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I'm no. 6! I'm no. 6! (MSFS St. Barts landing challenge)


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I needed a change of scene/pace today, so I "went" to St. Barts. I started off on RWY 28 in the Beech Bonanza. Taking off, I had to pull back back pretty aggressively on the yoke--the St. Barts runway is very short; RWY 28 ends at the edge of a bay. I banked left to commence the downwind leg of a landing approach to RWY 28, enjoying the view of the bay and the big cruise ship at anchor there. Turning onto final with flaps set and gear down, I saw that RWY 28's threshold was at the bottom of an intervening hill, and realized there was no way I was gonna land the Bonanza in that direction without ending up in the drink. So I gunned the engine, retracted the landing gear, pulled up and circled around over the eastern end of the island for an approach from the opposite direction--to RWY 10. Using the cruise ship as a reference point, I got myself lined up with the runway. It turns out that the threshold of St. Barts' RWY 10 is also partially obscured by a hill. I had to sort of wheel around it in the last few seconds of my final approach. But I got the Bonanza down in pretty good form, other than getting entangled with a truck after taxiing to the ramp.

St. Barts 101 kb.jpg

(Bonanza captures truck)

 

Now familiar with this little airport, I decided to try my hand at MSFS's St. Barts landing challenge. The sim starts you off on an angling sort of crosswind leg to final approach in a Daher TBM, which I'd only "flown" once before. Despite my supposed familiarity with RWY 10, I missed my first approach. That's putting it mildly. I was too high to land, but low enough that I was looking into the face of the hill rising at the other end of the runway. I pushed the throttle forward, retracted the landing gear and pulled up, just clearing the trees at the top of the hill.

 

I circled around--way, way around; the Daher takes its time--at about 1,700 ft. ASL for another go at it. I was initially somewhat high on final, but I didn't obsess about it. Instead, I pushed the nose down so it was pointing at the runway numbers, while throttling back and adding flaps. From thereon out I kept the marker after the numbers pretty much in the middle of my windscreen, before leveling off and flaring out for a smooth touchdown. My final score as 332 (the lower the better, as in golf) which ranked me in 6th place among the top 10 simmers to try this challenge--worldwide, no less.

 

Hint: if you decide to try it, spot the cruise ship, head for it, then bank right when you're over whatever end of the ship is pointed toward land (bow or stern; I forget which). At that point, you should have the runway in sight.

 

I also learned I really like the way the Daher handles. I think I'll spend more time in it from now on. I could do with some clues on how to use its Garmin.

Edited by Aptosflier
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simplest answer Youtube, happy landings

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Patrick McGoohan said watch for the autonomous balloons on takeoff, usually near the beach.

I didn't see any balloons. I'll have to go back.

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I am intrigued by your description of the challenge as it has me somewhat confused. It appears to indicate that your approach was over the 28 threshold whereas the challenge requires an approach over the 10 threshold i.e. heading east over the saddle with a steep descent. What is strange is that, if you are in fact landing from the incorrect direction, you are even getting a score. Usually you would get the message 'You did not land on the designated runway'. The scoring of the challenges goes from the highest possible of 2 000 000 to zero and is not like a golf score. The higher your score, the better. I wonder if you are reading your Leaderboard incorrectly? The score shown on the Leaderboard is the one with the heading highlighted in white. If you are reading it as 'Top Ten', and the 'Top Ten' heading is in blue, then you are really reading some other score. Instead of being in the top ten, perhaps you are in the bottom ten. :-( Looking at the top ten shown on the Leaderboard, #6 is currently 'Fogandes' with a score of 1 831 889.

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I am intrigued by your description of the challenge as it has me somewhat confused. It appears to indicate that your approach was over the 28 threshold whereas the challenge requires an approach over the 10 threshold i.e. heading east over the saddle with a steep descent. What is strange is that, if you are in fact landing from the incorrect direction, you are even getting a score. Usually you would get the message 'You did not land on the designated runway'. The scoring of the challenges goes from the highest possible of 2 000 000 to zero and is not like a golf score. The higher your score, the better. I wonder if you are reading your Leaderboard incorrectly? The score shown on the Leaderboard is the one with the heading highlighted in white. If you are reading it as 'Top Ten', and the 'Top Ten' heading is in blue, then you are really reading some other score. Instead of being in the top ten, perhaps you are in the bottom ten. :-( Looking at the top ten shown on the Leaderboard, #6 is currently 'Fogandes' with a score of 1 831 889.

I went to St. Barts on my own, in the Bonanza, before I did the landing challenge. That's when I first tried to land on RWY 28, went around and landed on RWY 10. Having accomplished that, and familiar with the airport, I decided to try the landing challenge--when I also landed on RWY 10, after a missed approach. As I recall, players are scored two ways. There's one ranking that reaches five figures, and another that's three figures. When I finished, I saw that I was ranked sixth among the "top 10" at 332 points. Those top-10 scores were in ascending order. The people ahead of me had lower scores. So there's apparently a conversion between the first set of scores and the second set.

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I watched a YouTube video of the St. Barts landing challenge and realized I'd landed in the wrong direction. My apologies to all for my confused and misleading post. Now I gotta go back and do it right.
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Congrats! I'll have to start trying those.

I'm going to spend more time on this one. As I noted, I did it backward the first time. I figure if I can consistently land the Daher TBM on this insane approach--while flying into the sun and clearing a hill immediately in front of the runway, at close to stall speed before diving to reach the runway--I can land the Daher (or any other plane, for that matter) anywhere.

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Here's how:

Thanks. What plane's retro cockpit is that in the video?

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It's the A2A Lockheed 049 Constellation. FSX and P3D only at the moment.

When I was five years old going on six, in 1950-51 my mom and I flew from Chicago's Midway airport to California in what I'm pretty sure was a Lockheed Constellation. I remember we left at night. I fell into a deep sleep like little kids do and I when woke up in daylight, we were still in the air. California was farther from Chicago in those days.

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I'm sure he's making a joke, based on the old TV show "The Prisoner", and how it relates to your thread title!

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prisoner

Never saw that show, so the joke was over my head.

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No doubt! While it is a famous show among people who like obscure weird stories... it aired in '67 and wasn't seen by many people. I saw it on a re-run in the 1990's. So most are not aware of it's existence.

 

Basically, an agent decides to quit, and gets drugged, taken to a weird psychadelic resort town, where he is repeatedly interogated. The interogators call him Number 6, one refers to himself as Number 2, and our protagonist repeatedly states that "I'm not a number!" to which they reply "you are Number 6!". He tries to leave, but discovers that "security" is made up of sentient "balloons" that swarm you and asphixiate you... so all in all, this thread unintentionally brought up memories of that strange mysterious show!

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The Prisoner was filmed on location at a private estate in North Wales called Portmeirion (pron. Portmerryon) which my wife and I visited a few years ago: https://portmeirion.wales/

Tim Wright "The older I get, the better I was..."

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