April 8, 20224 yr [Note: This post is triggered by the (recent) sighting, here, of a set of beautiful pictures of the Ryan ST-A.] In the SIM, the "Ryan" a/c name, for me, goes back to the earliest FS9 days...some of us might recall the most famous of the Ryan a/c, the NYP "Spirit of St. Louis", which was included in the default FS9 a/c set. This hitherto unknown plane (see the first shot below), and its pilot, Charles Lindbergh, on May 20–21 (1927), would together become a household name across the world, as the first to fly nonstop from New York to Paris. The "Spirit of St. Louis" was loosely based on the company's 1926 Ryan M-2 mail plane, the main difference being the NYP's 4,000-mile range. Lindbergh had taken off in the Spirit from Roosevelt Airfield, New York, and landed 33 hours, 30 minutes later at Aéroport Le Bourget in Paris, France, a distance of approximately 3,600 miles. Lindbergh's transatlantic flight is now regarded by aviation analysts as a calculated risk...nonetheless, he had reached the coast of Ireland within just 3 miles of his intended great circle course. The remarkable account of his (practical) use of the basic principle of "Dead Reckoning" to so precisely reach his destination...seems incredible...and not so easily explained...The navigational (computation) errors luckily (must have) averaged out and the Spirit arrived in Ireland on the morning of May 21st right on course! "Fortune favors the brave”, as they say...Introduction of the (commercial) INS (Inertial Navigation Systems) devices, for jetliners, that also operated on the concept of "Dead Reckoning", would have to wait till the jet age (1960s) for use in oceanic flights... (e.g., Pan Am introduced INS into its 747s in 1964) ... The "Spirit of St. Louis" was designed, in 1927, by Donald A. Hall of Ryan Airline Company...bearing founder T.C. Ryan's name, though the Ryan Aeronautical Company, that would produce some of the most remarkable aircraft of the era...came into being many years later in 1934. The ST (= Sport Trainer) series was the company's very first aircraft. The ST-A (A=Aerobatic), seen in the (other) post (cited above), was an improved version of the "ST". The ST-M (M=Military) version (seen in this post) was a further development of the ST-A, for military purpose. I show, here, a set of pictures, of the Ryan ST-M model SIM, that I've owned since many years. Today, I picked up, from the library, couple of "Float" version (fictitious livery) repaints of the ST-M, that caught my attention. So, please find, below, Ryan ST-M (Floats) "Norway" (Red paint) lifting off the (southwestern) coast of NZ-SI, and heading inland, navigating (gingerly) a narrow valley, to finally land on a (pristine and glacier-fed) lake tucked away somewhere within the mountains...Please note, for a bit of variety, I've used a different repaint, ST-M (Floats) "Italy" (Yellow paint), for the later part of the flight. Hope you enjoy these pictures of the Ryan (ST-M) a/c... from my atypical flight adventure here...! Thanks for viewing...!! [GAS (Ryan (ST-M), Orbx (NZ-SI)]
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