PIC on VATSIM

Mike,Would love to join you guys for the trip, but will be completeing EGPF-KSFB around this time (real life) as I am going my holidays, and yes it is a 767.Mark

Good news Mike. All being well you can count me in.Callsign UKD121 'Unicorn one-twenty one'Off to do some scenery scouting in the DF Cardinal :)

>Good news Mike. All being well you can count me in. >>Callsign UKD121 'Unicorn one-twenty one' >>Off to do some scenery scouting in the DF Cardinal :) Count me in Mike :-) I'll be using ACA B763 flagship callsign (ACA886)Best,Haroon

Done that approach with the Scary 'Bus (3 attempts :-) ) but a 767!!!Was going to join the GroupFight trip there today but didn't make it :-(A question Mike.On the charts for 05 it states there are lead in lights on the shore, are these included in the scenery, also the 2 waypoints 'GELO' & 'ROSARIO' are not in the default scenery, are they incuded?Cheers

Mike,Hopefully we can make this my first PIC group flight with you guys.And my first flight in this region :)Hope to see you guys Sunday :)Josh

Vulcan,Couple of good questions. The add-on scenery has some sort of lead in lights on the shore line, key words = shore line. I had not attempted a landing at Madiera until this evening after reading your question. A couple weeks ago after installing the scenery, I set myself there in a helocopter and checked out all the eye candy during daylight. Anyway, this afternoon I set the PIC at Lisbon and then at Madiera to check the routing in FMC, calculate the PIC flight time, and determine the expected fuel burn. There was lots of traffic around Madiera so I decided to go ahead and fly the Madiera to Ponta Delgada flight. About five minutes after reaching FL360 I read your post and did quick u-turn, advising Lisbon Center of my intent to return to LPMA. Center had me decend to 11000 and direct to FUNOR intersection. He then switch me to the FUNCHAL 'FUN' VOR and handed me to approach. Approach directed me to cross 'FUN' at 3000 and fly the outbound 273 radial. After reporting the field in sight the handoff came to tower who called progressive heading changes that pretty much followed the visual approach chart for VOR approaches, except for an extended downwind due to other traffic on final.This is where it really started getting fun. Back at around 3 DME out from 'FUN' I had a very good view of the runway. But on final, I could see the field but could not make out the runway until somewhere inside 2 miles. Those lead-in lights nearly cost me a missed approach as they follow the shore line, not the approach path. Understanding that now makes it all quite nice but things got a little dicey the last 15 seconds of my flight. Another thing that I was not accoustomed to was the false readings from the radio altimeter. Well not really false. I was hand flying all the way and not even glancing at ILS cues. With the runway threshold sitting at the edge of a 190 foot cliff over the Atlantic Ocean, you need to think about that a little and make some adjustments from your normal methods. I pick up my verticle cues in that phase of flight from perspective with the runway and the radio altimeter. We got down and clear OK but like I said, those last 15 seconds were a hand full. Seeing/hearing the altitude calls jump from "minimums" (200 feet) to "Five" in a split second can be a little interesting.Those waypoints, GELO and ROSARIO are not in my navdata either. After relooking the charts, I am not even sure they are waypoints. Perhaps someone can clerify that one.See you next week and glad to have in the line-up.

IN!

Mike,Glad you liked the Madeira addon scenery I wrote about in the dangerous approaches thread. I would love to join in Sunday the 8th, at least for the first leg to Madeira. I will be flying the Martinair 767PIC/POSKYv3, call sign MPH641. My screenshots of a landing at Madeira 05 are still on my homepage.See you in Lisbon!

Mike,I've had a look at the scenery and the charts. Looks like a real challenge. But, I'm away during the Sunday evening, so no chance to participate. Perhaps some other time.Kind regards,Stephan Haas

Thanks for that full explanation Mike, a couple of points.If approach & tower guide you in on that 180 degree turn then the 'lead-in' lights are not really needed, looking at the charts they do look to follow the shore line; my flight was done off line..I'm a coward :-lol I am surprised they had you exit FUN on the 273 Radial (a typo?), the charts show that HDG as for Rwy23, for 05 it is R-213.Point taken about the radio altimeter readings, I think the best approach (sorry for pun :-)) is to stick with main altimeter readings and remember the field altitude.As for GELO & ROSARIO I guess they are waypoints, I have never seen points marked on charts with names other than waypoints, maybe the charts are out of date.With new add-on scenery I would expect the author to include such waypoints if they do exist in real life.I hope to join you, but I have hoped to join you on all the previous trips but so far have missed them.Thanks for restarting these PIC trips, should be good fun.

Does anyone know the coordinates for GELO and ROSARIO?They both appear on my Jepp charts but they aren't in the database.

I've just done a few circuits and this really is one tough mutha. Without the GELO and ROSARIO waypoints (if they are waypoints I can't find them anywhere either Stiffy) the turn at 6DME whilst descending to 850'(!) is a little difficult to put it mildly. You leave it a little too late and the're scraping you off the side of the hill :-eek Leaving the turn until 10DME does make it a bit easier but it's still definitely not for the faint hearted :)This is one instance where being able to pan in VC (try it in the Cardinal, superb) really does pay off.Interesting to see straight in approaches from FUN to R23 aren't authorized. I wonder how they tackle this ?

>This is one instance where being able to pan in VC (try it in the Cardinal, superb) really does pay off.Interesting to see straight in approaches from FUN to R23 aren't authorized. I wonder how they tackle this ?

>Does anyone know the coordinates for GELO and ROSARIO? >>They both appear on my Jepp charts but they aren't in the >database. If there are no coordinates on your Jepp charts Stiffy then I think we have no chance of setting them, unless one of our friends in Portugal VACC can advise.In preperation for last night's GroupFlight in the DF 737 I did a quick check in FSNav to set them with ref to FUN VOR as fixes from that VOR.Drawback is with the DF 737 FMC you can only set whole miles and in FSNav they aren't whole miles from FUN but I guess they are not that far off.As I didn't make the flight, and haven't had chance yet to try out the route I don't know how good the bearing fixes are. If I get chance before Sunday to try them I'll post details here.