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Ratty's Ramblings - Drifting By Ian Radcliffe Drifting Unless you always land on runways pointing directly into the wind, you're familiar with drift. And of course it's one of the effects of those pesky winds at altitude. Even when you're on autopilot following the magenta line, if there's any sort of crosswind your plane is flying sideways a bit. Exactly how much depends on your speed and heading, and the strength and direction of the wind. I recently elected to fly from Southern California to Sydney, Australia. Don't ask. I decided to go via Hawai'i and Pago Pago, making the trip three hops of a little over 2,000 miles apiece. There are not a lot of landmarks and navaids in the South Pacific, but using a GPS seemed like a kind of heresy as I was flying the A2A Lockheed Constellation. In the Connie, the onboard map looks like this: I can see that wind from the east northeast is pushing me off to the right, so I'm heading 191 degrees to get my desired track of 193. This is, of course, more information than would be available in real life. Back in the day, forecast winds aloft were all you had, and landmarks and beacons had great significance. But those are in short supply over the Pacific, so you need another way to tell where you're going. Drift sights were invented in WWI as a bombing aid, but after that, many aircraft were fitted with them as navigation aids that allowed the pilot or navigator to look downwards to observe the relative motion of the surface and measure how much the aircraft was drifting due to wind. I like that they add a little bit of mystery to a flight. Drift information alone doesn't tell you how much your ground speed is affected, so while you can be more certain you'll reach your destination, you won't be able to calculate exactly when. (Some drift sights incorporated "speed lines" to get a ground speed reading by measuring the time it took for an object on the surface to move between the lines and then factoring for altitude.) The Connie's map is a great stand-in for a drift sight, but if you don't have an onboard map like that, how do you get the drift information? I've found that a simple protractor works just fine; the ones with radial lines and no holes are the best. Go to your top-down view in the sim and set it as "aircraft-oriented". Put your protractor on the screen over the aircraft with the 0-degree mark at the top, and watch the surface slide by. You'll be able to see the surface movement relative to your plane. Read off the drift angle and correct for it. After a couple of minutes, check again and make any necessary adjustments. That's it. Congratulations, you're on course! Formation Flight I'm reliably informed that formation flying is easier in real life than it is in a sim. That's encouraging, because I found it tricky enough in the sim that there were times I thought I'd never get the knack. But it turned out to be much like learning to ride a bike - not getting it, not getting it, not getting it ... got it! My moment was when I first noticed I was moving the throttle without consciously thinking about it. I'm not great; I can hold formation with an airplane that isn't maneuvering too drastically. The trick seems to be: Match the lead's bank angle Adjust throttle to move forward and backward Use rudder to move closer or farther away I've had the opportunity to practice a lot on our group flights, but it's also easy to practice alone with your program's AI. Turn off collisions, take off, and look for someone to follow (Ctrl-Shift-L for labels in FSX). Whatever you're flying, you should pick a target over which you have a performance advantage, because you will be playing catch up. Joining up is an art in itself, and easier if you've played combat sims. It involves juggling wildly variable geometry and vectors, a skill that is largely about feel; like everything else in flying, you get better with practice. It's easiest to join from astern, another instance where the speed advantage helps. Once you're at roughly the same altitude, heading, and speed, use your controls as above to move into the "slot" position, below and behind the lead aircraft. Choose two points on the lead aircraft to line up; for example, the edge of the rudder with the gap between the aileron and the flap. Then see how close you can get. I've been told that formating is easier the closer you fly to the lead. Let me know how that works out for you. If you're feeling particularly ambitious, JoinFS has a function that allows you to record a flight, then play it back and fly along. You can even record that flight and play it back and fly along. Then you can record that flight, and the next, and the next, and thus build a formation. When the British were still flying the Hawker Hunter, there was an RAF Hunter demo team called The Black Arrows. At the Farnborough Air Show in 1958, they executed a formation loop with 22 aircraft, a record that stands to this day. They followed that with a 16-aircraft barrel roll. I guess it just takes practice. Homonyms 2 They're homonyms, I get it, but really, people... HangAr HangEr Ratty's Ramble This time, we explore the Hudson River Valley, from New York City to the river's source south of Lake Placid. The trip is around 230 miles. Take off from Westchester County Airport, KHPN, avoiding the congestion and dodgy frame rates of the NYC area, and fly west to the Hudson River and Tappan Zee Bridge. Then follow the river north, past West Point military academy, Poughkeepsie, Albany, and Hudson Falls, and up into the mountains to the river's source at Mount Marcy, landing at Lake Placid, KLKP. The trip looks like this: /images/features/rattyrm5/3.jpg And the Skyvector plan is here.