Circumnavigation, a la Flight

[Stumpwiz 2]

Thought I'd check out Russia this morning. Loaded up a C-46 with a full bag o' gas and took off from Wiley Post Will Rogers' runway 24 at 0810 local. Maintained runway heading. Passed over Vrangelya Island, which rendered as a smudge.

 

Over Vrangelya, I Alt-Tabbed away from Flight to do other things. When I got back to Flight, I was just north of Yukon, Canada, approaching Point Barrow from some 500 miles east. I had circumnavigated the globe along a rhumb line at about latitude 71N.

 

Only took me 6.5 hours, and I still have 33% of a tank left---Hmmmm :-)! I'm indicating 130 knots at 18500 feet, with 35% power, 70% prop, and auto-lean. At this rate, I should be back at Point Barrow in time for dinner!

[Azone 39]

That plane is supposed to be able to fly 1500 nm on one tank..I wonder if you'll make it.

[LuisFelizTirado 33]

No, really? What a great adventure and an excellent idea!

 

Best regards.

Luis

[Stumpwiz 2]

Made it. Had to press Escape while the extended family came over for dinner. Landed at Pt. Barrow with 10% in the tank. Having had a few glasses of wine with dinner, I had to make a few passes before I could line up the C-46 with the runway. But all ended well :-).

 

Folks, this is the really great thing about flight sims.... You can have wine with dinner enroute and not worry about damaging passengers/plant/property/equipment. Is this great ore what :-)?

 

It's now 2003 local, almost exactly ten hours since I took off. With time out for dinner, that was about eight hours en route. Wish I had the foresight to note how many miles GFWL had me down for before I left. Maybe next time.... Who says Flight is dead!?!?!?

[basic ils 0]

Using google earth as a measuring stick, and plotting a path around the globe on 71n, I get ~8000 miles. Something's amiss.

[Voics 0]

I haven't been able to coax anywhere near 1500nm out of the C-46. My last long distance attempt was Barking Sands to Henderson Airfield at Midway Atol, a 1025nm trip. I fly with 50-60% throttle at 10,000ft which keeps me between 150 and 165 knots. These settings only yield about five hours flight time, and to reach Midway I needed six and a half.

 

With his settings Stumpwiz has doubled his flight time, so the same journey should be doable. The Earth's rotation should also work in your favour when flying west, not sure if that's modelled. Unfortunately I cannot bring myself to spend another nine hours in a dead cockpit, staring out over water and hoping to crash-land onto a green smudge.

[Stumpwiz 2]

I get ~8000 miles.

 

Here's my take.... Assuming the earth is a sphere of radius 3959 miles and ignoring aircraft altitude, a rhumb line parallel to the equator at 71N is about

 

2 * pi * 3959 * cos(71) = 8099 miles

 

The C-46 covered that---according to Microsoft Flight---in 8.5 hours and 1080 gallons of fuel. That works out to an average speed of 953 mph at 7.5 mpg. You probably wouldn't want to see mileage like that in your family car, but the speed?!? On a standard day, that's mach 1.34 at 18,500 ft. Sustained supersonic cruise in an aircraft that first flew in 1940!

 

Something's amiss.

 

Hmmm, well, I guess it's possible that maybe there's some anomaly in Flight, like a medium altitude, east-to-west jetstream or something.

 

BTW, you can download a C-46 pilot's manual at http://www.scribd.com/doc/11327612/C46-Manual.

[Air1 136]

_{Found the pilot's manual very interesting. Great read. I learned a lot of things we can't do.}

 

_{Ground handling for one. On the whole the 46 is difficult to maneuver on the ground. Large turning radius since you can't lead with the outside engine power with out individual throttle control. The manual says you need to be rolling before applying differential breaking. That part seems to be modeled well.}

 

_{Crosswind takeoffs, lead with the upwind throttle. No can do, have to use the rudder only. It says if you loose a engine on the takeoff roll don't even think about climbing out, can't be done. If you run out of runway unlock the tail wheel and ground loop. Last resort is to retract the gear and make what they call a belly stop, ouch!}

 

_{Most aircraft have a down lock on the gear strut to prevent unintended gear retraction but according to the manual this could be done. maybe if enough weight was removed. Or perhaps they meant shortly after lift off.}

 

_{Any way, the Commando is still a lot of fun. I have been using it a lot. Ok, I won't even say how much better it could have been. Oh, I think I just did.}

[RoboRay 126]

If you happened to check the Map when you returned, and had cruised beyond the half-way point around the undeveloped area, opening the Map may have teleported you to the nearest Map coverage, putting you over northwestern Canada.

 

I ran into this "issue" when opening the Map while outside of the Hawaii coverage area when I went looking for Johnston Atoll, forcing me to repeat a chunk of my flight.

[razorhog703 15]

^^ this

 

Good point!!

[Stumpwiz 2]

I'm sure Robo is right---obviously there's something going on to make you go "Hmmm."

 

Yesterday morning I tried for a magnetic polar express. Took off out of Pt. Barrow and headed 000. Droned on for hours :-(. At 4% fuel, I was over a solid, featureless cloud layer. As soon as I hit M for the map, I was teleported back into known (but empty) waters northeast of Pt. Barrow.

 

Has anybody tried to fly south to HI?

[razorhog703 15]

Not in Flight... too worried about wasting hours for nothing. Seems to me that Flight is best for smaller hops or VFR flight around a certain area. No auto pilot means flying like Lindburgh to Hawaii and open water doesn't seem to appealing given the great land graphics in the populated areas. IMO.

[Stumpwiz 2]

Tried this again, this time heading for HI. Went to the hangar and selected a C-46 full of gas. Moved my a/c on the map to the southwest and set a heading of 200. Clicked "Fly." Climbed to 10000 at 100% then leveled off. Trimmed for 130 kts. Power was at 40%, RPM at 70%, mixture set to auto. Went to my regular Friday morning volunteer commitment. When I checked back six hours later, I was down to 9% fuel over a featureless ocean. I clicked for the map and found myself southeast of Ketchikan. It seems I looped the map on a constant heading of 200. As razorhog703 points out, the open water isn't particularly appealing, but I wanted to see what would happen.