Hello Mike, welcome back.  We share a birthday :-)

Hello Mike, welcome back.  We share a birthday :-)

Hello yourself, Gavin. I'm 69. Do you care to say your age?

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

Folks,

 

I'm so rusty that twice I managed to near-stall my fuel-laden 727 on my way upstairs to FL390. (The stick shaker went off twice but lowering the nose immediately took care of the emergency part of the problem, the remaining part being recovering a decent airspeed.)

 

I'm relearning the fact that when there's on the order of 120,000 pounds of fuel on board my custom aircraft, by the time I'm at FL260 it's necessary for me to reduce the climb rate to 200-300 fpm to prevent the airspeed from decaying below M0.60. (And by FL330 I have to reduce to 100fpm, and by the time I get to FL390, M0.60 as a climb airspeed is perilously close to the stick shaker threshhold.)

 

I should have said that during departure I fly at 240 knots below 10,000 feet regardless of country, and that above 10,000 feet I fly at 270 knots till this airspeed intercepts Mach 0.60, at which point I fly by Mach number, not KIAS.

 

Once I reach cruising altitude I accelerate in level flight to M0.81 for trips of up to 1500 or so nm. Longer than that and I cruise at M0.78 to conserve fuel.

Mike, 49 going on 18 as the wife says ;-)

Gavin, on 15 Apr 2013 - 2:15 PM, said:

Mike, 49 going on 18 as the wife says ;-)

My cousin Paul is my age. When we were 13 we cut our thumbs, mingled our blood and swore a Plains Indian type blood brother oath never to grow up. I've kept my part of the pact -- he has not.

 

Paul became a stock market millionaire several times over though I don't know what has happened for him since 2007. (I lost interest in him when he became a money grubber.) I, in contrast, am very like the detective true crime author Ann Rule wrote about whose wife said of her husband "He kept us poor but there was never a dull moment."

 

Prior to major abdominal surgery four years ago my surgeon said that in physical terms I was 65 going on 50. He didn't know about my blood oath to remain an incorrigible young teenager. (But I gave him a mint boxed copy of FS2004 for his sons aged ten and twelve along with a joystick I no longer wanted.)

 

However, various moderators at various sites ... ... ??? ... ... No. Given Avsim I'm home now, so never mind. The past doesn't matter. Only the future counts.

I've paused my EGLL-KLAX flight so I can listen to radio reports about the developments in Boston without distraction. (We've lost our TV dish -- it's become snowpacked as a result of the near blizzard we're experiencing on the west side of the Denver Metro area.)

I'm 64 and woozy from this thread.

Okay, it's 2:30am MDT and I've resumed flying ...

 

My dual ADFs have paid off because three consecutive enroute waypoints, Sumburgh, Akraberg and Myggenes, all in the Shetland Islands north of the Scottish mainland, are NDBs.

 

It's no accident that in my aircraft the dual ADFs are in addition to the dual VORs. Have I ever used this much navigational firepower? No, but it was fun getting it all to work. I believe it was Dave McQueen who did the radio stack for the Cal Classic DC6-B, which is where my ADF2 receiver came from, the only working ADF2 I can recall having come across.

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

I remember now ... When I set the sim aside two years ago I had in fact been working on flying technique when heavily loaded. I have rediscovered the hard way that my long climb to FL390 needs to be done in steps of 500 feet, and that the step climb should be done at M0.70 rather than M0.60. I will modify my fuel planning formula accordingly.

 

My having lost several thousand feet of altitude four times during the current flight due to nearly stalling out, I will have to repeat this flight at least one more time, perhaps more, in order to calibrate the proposed new cruise climb philosophy.

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

I have a special fondness in my heart for the Shetland Islands. In the summer of 1960 my parents, and those of my girlfriend, tried to break us up by sending her to spend several weeks with rich relatives in Cleveland while I was sent to tour Britain on my own. (We were both 16 at the time. I have dual citizenship but have never used it. I'm an American, not a Brit.) I was in Lerwick, the capital of the Shetlands, on 21jun-60. Lerwick is so far north that indeed it never really got dark that night. I don't know what things are like today but back then the people of the Shetlands -- Shelties -- felt more a part of Norway than of the UK.

 

My girlfriend and I are still together, by the way, with our 50th wedding anniversary coming up this fall. Our parents' unrelenting opposition to our relationship persisted all the way through our elopement to NC in the fall of 1963, where we married at 19 just before our senior year in college began.

 

We couldn't wait to be all grown up, on our own and independent of our families. This had been true ever since we hooked up at age 16, and marrying young was the best decision we ever made. My wife considers our wedding anniversary to be the significant date. I, on the other hand, consider April 17th of 1960 to be the day when we, in effect, tied the knot at the age of 16. This is especially poignant for me since this date -- Patriot's Day -- ties in with the unfortunate events accompanying this year's running of the Boston Marathon.

 

My wife no longer has the sweater I bought her in 1960, made of genuine Shetland wool, but she does still have the silver pendant that I somehow failed to declare to customs upon re-entry to the USA.

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

Anyway, I've had the sim paused while I write this post. This is because I've found that I cannot write while doing a step climb -- the issue of airspeed decay requires my constant attention, and this will continue to be the case until I master my step climb technique.

 

 

When I set the sim aside two years ago I had in fact been working on flying technique when heavily loaded.

 

I suppose that's okay, since you're flying a sim.  Things to do in Denver when you're snow bound - get loaded. Now I get all of this!  :lol:

I suppose that's okay, since you're flying a sim.  Things to do in Denver when you're snow bound - get loaded. Now I get all of this!  :lol:

Yes, we're snowbound this morning. Most of our neighbors will be taking a snow day. However, these days my wife is a home health nurse whose ever-changing patients are scattered all over the Denver Metro area. For her there is no such thing as calling in snow -- lives are at stake.

 

(She's a refugee from high tech management. She got tired of being laid off, three times in as many years, and at age 60 she went back to school, this time for nursing, which she has wanted to do since she was a little girl. She is now a BSN/RN/MBA. The money is a lot less but she's as happy as the proverbial clam, and the money is reliable.)

 

Accordingly I get to clear her car of snow and will do so in about an hour, leaving the engine running so it will be toasty warm for her when we load her stuff into the car for her daily trek. (She needs about fifty pounds of stuff moved into our condo unit at the end of her working day, and the same stuff needs to be moved back to her car at the start of the following day, her car being quite literally a rolling office as well as a rolling dispensary.)

 

There was one February storm about five years ago when I had her park down near the exit of the access road of our condo development. Even with that it took me two hours to dig a fifty foot path through thigh-high snow so she could get out and onto the street, which is adequately plowed by the City of Lakewood. (She heads out very early most days, long before our condo development gets plowed by our landscaping service company.)

 

The same cannot be said of the City of Denver. In the event of heavy snows they do a decent job of plowing the main arteries, but it's official policy to leave the clearing of the side streets to the sun. This is a major headache for my wife, who cannot (and would never want to) refuse to see a patient simply because there is no handy place to park.

It's no accident that in my aircraft the dual ADFs are in addition to the dual VORs. Have I ever used this much navigational firepower? No, but it was fun getting it all to work. I believe it was Dave McQueen who did the radio stack for the Cal Classic DC6-B, which is where my ADF2 receiver came from, the only working ADF2 I can recall having come across.

You'll find a working ADF2 in the stock FSX DC-3. I believe the A2A B377 has one as well.

 

Hook

LHookins, on 16 Apr 2013 - 03:59 AM, said:

You'll find a working ADF2 in the stock FSX DC-3. I believe the A2A B377 has one as well.

 

Hook

That's good information, thank you. However, I assume the DC-3 has the old (Bendix?) coffee grinder radio stack. For esthetic reasons, even if I were on FSX, or even if that gauge happens to be FS2004-compatible, I would not have used it in my custom 727 panel.

 

If you look at my main panel shot earlier in this thread you'll find the ADF2 control head just under the lower left corner of the Garmin 430 and immediately to the left of the dual ADF needles instrument. I wanted the panel to be consistent in its feel so I would not have used the cofee grinder even if I had been aware of its having a working ADF2.

 

I'm even bothered by the presence of the Garmin though I want its functionality. In appearance it clashes with the 60s steam gauges panel philosophy. I may move it to the top of the main panel window just to keep the panel looking harmonious ... ...

 

... ... In fact, that might be a fun little project for readers of this thread to follow along with. All that would be involved is moving the Garmin and perhaps resizing it. You can buy commecial software to do this but I find it better to do things numerically in panel.cfg myself.

 

I'll do this when I get a round tuit.

Now I know why twitter is limited to 140 characters ...............

Now I know why twitter is limited to 140 characters ...............

You have freedom of channel changer. If I'm bothering you perhaps you should exercise that freedom. Alternatively, and perhaps to your even greater satisfaction, put me on your ignore list. (I assume this new forum software has an ignore feature.)

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

Anyway, folks, I've had an even better idea. I'll move the Garmin just to show how that's done, but then I'll delete it and use only the icon-triggered popup version of the Garmin.

 

That will give you the chance to learn how icons work and what can be done with them if you "steal" them for use in ways that the original panel designer did not intend.

Hello Mike,

 

I have found your posts so far, fascinating and interesting, and as a fellow would-be novelist, I empathize with you.

 

(I do have a self-published children's fantasy novel on sale on Amazon etc, but the adult detective novel is at 6 years and counting; and about 50% completed). :lol:

 

You said you appreciate straight talking people, so here goes;

 

.... if you are getting any unfavourable comments here, or replies that seem mean (it does happen), it is probably because your post here is absolutely positively a blog rather than a forum post. :smile:

 

That's not me being picky; it's just the facts.  It's a blog.  So it sitting in the main FS9 forum is a bit misplaced;  eg.. it's title does not indicate that it's a blog, so a lot of people viewing it, will not have been expecting a blog.

 

So, it may be a good idead (and may lead to better audience targetting) to move it over to the Blogs section, if that's possible.

 

That is of course, just an idea.   So feel free to ignore it!

 

Cheers.

Hello Mike,

 

I have found your posts so far, fascinating and interesting, and as a fellow would-be novelist, I empathize with you.

 

(I do have a self-published children's fantasy novel on sale on Amazon etc, but the adult detective novel is at 6 years and counting; and about 50% completed). :lol:

 

You said you appreciate straight talking people, so here goes;

 

.... if you are getting any unfavourable comments here, or replies that seem mean (it does happen), it is probably because your post here is absolutely positively a blog rather than a forum post. :smile:

 

That's not me being picky; it's just the facts.  It's a blog.  So it sitting in the main FS9 forum is a bit misplaced;  eg.. it's title does not indicate that it's a blog, so a lot of people viewing it, will not have been expecting a blog.

 

So, it may be a good idead (and may lead to better audience targetting) to move it over to the Blogs section, if that's possible.

 

That is of course, just an idea.   So feel free to ignore it!

 

Cheers.

As far as I'm concerned site management can do whatever they want with this thread, provided it isn't deleted outright. Blog, FS2004, Hangar Chat, I don't care how the thread is described or where it's put -- I'm a writer like you and my goal is to be read, not necessarily liked. If one person reads what I've written that is sufficient. (I hope it will be you, a fellow writer.)

 

Some of this material of mine will be republished on http://www.lexonaut.com, which really is a blog -- and then some.

 

For what it's worth I often write for an audience of one as a few emai friends would attest. I find that for my writing to take life I have to be reacting to things that other people say -- I have to use their remarks as jumping-off points.

 

In addition to riffing I really am going to do educational posts to this thread, so if you have any interest in panel.cfg and/or aircraft.cfg issues, kindly stay tuned.