Bossspecops

Hoots of laughter here Melo! 

Just the thought of doing the Canal Run at over 700 kts is mind blowing. The sonic bang as you went past the cruise liner would have bust every porthole and window on the ship, and that must be WELL over a thousand! Hope your 3rd party insurance is good. 

As for poor Max, I reckon he'll give up seafaring for ever after a 100 kt trip in a Sea Dart all the way to the beach! 

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.

I downloaded that package on Simviation for a Sea Dart and a submarine, and it looks AWESOME. Bags of scope there for all sorts of operations. 

Thanks for the link. 

11 hours ago, PhrogPhlyer said:

I chose the Convair R3Y Tradewind, to me one of the classiest seaplanes the US Navy ever evaluated. A total of 13 were built, and with a max cruise speed of 300kt they were proving to be a versatile aircraft (with refueler and lift nose cargo ramp loading variants). Unfortunately, the  Allison T40-A-10 turboprop engines had catastrophic failures in flight with the loss of three aircraft. Without a suitable replacement engine the aircraft were removed from service and scrapped.

 

-.........................-

 

Time to get airborne and head north. Another bridge... hmm...

 

A Tradewind? That's about the LAST aeroplane I'd have thought of for this task! Putting something THAT big under those bridges took some flying for sure, well done indeed!

And were there any aircraft powered by the T-40 that were any good? Maybe only the Convair XFY-1 Pogo. A pity as the T-40 was the only large turbo-prop the US had at that time. 

There's an FS2004 Sea Dart by Kazunori Ito at 

and some repaints for it here too.

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. 

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.

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?

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. 

I took a second stab at the Canal run, but in something a bit faster than 'Austral Rose' as I threatened earlier in the thread. This time I used the SARO SR.A/1 jet flying boat fighter, not something you come across every day in the air! The SR.A/1 was a project of the 50s in the UK, and was the first jet waterplane in the world, and although it looks pretty tubby (it had to be to keep that intake clear of the water....) it's remarkably swift aeroplane. I was lucky enough to see the real thing fly at Farnborough in 1948, and SARO's Chief Test Pilot, Geoff Tyson, did his initial fly-past inverted and very fast! 

As the SR.A1 isn't an amphibian I started from as close to the Colon Airport as I could, this little bay here.

It's an FS9 model with a very basic panel, so basic that it doesn't have any engine starters that would work in FSX, and I didn't really have enough time to re-build the panel. Ctrl-E didn't work too well either so I did a 'slew start'. (Hit Y, F4, Y, Y, F1, Y in that order and you're back on the surface with the engines running. Works every time. 

The SR.A/1 didn't steer too well, even with the water rudder down, so I just opened her up and had at it. She lifted off at about 110 kts, pretty darn fast for a seaplane, and soon I was climbing away and turning toward the Canal.

The wing floats retract, turning through 180 degrees so they fit almost flush under the wings, very clever.

Here's that basic panel, which comes with a HUD display, and that's pretty clever too as they hadn't been invented in 1947 when the aircraft first flew! What you can't see all that well is I was doing 618 kts by now. This was one QUICK aeroplane!

Soon, very soon, I was passing the Gatun Locks and turning across the Lake.

That small Restricted Area I spotted on my last Canal run was still there, but I passed them so fast I doubt they realised it until I was gone!

Soon I could see that bridge that we weren't allowed to fly under, so of course I didn't. I mean, who'd fly UNDER a bridge as 626 kts?

Then more locks and some even LOWER bridges! No way I'd try ducking under THEM!

And then yet ANOTHER of those pesky bridges. They DO like building them right in front of us, don't they?

Max was calling for help again, you'd thought he'd have learnt his lesson from the last 5-6 rescues he's had, but no, so I did a quick pass over the lighthouse and dropped the SARO onto the water alongside him. Luckily SARO had designed the SR.A1 with space for a jump seat behind the pilot (they really did do that too.....) so Max squeezed in  behind me after we'd strapped his kayak to the port wing float, and then lifted off to drop him back on terra firma.

I couldn't put the SR.A/1 back down on the runway at Howard AFB, but I could run up the beach for Max, and so I did that and dropped him and his kayak off there.

As you can see, the beach is only a little distance from the perimeter fence so Max hadn't got far to go.

From take-off to landing my jet flight took nine minutes......................... 

One of the three SR.A/1s still exists and here it is in the Solent Sky Museum at Southampton in the UK.

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. 

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.

To link the Club threads together, I've started on my Round The World flight in a Lancaster commemorating the RAF's first such flight in 1944.

The new thread's here :- 

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............

15 hours ago, Macroburst said:

Looking at you, Mr Coal Hole!

 

 

 

 

Too true, the Nav's visibility in a Sea Vixen was great for taking star shots, but naff all for anything else! 

I  tested out the Walrus and the Sea Otter for our trek across Oz, and they6 both flew quite well, but were a little too slow for me, thus the Sealand eventually. 

As Sirrus says, the very last Supermarine prop powered aircraft was an amphibian, the Seagull from 1948.

For its time it was very hi-tech, having contra-props driven by a Griffon 29, so it was almost as powerful as a Spitfire PRXIX, and had variable incidence wings even! They only built two of them as the advent of the helicopter rendered the concept of a fixed wing SAR aircraft obsolete.

I've been hoping that someone would do one for FS, but sadly it's yet to happen.

Having found some decent FSX scenery for the Canal Zone I was ready to try this one. I was a bit confused to start with as I didn't realise that Panama Pacifico Int. Airport was in fact Howard Air Force Base, and finding that scenery was much easier.

Starting off on the ramp at Enrique Adolfo Jiminez (have you noticed how many airfields there are around there that start with Enrique'? LOADS of them!) was OK, lots of space for my little amphib.

By now, after the Oz Rally, and my out and back flight around the world, I was well used to the Sealand's foibles and she was soon burbling away properly. With the long runway there take-off wasn't a problem and I was tail-up well before 1/3 of the length.

Making a long turn to port I passed over the pretty complex sea freight terminal making sure I was WELL clear of those hefty cranes!

I was soon over the Gatun Lock complex, and was till boggled that the canal runs from the Atlantic Ocean in the WEST to the Pacific Ocean in the EAST! 

Immediately past the Gatun Locks I came across of my USN friends with one of their GINORMOUS carriers, like the one that Melo arranged for me to be a handy refuelling stop in mid-Atlantic on the way home from Oz.   I gave them a fly-by in thanks of course.

Form that point on the whole of Panama seemed to be water! Everywhere I looked was a lake or a river or similar. Navigation needed a check with FST and Google Earth to find the correct path to the Pacific, but there was a prohibited area on route, so of course I had to check that out! 

That little sandy area to port seemed to be the source of the prohibition, but if socking great ships can sail right past it, why couldn't I fly over it? Closer in it looks like a small airstrip, but there's no sign of such a place on Google Earth.

Of course after this point I would be approaching that first bridge that I wasn't going to fly under of course......

And so I didn't........  And I didn't take a pic of me NOT flying under it either..............

Then there followed quite a long stretch of relatively bare canal before I came across the first lot of the Miraflores Locks. It seems there's two lots of them, and now they've built a THIRD lot too! But before I reached them I passed a HUGE cruise ship, so gave the thousands of pax a wave as I whizzed past them.

Then I did come across the second lot of locks, all of which look pretty impressive, and busy too. LOTS of ships heading in both directions.

And very soon afterwards there was the third lot of locks, another part of the Miraflores set, with a cruise liner using them.

I was warned about NOT flying under the next bridge, but surely they can't have meant the ones just past the locks, can they? They've only got about 10 ft of headroom and just have to swing or lift to allow the ships through surely?

But no, the other bridge that I wasn't allowed to fly under loomed over the horizon very soon afterwards.

Of course I had to check out much clearance there was so that I didn't fly under it.............

And of course as I DIDN'T fly under it I couldn't possibly have taken a pic of me not doing it, could I? But just beyond it there was ANOTHER USN carrier. 

They're all over the place, so I gave them a fly-by too. 

But right after that I got Max's SOS over the radio and flew off to find the Flamenco Island Lighthouse to see if I could spot him. I found Flamenco Island OK, but there's no sign of the lighthouse in the FSX scenery.  

As Max's kayak was bright yellow it was pretty easy to see against the blue ocean, even if a large chunk of the boat was under water, and I put down alongside him, opened up the side doors and hauled Max and his kayak aboard.

With only a little extra weight, after draining the water from Max's kayak, we didn't take too long to get airborne again and make the long left hand turn back toward Howard AFB. Ooops, sorry, I mean Panama Pacifico Int. of course, and soon I could get the flaps and gear down and line up on the approach.

With that looooong runway there was no problem in landing and soon I was directed to a parking area specifically for piston engined types, well away from the smelly turbines of course. And here I am parked alongside a few DC3s. We piston engines must sick together, right?

So that was that, a really interesting flight and I Iearnt a lot more about the Canal Zone than I did before. AND Max got rescued before his kayak sank too. 

I managed the flight in 'Austral Rose' y'day, after a long and successful search for decent FSX scenery for the area. PIREP later, with some quite good pics too.

I'll give it a go in the SR.A/1 later on, which should be a LOT faster. 

Not sure where Max will sit when I pick him up though.............

Amphibian? NOT flying under Bridges etc? 

Sounds just the job for 'Austral Rose', I'll dig her out and get over there, but NOT doing an RW flight this time.

On the other hand I also have a jet that may do it.....

8 hours ago, defaid said:

That tractor driver has bigger balls than the pilot.

Even if he has got a big dent in his head! 

Noting that this flight was recommended to be flown with a higher power aircraft with good STOL characteristics I thought 'I have JUST the thing in my hangar!

Yes, the Westland Lysander that I  flew on the Route 66 rally. I've updated her a bit since the early Route 66 stages and she now carries a hefty belly tank and a ladder to persuade the pax to leave the warmth of the cabin when we reach our destination, wherever that may be.

Downloading the FSX scenery file for Milford Sound was a matter of moments, but I couldn't find an upgrade for Queenstown, but that didn't really matter as the default FSX scenery there is pretty good.

Locating the good 'ole Lysander at Queenstown went fine, and I powered up my Active Sky software for real weather, drew up an IFS flightplan as the cloudbase was quite low and I anticipated being IMC for at least some of the flight. 

BIG mistake, but see later.

Here I am on the ramp at Queenstown, no local traffic, just me, so I started up and hit the 'Shift-P' button so I could turn around and head for the threshold.

To my utter amazement one of the little push-back tractors over by the tower started up and raced over toward me to aid in the push-back! NOT a good idea with a single engined prop powered aeroplane as the tractor driver was likely to get his head cut off by the prop!

However both my Bristol Mercury engine and the tractor driver seemed to survive and I got out onto that looooooong runway and headed off to the west.

My FSTramp produced a rather strange SID for that Queenstown runway which involved a 270 degree turn to port, passing directly o'head the airport before setting course for Milford Sound, but who was I, a mere Brit, to argue such things, eh?

Having got airborne in a minute fraction of the Queenstown runway the Lysander was climbing as only a Lysander can, and I was on my way.

After a short while I passed over the field and headed off to the south for a short distance, still climbing to the safety height, noted as 8500 ft by FST.

But all the while I was being tossed about by horrendous wind gusts and the aircraft was climbing and diving almost at random, nothing that I could do with the stick seemed to have much effect, and pretty soon I was in the cloud.

And that was pretty much that. I didn't have a single glimpse of the apparently awesome scenery of the South Island and all the time I was being battered and bashed by the weather. There was a single major turn on the flightplan, and that was fairly close to Milford Sound and just before my planed start of descent, but I was till IMC at that time.

Descending over all those mountains was a mind numbing procedure and I was wondering if I should open the canopy in case I needed a quick exit after a crash landing! As it happened I popped out of the bottom of the cloud almost directly o'head Milford Sound field, but I was way too high and headed past the field by then.

I tried making some spiral descending turns but they left me well west of the field and heading AWAY from the runway, which wasn't too clever. Seeing that hefty rock ahead, I planned on passing it to the north and making a 180 deg turn around it to come around the west side of it and nicely lined up.

WRONG!

But the rock was just the pointed end of a hefty chain, and there was no gap west of it so I headed up the canyon in the pic until I found airspace wide enough to carry out a 180, which wasn't easy. Luckily the Lysander is a pretty nimble beast and made the turn ok, and I was headed back to my destination, but at a very low level.

Lining up was not easy and the gusts we re still bashing me about, even deep in the canyon here, and my first attempt was a total failure, I was WELL over to one side of the runway, so I opened up and went round again.

And I did that THREE times before I could plonk her down. And at last I landed, but waaaaaay down the runway.

Taxi-ing in was a slight problem as the Lysander wanted to weather-cock into the wind and only some hefty differential braking turned me off the runway and onto the ramp. I was VERY glad to shut down, I can tell you!

Of course the main problem was using real world weather, in the Real World I'd have never attempted a flight with the wind gusting like that and the cloud that low, so I may try it again but with some customised weather, bright sun, light breezes and either no clouds at all or a little cirrus at around 35000 ft. 

YES! That's great, thanks. 

I'll PIREP my 'flight' later today. (The word 'flight' is used here in its WIDEST possible sense............ )

If it is, I can't find it. A direct link would be very useful.

I'm afraid the way the whole site is arranged has deteriorated badly over the last few years. 

17 hours ago, PhrogPhlyer said:

OK, I posted the NZ flight in the wrong thread, how do we move this?

Where IS the thread for the NZ flights please?

I can't find it anywhere.