Bossspecops

Oh dear, here we go again........... This sort of thing always seems to crop up in on-line forums where we can't can't get round a table with a beer, or coffee, and talk it out. For my own position I haven't a hope in hell of finishing the Rally by the 30th, I'd have to fly two legs/day and my current life situation just won't let me do that. I'm not even sure I could manage it by the 10th, but I'd have a much better chance of course. As for the '.....we all knew what those rules were and accepted them....' the 'Entrant Requirements' on page 1 don't actually mention the dates. If there isn't an extension I'll fly the remaining legs anyway and post my results 'au concours' afterwards

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.......

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.

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.

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

Hah! What a day THAT was! Melo was trying to join me and my Albion Air Cargo buddies at an airfield somewhere deep in a valley, and his DC 9 didn't manage to find the glide slope. It was the aircraft's fault of course, not Melo's. He had to make a forced landing out in the boondocks, and I scrambled a posse of heavy lift choppers to fly and rescue him and his pax. All done very realistically of course, as we always did in Albion.

Cor, a Dragonfly, the first helicopter I ever flew in, sometime in 1959 or 60 when I was a Cadet and still at school. I downloaded it and I'll maybe repaint it as the one I flew in. That's me ringed in red in front of the door.

They gave me a second chance after a total screw-up of my first leg, and I was 14 mins late! I've got no probs with you having another go too. Just keep an eye out for a lumbering Lysander that could be just ahead of you.

AH right, I never thought of the towers and wires, I better keep clear of them! I'll be time warping back to July for the rest of my Legs anyway.

SERIOUSLY impressive!

Oooh, that Dak looks VERY nice indeed.

I tried a few test flights with the hefty 150 gall tank hooked up to the Lysander's belly, and it's a bit of a handful at low speeds, maybe because of the extra mass, maybe because it increases the aircraft's moment of inertia, but it certainly pays to hold her down and build up speed a bit before letting those flaps and slats do their thing and hurl her into the air! So for Leg 3 I intended to fly with 100% fuel, including the big tank, and not refuel until further along the Rally and see how the performance changes as the fuel burns off. Here's the FSTramp flight plan, planned duration 1 hr 12 minutes. I also noted that I'd been flying the previous two legs with the season set at July, which was crazy as it's now November, so I switched to the real date and tried for real time here in UK, but by then it was almost dark at KLBO so I time warped back an hour, which allowed me to actually see to start up! Oddly an AI aircraft appeared right alongside me, started up and taxied out, first time I'd seen that happen too. The wind was from almost due north by then so I taxied off to the nearby threshold and got airborne. This sounds simpler than it was as I totally forgot my own discoveries about the extra tank and had a horrendous time keeping control as she staggered into the air! Not to mention having to do an almost 180 degree turn to get onto course right after take-off, but I managed it, just....... The November textures for my FSX install look decidedly barren and unforgiving, and I think I'll warp back to July for further Legs of the Rally. The airfields look weird too, they're much sandier than the surrounding countryside, as you can see below. Most un-realistic to my mind, or they really like that in the US? With a bit of two-handed dexterity I got my finger over the 'Print Screen' button at the same time as I was turning onto the second sector of the flight, and got this pic which nicely shows the Lysander's decidedly strange wing planform, but it works very well nonetheless. Then came the second weirdness of these textures. These odd sandy tracks were all over southern Missouri and northern Arkansas, and I thought they must have been roads, but very shortly I came across this.... ......which certainly looks like a freeway, but is it? One of them could be a railroad, the grey one most likely, but in my time on the UK railroads they didn't look like that! All very strange. As I approached the Arkansas stale line I could see this MASSIVE volume of water, and the flight plan said I'd be flying over it for some time, and so it proved. Quite which River or Lake it is I couldn't figure out, but it was most impressive. To add further confusion to my thoughts over the sandy and grey trackways, the sandy ones seemed to dive UNDER the water at a few points! I was making good time by now, keeping within a fighting chance of making an on-time arrival, but I had to juggle the throttle a bit as I turned onto the last westerly sector, and had to keep my eye on the ASI and the Boost Gauge to ensure I didn't jog the over-loose throttle of my Logitech joystick. I passed close to the south of Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport (KXNA) only to see all its lights powered up! That didn't improve my prospects of making a daylight landing at Claremore Regional one bit, but I pressed on regardless. The sun was definitely going down fast by now and I was sure I was going to be glad of my very powerful landing lights. I didn't make the mistake of turning too early this time, not after the almost disaster of my Leg 2 flight, and waited till I was sure I had visual on KGCM, and there was its beacon! Waiting until a much more sensible time to turn, I got the Lysander slowed down nicely until the flaps and slats deployed, and once again I had a devil of a time keeping her under control. So much so I daren't show pics of the actual landing, it was THAT bad! Nowhere near the centre line and waaaaay down the runway, not to mention a hefty rate of descent too, but as with all landings, 'Anyone one you can walk away from.....' etc. A bit more practice is called for I think............. So here I am parked up in the gloom of Claremore Regional, having burnt 48 gallons of fuel en route but arrived ONE minute late on my prediction, total duration 1 hr 13 mins, V=1. My next Leg will be back in July, I found that scenery to be almost depressing.

I know one of the guys who flies it, Rob Millinship, and Melo met him when he was over here too.

I think my total V=3, not 2, actually. I was 3 minutes late on Leg 2.

While I was hanging around at 5K1 prior to flying Leg 2, this old geezer came by on a rickety motor-bike and stopped alongside the Lysander with a look of astonishment on his face. He came right up to me and said 'Hey, is that a Loisaaaander?' in an accent that had NOTHING to do with Illinois! I assured him that it was, and told him what we were doing. He said he used to fly them for the Australian Air Force in WWII and that he '.....had a couple of bits and pieces you might find useful stashed away in my barn......' The spares situation with Lysanders being as they are I assured him that I'd find ANYthing that fitted my aircraft would be very useful, and he promised to '.....bring them by in my ute.....' (A 'Ute' is what Ozzies call a pickup truck by the way....) Later on he did just that, bringing a ladder and a MASSIVE fuel tank in the back of his ute! Apparently they'd been standard fits for the RAAF Lysanders used in Borneo and Malaya back in the 40s and he just happened to have them to hand................ We reached a suitable financial agreement and now I have more fuel than I know what to do with, an extra 150 gallons no less, plus a retractable ladder so passengers can board easily, as you can see below. I didn't want to try the new tank on Leg 2 as I'd already sorted out the flight plan with the current fuel loading, but I made a small adjustment for the added weight of the tank. Accordingly I was off the ground at 1237 with an estimated arrival time of 1343, and was soon on course via STL and VIH etc. This time I got my radio nav pretty well on line, only deviating a small amount from the correct path when I neared a beacon. As I headed west a hefty river came into view, stretching waaaaay out in both directions, all very impressive. The view to the North.... .....and the view to the south. Only after looking at a proper map of the US did I realise it was the Mississippi! Looking into the southerly distance I could see a socking great bridge, and checking the map again told me it was in St Louis, a pretty hefty city in these parts. Further west it got distinctly more forested, so much so that at one stage ALL I could see were trees, to the horizon! It was around this point that my sim expired y'day, but it carried on OK today, the FSTramp plan shows my position at that point. Right in the middle of all that forestation there was that very American icon, the freeway, carving across the tree-scape from east to west. A little further west I noticed an AI airliner coming toward me on a collision course, but as he was umpteen thousand feet above I wasn't too worried, but he did go clean overhead, the first AI aircraft I'd actually seen on the Rally. I was looking pretty good on my timing so far, running a minute or two early, so I reckoned to back off the throttle somewhat on the last sector. At this point I'd passed the last VOR, TBN and had started my descent, and I could see Jones Lebanon in the distance, or so I thought..... I disengaged the auto-pilot and turned onto the approach, but the airfield didn't look right, it only had one runway, and KLBO has two. A quick check with FSTramp proved I'd turned far too early and was landing at 30MO Matzie, about 9-10 miles east of KLBO! I turned tail and got the hell out of there fast, leaving Matzie astern of me! Picking back up on my plan, I firewalled the throttle as I knew I'd be late now, and was soon headed north of KLBO to land on the 18 runway, and made a reasonable approach, as you can see. My touch-down wasn't on the centre line very well, unlike some Spitfire pilots I could mention, but I did put her right on the numbers! Not surprisingly I was 3 mins late on my ETA, touching down at 1346, totally due to looking out the window and seeing airfields I wasn't supposed to be looking at, but that's life. So here I am in Missouri with a SOCKING great fuel tank (and a folding ladder....) and I'll try a few test flights with the tank full, just as soon as I can raise a World Bank loan to fil it up! I used 47 galls on this leg, not too bad I thought, but I could have LOTS more to play with now!

For my 2nd attempt at Leg 2 my flight time should be 1 hr 6 min as the wind directions are different and it's a slightly shorter route. Here we go again.....

Unfortunately that link no longer works as the PDF has been deleted. Could someone re-post it somewhere useful please, as I'm sure it would solve many repainting problems. Regards Kit

After having my FSX flight suddenly crash to desktop recently, I've downloaded The FSXSave utility in an attempt to prevent that happening again, but it refuses to be installed. After clicking on the .exe file it goes away for a short while and then tells me I need SP2 installed first. But I have the Acceleration upgrade installed already, and that apparently includes SP2 as part of the package! I suspect that FSXSave is looking at an old install of FSX Steam Edition that I used to have on the same PC, but on a different partition, and I've done my best to DE-install the FSX-SE setup already. How can I tell FSXSave to ONLY look at my current FSX install? Regards Kit

Rats, I started off Leg 2 in fine fashion, adjusted my take-off direction to suit the RW wind, and head off south west at 4500 ft. My radio nav was up to spec. for a change, and I was making good time, with an ETA of 2 minutes ahead of my predicted time, when ZAP! The whole sim shut down for no apparent reason. I guess I'll have to start again as I don't have any flight saver software installed, but I soon will have.............. Regards Kit

I'm going to try Leg 2 this evening, or tomorrow morning maybe. Estimated time is 1 hr 8 min in the Lysander.

I'm at a large, maybe THE largest, model show in the UK this weekend, and don't really have enough time to fly I'm afraid. I should do a stage or two Sunday evening or during Monday daytime. Regards Kit

Hehehehe, we're all over the place, difficult to avoid us.

I think the sandbags were in my head on that first flight, certainly felt like it anyway. I like that E6B on the web, I've mad it a fave site now, and hopefully my wind angles will now be much improved. Thanks for the link.

My Uncle was at Kohima, my Mum's sister's husband that is. He was Major in the 3rd Carabiniers, in charge of a unit of M3 Lees. Ah, I just checked, it was Imphal, not Kohima, sorry. Just down the road a bit though.

After giving me a chance to have another go at Stage 1, I expect you'll all wished you hadn't when I tell you I hit my 'time-on-target' dead-on the second time around exactly at 1 hr 20 mins. I spent some time flight testing the Lysander before re-flying Stage 1 as I mentioned before, and while the speeds were quite logical the fuel burns were ridiculous! As an example, in a 500 fpm climb at 138 kts with a boost of +2 the burn rate was 1455 lb/hr, whereas in the cruise at 144 kts with +1 boost it was 210 lb/hr, much m ore sensible. In the descent at 500 fpm at 128 kts and -3 boost, it was only 73 lbs/hr. I think AlphaSim have their engine figures a little screwy, but I can live with it. I had to taxi over to the north-south runway as the real world wind was at 300 deg. and with the Lysander's remarkable take-off performance I didn't need to go very far down the runway before turning and getting off as only a Lysander can. Well, maybe a Scottish Aviation Pioneer would give it a run for its money? Here I am taxi-ing out, with the canopy open of course.... Turning onto the course for the first VOR, CGT was almost a waste of time as I had to loop around to the south west quite sharply from a north facing take-off, so I set course for EON, using my re-found radio-nav skills, such as they are. With the northerly wind quite strong I was needing a fair amount of off-set in my heading, and I've long forgotten how to use an E6B, and I haven't got a real one anyway. Which reminded me to look for a software version before the next flight. A close-up of the Lysander, to remind us what a weird shape it is, but it works a treat. This time I flew a little higher as the cloud base was way up there today, at around 4500 ft, recommended by FSX's flight planner, and before long I was approaching my buddies at BMI again. Looking down on them from way up you can just how effective that RAF WWII camouflage was, it's quite difficult to make out the Lysander's distinctive shape against the ground texture. By this time I was heavily into checking my potential arrival time against my prediction, and I was gaining on my ETA, so backed off the throttle somewhat, and had time to look around. I've been to the US many times (I worked for a company who's HQ was in Minneapolis for 30 yrs) but I've not been to the area I was flying over, and it amazed me just how FLAT it is! In every direction there's not a hill to be seen! These four pics taken from the four axes of the aircraft show just what I mean. I got a lot closer to KSPI than I did on my first attempt, and got quite a good look at the place, it's pretty impressive I must say. Pretty soon after that it was time to start my descent, and for a change I managed that quite well, and the ToT looked pretty promising, but with that northerly wind I knew I'd have to swing around and land at Zelmer Memorial from the south, and that would take a little extra time, but with a bit of throttle tweaking I got lined up OK. I didn't manage to drop it onto the numbers, and had to go a fair way down the runway before touching down, but the Lysander has good brakes and it wasn't really a problem. Taxying back in I noticed a funny little object just off on the grass there, so taxied over to have a look before realising it was a fuel station! I'd never seen one like that before, and FSX in its wisdom had filled me up to 100% before I noticed! Luckily I'd taken a note of my fuel state just on the approach, so I could say with some accuracy that used just a bit more than y'day at 45 gallons. A MUCH better performance than my woeful attempt y'day, and I'm quite chuffed at now being up there with my buddy Melo. Thanks for the second chance, I promise i won't do it again........... Regards Kit