reactionary or else too sensitive to see it!

 

I could do the image manipulation if you send me your pics once we've found a common site maybe?

 

I got maybe 2/3 of the way to Joint Base Andrews and FSX CT'D again, darn it. I've got the flight saved but I'll lose the fuel data I'm sure. I'll continue the flight tomorrow. 

 

[ViperPilot2]

3 hours ago, Bossspecops said:

Would you believe that Fox News won't let me read that item about the Perfect Landing fire? Apparently us Brits must be considered either too reactionary or else too sensitive to see it!

 

I could do the image manipulation if you send me your pics once we've found a common site maybe?

 

I got maybe 2/3 of the way to Joint Base Andrews and FSX CT'D again, darn it. I've got the flight saved but I'll lose the fuel data I'm sure. I'll continue the flight tomorrow. 

 

 

Kit,

 

You didn't miss much, because there was little to report. Perfect Landing closed because for a fire that damaged the kitchen. Closed until further notice.

 

I posted the link to the local station in Denver that first reported the Story. I chose them because they had the longest written paragraph. The other stations had a two sentence blurb about it. 

 

EDIT: I deleted my original Post because I didn't want to start anything. I was just reporting on the Restaurant fire because the place was Aviation related.

[Bossspecops]

I finally made it to Washington DC, but it was not without difficulties!

 

Yet again Active Sky would have me believe the wind direction at Dorval had remained the same for two weeks! I just don't believe it, but I had no way of finding any info to the contrary so I went with it. That meant I had only a short taxi to the end of 09 runway from my parking spot in the cargo area, which was handy

 

 

The FST flight plan was almost a straight line, diverting just a bit to miss a Mil Ops area in northern Vermont and New York States.

 

 

I made a sharp right turn after take-off, leaving the airport behind and heading for the St. Lawrence River again.

 

 

That certainly is a BIG river, it's over 2 miles wide at this point as is even wider further to the west!

 

 

One rather odd thing I noticed, which I'd also experienced a few times during our Oz Rally, was that I seemed to be towing a smoke trail around behind and below me. It was about the length of 'Aries' fuselage and maybe 50 ft below me. All very strange.

 

 

Climbing up toward my 7500 ft cruise height, the smoke trail was still apparent.

 

 

And it was even visible from the Tower View when I was flying in clearer skies. Anyone any ideas what it is and how to stop it?

 

 

The southern Canadian and northern Vermont scenery was very similar, being heavily forested, and while the terrain was mostly rather flat there were some steeper hills the further south I flew. The weather socked in for a while and I had to deal with some heavy rain for a 100 nms or so.

 

 

Passing out of Vermont and into New York State I spotted the canyon of the Ausable River, which was pretty narrow, and was nowhere near suitable for any 'splash and goes' had I been in an amphibian!

 

 

A bit further south and it became considerably more hilly, these being the hills of the High Peak Wilderness apparently. It certainly looked wild to me! The largest peak was Mt. Marcy, or so Google Earth informed me.

 

 

Shortly afterwards I made the only major turn of the flight to cut back to the straight line course around the Mil Ops Area.

 

 

And very soon afterwards I was in IMC yet again, a little un-nerving in an aircraft as large and as slow as this one! ATC kept me informed, but even so I kept a good look out.

 

 

A sudden break in the cloud allowed to see what I thought was another hefty river below, but it turned out to be the Cannonsville Reservoir, a long and wide stretch of water, and VERY suitable for 'splash and goes'!  Note the smoke trail still there below me........................

 

 

Being over the half way mark now I was fairly confident of reaching DC, when the sim dumped me to desktop yet again! I tried to find the reason for this, but failed abysmally. But as I have FSXSave running throughout my flights these days I could confidently re-start from where I left off, and so I did a day or so later on.

 

It was fairly obvious I was over the USA by now, as the sight of a major highway junction below me showed.  Where else in the world COULD it be with a road layout like that?

 

 

Shortly afterward I crossed yet another large river, this time the Susquehanna River.

 

 

I was expecting to see Baltimore before much longer, but a more pressing situation needed my attention. I started to get FSX warnings about lack of fuel, and while I'd not left Dorval with full tanks I was pretty sure I had enough on board to fly the 450 odd nms to DC. I opened up the Flight Engineer's Panel in the cockpit and found that FSX was correct, the two main tanks for each wing/engine combination were pretty nigh empty!

 

 

The comprehensive Handling Notes supplied with the model talk of a fairly complex procedure to get around this problem, which involved pumping fuel from the auxiliary tanks into the main tanks and carrying on as usual. Sadly it didn't work for me and I had to see what FSX had up its sleeve. Apparently hitting Ctrl-X when the low fuel warning come up on the screen, tops up the tanks automatically without any further action, and so it proved, for which I was pretty grateful as otherwise I'd have had to declare a 'Mayday' and try and land at Baltimore Int. or somewhere nearer. No amount of transfer pump switching seemed to do anything sensible, which doesn't bode well for my trans-USA flight over the next few days.

 

I soon crossed the Back River to the north of Baltimore itself, and headed just east of the airport there.

 

 

Baltimore Int. looked a pretty large place and I may venture a visit there sometime soon.

 

 

Soon afterwards the city itself hove into view as I started my descent.

 

 

You may noticed that my smoke trail had vanished by now, very odd, but I was soon turning due south for the approach to Joint Base Andrews. No doubt the big stadium below me at this point is rather well known, but not to me. I hope someone can tell me what it is.

 

 

With a slight crosswind from the south east I had to continually point the Lancaster up wind. but finally made it to short finals, while being very pleased there was neither a tree nor a tall building getting in the way of a good landing here!

 

 

This was a large and impressive place for sure, and it has its own fighter squadron based right there to ensure it stays that way too!

 

 

Finding ramp space wasn't a problem and I parked up alongside a couple of other 4 engined heavies.

 

 

Before I head off westward across the CONUS I'm going to have to sort out that fuel transfer problem, or else re-build the whole fuel system, not something I'm all that familiar with Otherwise I'll have to plan a refuelling stop mid-continent.