AlyMac

On 11/26/2023 at 1:31 PM, PhrogPhlyer said:

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 

The Rally looked like great fun to do but unfortunately for me - work got in the way and I couldn't continue. I did re-fly the first section but my times were so out of the box I managed to embarrassed myself again - and this time I even knew the way  Keep up the good work - I'll try again next time

10 hours ago, ScottishMike said:

We sat on the beach watching Santa Monica pier bathed in orange as the sun dropped behind the hills.

“Still planing to leave tomorrow?” I asked casually.

“Actually I spoke to my boss last night and he has agreed an extra week of leave. It's coming out of my summer hols. ”

Suzanne had been showing me photos on her phone; aircraft she had researched when choosing the plane for this challenge.

“It's interesting to see what others have chosen. One of the reasons for staying on is to see them all come in and talk to them about their choices.” She added.

“Particularly the crew of a certain Cherokee? Sun's going down now, they might appear. They finished days ago.”

“This is the aircraft I almost chose” She changed the subject :

“JGF had made an excellent choice.”

I was puzzled: “Why the Airdale then?”

The Bonanza, although a couple of years younger than JGF's still had the older panel.”:

I did consider a more modern Bonanza, plenty available, but decided they were too modern for the spirit of the challenge:

 

“Quite a few twins would have been suitable and fun. Then I remembered you don't have a twin rating.

JMSR chose one of your favourites, the Beech 180, this was available for hire, but in Scotland:

Taoftedal's choice also a good one. This would have bettered it, but for your rating, it was available and at a pretty good price too:

 

Failing that, one of these would have done the job, the Comanche 400, except they are rearer than hen's teeth:

Only one available for hire and it was in Florida and they wanted stupid money:

Other twins that would have been fun: An Apache twin. This one was very original so avionics pretty basic:

One I would have loved, bach to Beech, the twin Bonanza”:

She scrolled past a photo quickly

“What was that you just flicked past?” I asked

“Unsuitable.” the terse reply.

“Let's have a look.” I asked.

“If you must.” She scrolled back:

“No way would I be seen flying with that art work. Objectifying women sexually.

And anyway both Twin Bonanzas were in France.”

It looked good to me. But I didn't say so out loud.

“Guess I'm going to have to get my twin rating for our next adventure.”

We wandered back to our hotel amongst the busy Santa Monica beech lovers

 

Aye Mike - guid auld G-ASUG - what a bonnie lass she is. I did my Twin rating on an Apache - G-ASMY at Norfolk and Norwich Flying Club at RAF Swanton Morley. Poor old lady has been abandoned ay  Beccles and looks to be in a very sorry state. Still - my lottery ticket might come up and she'll fly again ! 

6 hours ago, TomPenDragon said:

 

Normally, I'd say that some of us here have taken our first run at Zelmer as practice, since 5K1's so hard to find and we're getting used to the scoring system, etc., so if you'd like to head back to Lansing and try to improve your variance, feel free.

 

However, I just finished watching your cockpit video, and I'm waaaaaay too envious to say anything at this point.

 

(But seriously, my vote is you're welcome to take another crack at the first leg, if you'd like, and congrats on the cockpit!)

Cheers Captain Tom,

There I was just about to start leg 2 as well ! It'll have to wait until I get a charger - I lost the bloody thing !

9 hours ago, PhrogPhlyer said:

Excellent! Now that's how to the ole' bird come alive.

And to make it easy for me, the "Official Officious Air Rally Official" to capture proper times, please post your planned route time and your actual route time (variance between the two).

Thanks.

Oops! RTFMS 1 hour 10 on the plan - 1 hour 25 actual. silly old fool my US Army Airforce E-6B is within arms distance too !

6 minutes ago, meloscanlon said:

 

Wow!  Cool cockpit setup!

 

You are joining us in style!

 

bits of wood- chewing gum and gaffa tape old pal 

Good old Charles Wood has completed her first sector

KIGQ - 5KI

ground speed down to 130 kts - real wx headwind

Fuel on T/o 1,600 lbs

Fuel on arr 739 lbs

85 mins flight time (no GPS used - just Skyvector sectional, took me a little while to find the strip !).

Start and take-off

https://youtu.be/AaUtAcICXPw

Then the battery conked out on my new GoPro

 

 

 

Alastair McLeod - DCA 2550 Charter Captain

X Plane 11 - vanilla ie no add on scenery. AWX DC-3 by Johan van Wyk

Just came across this - a little late. Im on XP11 now sadly

37 minutes ago, PhrogPhlyer said:

There's also the whole tailwheel vs trike landing discussion. Most landing with a tail wheeled aircraft are done on main gear, rudder for directional control, tail wheel settles as get slower, then rudder, rudder, rudder, until engines off in the chocks. Of course for short field landing a three-point landing is the best, slow sleep, lots of wheel friction, and don't forget gentle brakes, on/off/on/off.... Add a cross wind and this is not for the feint at heart. The more we make sim flying realistic, the higher the challenge and greater the reward. OK time to try a short field, over the trees, crosswind landing with a J-3 and then a DC-3. I'll let you know how it goes!

Sorry mate but Ive never landed a DC3 in the 3 point attitude - ever. Dont know of anyone who did. The rudder doesn't have enough authority under 70 -80 kts. Best to aim for the end of the runway at 90kts level, 2300/20" and on touch down apply brakes and balance the elevator and fly that big tail down gently. I have a lot of hours on J3, Super Cubs and the Dakota. There are two types of pilot, those who have ground looped, and those who will. Thankfully my ground loop was gentle in G-ROVE at Glasgow. Cheeky bastard in the tower called me "Would you like to do a 180 and continue to the end of the runway- or can you taxi back to parking where you are !"... Had I been Dak' I might not be here to tell the story

Petrol Problems...

The fuel taps have become a bit of a nightmare. I tried soldering up 10 way switches as there are no 5 way switches I can find with the correct "dwell" with the 5 five position fuel taps on the Dak'. This doesnt really work well as the levers are always out of sync a little.

I bought one of these Oven Grill switches which has a pleasing - quite smooth and positive click-click movement (5 in the right places and a 6th at 6 o'clock) but it operates 6 cam lobes on a shaft which give a mix of on +1, on+2, on + 2 and 1, on + 2 and 4 ... grrr! Cant make it work at all. 

I will  grind off the cam lobes and put slotted aluminium tube rings at the correct 5 positions to close the contacts. Nuts and bolts again 

Air Manager works quite well with led lights working through Arduino-

Oil pressures

Fuel pressures

Generators

Green Gear Down

Amber Gear in transit

Door light - although they say it works with XP11 - doesnt.  Ive tried to write code - but I cant even find the files to enter. Im too old to understand this stuff. If I cant make it work with nuts and bolts then it doesnt work - period !

My radios and navs are at the bottom. Just the guitar pickup frames and two pots, one for high and one for low plus a push on each for ident and test/NAV-Radio2 whatever. More details in 2 or 3 weeks after my euro trip with work. 

Started making a mold for the dC6 yoke. Looked good for a while then.... I'll try again with carbon fiber tows and less hardner

Sorry - I didnt think anybody was following this thread

 

found these guitar pickup surrounds to make into radios. Just £2.50 off amazon

just saw this - yes I will upload more today

 

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

This was just an experimental video. Lots of mistakes when I look through. We'd never do the mag check with both engines at 2300 ! - and I didnt pull the throttles back to 36" after pumps off... Oops

However the interruption from my Number One was just too good to miss :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

Its been a while due to other commitments but Im now ready for the next part of my journey. The problem is that I like to fly more than I like to build !

Like all the rest of my Flight-deck, Im going in blind so if it doesnt work - I will have to start again. As with the rest of the project there is a little "Poetic Licence" as there are restrictions in my loft, my budget and most of all - my open plan head...

Basically its a 3.5mm ply sheet to go over my two £10 screens which run AirManager for my instruments. Ive also fitted pots to adjust the instruments to rid myself of "Keyboard chores". Not exactly the right shape - but close enough for Government Work :D

 

Not much to show yet but you can see where Im going. Ive traced out the positions of the instruments and to make them fit the small screens - they have all been reduced to 70mm diameter. Enough for me to see without my reading glasses :shock:

Looks great mate. I was lucky enough to see these beauties in operation out of San Juan International in Mallorca in the 1960's. From the observation floor it was amazing to watch the shallow take-off with gear up immediately after the wheels left the ground, the bright yellow sand with the aeroplane with its shadow racing through the Palm trees - sweet memories. I still have the control wheel of EC-AVA s/n 43118 which was very sadly cut up in the 1990's. Its being copied in resin to fit my DC-3 sim now. If only I had the space to build another cockpit !

After a long lay-off due to work commitments the pedestal is almost finished

Aileron and Rudder trims are done and working.

Sounds great matey. Funny but it was the CCP Virus that started mine !

These are my completed trimmers for aileron and rudder on my home-made DC-3 Dakota pedestal

This is just the test rig. All up and working well with AirManager :)

Unused Brain cells from a recent scan...

[ATTACH=CONFIG]226131

 

you can see where Im going with this. The red and small orange gear are bonded together - this is the intermediate gear.

 

The winder, small orange gear and spindle will be bonded together. The large orange wheels' spindle turns both the potentiometer and the needle on the face of the Aileron trim indicator. Gearing is 20:1 - which equates to five turns of the winder from the centre point for full left or full right.

 

The black plate is 5mm polypropylene sheet which is an excellent bearing surface. The gears will be sandwiched between two of these.

 

However I need to await my local garage to open so that I can use his pillar drill to get the holes straight :-(

 

[/ATTACH]

Trim winders for the Aileron and Rudder are next on the agenda

The stickers arrived from "I Say Ding Dong" - a company who specialise in vintage racing car stickers. Ive dealt with them many times rebuilding Classic race / Rally cars and also my racing car simulators as well and what they can di is superb.

 

Parking brake is just a 75A automotive pull switch from ebay but it works well through the LeoBodnar BU0836A board. Great to get something else off of the yoke - as that will soon become redundant as well.

 

So in the meantime from the left I have - Landing Gear, Parking Brake and Flaps. Landing gear and Flaps will be moved to levers on the floor at a later date.