Gaiiden's Scroll

Given that I'm about to install FSX on a clean computer for like the 4th time and still don't entirely remember all the stuff I've done with it over the years I decided to create a log here to chronicle all the additions and tweaks I make so that next time a clean build is required I can just follow the steps rather than trying to remember what to install/tweak next. It's also a way for others to get ideas for tweaking their system and FSX products as well.

Things to Back Up on Main Drive

• Ultimate Traffic 2 databases - primarily ones I've created
  
• Standards.XML
  
• FSX.cfg
  
• Flight Simulator X Files folder
  
• ENB mods
  
• Saitek device profiles
  
• FSWC profiles
  

Initial install procedures and additional tweaking taken from NickN's all-encompassing guide

Additional information used for tweaking gotten from the AVSIM FSX Hardware & Software Guide

Uninstall Note: FSX Acceleration is installed on top of the default FSX install and only one at a time will show in the Programs and Features window. So after uninstalling Acceleration go back and then you can uninstall FSX

4/10/14 - FSX Deluxe Edition installed

• Program run after install to create folders
  

4/10/14 - FSX Acceleration Pack installed

• Program run after install to activate, update settings, create new folders
  
• My Documents/Flight Simulator X Files replaced with backup
  
• Standard.XML control file replaced with backup
  
• ai_player.dll modified for AI timeout extension - do not replace with backup from previous install
  
• fsx.cfg replaced with backup
  
• ENB series replaced from backup (using John Venema's settings - set EnableBloom=0 under [Effect])
  
• Use these settings for good image quality/performance
  

4/10/14 - ORBX BOB installed

• Required for my default scenery design flight scenario
  

4/10/14 - FSUIPC installed

• Make sure to register at end of install - license key in email
  

4/10/14 - Confirmed the Windows Aero framerate tweak still works

• However there is a slight issue with the Autohotkey fullscreen method that requires a certain procedure to make it work properly
  

4/10/14 - Converted system to DX10 preview mode

• Disabled ENB
  
• Restored FSWC shaders to default
  
• Set D3D10=1 under [GRAPHICS] in fsx.cfg
  
• Installed DirectX 10 fixer
  
• Setup graphics according to this guide
  
• Re-installed REX texture set with DX10 optimization settings checked
  
• Installed FSWC Lite to set DX10 water shaders
  
• Deepened color of inland water/ocean textures in REX
  
• Further DX10 guides (in About Me section of profile in signature)
  
• AI traffic lights appear/disappear in distance - no fix yet
  

4/10/14 - Real Environment Extreme Essentials+ Overdrive installed

• Installed REX Auto Updater, updated to latest version
  
• Restored settings
  
• Initial texture install
  

4/10/14 – Installed REX4 Texture Direct HD

• Service pack 1 installed
  

4/12/14 - Shade installed

4/12/14 - Soundstream installed

4/12/14 - A2A Accu-Feel installed

• Upgraded to 2.0
  
• Disabled turbulence modeling
  

4/12/14 - Ultimate Traffic 2 (SP2) installed

• Greater general aviation database applied
  
• Summer/Fall 2013 schedule applied
  
• 2013 time zone update applied
  

4/12/14 - A2A ShockWave Lights installed

• Updated to 1.2
  
• Default C172 modified to add taxi light and remove beacon flash from cockpit view:
  light.4 = 1, -20.51, 0.00, 6.20, fx_shockwave_beaconh_lowl
  light.7 = 6, -1.45, -9.1, 2.6, fx_shockwave_landing_light_narrow_down_22
  
• Add shockwave strobes to UT2
  

4/12/14 - Tweaked Maule and Cub turn radii

• For tighter turns in Maule AI aircraft overwrite in aircraft.cfg [contact_points] with this:
  point.0 = 1, -8.0, 0.00, -3.5, 1500, 0, 0.36, 350.0, 0.3, 2.5, 0.7, 0.0, 0.0, 0
  
• For tighter turns in Piper Cub AI aircraft overwrite in aircraft.cfg [contact_points] with this:
  point.0=1, -6.00, 0.0, -3.6, 1800, 0, 0.238, 350.0, 0.300, 2.5, 0.40, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0
  

4/12/14 - Installed FS Global Ultimate The Americas

4/16/14 - Re-implemented some stuff from Install #3

• Flusifix tweaks
  
• HD Moon
  
• Edit Voicepack
  
• Touchdown effects
  
• Environmental Reflection X
  

4/16/14 - Installed Carenado Cessna SkyMaster 337H

• Service pack installed
  
• aircraft.cfg modified to allow ATC to callout aircraft type/model - "atc_type=Cessna" and "atc_model=C337" (under [General] section)
  
• Need to add atc_id to any fltsim profiles used
  
• Shockwave light settings
  

Previous Install #3

Previous Install #2

Previous Install #1

I was quite the Man on a Mission this past weekend, having taken on the challenge of creating realistic AI ground movements for LHSimulation's freeware LHDC Debrecen airport. The airport, with one runway and essentially one taxiway as well as a single main apron, lent some interesting challenges and surprises - made all the more difficult thanks to the rather inane if somewhat-predictable behaviour of the FSX AI system.

Design Overview

Let's first get an idea of what we are dealing with here. There are 15 gates, and numerous paddocks for which additional ramp parking can be added that's not in the latest version release. Of these 15 gates, 9 of them are drive-through parking. Of these 9 gates, 5 of them are suitable for large airliners. The paddock areas offer an additional 9 parking spaces.

Pathing aircraft to pull in and out of spaces with only one exit is easy - aircraft pull in, then push back and spin around to get out. Drive through parking (DTP) is a technique that is meant to make aircraft enter and exit a parking space facing the same direction the whole time. Because this is not how parking spaces are intended to work in the simulator, implementing this requires a bit of finagling around with setting up your path links.

The best reference for DTP is this document written by Don Grovestine and much of his advice and forewarning went into the development of the "piping" for this airport. It should be read as I will not be explaining any concepts in this write-up already covered in Don's reference.

The final result of the network required to achieve ground movement appropriate for this airport is below. There are three separate networks:

• The RED network is the departure network that services parking spots requiring DTP
  
• The GREEN network is the departure network that services parking spots that do not require DTP
  
• The BLUE network is the arrival network servicing all parking spots in the airport
  

Why 3 networks instead of 2?

The Major Design Hurdle

There was one serious problem with developing the pathing network for this airport - parking nodes are not end nodes. This was something that threw me for a loop, although I'm not too surprised this is how the AI works in FSX. I always imagined that when you connected a path to a parking space that path was terminated at the parking space. However it appears that FSX treats a parking space as any other node in the network. This means when the system was originally designed with two pipes (arrival and departure) the following problem presented itself:

In the image above, BLUE represents the departure network and RED represents the arrival network. You can see how aircraft are supposed to arrive and pull into the two top parking spots from behind, and then exit straight out the other side. The two parking spots on the bottom are regular pull-in parking.

In the image above, RED represents the path arriving AI from runway 05R should take to reach the parking location and BLUE represents the path the AI actually takes. What is happening? AI route from runway to parking via the shortest path possible. Technically, pulling into the spot from the bottom is shorter than driving past and swinging around to pull in from the top. So the AI jumps networks by pulling in towards the parking spot and leaving the arrivals network and moving on to the departure network so it can travel the shortest distance. The aircraft does not pull all the way in to the spot - the slight dip in the path line is a fair representation of how much the aircraft deviates from the main taxiway before turning back. It also does not care if there is another aircraft currently occupying that bottom parking spot. Additionally, swapping the node positions would have no effect, the aircraft would simply spin about when jumping networks.

The worse part about all this is that all the non DTP spaces, with exception to Gate 10, were located on the Runway 23L-side of the airport, which meant aircraft taxiing in from 05R would pass them and could use any of them to hop networks.

Working Towards a Solution

My first thought was to simply remove access of non-DTP spots from one of the networks. Well, if I only left them attached to the departures network, AI could still spawn and depart but with only gates 1-10 able to accept aircraft that limited capacity at the airport for people who like having a lot of AI running around. On the other hand, if I only left them attached to the arrivals network aircraft would be able to arrive but you'd also have aircraft that would spawn and be unable to depart.

Next I decided that really only gates 1-5 were affected by this problem, and only airliners service these gates thanks to parking code assignments. So I attempted to "capture" GA aircraft and route them separate from airliner arrivals. I did this by noting where the airliners received their gate assignments while on the runway, and placing a node to the arrivals network before this, so only smaller GA aircraft would pick it up as the airliners would be past this after they landed. I then created a new arrivals network for the airliners towards the end of the runway and routed them straight to gates 1-5. It made the airport piping look like this:

In the image above, which shows arrival piping only, the BLUE represents both airliner and GA arrivals and the RED represents airliner-only arrivals. Note though that GA aircraft landing on Runway 05R will stop shorter and intercept the BLUE path whereas airliners will land past the node at the start of the BLUE path and instead take the RED path. Landing on Runway 23L this whole path jumping issue is non-existent due to the taxi-in distance for the proper path to the gates being the shortest. Also notice that I'm not piping the airliners all the way up to the parking location, I'm simply denying them access to the non-DTP spots at the bottom of the ramp and hooking them back into the main arrival network as soon as possible to avoid laying down too many extra nodes. While this technique did work at consistently capturing GA aircraft versus airliners as intended, it had one insurmountable flaw.

Once I confirmed this was working I went to test Runway 23L landings and was dismayed to find that every single aircraft, GA and airliner alike, would now turn about after landing and back-taxi to leave the runway! It was a bit astounding to me as these were aircraft that would be heading to gates on the main ramp and as such a back-taxi and taxi in along the longer Taxiway B to get to the main ramp area does not seem shorter to me. However sometimes FSX AI is simply unfathomable. What was apparent however is that there was nothing I could to to stop aircraft from back taxiing without simply reverting to my previous runway pathing. Due to the fact that AI are arriving and departing on separate taxi networks, even if another aircraft was holding short for Runway 23L at the time a plane was landing and taxiing off they would simply pass right through each other. AI only yield to other AI traveling on the same path network.

I did attempt a last-ditch effort by playing around with putting breaks in the runway link, but once I realized an aircraft doesn't need a runway link to land, it will simply choose the closest apron/taxi link and follow it, I gave up.

Finally I decided that if I can't put in a separate taxi in network I would put in a separate taxi out network, which brings us back to the image at the top of this entry:

You'll notice that the GREEN network joins up with the RED network near the runway. This is where the hold short node is located, and this node is located closer to the runway than the hold short node for the arrival network. This means I can combine the two departure networks and not have to worry about aircraft jumping because they are already past the point of doing so when they get their final taxi in route. With this three-route network AI aircraft can arrive and depart from every available parking location and do so in a proper manner depending on the DTP nature of that spot.

Nothing Is Ever Perfect

There still remains a minor drawback to this system, and really to any taxi system that employs more than one route. The issue I mentioned earlier with aircraft taxiing through one another still exists - there's a chance that an arriving aircraft can taxi through a departing aircraft because they only react to other craft on their network (they could even taxi through the user aircraft depending on which network the AI decides you're on given your position). This can happen either when and arriving aircraft taxis past a departing aircraft pulling out onto the taxiway, or it could happen when an aircraft taxiing faster on a path with less nodes overtakes an aircraft taxiing slower on a path with more nodes (explanation: AI aircraft taxi speed is determined by the distance between nodes. The more nodes closer together on a path than spaced far apart, the slower an aircraft will taxi).

however here is where LHDC's single runway and taxiway actually mitigates this problem significantly. There are no intersections or runway crossing where separate path networks can cross over each other and lead to aircraft passing through one another. Everyone is always heading in the same direction. Add to that parking located across the length of the airport instead of one dense area and not a lot of traffic arriving/departing even on the highest traffic levels, and the chances of witnessing a "non-collision" are extremely slim.

Testing Procedures

The DTP implementation for LHDC works - on my system. This has been proven through rigorous testing with help from Super Traffic Board. Coupled with UT2, it is a powerful tool. In addition to real time data like location and status (such as noting when gate assignment is given upon landing, as mentioned earlier) I can call down any aircraft I want that's scheduled to arrive to land at any time at any runway. A B737 will hit the runway just under 2 minutes at 4x speed after I create it 20nm downrange on approach. A much slower Piper Cub will make it down in just over 6 minutes. I can also land mutiple copies. So within 10 minutes I can fill up 5 gates to test the AI's arrival to each one. Similarily, I can dispatch aircraft on command. So I can load up the airport with only a few parking spots available (due to sizing the rest too small to accept aircraft) and immediately send off all aircraft parked to test their departure from each spot. So every parking spot on the airport has been tested to make sure AI craft arrive and depart properly from both runways.

It also helps to have both FSX and UT2 traffic sliders at full to give me lots of activity to stress-test operations at the airport. Leaving the sim running at 4x speed while using my screen capture time-lapse technique to monitor it, I can come back hours later (like after sleeping) after many more hours have passed in the sim and spend a fraction of the time making sure there were no anomalies during normal operations.

I also tested with all the WoAI packages that are available for this airport.

The Final Result

I'll be sending this off to the LHSim people for additional testing - LHDC is compatible with AES and I am unfamiliar with how that application operates - it may not like what I've done to the AI network at all. I also may have missed something unique to my FSX environment that will cause the pathing network to fail on other systems. But hopefully this is an improvement that LHSim can include in the next version release, and regardless I certainly learned a lot in how to successfully plumb out an airport for DTP.

This review anndendum addresses various issues with Wilco's Harrier Jump Jet product. You can read more about the Jump Jet in my AVSIM review.

Aircraft.cfg

There are several useful and important edits to make to the aircraft.cfg file. Since this is a commercial product I can't provide my modified aircraft.cfg file in full but I can point out the sections that need to be modified or changed. Make sure you back up your original aircraft.cfg file before following the steps outlined below.

Missing Reference Sheet

[fltsim.4] is missing its reference sheet property, which means if you use the kneeboard you won't get a reference sheet while using this aircraft. Find this entry and add the line kb_reference=Harrier_ref

Aircraft Descriptions

If you want to be reminded what livery means what and what aircraft model is which when viewing the Details window, add a description property and the following lines for the specified [fltsim.x] (make sure to include the quotes!):

[fltsim.0]: "1 Squadron RAF\n\nThe Hawker Siddeley Harrier GR.1/GR.3 was the first generation of the Harrier series, the first operational close-support and reconnaissance attack aircraft with vertical/short takeoff and landing (V/STOL) capabilities. These were developed directly from the Hawker P.1127 prototype and the Kestrel evaluation aircraft.\n\nNumber 1 Squadron RAF was the first military unit in the World to operate the Harrier, in 1970. Deployed in the carrier HMS Hermes, the Squadron’s Harriers flew ground attack missions in the Falklands conflict of 1982."

[fltsim.1]: "3 Squadron RAF\n\nThe Hawker Siddeley Harrier GR.1/GR.3 was the first generation of the Harrier series, the first operational close-support and reconnaissance attack aircraft with vertical/short takeoff and landing (V/STOL) capabilities. These were developed directly from the Hawker P.1127 prototype and the Kestrel evaluation aircraft.\n\n3 Squadron RAF was based, with its complement of Harrier GR.3s, in Germany at RAF Gutersloh."

[fltsim.2]: "233OCU (Operational Conversion Unit)\n\nThe Hawker Siddeley Harrier GR.1/GR.3 was the first generation of the Harrier series, the first operational close-support and reconnaissance attack aircraft with vertical/short takeoff and landing (V/STOL) capabilities. These were developed directly from the Hawker P.1127 prototype and the Kestrel evaluation aircraft.\n\nThis unit trained pilots for Harrier operations. They also trained Royal Navy and Fleet Air Arm pilots, as well as those from overseas such as the Indian Navy and USAAF."

[fltsim.3]: "FAA 899 Squadron\n\nThe British Aerospace Sea Harrier is a naval V/STOL jet fighter, reconnaissance and attack aircraft, a development of the Hawker Siddeley Harrier. The first version entered service with the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm in April 1980 as the Sea Harrier FRS.1, and was informally known as the Shar\n\n899 Squadron flew alongside the RAF’s Harriers in the Falklands conflict. '711' is finished in the low visibility paint used at this time, in the early 1980s."

[fltsim.4]: "FAA 801 Squadron\n\nThe British Aerospace Sea Harrier is a naval V/STOL jet fighter, reconnaissance and attack aircraft, a development of the Hawker Siddeley Harrier. The first version entered service with the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm in April 1980 as the Sea Harrier FRS.1, and was informally known as the Shar\n\nThe RAF’s Fleet Air Arm flew navalised versions of the GR3 called FRS1 or more commonly, 'SHAR' (short for Sea Harrier). 801 Squadron Sea Harriers were deployed in HMS Invincible during the Falklands War. This machine is finished in the overall dark sea grey scheme. Here the bleed air doors are clearly visible in the intake mouth."

[fltsim.5]: "The British Aerospace Sea Harrier is a naval V/STOL jet fighter, reconnaissance and attack aircraft, a development of the Hawker Siddeley Harrier. The first version entered service with the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm in April 1980 as the Sea Harrier FRS.1, and was informally known as the Shar"

[fltsim.6]: "1 Squadron RAF\n\nThe Hawker Siddeley Harrier GR.1/GR.3 was the first generation of the Harrier series, the first operational close-support and reconnaissance attack aircraft with vertical/short takeoff and landing (V/STOL) capabilities. These were developed directly from the Hawker P.1127 prototype and the Kestrel evaluation aircraft.\n\nNumber 1 Squadron RAF was the first military unit in the World to operate the Harrier, in 1970. Deployed in the carrier HMS Hermes, the Squadron’s Harriers flew ground attack missions in the Falklands conflict of 1982. Devoid of all markings and looking decidedly “war-weary” this depiction illustrates the ruggedness of the Harrier, an aircraft more than fit for the purpose for which it was built."

Aircraft Performance Figures

Another thing missing from the Details window are the full performance specs for the Harrier. These are actually included in the default aircraft.cfg file but are improperly placed in the description field of one of the [fltsim.x] entries. You'll have already deleted them and replaced them with the proper value from above so copy and past the text below (no quotes needed) into the performance property of the [General] section:

Length: 47' 7'\nWing span:33' 8'\nMax TOGW: 31,000 lbs\nPower: Rolls-Royce Pegasus F402-RR-408 \nMax Speed: 634 kts (SeaLevel)\nMax TakeOff weight (VTO, 80degrees nozzles): 21000 lbs\nMax Takeoff weight (STO, 60 degrees nozzles: 25000 lbs)

Incorrect Flight Number

The flight number for [fltsim.0] does not match the tail number of the aircraft like the rest. The atc_flight_number property should read XW921.

Edit Voicepack Additions

If you know how to use Edit Voicepack then you can download my Harrier Jump Jet Voicepack file from the AVSIM library and make the following adjustments:

• Change the [fltsim.3] atc_airline property to Adder. This is a telephony designation that comes with the included comunity mods in the default Edit Voicepack install and the description reads it's for the 899 squadron.
  
• For [fltsim.0], [fltsim.1], [fltsim.2] and [fltsim.6] entries add atc_model=HAR
  
• For [fltsim.3], [fltsim.4] and [fltsim.5] entries add atc_model=SHAR
  
• Remove the atc_model=HAR property from the [General] section
  
• Change the atc_type property in the [General] section from BAE to HAWKER SIDDELEY
  

Once the voicepack mods are installed and the above changes made you'll be called by your call sign in addition to your flight number by ATC, and when identifying yourself to ATC you'll properly say your manufacture type as well as which model of Harrier you are currently operating.

Shockwave 3D Lights

If you use Shockwave lights then here are the settings to replace what is in your [lights] section:

light.0 = 3, -7.8, -12.2, -0.25, fx_shockwave_navred

light.1 = 3, -7.8, 11.9, -0.2, fx_shockwave_navgre

light.2 = 3, -22.75, 0, -0.5, fx_shockwave_navwhi

light.3 = 2, -7.75, -12, -0.4, fx_shockwave_strobe_sm

light.4 = 2, -7.75, 12, -0.4, fx_shockwave_strobe_sm

light.5 = 2, -11.2, 0, -1.4, fx_shockwave_strobe_lowl

light.6 = 1, -7.89, 0, 3.5, fx_shockwave_beaconh_lowl

light.7 = 1, -11.4, 0, -1.35, fx_shockwave_beaconb_lowl

light.8 = 6, 11.5, 0, 2.76, fx_shockwave_vclight

light.9 = 5, 6.5, -.1, -3.4, fx_shockwave_landing_light

light.10 = 8, -4, 4, -5, fx_RCB_Smoke90, //Smoke Downwards

light.11 = 8, -4, -4, -5, fx_RCB_Smoke90, //Smoke Downwards

light.12 = 10, -4, 4, -5, fx_RCB_Smoke45, //Smoke 45 degrees

light.13 = 10, -4, -4, -5, fx_RCB_Smoke45, //Smoke 45 degrees

light.14 = 9, -15, 4, 0, fx_RCB_Smoke0, //Smoke Backwards

light.15 = 9, -15, -4, 0, fx_RCB_Smoke0, //Smoke Backwards

light.16 = 7, 3, -2, -2.3, fx_RCB_Cannon3,

light.17 = 7, 3, 2, -2.3, fx_RCB_Cannon3,

Take note that light.8 was added by me and ties into the taxi lights to turn on cockpit lighting since I could not get the cockpit light to work. Make sure you have the latest update for the Shockwave lights.

Also I've added light.9 which places a landing light beam from the nose gear as I could also not get the landing light to work. If you choose to keep this addition then you should also go into the Harrier's panel.cfg (after making a backup) and add the following line to end of the [Vcockpit01] section:

gauge07=shockwave_lights!SW Lights_gear , 1,1,1,1 //shockwave light

This will make the landing light automatically switch off when you raise the gear. You will need to turn it back on when the gear is lowered however.

Sound.cfg

Ground Noise Tweak

The aircraft will emit a constant ground roll noise even when resting still on the tarmac in a shut down state. To remove this low background rumble (sounds like wind) simply open up sound.cfg (after making a backup of the original first) and change the minimum_volume property of the [GROUND_ROLL] entry from 8000 to 4000. You won't hear the ground roll noise anymore when not in motion but it will come back properly as you taxi.

Canopy Open/Close Sound

There's no sound when you open and close the canopy. To add sound open the sound.cfg file for the default F/A-18 (assuming you have the Acceleration Pack installed) and copy the [EXIT_OPEN] and [EXIT_CLOSE] entries from there and paste them at the end of the Harrier's sound.cfg file.

Next you either have to edit the filename property with the full path to the WAV files in the F/A-18 sound folder or simply move them into the main FSX sound folder, where the sim will search for them when it can't find them in the Harrier sound folder.

Checklists

I have created a full set of procedures to follow from a cold and dark start up to a complete systems shut down. They can be downloaded in kneeboard form from the AVSIM file library.

This review addendum addresses issues with KC Flight Shop's Republic RC-3 Seabee product. You can read the review of this aircraft here on AVSIM.

Revised Checklist

There were several things I felt were wrong or missing from the checklist included in the product so I have revised it and uploaded it to the file library here at AVSIM. This is for the kneeboard checklist only.

ATC Voice Pack

The aircraft is setup to identify itself as "Seabee" with its type as "Amphib" - however there are no such entries in the default FSX voice pack to allow the default ATC to actually display or say these phrases when appropriate during communications. So for example when talking to ATC or on a CTAF your pilot voice would say "taxiing to runway 02, NC1701". When contacting a Center for flight following you would also identify yourself with just the registration number and say "is type " with a blank because the voice pack has no entries for saying or displaying "Seabee Amphib".

There is actually a model type in the default voice pack for "Seabee" but that would be only if you wanted to identify yourself as "Republic", so that during ATC/CTAF traffic communications you would say "taxiing to runway 02, Republic NC1701" and then you would identify yourself to a Center as "is type Republic Seabee". However then you have the problem of there being no "Republic" aircraft type in the default voice pack.

I've given you both options. You can either refer to yourself as "Seabee NC1701" and "is type Seabee Amphib" or "Republic NC1701" and "is type Republic Seabee". The former will require no aircraft.cfg editing while the latter will require you change some values around after installing the voice pack to get it to work (see next section). You can download the voice pack from the AVSIM file library.

Aircraft.cfg Modifications

There are several changes that need to be made to correct issues with the aircraft. Before you modify your aircraft.cfg file be sure to make a copy as backup in case anything should go wrong in the process.

X'd Out Performance Figures

In the [General] section you'll find "xxx" for some of the performance figures. They are supposed to read "520nm" and "12,000ft".

Improper Empty Weight

In the [WEIGHT_AND_BALANCE] section you'll find the empty_weight parameter is wrong. Set it to 2190 to match the actual performance figure.

Allow Tail Wheel Locking

In the [contact_points] section add to the end under gear_system_type the line tailwheel_lock = 1 - this will allow you to now use the keystroke assignment to lock and unlock the tail wheel

It has since been explained by the aircraft creator that only certain models of Seabees came with a locking, castering tail wheel or a steerable one, not both. Since this aircraft has a steerable tail wheel the real solution here is to ignore the "Lock Tail wheel" procedures in the checklists. But if you still want a lockable tail wheel then here you go.

Disable Autopilot and Trim Tabs

There is no autopilot in the aircraft yet it can still be accidentally activated with a keystroke if you have any assigned to AP functions. To prevent this from happening go to the [autopilot] section and change the autopilot_available parameter to 0. The aircraft also has fixed tabs on the aileron and rudder that you should not be able to adjust during flight. To disable this, head over to the [flight_tuning] section and set the aileron_trim_effectiveness and rudder_trim_effectiveness parameters to 0.

Alternate Voice Pack

If you want to identify yourself as "Republic Seabee" instead of the default "Seabee Amphib" using my custom voice pack files then go to the [general] section and change the atc_type parameter to "republic" and the atc_model parameter to "seabee".

Ahhh my first flight of 2012! Also my first flight since the start of November, yikes. Reminded me why the FAA mandates check rides every few months for proficiency, especially considering some of the mistakes I made on this flight. Thankfully I was able to run my computer at 4.5GHz again after accidentally wiping out my overclocking settings a few weeks ago. I didn't remember I had included details as to how I set up my overclocking in a previous Flight Log entry until I looked back and so getting it setup and running again was easy. Phew! Those extra megahertz do indeed make a difference in performance!

So the objective of this flight was two-fold. One: to get in some night time flying, of which I don't have many hours logged. Two: to visit some of the airports I've designed and released over the last three months.

Here is the flight plan.

Leg 1: KFWN to N73

This was originally supposed to be two legs, from KFWN to KMMU and then on to N73. However I decided that KMMU was way to close to fly to, even for a touch and go – too much too fast for me to handle after just hopping back into the cockpit after a while on the ground. The longer flight from KFWN direct to N73 gave me more time to get back into the groove from takeoff to landing, especially considering I was flying the quicker Bonanza V35B.

The first attempt at this leg is where I made my first mistake by failing to visually inspect my aircraft for properly operating navigation lights. Granted it’s not something that’s on any of my checklists, but it is now! After departing and climbing to cruise altitude I stepped outside to capture some photos and noticed I was running without any lights – strobe, navigation and beacon were all not showing up. Realizing I couldn’t continue into growing darkness without navigation lights, I immediately considered landing at a nearby airport but I was at 5ooo feet and didn’t want to descend to anything right beneath me. I decided instead I still had enough light to turn around and head back to Sussex – bonus would be the sun would be behind me illuminating my instruments as I found my panel lighting also to be malfunctioning. So I backtracked my VOR radial and entered the pattern, cutting my downwind leg a bit short to beat in an aircraft on direct approach – I tried to clear the runway in time for him to land but he waved off just as I pulled onto the taxiway. Sorry dude, but my situation was bordering on emergency with coming darkness and I had to get to ground fast. After pulling up to the repair hangar I shut down and troubleshot the problem – turns out the new updated aircraft.cfg file released with the optional patch had the light positions all wrong for some reason. I replaced them with the light positions from the original .cfg file and all was right again.

So a bit later I was back in the cockpit and once again leaving Sussex behind and climbing for FL05. There was a crapton of traffic still in the air so I called into NY Approach for flight following and I tracked towards my VOR. As I was just hitting the VOR and getting ready to turn east I ran into a small bank of clouds at around 4700 feet, luckily there was a gap between them that allowed me to circle around and resume course without breaking VFR or changing altitude. As I approached the NJ Turnpike I switched off instruments to visual navigation, tracking the Turnpike southwest and trying not to lose it as it snaked past several other major highways. I personally find it a lot harder to identify roadways at night. After intercepting the Turnpike I also began a nice slow descent while NY Approach handed me off to McGuire Approach. I used flight following until I dropped to around 2500 feet and was closer to N73 when I switched to McGuire for a weather report. However it seems ATIS at KWRI is non-existent in FSX so I simply fell back on my weather planning I had done prior to flight and overflying the field to check the sock. My weather plan was spot on and I made my planned approach to Runway 23, coming in a bit high on final causing a little dive towards the runway but still had plenty of roll out and managed to give the Cessna behind me enough time to land afterwards. Once parked and shut down, reviewing my flight made me realize I had forgotten to do an ident on the VOR to ensure it was properly operating and that I was in fact tuned to the right station. Luckily (this time) it wasn’t an issue.

Leg 2: N73 to KBLM

The next morning it was up early and into the Tailwind W10 tri-gear, which was designed by Lionheart Creations. It’s a nifty little plane and I hadn’t really flown it more than once or twice since I got it during a sale so I figured I might as well take it out again. I got into the cockpit and went through a modified preflight – it doesn’t come with its own checklist they just ripped the Cessna 182S one from FS9 – but had trouble getting the engine to turn over. I think this is from the V35B having only left/right fuel tank selection, so when I reloaded the flight from last night and switched aircraft, the Tailwind effectively had no fuel flow since it only has a single tank (or two with one feed, dunno for sure). Eventually I just reset the flight with the aircraft already running. My first impression is that the volume for everything in this aircraft is a lot louder than the other aircraft I fly. The fuel pump, for example, is a loud as the engine itself. Also when toggling the panel lights with a keystroke it doesn’t toggle the dash switch. So if you toggle the lights on with a key then click the switch on, the panel lights will go off.

After fiddling around a bit more and getting used to the instrument layout I taxied towards the runway but after the heavier V35B I wasn’t ready for how quickly this aircraft accelerates and ended up crashing into a hangar. Whoops. Luckily damage was minor and I was able to get back to taxiing in short order, keeping a lighter hand on the throttle as I did so! Once departed from Red Lion it was a quick climb to 1500 feet cruise – this sucker is indeed fast! But once you get it leveled and trim it’s very stable and well behaved. Switching to spot view for some pictures I didn’t stay long because the outside engine noise is on a blatantly obvious loop lasting only about 3 seconds – it was pretty annoying. As I approached the coast and throttled back to slow down and drop lower for a buzz past Barnegat Light I also noticed no real discernible change in engine pitch until I had throttled down to near 50%. Oh at this point too I realized I had forgotten to continue my checklists after takeoff and upon returning to them I realized I still had flaps down from takeoff. And the VOR I used to track out to the coast? Didn’t ident. GAH!!

After following the coast north I made a direct approach for Runway 32 at KBLM after calling in and checking the weather matched the report in my plan. However on final another aircraft decided to ignore the fact that I had been announcing my approach for the last 10 minutes and taxied onto the runway for takeoff. I tried to slow down to let him go ahead of me but ended up having to call a go around. My second time around there was more traffic departing but thankfully they were kind enough to wait for me to land. However I then went and flipped the aircraft as I tried to rush and exit at the nearest taxiway. Although I will say I thought for sure I had slowed down enough to make the turn, apparently I hadn’t – no doubt my inexperience with the aircraft led to this disaster. I should probably have handled it with more care not having flown it much huh?

Leg 3: KBLM to KVAY

So technically I made it to KBLM and was totally not in the mood to try that entire leg again so I just hopped into the ol’ 172S which I had left stashed in one of the long-term hangars north of the airport. Before that though I reset the time to bring the sun up a bit more. I realized a bit later that since FSX was designed prior to the recent Daylight Savings Time changes, when I set the clock to real-world time it would put it an hour behind and not expect dawn to arrive until 8:21 instead of 7:21.

After the disaster of Leg 2 this leg was. thankfully, much nicer. I had no troubles departing KBLM and after reaching cruise I even remembered to finish off my checklists and ident the VOR I was tracking towards. Then it was just time to sit back and enjoy the sunrise and watch the traffic moving about the sky around me. Once I hit the VOR I began a gentle descent that put me near pattern altitude as I approached KVAY, which is bunched up with Flying W N14 and Red Lion N73. I threaded over both runways which set me up nicely for a pattern entry to Runway 08, although I was a bit off on the altitude I otherwise flew the pattern without issue, ending up on slope and centered as I turned final. I made sure to stay on slope to clear the power lines in front of Runway 08 and came down to a slightly bumpy landing.

Since KMMU was the only recently-developed airport I didn’t get to visit, that will be the target of my next flight, though I’m also working on a small grass field a little ways south as well that I might take a small plane to and back, and then cruise up past NYC to get to KMMU and then take a helicopter into the city? We’ll see.

Cross-posted on my personal blog

Click here to read my review of Rotterdam X.

There are a number of issues with Rotterdam X that can be solved through the use of your AI traffic program and the freely-available Airport Design Editor (ADE). The commercial product Airport Studio (AS) is recommended also as you can edit the airport while the simulator is running and see where you are putting things in relation to the airport ground textures. Fixing these issues has lent a much more realistic feel to the airport as the scenery looks amazing but does not function all that well when you actually use it. Let me just say right up front that modifying commercial scenery is okay so long as you do not distribute any of the files you edit, which is why I'm simply describing here the things I did for other people to consider implementing themselves. Perhaps Aerosoft would be willing to work some of these into a future update to the scenery.

Issue #1: Unclassified parking

<a href="http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumParkingCodes.jpg"><img'>http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumParkingCodes.jpg"><img src="http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumParkingCodes.jpg" align="right" width="202" hspace="5px"></a>None of the parking spots in the airport are coded to accept certain aircraft, which will lead to GA craft parking in airliner gate spots. This isn't completely the fault of the scenery designers as assigning airline codes could cause issues for customers who are using AI traffic that doesn't use the codes they used, and also because there's no rule saying some commercial GA traffic can't be routed to a gate parking spot. But for the purpose of my scenery usage I want airlines parking at gates and all GA aircraft using ramps.

If you are only using FSX default traffic, then you can use ADE or AS' parking properties airline code drop down list to select the airline codes to assign to a parking location. If you use a 3rd-party traffic program like Ultimate Traffic 2 make sure you use the airline codes from that program as they can be different. If you are using extra traffic from packages like World of AI, they also may use codes different than what FSX has listed by default and your traffic program uses. To find out what code any aircraft is using, open up its aircraft.cfg file and look for the section(s) [fltsim.x] where x is a number. In these sections you will find the property atc_parking_codes. These codes are what you should put in the parking spot code list in ADE or AS.

Issue #2: Lack of GA parking

The default scenery does not include a lot of parking options for General Aviation aircraft and if you run your sim with a lot of AI traffic you can reach capacity easily as this is a high-volume GA airport. This means arriving aircraft will disappear from the runway when they can't locate an open parking space. The default airport has 13 ramp parking locations and now that I've made it so GA traffic can't use a gate spot this makes the parking situation even worse. To increase capacity I added 40 more parking locations. The tie down area west of the main tarmac can hold as many as 17 20' (radius) parking locations. I also added 2 20' and 2 33' parking to the end of Taxiway A. 4 33' and 4 46' parking spaces were placed over in the Jet Center parking area and 12 20' along with 12 33' parking spaces were squeezed into the rear tie down area at the end of Taxiway F.

I also made added a "JET" code to the parking spaces in the Jet Center, then went into my AI traffic aircraft.cfg files and added the code to the atc_parking_codes line in all the business jet aircraft so that only jets park in the Jet Center. Makes sense right?

<center><a href="http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumXtraParking.jpg"><img'>http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumXtraParking.jpg"><img src="http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumXtraParking.jpg" width="250" hspace="2px"></a><a href="http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumXtraParking2.jpg"><img'>http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumXtraParking2.jpg"><img src="http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumXtraParking2.jpg" width="250" hspace="2px"></a>

Parking layout for West Tiedown and Taxiway A (left)

and Jet Center and Taxiway F (right)</center>

Issue #3: Lack of names for GA parking

<a href="http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumATCParking.jpg"><img'>http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumATCParking.jpg"><img src="http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumATCParking.jpg" align="right" width="250" hspace="5px"></a>None of the GA parking spots have names, which gives you limited options when you taxi off the runway and ask for a parking location - ATC will simply assign you an open spot somewhere in the airport that matches your aircraft's specifications. I went and named all 4 GA parking locations based on their position to the airport's center. So you end up with a West (Taxiway L), Southeast (Taxiway J) and South (Taxiway F) parking as well as Gate A (Taxiway A). Now when you pull past the hold short on arrival you can request to be sent to a specific parking area of the airport. If you still don't care you can do a generic parking request. Asking to be sent to a gate will always put you at Gate A if you are a GA aircraft small enough to park there. Another benefit is that when you go to start a flight at Rotterdam you can see from the list of parking options in the FSX Location window where in the airport the parking is located.

Issue #4: Runway extends onto threshold

AI aircraft only use runway properties to determine landing distance in addition to their own configuration settings - they do not follow PAPI or ILS glideslopes. Since Rotterdam X's default runway extends onto the threshold but does not have any threshold value of its own set in the runway properties, AI aircraft will see the beginning of the threshold as the beginning of the runway, which isn't correct as you are not supposed to land on runway thresholds. Larger aircraft will still overshoot the threshold on approach, but smaller aircraft like the Piper Cub will indeed land short of the actual runway markings. In some cases this will create a longer roll-out period for some of the larger aircraft to find their exit taxiway. To get aircraft landing as they should you need to shorten the runway length to 5,907 feet. The runway will shrink from both ends so you don't need to reposition it and this new length will expose the threshold and place the runway only under the runway markings.

Issue #5: AI aircraft taxi off the taxi lines

This is a relatively simple fix, although if you don't have Airport Studio you'll need to import an image of the ground textures into ADE so you can drag the taxi links over the taxi lines drawn onto the ground textures. Basically it's just a process of making the two lines lay on top of each other. There is a downside to making the aircraft follow the lines in that to do so you need to lay significantly more nodes to get the aircraft turning properly along the taxi line curves. AI aircraft taxi speed is determined by the distance between two nodes - longer the distance the faster the speed. Since you are adding more nodes and closer together you are effectively making aircraft take several seconds longer to taxi around the airport. The impact isn't huge, but it is noticeable if you happen to get stuck behind one of them. But if you can't bear to watch your AI aircraft taxi with apparent blatant disregard to taxi lines, this slightly reduced taxi speed is just something you'll have to deal with.

<center><a href="http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumTaxi.jpg"><img'>http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumTaxi.jpg"><img src="http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumTaxi.jpg" width="250"></a>

Airport Studio with transparency enabled to see under the aprons and

taxiways so you can align to the taxi lines. Some links have been deleted

to expose the taxi line for this image</center>

Issue #6: AI aircraft don't hold short properly

<a href="http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumHoldShortAS.jpg"><img'>http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumHoldShortAS.jpg"><img src="http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumHoldShortAS.jpg" align="right" width="250" hspace="5px"></a>AI aircraft look for a special hold short node when taxiing to tell them when to stop and ask for takeoff clearance on departure and stop and ask for parking on arrival. This node can be placed anywhere, although generally it's in close proximity to the runway so that ATC does in fact grant departing aircraft takeoff clearance - arriving aircraft don't care if the node isn't close to the runway. In the default Rotterdam X airport file the hold short nodes are too close to the runway, causing aircraft to taxi over the hold short lines drawn on the ground textures. To fix this we simply move these nodes back to just after the hold short markings (see image from Airport Studio on the right). This will have aircraft stopping just short of the yellow line and ensure that aircraft arriving taxi fully over the hold short marking before requesting parking. Some of the taxiway hold shorts are very far away from the runway, but those taxiways are only used for arriving aircraft and we don't care if the hold short is far from the runway.

<center><a href="http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumHoldShort.jpg"><img'>http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumHoldShort.jpg"><img src="http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumHoldShort.jpg" width="250"></a>

ADE says our hold short nodes aren't close enough to the runway to work,

but the top one does. If you modified the runway to not use the threshold,

then that will indeed be too far away for the hold short on the bottom

to work, otherwise it will too</center>

Issue #7: AI aircraft don't follow proper ground movements

I've saved the most complex issue for last. Rotterdam is laid out so that it can use two parallel taxiways to bring aircraft in and send them out at the same time without any serious interruptions in traffic flow regardless of which runway end is in use. Recreating this in FSX is, I have found, not entirely possible thanks to limitations with the AI in the simulator. I may be wrong, but hours of research and testing have yet to show me otherwise. You can come very close though - I'd say my current implementation is about 95% effective and only every now and then do you see a plane behaving improperly. It has created issues with ATC giving the user proper taxi-in directions however. Where it may tell an AI craft to taxi in via the proper "arrival" taxiway, it could send a user aircraft down a "departure" taxiway depending on where they stop after the hold short line and call in for parking. While I never witnessed an AI aircraft vanish off the taxiway after arriving due to not receiving complete taxi-in directions, I have had ATC merely say to me "taxi to general aviation parking ." and leave out any taxiway directions.

So because it's not possible to guarantee proper AI movement or proper user communications with ATC, it's obvious why this wasn't included in the commercial product release. But if you don't mind a few glitches here and there in the fight for a more realistic FSX environment then it can be worth the effort to get this system up and running. In my review I showed Runway 06 ground movements. Here is a video showing proper ground movement for Runway 24.

<a href="http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumR24.jpg"><img'>http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumR24.jpg"><img src="http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumR24.jpg" align="right" width="250" hspace="5px"></a>If you're interested in trying to get this ground movement system working, the most important thing you need to understand is how to control AI aircraft's departure from the runway. Taxi for departure is a trivial matter to set up and get functioning, arrival is the tricky part. Airplanes of different classes will land in different spots on the runway (smaller the aircraft, closer the landing to the runway threshold) and also slow to taxi speed over different distances (smaller the aircraft, shorter the roll out). Once an AI aircraft has slowed to taxi speed it will immediately look to exit the runway to a parking location via the shortest route possible. In some cases, this exit point may be behind them. Back-taxiing to a taxiway isn't an unheard of technique for smaller planes in the real world, but you have to account for this possibility and try to prevent this from happening in some instances. For example, when Runway 24 is active, you can't let small aircraft use Taxiway V2 to exit the runway, or else they will taxi back along Taxiway V and either cause an arriving and departing aircraft to end up head-to-head and stop taxiing and time out or the two aircraft will simply taxi through each other. The image on the right shows how you can "intercept" aircraft before a runway exit and lead them down the runway to a further exit (as long as that exit happens to be in the direction of parking - remember, shortest route is the main determining factor). Red is for R24 arrivals and green is for R06 arrivals.

<a href="http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumDoubePipe.jpg"><img'>http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumDoubePipe.jpg"><img src="http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumDoubePipe.jpg" align="left" width="250" hspace="5px"></a>What if you have no choice but to deal with aircraft exiting off the same taxiway for both arrivals? In this case you will have to look into a double-plumbing system that will guide the arrivals down the proper taxiway depending on where they exit the runway onto the taxiway. In the image on the left, red is once again for R24 arrivals (you see it extend off the image to the right, where it connects to the runway in the previous image) and green is for R06 arrivals. Once on the taxiway these lines overlap - they are exposed side-by-side here to make it easier to see them. Blue lines represent the base taxiway network where no double-piping needs to exist as these taxi lines do not connect in any way that would lead an AI aircraft astray. For R06 arrivals, the first exit point is meant to capture the smaller aircraft like Piper Cubs before they try and back-taxi and the second is for small aircraft that need to back-taxi. The red exit you see is for aircraft that don't need to be pulled away from the Taxiway V2 exit as their roll outs take them far enough down the runway when arriving on R24.

I won't lie - getting this working was not easy. It was educational, I'll tell you that, but it took hours of testing and I must have come close to giving up at least 5 times. And again, it's not perfect. But it's close enough for me and maybe for anyone else out there willing to give it a go. For further reading on AI behavior I would recommend this wiki article from FSDeveloper. You might also consider tweaking aircraft dynamics to effect things like roll out distances to further control where airplanes exit the runway, however be warned that you would be tuning aircraft for one airport in particular - which may cause unforeseen effects when dealing with the plumbing system of other airports.

Good luck!

After my last attempt to pilot a helicopter around Manhattan ended with me in the Hudson due to an engine failure, I decided it was time to try again. That, and it was a beautiful day out and I had some time where I knew I (probably, most likely) wouldn't be interrupted. So I got everything set up and logged into VATSIM. Now, flying VFR in a helicopter doesn't really give me much of a reason to bother with VATSIM. But, along my route I would be entering within 6mi of La Guardia, which is where their Class B airspace hits the floor, which means I'm required to contact the tower even though I'm just passing through. So I was hoping KLGA tower would be staffed - it wasn't. But oh well, maybe it would be at some point during the flight.

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So I took off from KTEB and started out much as I did last time. If you reference the Heli Chart for the NYC area, I planned to fly the same route I attempted before, which was Echo to the Hudson and then back up the Hudson after looping around The Lady to cross over at Central Park and then down the East River to land at the Downtown Manhattan Heliport on Wall Street (KJRB). Flying along, I began to get a better sense of how I was controlling the helicopter. Unlike a plane, where speed is primarily controlled by throttle, in a helicopter it's primarily controlled by the pitch. You only increase the throttle because tilting farther forward to go faster means you lose altitude. Likewise, tilting back to slow down you only have to back off the throttle to prevent from rising. It's all a bit different and takes some getting used to, especially since there's no real "cruise" mode where you can sort of sit back and let the craft fly itself. Although I can grip the stick lightly with just my fingers while flying along steady, I can't ever completely let go. The throttle is a bit more lenient since, as I said, I can control my speed and altitude with the stick alone if I need to for short periods of time while flying - but forget while maneuvering or landing/taking off.

Coming down the Hudson I hit my first snag, which made itself apparent when I tuned to the general VFR frequency used by craft flying up or down the Hudson River. This frequency is for pilots to announce their position and intent so others know who else is out there. Unfortunately, VATSIM treats this general frequency like it does the main aviation general frequency and limits it to text-only transmissions. This is turn limits me to typing with one hand - lefty. So yea, rather awkward and requires more attention than I would like to give it. Luckily there is a hot key that lets me switch between the sim and text window so I don't have to grab the mouse to select the text window to type out my transmission. But still.

So after looping around the Statue of Liberty and heading back up the Hudson, over Central Park and down the East River, I was ready to make my first real landing. I flew low over the heliport  to get the lay of the land, then swung back around to take her in. For all the nimbleness and responsive handling that makes the Robinson such a nice craft to fly for a beginner like myself, I noticed for the first time that, unlike the Jet Ranger, it has no viewports in the floor. This made things a bit more difficult, and I sort of just hovered around for a minute or so trying not to spin out and crash before I was finally able to bring it in line and set her down just short of the pad, but thankfully not in the water considering that this heliport is on a pier.

Inspired by my success, I decided to open a new flight plan and partially retrace my route to go back to KTEB. This time, I chose to fly up the East River, along the Hudson River, back down the Hudson, but halfway I would turn inland to follow I-95 along Route Sierra to swing over the Meadowlands sports complex (home of Giants Stadium) before landing just north at KTEB. Along the way I passed notable landmarks like the Brooklyn Bridge and Yankee Stadium. I also spotted another helicopter flying along the East River headed for KLGA. Luckily I spotted him before we ever came close, because he never broadcasted his position over the general East River frequency - but to be fair I realized then that neither had I.

I had a much easier time flying back to KTEB, becoming ever more familiar with how the helicopter handles in flight - banking without shearing my altitude, keeping level (obviously I'm pitched forward but I'm neither gaining or losing altitude) longer, and getting a better sense of how the throttle reacts - it's very very touchy. I can nudge it a bit in either direction and watch my vertical speed indicator shift 500 feet/min in the same direction in an instant. Landing at KTEB was a bit easier, mainly because there was no water to worry about. However I did have parked aircraft nearby. Still, I managed to set her down off center but still on the pad.

As I powered down (again) and considered maybe making one more flight, I got a private transmission from the other helicopter pilot, who was pleased to see another chopper. We chatted a bit and I will have to shoot him an email to get some of his experiences flying helicopters on VATSIM. Again, even though we have limited interaction with ATC a lot since we fly mainly VFR, I know VATSIM controllers don't deal with helicopters a lot, so I'm interested to see what the experience is like.

In the end, I decided I had the time (and the fuel) to make one last trip back into Manhattan, this time aiming for the West 30th St Heliport (KJRA). The other guy was also making a last flight, shuttling some passengers from KLGA over to 6N5, which was the heliport on 34th St pretty much right opposite the one I was going for. So we both knew we didn't have to watch out for one another, but I still made sure to properly announce my positions this time as I traveled back down the Hudson towards Manhattan's West Side - just in case.

Landing at West 30th took the longest, for no other reason than I still lack the experience. I just floundered around the general area for about 2 minutes before I was finally able to get low and slow enough to bring her all the way in. I almost took out a fence with my tail rotor tho! While I'm still white-knuckling the stick as I land, it's definitely started to get easier once I make it to a certain point in the hover. The transition from flight to hover (and even vice versa to some extent) is still a touchy point for me, which is understandable given that's a highly unstable flight profile.

Still, all in all I managed to take off and land three times without crashing, or landing so hard that I caused damage to my craft. I'm extremely pleased by this. I think the next time I take her out, I'll go around for a closer look at some of the city's many landmarks.

I'm still working with scenery too, by the way. I recently finished modifying the custom KTEB scenery I downloaded to add some new taxiways that were built recently so it now matches the current airport diagram. I will return to KEWR to finish that up as well. It takes a lot of time tho - even when I know what I'm doing. I have a much better appreciation for scenery designers now! I'll most likely upload the improved KTEB scenery to AVSim once I get the original author's permission and have him look it over to see if I screwed anything up in the process of upgrading it.

Finally took my first flight of 2014 since I returned home from Dubai. I knew what I wanted to do for a flight but getting around to it took a lot more effort that I thought it would given the nature of the hobby of flight simulation. Plenty of stuff happened while I was away, so first I had to catch up on product updates and try some new mods to the SkyMaster and the sim in general I picked up on in the interim. I also had to download, install and configure the latest REX texture product - which has amazing textures but I found it a bit disappointing that you can only install every texture in a theme pack instead of just the ones you want. To do that you have to install them individually, which is a bit of a pain. It's especially puzzling since this was a feature in the previous REX texture product. I also had some extensive work to do with the Bahamas Airfield Package I'm using to get the most out of this area of the Caribbean. For some reason pretty much all the airports have tower and ground frequencies, some with approach as well. Actually, the majority of them should simply include a unicom tuned to 122.8 for common traffic advisory. So I had to edit and recompile in ADE all the airports north of Nassau that I would be flying around for this flight. Then too I needed to make voicepack files for the airports so I could keep proper track of where planes were. All in all though these changes made for a great flight so I can't complain, and the author of BAP and I are in contact and I will most likely be passing my improvements on to him for a new release.

Right, so the flight. I originally planned for a single flight up to Walkers Cay (MYAW) but wanted to get a full experience from the new REX textures, especially the sky textures based on screenshots I've seen on their forums. So I extended the flight and broke it down into two legs, one to fly at sunrise and another to fly at sunset. The only difficult thing about planning the second leg was finding an airport that was lit and also easily navigable to since once it gets dark seeing the smaller islands can be near impossible. Thankfully the southern-most airport still north of Nassau, Chub Cay (MYBC), has a lit runway and is easy to find at the end of a chain of islands. Here was my original plan:

Leg 1: Sunrise

After preflight and taxi out to the runway I checked the sock and saw a crosswind. I decided to take off west and of course as soon as I begin to taxi down the runway a plane announces it is a few miles out inbound to land out of the west. I made it to the end and was considering parking on the grass and waiting but the pilot updated his position and was still a few miles out so I turned about, skipped my engine runup and just went straight into the takeoff. I was climbing out and turning south while he was still over 2 miles away so that worked out alright. Clouds were low, so I kept it around 1,000 feet as I cruised towards the two small islands south of Bimini to have a look-see. One of them, North Cat Cay had a carrier group stationed offshore, which was cool. The southern-most one, Ocean Cay, looks like a man-made affair still under construction. No idea what for though. I did a loop around Ocean Cay back up past North Cat Cay rather than departing straight for the Freeport VOR as originally planned, but VFR plans are meant to be broken, I say!

The clouds didn't let up by the time I reached Grand Bahama Island so I needed to request permission for Class D airspace transition. I left the VOR behind and switched to terrain navigation, following the south shore of Grand Bahama until I reached Deep Water Cay and headed north along a chain of islands towards Walkers Cay. There was plenty of traffic elsewhere, mostly Treasure Cay and West End, so the pattern was clear when I reached Walkers Cay and was able to enter straight into downwind with a nice turn to base and final lined up with the runway. I dropped full flaps since the runway was only 2,500 feet long and to complicate matters there were two rather tall pine trees right at the runway threshold I needed to clear. But I got her down with a heavy bump and only needed some light braking. The runway turns straight into the short taxiway leading to the apron so that helped extend it a bit as well.

Leg 2: Sunset

I climbed back into the cockpit an hour and a half before sunset. The clouds were still low but they were more scattered, so after takeoff I made the decision to climb above them since there was only one layer to deal with. I hadn't flown the 337 higher than a few thousand feet so getting up to FL150 was a new experience. I adjust the prop pitch slightly to keep my RPM in the green and I was able to use the fuel flow gauge to properly lean the mixture - too high or too low and you saw the fuel flow drop. I kept an eye on my EGT gauge but the needles stayed nice and low. I was at full throttle and my manifold pressure was almost out of the green arc - too bad this airplane isn't turbocharged. Still, I managed to make 130kts as I cruised over Great Abaco Island. As the sun started to descend, so did I so as it got darker I would be able to still see the smaller islands I would eventually be following. I was supposed to fly to the tip if Great Abaco and vector out to the Berry Islands but decided to follow the Great Abaco Highway instead, which would point me to the northern-most island in the Berry chain. There was also an arriving aircraft into Great Harbour Cay that made it easy to find the north islands. Also, the SkyMaster has a GPS and while I wasn't using it to follow a track you can see the islands on the screen to help with navigation.

It was almost fully dark as I approached Chub Cay, the island at the end of the Berry chain. While I hadn't heard a single plane on approach to Chub Cay, wouldn't you know that just as I'm turning south to follow the island chain and call out my position someone else also declares their intent to land. Fortunately they were a bit closer and making a direct approach so that gave me time to meander down the chain and set up for a downwind pattern leg, which by the time I got there the other guy had just landed. I didn't hear him call clear of the runway so I he probably disappeared because no parking spots were open. Still, I kept my eyes peeled on final after rolling out a bit late from my base turn and needing to S-curve in a bit. I don't think I even really noticed the trees on the small island on my approach until I looked later at the screenshot - shows how experienced I am at night flying. Fortunately I skimmed them but didn't hit them. There were no obstacles short of the threshold so I was able to make a nice shallow approach and had a much smoother landing this time with only a notch of flaps needed as this runway was 5,000 feet. I rolled out short of the end and turned about without needing to brake and taxied back to the apron where I parked.

You'll notice some loops in the trail over MYAM as this is where I descended within a gap in the cloud cover so I needed to spiral a bit to stay in that clear area away from the clouds. Other than a few other deviations previously mentioned the flight went according to plan.

Next up, I will be flying a loop around the central Bahamas, ending up at Nassau. I plan to stay put for a few flights from Nassau to the surrounding islands in a few different aircraft before moving on south.

It was cloudy, dreary and rainy outside today, but the best thing about a flight simulator is that you can choose to ignore the real weather if you want to. Certainly you can set FSX to pull down and then update current meteorological conditions, but then who wants to fly in rainy weather when they don’t have to? So after setting up a trusty Cessna 172 trainer (in yellow!) with my tail number N727DS, I changed the weather to fair conditions – no wind, partly cloudy skies, >20mi visibility. Well, where’s the fun in that?? But this trip I’m not out to battle against the forces of nature, but to take a nice leisurely VFR cruise down the Jersey Shore.

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So I filed the flight plan in FSX, allowing it to chart me out VOR waypoints that would vector me from Monmouth Executive airport (KBLM) down to Cape May County Airport (KWWD). But I don’t have my instrument rating yet and even if I do have rudimentary knowledge of VOR navigation from previous FSX flight lessons and experience, this isn’t an instrument flight. But it at least let me get an idea of how long the trip would take and how much fuel I would burn. I effectively doubled both figures since I knew I was taking a roundabout course down the shoreline.

After going through the pre-flight checklist and doing an exterior check of control surfaces I turned over the engine and taxiied off the apron, radioing to local traffic my intent to take off from Runway 14 departing to the South. Airspace was clear in the area, so I was able to taxi straight on to the runway and take off immediately. After climbing to my cruise altitude of 2,500ft, I contacted McGuire to get on their radar and find out if there was any traffic in my area. I freaked the controller out because I hadn’t finished trimming for cruise and ended up ascending to 2,800ft without realizing it, and a Mooney Bravo buzzed by me relatively close, so she was screaming at me to eyeball the traffic that was right on top of me. That’s what I get for spending too much time looking out the windows.

The rest of the flight was uneventful. I stuck to the coast and flew over Atlantic City, Ocean City and Wildwood before finally circling around the very tip of New Jersey at Cape May. The sun was just kissing the horizon and I had to make it to ground before it got too dark and I broke VFR rules. Tuning into Cape May traffic, I announce position and intent to land on Runway 1. Getting no response and checking around to make sure there was no traffic, I took her straight in, picking up the PAPI glidepath and touching down just left of the centerline. Taxiing off and announcing clear of runway, I pulled onto the nearest apron and parked, shutting down.

Great cruise, and gave me a chance to check out some more of the MegaEarth scenery I bought for the NJ region. Excellent VFR quality (as you will see in the gallery), I look forward to continuing my tour – I think my next hop will be across the Delaware Bay to the Middletown area over there.

Today I woke up early - way way early. Like, before the sun had risen early. Bleh. So to make up for it I decided to boot up the sim and hop into a plane and fly somewhere. No idea what or where I just loaded things up and looked at where my aircraft were. I decided to go with the Cessna 172 parked at Red Lion (N73), fly out to the coast and then up into the hill country of northern NJ to the northern-most airfield in the state, Sussex (KFWN). I knew the weather was decent and figured if I hit a point in my flight where low ceiling blocked me I would just divert to the nearest airport, no harm no foul. The plan for the flight was tossed - I did it all seat of the pants and wrote up the plan attached to this entry afterwards. Worked out fine, this time. Don't plan to make it a habit just wanted to get in the cockpit and flying before the sun got too high and spoiled my dawn light.

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Here is the flight plan for this trip.

Taxi and takeoff was uneventful although I forgot I still need to tweak the Shockwave3D lights put on the default 172 when they first install - the beacon is too bright and flashes in the cockpit and I have to add a taxi light. Again though - must get flying! I'll tweak them for my next flight. I've also decided to start sticking with the safety suggestion by the FAA that landing lights be kept on below 10,000' - in the past I've only had them on while in the pattern or departing.

Heading out for the coast I had to weave around some low clouds, hanging 5-700 feet over the ground. I dropped down to 250' so I could buzz the Barnegat Bay lighthouse (which is an accurate model I downloaded off AVSIM then placed properly over the satellite scenery) but I belatedly realized I probably should have waited until I was over the water to fly that low so as not to disturb sleeping residents in the houses below me! Oh well, it's Monday they should be up getting ready for work anyways.

Up the coast and turning back inland I was once again weaving around clouds - plenty of lateral clearance. Things cleared up for a bit as I left the morning sea mist behind but hazed in again a short while later as I approached the higher elevations. The haze burned off though by the time I was getting ready to enter the pattern for Sussex.

It's been a while since I've taken a flight and it doesn't take long for me to lose my ability to fly properly in some aspects. Two stupid mistakes I made this flight were 1) forgetting to listen to VOR station idents and 2) approaching my landing runway from the wrong end. I love that second one. It was almost an epic fail because as I lined up for a straight-in approach an aircraft announced it was taking off. Had I not realized my idiotic mistake we might have had a collision. Luckily I realized my error almost instantly - it's the fact that I was even thinking of lining up opposite the runway heading which is embarrassing. So I swung around in a tight left pattern and was coming in for my landing way too hot - the runway at Sussex has been shortened considerably due to age (they keep moving the thresholds towards the center) so I needed a nice slow approach. To that end, I announced a go around and flew the pattern again - which was okay since I obviously needed the practice. I turned early for my final because I lost sight of the airport rolling out onto my base leg - damn hills. Other than that it was a nice smooth approach and touchdown with full flaps.

I have a new aircraft to review so I'll be busy with that but I'll be making at least one cross-country flight in it during testing so once that review's posted I'll add the flight log here as well.

I've been spending all my spare hours these past two days painstakingly re-creating KEWR to match my photo-realistic ground scenery textures, using a program called FSX Planner. It's the first scenery manipulation I've ever done in Flight Simulator and I know there are a couple options out there to use when mucking about with airport and scenery files but this was the first one I came across when I went looking so I decided to start with it. I'll be using a different program to modify another airport to see which one I end up liking the most. This program has a few quirks, and I can't do things like drag-select or even ctrl-/shift-select multiple items to edit them at once, which is a bit annoying. Still, given that the documentation is pretty sucky overall (there are a few tutorials but no comprehensive manual, so a lot of property settings for objects I have to puzzle out on my own) I'm picking it up pretty quick.

The slowest part about it is that I need to make as many minor adjustments as I can, then recompile (which doesn't take long) and then re-load the scenery data into FSX (which does take 2-3 minutes). Only then can I see how well things have lined up, and use that as reference to make further tweaks. While the program does make it easy for you to capture a shot of a location via Google Maps satellite view and use it as a background image, they forgot to take into account the fact that satellites don't actually photograph image from directly above - at least, not all the time. Therefore when I loaded an image of EWR as a background although it aligned at first, the actual angle of the photo vs. my top-down view became readily apparent.

So in between going back and forth between sim and designer (I have FSX constantly running a window) and trying to figure out how to do some things as I build, things have been moving along a bit slowly, but are starting to pick up now that I'm understanding more. Here is what I've accomplished so far:

First, the default FSX scenery layout for KEWR:

Note how the runways align well, but the taxiways are all way off, which makes things look pretty cluttered from the air. There are also incorrectly-placed aprons for parking that overlap improper scenery areas.

Now, the improved KEWR with aligned taxiways:

Not only are the taxiways aligned here, but the runways are the appropriate length and are sporting blast pads at the ends just like in real life (if you look at the default photo again, you'll notice them in the ground textures - look at the runway in the lower right). Also, you'll notice a change in the coloration of the taxiways - as in real life some are asphalt and some are concrete. Also, the photo-real ground textures get to stick out more in between the better-looking but still obviously computer-generated taxiways.

There's still plenty of work to be done, and more to learn. For example, I can't access the terminal buildings to reposition them appropriately. Further, there are several scenery buildings that appear when the scenery is set above Normal that are incorrectly placed as well. Regardless, I still need to complete the parking aprons, and taxiways for airport traffic to run on. Then I need to clean up some of the taxi intersections and make sure the lighting all looks okay.

Luckily I have all weekend to work on this - with Hurricane Earl bearing down on us this weekend I don't see myself doing much flying!!

As I mentioned in my last flight log, this morning I hopped into the Dodosim Bell 206B and took off from the Downtown Wall Street Heliport (KJRB) to circle closer around the World Trade Center. No problems there - the wind was calm and conditions were clear around the city so after circling the WTC I headed off up north to retrace an earlier helicopter flight up to Haverstraw, NY to land at the public pad there (H43). I passed the Intrepid Air & Space museum along the way and I wonder if they will be adding the Enterprise exhibit to it at a later date, perhaps when they update with a completed WTC.

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There were a few small bumps flying up the Hudson river but nothing major - weather continued to hold clear and calm until I was about 5 miles out from Haverstraw when some low clouds hit and dropped my visibility down to around 10sm - no doubt some morning fog that had yet to burn away from the day's building heat. The fog wasn't over Haverstraw though so visibility was not further reduced and I had no trouble spotting the aerial tower landmark next to the heliport and crossing over the river on approach. Coming around to land I was definitely sloppy on the controls but thought I had a decent rate of descent going as I transitioned into a hover. I thought I felt my skids touch the ground as I started to rotate to the right but it might have just been uncompensated rotor torque rotation because when I cut the throttle to settle the skids I dropped a couple feet and crashed instead.

Man, just not having any luck with the helicopter landings lately :(

With a couple of early mornings coming up and being on a schedule of falling asleep around 3-4am I needed to reboot my sleep period and the way I do that is to simply stay up through to the next day as long as possible. Since as I start getting more and more tired my brain isn't so good at handling working on the computer so I sacked out in bed and started watching season one of Flying Wild: Alaska on Netflix. Wow, what a great show. Of course, I'm annoyed that they have to edit a lot of things in a way to make stuff look a bit more dangerous and thrilling than it actually is but that's reality TV for you right there. Still, despite the "tension" editing the family and pilots of Era Alaska are all such great characters and get along so well with the camera it's very enjoyable to watch them do their jobs. I remember being young and wanting to live in Alaska and be a bush pilot. I've moved on from that dream but a small part of me still holds on to it and it's nice to be able to satisfy that small part in a small way.

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Anyways despite being tired, watching the pilots at work made me want to fly so I did a bit of pre-flight planning and hopped into the sim for a real flight the first time since I reformatted my computer at the beginning of May. I originally planned several stops at small private turf airfields to get as close to the "bush" as I could but realized I was really too tired for much and decided to just visit one of my favorite small airfields, 2NJ3. I like this field because it's small, provides a challenging approach from both ends over trees and power lines and is fenced in for most of its length meaning you don't have much room for error when landing.

Because of the short runway length I hopped into the Cessna 172S, which I had left sitting up at KFWN. Weather from up there in northern NJ down to 2NJ3 in central NJ was pretty clear, with a slight chance of precipitation on the way but high cloud cover and light winds. This was also my first complete flight using the brand new release version of the REX Essentials weather engine I helped to beta test these last few months. While I had a slight drop in visibility passing over Aeroflex-Andover there was no precipitation and winds were smooth, giving me a bit of a push in the tail to speed me on but no bumps. I was feeling pretty good about myself handling the plane so well while trying to not fall asleep at the controls until I made my mistake.

Approaching 2NJ3 I tuned to Trenton-Mercer, which is only 4nm away from the field, to get an updated weather report. Winds had shifted a bit, but it was in my favor as they were blowing almost straight down one of the runways, which is great because fighting a crosswind when you have fences to either side of you isn't fun (although it is a challenge). Knowing my runway, I decided to pass right of the airport so I could turn over the field into the left pattern to check landing conditions. As I hit the DME mark telling me I was over the field I looked out my left window but didn't see anything. In normal scenery with lots of Autogen trees and buildings it can be sometimes hard to spot a small airfield, but with my satellite scenery having no such objects, the ones I added around the airport should be sticking out like a beacon. I flew in circles for a few minutes trying to locate the field before thinking to start circling KTTN figuring I was in the wrong location altogether.

Well I was correct - I was nowhere near to the right side of the airport like I had expected to be because I screwed up my reading of the NAV2 CDI needle. I had placed it to the right of center thinking to pass the field on the right but I had it backwards in my head - the CDI needle to the right meant I was left of the radial that was leading me straight to the airport, which meant I arrived left of the field and was looking out the wrong window!! I don't know whether it was because I hadn't flown in a good while or I was sleepy - but probably a little bit of both led to the error. Once I located the airport though I was able to circle and land without any problems, turn around and take off again. Once in the air I headed northeast following visual aids and up the Raritan River to KLDJ where I left the plane tied down on the ramp.

Well, I was still awake so I decided to make the short trip over to NYC where I had left one of my Bell 206s at the KJRB heliport in downtown. I figured it was a nice enough day to cruise up the Hudson and pay a visit to a small public heliport up in Haverstraw, NY - H43. Well I hadn't even made it to the GWB before I started to literally pass out at the controls. One second I'd be flying along fine and then I'd realize I was climbing, or had eased off stick pressure and had slowed down, or had nosed over too far... but I was determined to make it so I buckled down and managed as best I could not to crash into the ground. Finally I was on approach to Haverstraw and was descending to hover over the small clearing when I nosed back too far and flew backwards into a tree.

So close.. and yet...

Oh well, maybe on my next trip I'll be more awake!

So the good news regarding my throttle quadrant issue from the last flight is that it's not broken. I noticed the same issue when I swapped it for my newer quadrant and that led me to think of other problems, which eventually made me realize that one of the adjustable controls on my X52 HOTAS was to blame. Specifically it was the wheel that I use to control the throttle on the Bell helicopters, and to do that it is set to the propeller pitch axis. D'oh! But good to know I don't need to spend another $70 on a new quadrant.

I did a lot of prep for this flight, like making sure that I had scenery that would be useful along the way. I noticed I would be flying right past Cedar Point, which contains an amusement park, and I managed to find some scenery that put some simple 3D objects in that area. It wasn't anything sophisticated but it did make it easy to spot while flying for a landmark reference. I've been to the park before and it does indeed have some amazing roller coasters.

I also made sure that all the airports I would tune to for traffic advisories along the way had spoken names, not default phonetic ones, and used EditVoicepack as necessary to ensure this. It's a lot harder to remember the airport designations when flying along and listening to see of there are any arriving/departing aircraft I may need to look out for. While mucking around in EditVoicepack I thought about the fact that CTAF transmission are pretty poorly rendered in the sim. I don't know why I never put much thought towards this before but it's true. Aircraft don't say their type and they don't repeat the name of the airport at the end of the transmission. These are pretty standard rules, to my understanding, so I was surprised to not find any voicepack mods for this in either the AVSIM or flightsim.com download libraries. So of course I just figured out how to do it myself. It's available on the AVSIM library.

I also imported some additional phraseology mods I stumbled across on my search for the non-existent CTAF mod. You can find more on that and the Ohio scenery in my FSX Installation and Tweaking Log.

I decided to hop into the Beech Staggerwing produced by Alabeo as I hadn't flown it in one of my flights yet, only for a review. It's a tail dragger, and I normally don't bother with tail draggers because they are a pain in the &@($* to handle on the ground and during take-off and landing but I'll make an exception in this case because the Staggerwing is just a beautiful aircraft and has one of those big rotary engines that just sounds awesome under power, with the deep thrum I can really feel through my subwoofer. It took me a while to get up and going - I wanted to be wheels up with the sun but first I had to troubleshoot the recurring propeller pitch issue, then I realized I never installed the aircraft since I last reformatted my system, and then when on taxi to the active I actually crashed into another aircraft! I don't know why Ground didn't tell me or the other aircraft to stop, like it usually does, but - BAM! So after I reloaded the flight and got ready to depart of course I had to wait a few minutes for the deluge of taxi clearance requests to fall off since the AI traffic reloaded with the sim... and then I just taxied in spot view. Screw it.

Anyways I finally made it into the air about an hour after sunrise and made my way west towards the Bass Island group out on Lake Erie north of Sandusky, Ohio. I kept her low and slow the whole way and it took me about 30 minutes to get out to the islands. On the way I monitored some traffic frequencies and checked in on the weather report before tuning to the CTAF for the airport on South Bass Island, Put-In-Bay (3W2), to see which runway was active. I figured 21, but turned out to be 3. There were three other aircraft arriving so I took a long swing around the islands before entering the pattern to give them time to land and get out of the way - especially because one said it was making for 21, not 3. What I didn't count on was to be on short final and find an aircraft positioned on the runway for takeoff! Honestly, unless I had paused the sim and set up for an external screenshot I probably wouldn't have seen it since by the time I was close enough to spot it I was too nose-high. Fortunately there is a displaced threshold so I still probably would have flown over it on landing had I not seen it. Not sure if it was going to start taking off I announced a go-around and swung back into the pattern. I checked the ATC window and saw no notification of the aircraft taking off so I just shrugged, swung back around and landed over it! Turns out the airport was poorly designed by the US Cities developers and I fixed it to allow aircraft to depart properly.

My wonderful pattern work around 3W2. Longer, shallower approach 2nd time to spot & clear the aircraft

So in the real world after I parked and shut down I went off to bed for a few winks but my virtual self was off exploring the islands for the day until it was time to climb back into the cockpit for the flight home around 4pm.

There was some more confusion on active runway use when taking off - the sock was pointing at runway 21 but I heard traffic coming in for runway 3 so I hustled to the hold short, rolled and took off from 21 while they were still 4 miles out. I flew back on the opposite side of Kellys Island but other than that the flight was essentially the same going as it was coming. Sandusky traffic was landing from the west so it didn't get in my way and I cruised around FL017 back along the shore of Lake Erie until I was close enough to get ATIS from KBKL and contact the tower for landing instructions. I was hoping they were also landing from the west so I could just fly straight in but instead had to enter downwind to land out of the east. Either way though it's really cool to be approaching from the west and flying past downtown Cleveland. I considered flying back to a different airport in the area covered by the US Cities scenery but the lakefront airport is just too cool to pass up - reminds me of Meigs in Chicago - RIP

I had a weird case of yawing almost uncontrollably off the runway shortly after touchdown and I still haven't really figured out why. I managed to stop before falling off a small cliff in the terrain mesh near the water and had a few good bounces taxiing back onto the runway. Would have really sucked to crash at the end of a flight. I'll have to remember to do a replay of my landing if that happens again - I wonder if it was from my tail wheel touching the ground while it was unlocked. I may have unlocked it too soon and should have slowed down further until I felt my rudder authority weaken. Again, not much experience with tail draggers here...

I've got ideas for two helicopter flights, one for the 206 and one for the 222 if I can find time to do them before the start of November in two days. Then it's down south for the winter!

Aerosoft released an update to their Manhattan X product that added the latest construction progress of the new World Trade Center and I released a new airport down in central Jersey by the shore. Since the Bonanza V-tail was still parked up at Greenwood Lake (4N1) I decided to take a VFR flight down the Hudson to cruise past the new WTC buildings and then continue down the NJ coast to visit the newly-designed Lakewood Airport (N12).

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Flight Log

Things got right off to a rough start as I couldn't seem to start the Bonanza on the ramp at 4N1. I went through the checklist twice and double checked my controls and instruments twice as well, but when I switched the key on the engine would turn over but refuse to catch. It may be because I think my last flight in the Bonanza used a freeware wear and tear mod, and I had since uninstalled it so there may have been something the mod set that I couldn't change to get the engine to catch. So I switched aircraft to the Cessna 172, it fired up just fine then I switched back over to the V-tail and the engine kept running, which is why I think it was that damage mod I uninstalled.

Taxi and departure were routine, and I was in a turning climb up to my cruising altitude in no time. I leveled off smoothly at 2500' and turned southeast to intercept the Hudson River at the Tappan Zee Bridge. I was flying completely VFR but I couldn't help glancing down at the REX moving map every now and then. I normally don't zoom in close so I can't use it effectively to tell me where I am but this time I had and when I looked at it I realized I must not have turned south enough because I was over the border into NY! As I went to bank further south I looked out my left window and saw the Tappan Zee, which meant I had been on track and the REX map was a few miles off. I should just trust my own navigation better

Once I had the Tappan Zee in sight I began to descend and slow down to prepare to penetrate the Hudson VFR corridor that allows me to travel through NYC airspace unmolested by ATC. I ran through my entry checklist and was right on the numbers, trimmed out steady as I cruised past the first mandatory report point. I made it all the way to mid town Manhattan before I hit a bit of chop and was too slow cutting back the throttle - it bounced me up to 1300' which is 101' higher than I'm allowed to be. I wonder if ATC would have squawked at me in real life but probably not, I wasn't there for long although to get back down I had to cut throttle way back since I also have to remain under 140kts. I throttled back so far in fact the gear warning light and tone came on as I was below 1500' and the plane thought I was trying to land with my gear up! I realized afterwards though I needn't have had to throttle back so drastically - I was trying to keep the needle under 140 but I was looking at the MPH reading not the KTS reading! Geeez.

Now, since it took me a while to get off the ground and I had to be at work in under an hour, once I cleared the SFRA by passing over the Verrazano Bridge I throttled up to full and began to climb up over 2000' so I could fly straight over Sandy Hook's wildlife protection zone and make a beeline down the coast for my destination. Of course I was nearly to 2000' before I remembered the reason I like to go around Sandy Hook rather than over is because climbing above the wildlife protection zone also puts me in NYC airspace, whose floor is 1500' in this area. So I radioed NY Approach for Bravo airspace transition and continued on my merry way. Man that's two potential times I could have ticked off ATC in real life.

Descent and approach to Lakewood was uneventful. I tuned to KBLM for a weather report as I passed by and noted the wind, selected my landing runway, checked the pattern and set up to fly over the airport so I could double-check the sock before turning on my approach. There was no other traffic on approach so I lined up, intercepted the PAPI glide slope and brought her down. I flew a pretty sloppy pattern but ended up aligned alright. I flared a bit early and coasted down the runway a bit before finally landing and bounced once as well. Had to stand on the brakes a bit to exit the runway but didn't flip the airplane at least. I have Accu-Feel installed and boy did those brakes let me know I was abusing them, haha.

The WTC update is quite comprehensive and a fly-by only showed off the buildings. I'm thinking tomorrow I'll take a helicopter up and explore it a bit more fully.

My helicopter flight around Manhattan was done without the built-in simulator ATC because it wasn't properly recognizing that I was in a helicopter. I said at the time I didn't want to bother with VATSIM, but I quickly changed my mind when I realized I would end up using it sooner or later - so why not when I need it the most? To that end, I returned once again to good ol' ground school - this time in the form of the VATSIM Pilot Resource Center, where I learned all the nuances associated with the VATSIM network, communicating with ATC, IFR and VFR procedures, filing a flight plan, etc etc. Fortunately most of it I either knew or had a general understanding of, which meant it didn't take me long to work through the material. Flying on United Airlines I would always listen to the in-flight ATC chatter, and learned to recognize what people were saying, when and why.

Done with ground school, I then had to install and configure the add-on SquawkBox that would let me connect to the VATSIM network and communicate with the other pilots/controllers. That was quick and easy. Then I had to disable the Ultimate Traffic 2 AI traffic, since the VATSIM network would be showing me all the aircraft that were in my area (within 100mi). Finally, I had to set REX to pull down weather info off the VATSIM network instead of the real-world information site. VATSIM uses real-world weather too but it's just a matter of syncing up with the same source.

I put myself in a Cessna 172 on the GA ramp at KTEB, where I was last based from. Ironically, when it came time to log into the server I had no idea what to do. SquawkBox didn't have any default servers for me to connect to, and the VATSIM site didn't provide me with any direct information on servers. Even their Quick Start guide left out any information on finding out what server to connect to. Finally I realized I could check the Servers tab on VATTASTIC to find the IP address of the eastern US server. Success!

First thing I did upon connecting was to tune my radio to one of the local frequencies. Both KEWR and KJFK were active, so I chose KEWR Ground. I then sat for about 5 minutes and practiced what I was going to say. I'll admit it - I was way more intimidated than I thought I would be when it came to pushing that talk button - not because I didn't know what to say, I didn't want to sound like a complete idiot when I said it. Like:

"newark ground, cessna seven two uhhh... delta... uhm... november seven two... dammit..."

Yea, that'd be pretty embarrassing. Despite the fact that I remarked on my flight plan I was a total n00b, I didn't want to sound like one. Plus, there's that "controller voice" you can't help but want to match on all transmissions. This says it best:

You can read the full (and hilarious) real life short story I excerpted that from here.

So after a few minutes rehearsing and a couple deep breaths, I keyed the mic:

"newark ground, cessna seven delta sierra, request communications check."

I let off the talk button and waited... and prayed. A few seconds later Ground came back:

"Cessna seven delta sierra, ground, reading you five by five. How am I coming to you?"

"reading you five by, ground. Thanks!"

"you betcha sir, no problem"

And so went my first ATC communications. If you were confused by my greeting, my tail number (and thus my callsign) is N727DS - which broken down means

N - the standard identifier for registered aircraft in the US

727 - my birth date, July 27th

DS - my initials, Drew Sikora

Since some aircraft registration numbers can be a mouthful, it's customary to just use the last three digits/letters following your aircraft type when talking to ATC.

After making sure I was being heard okay by the controllers, I checked the VATTASTIC display to see if there was any traffic I could listen to, and saw two flights inbound to KJFK with another on the ground for departure. So I switched over to JKF tower frequency and listened in. One of the cool things is that the various chat programs actually simulate VHF broadcast, which means when people transmit it's not like talking to someone over Skype. If you've ever listened to a real ATC stream, you'll hear all kinds of distortion and static - well you get that here too. It's incredibly surreal and immersive.

After a few minutes listening to JFK tower, I got tired of my engine noise in the background, so I shut down the engine for some peace and quiet while I listened. After several more minutes all of the sudden I got the "radio off" beep from SquawkBox and sat up, confused. I checked to make sure SquawkBox was still connected to the server, and it was. Then I looked at my radio stack in my cockpit to find it powered down. What the hell?? So I tried to restart the engine. Nothing happened. So I checked my voltage gauge and, sure enough, the dial was buried in the red. I had run down my battery.

Maybe this ###### is just a little too realistic.

After I picked my head off the desk and made a mental note to be wary of battery levels in the future, I decided to log off completely - my mission for tonight, which was to log in, establish ATC communication and then monitor, was accomplished. Now everything is set up for a real flight down the Hudson in a Robinson. I will hopefully be pulling that off sometime this week, without making a complete &amp;@(&#036;* of myself over ATC. Wish me luck!!

For my last flight of the year I wanted to make it to the Bahamas so that next year I could launch on a grand tour of the islands as I continued to move south in the Caribbean. My chosen destination for this was Nassau, given that it hosts the largest airport and that airport is rendered by a TropcialSim addon I purchased as part of a 15-airport pack for the Caribbean in a sale on SimMarket. I did a check of the weather and although things were a bit rough around Miami I was just going to be passing by so didn't expect to catch the worse of it. I climbed back into the SkyMaster, ran through my preflight and got taxi clearance to the active behind a Southwest airliner taking off. I pulled up to the hold short and radioed the tower for clearance but they had me hold for arriving traffic a few miles out. While that traffic was approaching another aircraft announced landing intentions and ATC gave them clearance. Then another. These aircraft were like 3-5 minutes out each but ATC wouldn't slot me inbetween. Finally after holding for almost 15 minutes waiting for three aircraft to land ATC cleared me for takeoff.

Cloud cover was low so I only cruised around 1,000 feet and the light rain stopped a few miles from the airport. I had my comms tuned to the CTAF that Marathon was part of so when I neared the airport I realized I was about to cross the landing paths of incoming aircraft and swung a bit more northward to pass west of the airport, then I crossed over the runway to get back to the eastward side of the keys. Around this time things started to get a little bumpy and I had to throttle back from 160kts to 140kts in case of sudden severe turbulence as 160kts is just under the yellow arc. From this point on I was mostly 140-150kts depending on how the air was behaving. I had a few more bumps before arriving offshore of Miami and turning east to vector towards Bimini, the western-most islands of the Bahamas. Clouds remained low and closed in to overcast with only about 10nm visibility, but not rain.

The leg to Bimini was a bit tough since I don't use autopilot. The horizon was very unclear thanks to the low cloud cover and reflection of the water so it was hard to know when I was banking slightly unless I kept an eagle eye on my instruments. I was tracking a VOR vector from the Miami area even though Bimini has its own VOR so when I finally arrived at the island I was about 2-3nm south of it. But still not too bad, I wanted to see whether I could hit a target from a vector since the majority of these islands don't have their own VORs for me to vector in on. I then vectored outbound from the Bimini VOR to my next leg, which would put me in the middle of the Berry Islands north of Nassau and let me vector south towards the airport along the main runway heading for an easy straight-in approach or pattern entry.

However about 20nm into the 80nm leg to the Berry Islands from Bimini I noticed lightning quite frequently off in the distance. I pulled up the REX weather radar and it didn't show any thunderstorm activity ahead of me. I checked the weather at Nassau on the web and it didn't give any indication of thunderstorms. I pondered over whether I could head south and try to swing around the storm and then head north to Nassau but I had no information about this storm, like the direction it was headed it. I could run into it on my way north to Nassau. What the hell was this storm even doing here? Well, I figured it was just because this was the Bermuda Triangle after all, and sudden storms are known to coalesce. Given the Triangle's reputation, once I started seeing lightning light up my cockpit and hearing thunder I did an about-face and headed back for Bimini!

There's a small airstrip on Bimini that can handle my aircraft easily so that's where I put her down once I got back to the island, leaving the storm behind. The airfield is not supposed to have a control tower but it did, no doubt a mistake on the part of the author of the Bahamas Airfield Package I downloaded to get better renditions of all 64 airports in the Bahamas. I notified the author so hopefully when I climb back in the cockpit next year there will be an update that removes the tower frequency. I didn't deal with the tower I just disabled AI traffic and landed. I had been wondering though as I approached and passed Bimini earlier why I hadn't heard any action from it on the CTAF.

Until next year...

This took a few days to happen thanks to the weather, and even still when I climbed into the cockpit it was with the expectation that I would probably be turning around after my first planned leg, but there was a chance things would clear up enough for me to continue on by then. Wind was light mainly from the north so I was able to takeoff in the direction I wanted to head in initially, with a straight climb out to about FL016 as clouds were reported to be at FL021. I was able to stay low by flying first along Lake George and then over some lowlands at Ticonderoga and then along the waterway separating New York and Vermont. The clouds stayed low the whole time as expected.

Eventually I needed to turn west, at the 286 radial to Saranac Lake, but when I got there the clouds had become even lower and although they were scattered they were huge puffy clouds that I couldn't see around, so I pulled a 180 and started heading back - but then I noticed the overcast ceiling above me had become broken and huge hole was inviting me up. So I quick tuned in and got flight following from Burlington Approach and began to climb through the hole to get above the clouds. Now, climbing over clouds is a tricky business and my decision to do so came mostly from the type of aircraft I was flying which could handle the altitude. It's impossible to know (short of a PIREP) how tall clouds are until you are up over them, so climbing over does not always work. Fortunately in this case the clouds topped out around 6-8,000 feet and I continued up to FL100 just to be sure and also just because I hardly ever have an excuse to fly that high! On the way up I forgot to lean the mixture (which was already halfway lean for general cruise) and it was noticing the cylinder head temperature rising that got my attention - I thought the fading sound of the engine was just due to the rarefied atmosphere! The RPM indicator didn't show any overspeed so I left the prop at full pitch.

All the way to Saranac Lake VOR and onwards to Watertown VOR I would be flying through various MOAs. Most that I checked had floors well above me even at FL100, but one in particular had a floor at 100 feet, so I made sure to have Boston Center frequency on standby and tuned to that when I approached the area. Again, there's no simulation of MOA activity in FSX but I like to keep things as real as possible. I originally planned to go direct to Watertown from Saranac Lake but that would have taken me through restricted airspace and thus I was forced to follow the 249 radial out of SLK until I intercepted the 282 radial from ART.

I strayed a little off the path however past SLK after I did a spiral descent back through another gap in the scattered overcast to get back down to the deck now that the land had flattened out and the Adirondacks were behind me. I knew there was some more overcast weather coming up and there's certainly not many things worse than being stuck on top of clouds while flying VFR. That and the wind pushing me off course was giving me fits correcting for. I over-corrected and ended up on the north side of my westward track, which was where I certainly did not want to be as that was the side nearest to the restricted airspace. Once past ART it was back to hugging the shore of Lake Ontario past Oswego and Rochester - I transitioned the Rochester Delta airspace since I couldn't climb high enough to feel comfortable cutting across the bay. The weather was crappy around Oswego with overcast skies and about 9sm visibility but cleared back up to scattered clouds and around 15sm visibility approaching Rochester and stayed mostly that way through to Niagara.

To set me up on approach to KIAG I planned to turn to heading 240 after intersecting the 20 radial from the Buffalo VOR. It's hard to get this wrong, considering that 24 is a numerical marking on the OBI and beforehand I had set the heading bug over it to make sure I knew what direction I had to head in. You can see I turned around the right time but somehow I ended up tracking roughly 223, which brought me towards KBUF instead. I realized this as I passed over North Buffalo Suburban airport, which I recognized from my last flight out of the area, and spotted KBUF almost directly ahead of me. So what went wrong? I know positively that I was pointed at heading 240 on my OBI - the only thing I can think of is that I was a victim of gyroscopic drift (yes this is enabled in my Realism settings). I haven't done a lot of long haul cross country flying until now and have never gotten into the habit of checking my gyroscopic compass against my magnetic compass every now and then to ensure accuracy. Lesson learned!

Download the Plan-G flight plan

I still managed to make a decent approach and landing at KIAG without getting completely lost trying to find the airport, so in the end things didn't work out too bad. I managed to make it all the way back to Niagara and now I'm set up to continue my westward trek. But at the same time with this winter weather approaching I'd like to escape to someplace warm and tropical, so on that note I've also purchased my first twin engine aircraft and have a second throttle quadrant on the shipping truck headed my way. Happy days! You'll have to wait and see in the next week or so what twin I've bought but since this is my first twin I decided to keep things relatively simple and found the perfect plane to make the transition to multi-engine flying.

So today I took my first flight of 2011! I got to mix a little bit of business with pleasure as well, plotting a flight that was completely VFR while also checking out one of my airports and that of an associate for whom I am beta testing. To get an idea of just how VFR this VFR flight was, have a look at the Flight Log I constructed for it. No navaids, no headings - nothing! In the past, I've navigated VFR either by plotting the track on SkyVector and using the headings it gives for each leg, or following a huge visual aid, like the coastline of NJ or Long Island - kind of hard to go wrong there.

If you don't recall, I last left off with my computer crashing as I was on short final to the last airport of my very long trip. So we're just going to pretend I actually made the landing and taxied to one of the hangars for parking, because that's where this flight starts off.

There was little to no wind today, so after I taxied out of the hangar I headed straight for the closest runway at Central Jersey Regional (47N) which was Runway 25. After departure, since it was in the opposite direction I wanted to head, I made a gradual turn north as I climbed. I leveled off at 2500' in order to stay beneath the 3000' Class B floor in this area and picked up my first visual aid - the Raritan River winding off into the northeast. I trimmed out the craft and cruised abeam the river as it traversed the landscape towards Raritan Bay. As I approached the mouth of the river I hung off to the south because there the Class B floor drops way down to 1500'. Hugging the shore, I continued east and started to descend gradually to 1300' because I was going to have to duck under the 1500' floor eventually when I reached the outer edge of Sandy Hook.

Around this point visibility began to close in and dropped from >20mi down to around 20mi. I double-checked my forecast and was reassured it wasn't going to close in all the way along my route. I banked north upon reaching Sandy Hook and having dropped down to 1300' - now it was time to go even lower as I headed north across the Atlantic Ocean toward the Verrazano Bridge because there begins the Hudson River VFR Corridor (I like to call it a corridor, it's really dubbed a "Special Exclusion Zone"). This corridor is walled in by the banks of the river extending up to the 1300' Class B airspace floor. So I dropped to 1000' by the time I crossed over the bridge and stuck to the right bank of the river like driving on a road. While I'm out of Class B and therefore have no need to contact ATC, in real life (or online) I would tune to a Common Traffic Advisory Frequency and announce my location every so often since this VFR corridor is a highly-trafficked area by both planes and helicopters.

After passing the Verrazano visibility closed down to 10 miles and I began to wonder if my weather reports were wrong and I would need to turn around and seek an alternate route (I hadn't pre-planned one) but visibility did not worsen as I continued onwards past Manhattan and towards the George Washington Bridge. A few minutes after passing the GWB visibility cleared all the way out again and I was able to spot my next landmark - the Tappan Zee Bridge that carries Route 287/87 over the Hudson. Here I began to climb back up to 2500' since the Class B floor had been raised back up to 3000' and there were mountains coming up soon. I also began to turn left to follow the road and almost made a classic VFR mistake - I can't follow a ground feature like a road by flying over it, I need to fly alongside it so I can see it. So I passed north of the bridge and then turned west to follow Route 87 out my left window towards the junction of Rt 287.

Around this time I started to hear the engine stutter, and my pulse quickened. Had I turned on the Carburetor Heat? I thought I did back before I even took off. Was there carb ice in my engine? There's no switch I can find on the default C172 panel that toggles carb heat, so I just hit the button on my throttle quadrant that is set to toggle it and hoped that it was now on. As it continued to happen the remainder of the flight I began to wonder if it wasn't just my sound itself stuttering in and out!

After passing over the road junction I had to use the lake features to help pick out the airport as well as simply continuing due west. Soon I saw one, but it was a closely-neighboring private strip. I recognized this well-out so I was able to turn and find the actual airport, Greenwood Lake (4N1) without overflying the first one. Again, with no wind I had my choice of runway. After listening to the CTAF and hearing no other traffic, I decided to go for Runway 6, which was a right pattern approach. Then I made the one mistake of the day - I overflew the airport and began the right pattern when I really should have entered downwind before reaching the airport - so I was actually turning upwind! I didn't realize this until I turned final and noticed my compass was pointing to heading 240! Yea, facepalm. So I just swung off the approach (I really could have just landed) and just continued the pattern around to Runway 6, which has a very steep approach of 5.75°! I had to cut the engine well off the threshold to maintain my approach speed at 10° flaps, and came down light as a feather just left of center line. Also the low-vis haze came back on approach but it wasn't less than 15 miles or so.

After taxiing to parking I restarted the sim to clear up the sound issue (which I determined by now it had to be) and then loaded up the Jet Ranger, as this airport supports heli services. Departing straight to the south, I came across the airport I had originally spotted before locating 4N1. This field is currently being built by an associate and has some pretty cool features to it. I hovered around and took some pictures to send back to him so he could see how things are looking for me, then continued on southward towards the Rt 23 roadway, which actually turns into the Route 23 helicopter route. Since I was eventually going to be passing straight over Newark Aiport, I tuned in to New York Approach and requested Class B transition when it was appropriate.

Cleared through the Bravo airspace, I continued to follow roadways - now Rt 46, which makes up Routes Great Notch and Whiskey. Upon reaching the Meadowlands sports complex, I turned south along Route Linden, which takes you directly over a huge and very visible cemetery and then west of KEWR's Runway 11. Once past the runway I turned back northeast to cross over the airport and make for the Turnpike Bridge and from there south of The Lady, which is an intersection that lets me transition over to the Hudson River route. I took the Hudson north and cut across Central Park to head back south down the East River to the Downtown Manhattan Heliport (KJRB). Visibility was much improved on this return trip to the Big Apple.

I noobed the approach to KJRB, coming in over the water on the island side for the pier and spending a few minutes hovering this way and that while I tried not to land in the water. Eventually I decided to just set her down wherever I could and then I hover taxiied into a proper parking location. Well, to be honest I kind of cheated a little - you can increase collective to make the chopper light enough to "slide" along the ground without actually lifting off. In real life you would no doubt destroy your landing skids and the surface of the helipad, but fortunately this isn't real life.

For my next flight, I'm thinking of choppering around Manhattan for some landing practice, then hauling down to southern Jersey to Flying W (N14) and then doing a friend the favor of transporting his plane up to Greenwood Lake so I can get mine back as well.

See you then!

Originall posted to my personal blog

Although I saw some light snow flurries on my drive home from work on Saturday (first snow spotted of the season! Blech!) the sun was shining through scattered clouds and other than the wind and light precipitation things looked good for an evening flight so I checked the weather when I got home and saw the flurries weren't more than random scattered precipitation. So I decided to continue the flight I finished last week at KVAY.

Here is the flight plan for this trip.

Leg 1: KVAY - NJ84

It was a blustery day yesterday according to the weather reports, so the first thing I did after finishing my pre-flight checklist on the tarmac of KVAY in the Cessna 172S was taxi on over to the pump to top off the tanks. Whenever you're dealing with turbulent weather the heavier you are the better off you will be as the wind won't be able to knock you around as much. So, that done I taxied over to hold short for Runway 26 as a Piper Archer made its approach. I probably didn't have to wait for it but it does take a bit extra to taxi onto this runway because you have to turn around at the end to line up. So I waited for the Piper to land then taxied out into position and took off - the wind was strong enough from the right that I didn't have to compensate for propeller torque on my takeoff roll. Once up in the air I set the controls to cruise at 1400' - although I had it in the plan for 1500' I realized that was the floor of Philly Bravo airspace and decided to stay 100' under and clear. I still tuned into Philly Approach for flight following however, and stayed with them until I passed over the VOR before tuning back into local traffic, although NJ84 doesn't have a frequency of its own. I also realized I had compensated for FSX's late DST switch the wrong way, setting the game clock an hour behind real world when it should be an hour ahead. Fixing that, I made my approach to Hidden Acres without issue - the flight had been bumpy all along but nothing serious just a few shakes here and there not requiring any serious control input to correct. My first approach to Hidden Acres didn't go so well, I was expecting the 16-17kts heavy winds to slow me down a bit more than they did and I ended up long on final and had to go around. Second approach I put down 10 degrees of flaps and came down right on the runway after crabbing in slightly to stay aligned against the wind.

Leg 2: NJ84 - N73

I started this leg right after the previous, taxiing back and departing NJ84 - but once in the air since it was getting darker I decided to adjust my ENB settings and when I resized the window to put them into effect the sim continued to run but I could no longer get it to render anything. So I was forced to quit and decided to postpone the flight until the next day.

So today I hopped back into the Cessna around mid-morning and started a flight at NJ84 to pick up where I left off. It was still windy today, and on takeoff I had to be careful no to let the wind blow me into the trees off to the side of the runway. I didn't have far to climb for cruise so I was shortly en route direct to the Atlantic City VOR where I intended to arc around at a 10nm distance before turning towards N73. It's been a few months since my last DME arc so I wanted to keep up my technique. Turbulence was minor but persistent along the way and during the arc but never enough to seriously disturb my aircraft attitude. I started the arc fine but halfway through I let myself drift inwards and ended up 9.2nm from ACY at my closest approach before turning out towards N73. In retrospect I didn't remember to account for the wind blowing out of the northeast pushing me off course. Live and learn! I finally remembered to pull up a track of my flight after I landed so I could see my arc:

You can see how as I turned out of the wind, which was coming from just west of north, I started to get blown inside the ACY 10nm radius. After a short flight out from ACY I reached Red Lion and entered the pattern for Runway 05. Great pattern, rounding out on final on slope and aligned with the runway, although I got a bit sloppy just before touchdown and had a scary left skid that almost took me off the runway thanks to the wind coming from the left making my torque-induced weather cocking worse than I anticipated. After finding a parking space and shutting down I also realized I never pulled an ident on the VOR. I'm very inconsistent with that still...

Leg 3: N73 - KMMU

A few spots over was my V35B from last weekend, and after pre-flight I taxied to Runway 08 and was able to take off right away as no traffic was inbound. I forgot three things in short order though on my climb to cruise altitude. One was that in setting my instruments to take off I had neglected the altimeter. Two, I didn't circle-climb on departure but immediately flew direct for COL which caused me to skim over McGiure's airspace. Three, I forgot to complete my after takeoff checklists. So when I was finally leveled off at 3500' I tuned to KWRI for a weather check (shouldn't I have done that before departure?) and reset my altitude to find I was really closer to 4000' - d'oh! By the time I crossed over COL I was back to cruising 3500' and began to descend again to duck under the NYC Bravo shelf and prepare for entry into the Hudson SVFR corridor. As if it's not hard enough keeping this aircraft at 1200' while not exceeding 140kts things started getting real bumpy as I cruised past the city. Like, attitude-changing where all the sudden I would find the aircraft starting to roll to one side. Steady hand on the yoke and smooth corrections though kept me on course without too much of an altitude or speed adjustment. Once clear of the SVFR corridor I climbed back up to 3000' to head over the north Jersey hill country towards the Sparta VOR. I waited until I was over the VOR before tuning to KMMU for a weather report and then contacting the tower, which told me to make left downwind for Runway 05. This was great because the radial I was tracking outbound from the VOR set me up for a perfect 45° pattern entry. I received my landing clearance as #2 behind a Cessna on approach but the problem was I couldn't spot him and there was another aircraft waiting to land behind me. So I turned base when I figured the Cessna had passed me by but then his landing light came into view in the distance. I stuck in my turn for final thinking I could cut him off but the tower told me to go around, no surprise. So I went around and slotted in behind the Cessna I was supposed to follow - when I heard the tower tell him to go to ground I turned base and final, rolling out right of the runway on final but I made it down okay. I had to taxi in partway on an inactive runway to get around some traffic taxiing out and shut down in the main tie down area to the west.

Good times. Where to next?

Finally cleared up my development commitments and made it through a successful FSDevConf so I was able to focus on getting the sim set back up to fly the SkyMaster again. I got a great deal on LatinVFR's Key West scenery from a sale on SimMarket so I decided that would make for a nice shakedown cross country flight before I headed off across the open sea to the Bahamas. The scenery is overall very good, but it does have a certain lack of quality that makes me glad I didn't pay full price for it. There are several very visible seam lines in the photoreal textures and the textures themselves change quality from sharp to blurry in various areas. A portion of a bay area even shows landclass textures through the water instead of a sea floor. Even the airport AFCAD had a bug in it where aircraft would taxi straight onto the runway and pile up without holding - I had to modify the hold short node position to get the proper behavior. I also added a bunch of additional boats to wake trails that were empty on the photoreal water textures. But again, it's way better than default and even has night textures so I'm satisfied with the price I paid for it.

Anyways, the flight down from Miami to Key West went very well. There was some rain bands moving through the area and I got caught in one for a few minutes about 1/3 of the way down the keys but other than that it was just some low cloud cover I had to avoid. Taking off from Opa Locka (KOPF) I was able to depart straight out to the east and turn south along Miami Beach. I used the Dolphin VOR to stay 14nm distant and remain outside of the Miami Bravo airspace - the floor above me was 3,000 and I was at 2,500 and within 13nm the floor drops to 1,500. So a bit of DME arcing to the tip of Key Biscayne and then I was free to just follow the coast of the Keys the rest of the way down. I did my best to remain at 2,000+ for the first few keys as that was over a wildlife refuge area marked on the charts. I did have to drop to 1,000 feet as I got further south to avoid a drop in the cloud cover.

I had timed the flight so I would arrive at sunset but I forgot to adjust the time in FSX to account for DST - I need to advance the FSX clock an hour ahead of the actual time to get the proper lighting in the sim. So as I approached Key West and the sun was still above the horizon I went and bumped the time up to sunset. I followed the Overseas Highway since that took me around the naval base and set me up for a downwind entry into the pattern for runway 7 at Key West International (KEYW). I was a little rushed getting configured for landing so I missed looking back for my turning point to final and swung wide and had to S-turn back to line up for landing. Touchdown was pretty good - although like last time I got a little wobbly and came down rear left, rear right and then dropped the nose. I think I just need more power when I land.

Ignore the straight lines - I forgot to disconnect Plan-G before running some replays for landing shots

Today I took my longest flight yet - almost three hours in the air. I wanted to go to Martha's Vinyard (KMVY) because it is a destination I've flown to many times before in past iterations of Flight Simulator, but I didn't want to take just a simple direct flight there. I have VFR scenery now that extends up into Massachusetts and Rhode Island so I figured I'd check out as much of it as I could. I also hadn't been all the way out along Long Island. So I decided to fly along LI, head north to RI then northeast to the tip of Cape Cod, and then follow that back down south then southwest to Martha's Vinyard.

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So next came the course plotting, of course using SkyVector - that site is so full of awesome and win. My first step was to figure out how I was going to get around NYC airspace without having to bother anyone for transit clearance. Thankfully, the Class B floor northeast of Teterboro was 1500 feet, so skirting the airspace was a simple matter of staying below 1500. After that it was simply a matter of tracing out a route I wanted and making sure there were no serious obstructions in the way (not just buildings and towers but restricted airspace) and then taking note of any further airspace I would be transiting - mainly Class C and D. I then used SkyVectors route plotter to draw the route and see how long it would be to make sure I had the range - no problem at 273nm when the range of the Cessna 172S is rated up around 700nm (there's more to that, but I'll talk about it later). Even better than the range, the route lines told me the heading I needed to travel on. Awesome!

So I climbed into my Cessna at KTEB and ran through pre-flight. I wanted to depart before dawn but the sky was already starting to light up by the time I contacted KTEB ground and requested taxi clearance, just beating out a Beechcraft. I pulled up to Runway 6 first and after holding short contacted KTEB tower and got my clearance to depart VFR to the north. No problems climbing out and leveling off at 1000 feet to stay well below the 1500 foot floor of La Guardia's Class B airspace - which actually drops to 1300 feet when you hit the Hudson River! Being so low, and not too familiar with the area from above (not helping that it was still rather dark out) I fumbled around a bit before being sure I was actually where I wanted to be.

Once I made it over Long Island, KLGA's floor rose to 3000 feet, so I climbed as well, not just to get a better view but to leapfrog over the 2600 foot Class D ceiling that surrounded Republic (KFRG). After passing over KFRG's airspace I cut the throttle and dropped to 1000 feet  to scoot under Long Island Mac Arthur's (KISP) 1500 foot Class C airspace floor. If you really want to know why I went through all this trouble to avoid minor air spaces well - it made things more interesting okay?? Anyways, I ended up having to contact KISP for Class C clearance anyhow because I wanted to buzz the condo complex where some friends of mine lived and it was within the airspace of KISP that extended down to the floor. I had no problem getting clearance from KISP ATC of course, so I circled the condos and then headed out, informing KISP that I was clear of their airspace.

I had one more hop to get over the 2600 foot ceiling of Gabreski (KFOK) Class D, then kept her at around 2500 feet the rest of the way out to the tip of Long Island, where I had to drop down to 2000 feet to stay below some clouds that had moved in. I considered climbing above them but they weren't scattered enough for me to slip through and I was really more interested in seeing the ground anyways.

The rest of the trip out over Rhode Island and Cape Cod was largely uneventful. Got buffeted around a bit by winds as I transitioned from land to water, there were some areas where it was choppy for a few minutes, but that was about it. I was able to recognize all the points at which I would turn to the next leg of my trip, pointing down the heading indicated by SkyVector, and it worked perfectly. Several times en route I would tune into ATIS for airports as I passed by just to get a weather update. Over Cape Cod a low cloud layer snuck up on me and I literally had to cut throttle and dive to 1500 feet from 2000 to make sure I stayed out of the clouds.

I contacted KMVY tower at 11nm out after listening to the latest ATIS and they instructed me to enter the pattern downwind, so I dropped to pattern altitude (1000 feet) and lined up  parallel to the runway for the downwind leg. Although I turned base at the proper time (45 degrees off the end of the runway and as I got landing clearance from ATC) I was too close laterally, so that when I rolled out onto base I was already abeam the runway. D'oh! Out of practice already. So I S-curved it into final and crabbed slightly into a light cross breeze to set her down nice and gently slightly off the center line. After clearing the runway and stopping past the hold short, I contacted ground and they directed me to my parking.

Now, the fuel issue I mentioned earlier. I said the range of my craft was around 700nm - yet I landed at KMVY with half a tank of gas left after traveling a little over 1/4 of that distance. Two main reasons for this: I did a lot of climbing to hop over air spaces and I didn't fly at 12,000 feet. The Cessna tops out at around 13,000 feet, so 12,000 feet is its usual cruise altitude. Up there, the air is thinner and thus offers less resistance, which means less fuel burned. If I want to go farther, I have to go higher. Now, I did not calculate the fuel burn or anything - I just saw that the distance I was traveling was less than half the maximum range of the craft, so I guessed (and felt sure about it) I would make it no problems. Obviously this isn't a good practice but I really didn't think of how far I would be flying on this trip before I plotted it, so I didn't have time to sit down and figure out how to properly calculate fuel burn and thus trip range (I wanted that damn sunrise!). That will be my next ground school assignment.

So! Here I am at Martha's Vinyard. I think I might fly up to Boston next...

I made a day-one purchase of Drzewiecki Design's New York City X product, which I had been salivating over for months, and ended up with a scenery add-on that brought my computer to its knees with the dreaded Out Of Memory error, which is what happens when too much is loaded into FSX at once and it runs out of the ability to address enough virtual memory to keep up. Turns out the product, as shipped, required the use of DX10 Preview mode, which is an aspect of FSX that Microsoft never fully developed before dropping the software. Therefore there are a number of issues with using DX10 but over the years these issues have largely been solved, enough so that a good portion of FSX users now fly with DX10 enabled all the time. I was not one of those people. Note the past tense.

I realized two things when planning for my next flight. First was that down in the Bahamas I saw fall-colored trees on the islands. These went away at the start of November and were replaced with proper green foliage. The second was remembering that the scenery that comes with Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, and Chicago is not made for winter textures, which start showing in the sim at the start of November. So I decided to get in some more flights in the north while conditions were good for them before switching south to the Caribbean for the winter, when conditions are good for that scenery.

Download flight plan

I recently re-installed Ultimate Traffic 2 as for some reason it was gradually decreasing aircraft density settings on its own for some reason, leaving me void of any air traffic after a few minutes. While I was at it I updated to the latest traffic schedule as well. This meant that while departing Niagara Falls International (KIAG) I had to wait a couple of minutes for two aircraft to arrive. Actually only one of them landed the second was told to go around. During my takeoff roll I noticed I wasn't getting a whole lot of power. I had enough to take off, and I waited until I had enough for a climb out before rotating just before the end of the runway - luckily there were no immediate obstacles and I was able to raise gear quickly and establish a shallow climb out. I remained puzzled as I checked over my instruments and noticed the RPM indicator was only at 2,000 rather than the normal 2,500 at full power. Thanks to the low cloud cover I wasn't climbing high anyways and quickly leveled off and took another look around the cabin and finally noticed the prop pitch knob was not pushed fully in - even though the knob on my Saitek throttle quadrant was all the way forward. I played around with it a bit and realized that there was an issue with reading the knob position and anything near high RPM setting would cause the prop pitch to oscillate wildly between 2,000 and 2,500 RPM making the aircraft lurch around in the process. So I lowered the prop pitch until it held steady at just over 2,000 RPM and then adjusted my throttle and mixture accordingly. Again, luckily I wasn't planning on flying very high due to a FL035 cloud ceiling so the low prop pitch wasn't a problem worth turning around for.

This does teach me an important lesson however, and that is to always visually check the position of levers/knobs/switches in the sim and not take for granted that operating a hardware control will do the job properly. The fact that I made it off the ground in this case was due mainly to the situation - I was at sea level so had lots of engine power, there were no obstacles immediately past the runway and the runway itself was long enough to build up enough speed to ensure not only that I could rotate but continue to climb out. If any of these things had been different I probably would have had to ditch off the end of the runway or hope I could brake hard enough to stop on the runway - if I had made the decision to do so before attempting the take off anyways and crashing into a tree. And all this could have been prevented had I visually checked and noticed the prop pitch knob wasn't functioning properly prior to takeoff. Or that I wasn't generating max RPM at the start of my takeoff roll.

Again, luckily this scenario played out okay and it just meant I was only able to cruise at just over 130 kts instead of my usual speed of around 160. My plan was to climb to FL065 and go over the Erie Charlie airspace but clouds were low and I needed to stay in the denser air to get as much out of my prop as possible. While passing Erie, PA I tuned to the approach frequency but never saw an option on my ATC menu to request clearance to transit the airspace. So don't know what was up with that - I flew literally right along the shore past the airport where the Charlie airspace reached all the way to ground level. I hit a bit of turbulence after entering Ohio, just some strong wind gusts that would push me around a bit - a few minor up/down drafts as well but nothing really rattling to the airframe and I was heavy with a full load of fuel anyways.

I had also re-installed Plan-G to a new version and it reset all my connection options. I don't use Plan-G as a navigation aid (crutch, really if you want my honest opinion) so I don't let it show me any data from the sim after I connect to it - with the exception of the wind indicator and the highlighting of what waypoint I'm at in my flight plan as I can't find a way to turn those off. One thing I forgot to switch off was the sound effects, including the default system chime that plays as you approach a waypoint. Well, that's also the chime you hear when you're in danger of getting an OOM error! I almost had a fit thinking the system was about to OOM under the conditions I had running before I realized that I still had my system sounds nearly muted in the volume control panel and this chime was too loud so had to be coming from an application. Phew!

There was one good thing about the slow flight, which is it caused me to arrive just around sunset. I was able to make straight-in for runway 24R so it was almost a direct approach into the sunset - very pretty. My power settings (set up during previous pattern practice) were all screwed up thanks to the low-pitched propeller so I had to feel my way down to the ground a bit more than usual but managed to float only a little ways past the touchdown marks and make an exit off the high-speed taxiway. Then it was more waiting on my way to parking as I had to cross over an active runway that had an aircraft on final approach. But overall it's nice to have crowded skies again.

I restarted the sim and played around with the throttle quadrant and found it still exhibited inconsistent behavior. I would set the prop pitch to high RPM and it would set fine in the sim but then when I moved the mixture to full rich the prop pitch in the sim would pop out to about 80%. Or pulling the throttle back to idle could cause the prop pitch to pop out of full, but not consistently. So I will maybe have to buy a(nother) new quadrant. It's served me well these past several years though!