Well thought I would do some aviating in Iceland in the C-47 (AWX). Hoping for some light and clear skies - nope - blowing a gale, raining hard and cold as heck. Checked out the Douglas and in the gloom of the night cockpit heard and watched the rain sweeping over it and watched the wings rocking in the wind. Easy - not going anywhere today in this weather. A liquor and a hot fire would be more interesting.

Boy, the weather can be awful in Iceland. Same again today BIRK 260/36-60 knots raining BKN 2000 RASH/SNSH/CB's - and so it is the same for rest of week at the moment. Sunrise at 11 am Sunset at 1500hrs, Not much to work with in terms of daylight there at this time of the year at all. 

Channel your inner Ernie Gann or any other ATC pilot and just go!

I did took the Twin Bonanza from Eigesfajordor to Rekyavik. Cavok on Departure. Nice midnight high latitude weak sun, Picked up icing 100 nm from BIRK. Got steadily worse and worse. Boots and de-ice could not manage, eventually full power and by this time some 15 minutes or so nothing stopped the inexorable slide into a stall then spin from which it would not recover. Think thats been done before. Finally some shots of ice accumulating on wing and nacelles - again another XPlane touch that just well - astounds you actually. 

 

 

No chance for climbing above the clouds?

Nope the aeroplane became an ice encrusted brick!

So to get serious about matters icey thought I would take a look at Mt Erebus in Antartica via McMurdo Sound Ice Runway (NZIR) in the RW Designs Twin Otter (Still in need of an XP12 fix up in some areas), Need Antartica4XPlane to see anything in XP12 though another one of those polar parts Laminar chose to omit, Behaviour on an ice runway - odd started to slide assymetrically with engine start and needed reverse to hold it steady but otherwise controllably realistic it appeared. Ice looks like ice. Remainder well Erebus is a very large volcano and needed to go to F160 (LSALT) to get an appreciation. 

Anyhow struck it clear and bright - sort of!

Bonus outcome the infamous white out phenomena - now you see it now you don't- XP12 reproduced a very challenging light colour issue for real very tidely. 

Now you see it:

Now you don't 

Used the barely non-freezing weather today to migrate the Turbo Arrow IV (yes, the worst of them all) from mildly north of New York City to an area without rain or snow. Any area.

 

The weather was horriffic all the way. Clouds up to 8000 and headwinds of 60 knots. Went up to 12000, but the winds only got worse. Slogged along at 10000 at 75 % power and 95 KIAS. Drifted southeast because the coast was reported to be not as rainy. When the winds picked up to 70 knots and more and GS fell to the high 70s, I needed to go cloud surfing, and got shaken up like a cocktail. It was even worse when I had to descend through the soup for landing.

Things were better below the overcast, but the sun got so low that finding the runway through the mist and plexiglass was a mild challenge.

 

Stiff crosswind on landing, but down in one piece. The Arrow is now tied down on a small field across the bay from Norfolk. Still raining, but at least no danger of ice.

 

3.5 hours in an Arrow is a new record. Props to the standard GPS for keeping up as I've changed waypoints and destinations every 15 minutes or so. And props to the autopilot for handling all the turbulence.

The automatic wastegate that can be bought with the Reality Expansion Pack is worth its weight in gold. Would have tried to go up into the flight levels, buuuuut...I forgot to refill the portable oxygen bottle (script of mine; not a REP feature).

 

The Turbo Arrow and its Reality Expansion Pack is as good as it gets, but the real thing has an utterly stupid gauge layout. Which genius decided to put the ever so important MP and fuel flow gauges smack dab behing the yoke?!

Edited January 10, 20242 yr by Bjoern

3 hours ago, Bjoern said:

Used the barely non-freezing weather today to migrate the Turbo Arrow IV (yes, the worst of them all) from mildly north of New York City to an area without rain or snow. Any area.

 

The weather was horriffic all the way. Clouds up to 8000 and headwinds of 60 knots. Went up to 12000, but the winds only got worse. Slogged along at 10000 at 75 % power and 95 KIAS. Drifted southeast because the coast was reported to be not as rainy. When the winds picked up to 70 knots and more and GS fell to the high 70s, I needed to go cloud surfing, and got shaken up like a cocktail. It was even worse when I had to descend through the soup for landing.

Things were better below the overcast, but the sun got so low that finding the runway through the mist and plexiglass was a mild challenge.

 

Stiff crosswind on landing, but down in one piece. The Arrow is now tied down on a small field across the bay from Norfolk. Still raining, but at least no danger of ice.

 

3.5 hours in an Arrow is a new record. Props to the standard GPS for keeping up as I've changed waypoints and destinations every 15 minutes or so. And props to the autopilot for handling all the turbulence.

The automatic wastegate that can be bought with the Reality Expansion Pack is worth its weight in gold. Would have tried to go up into the flight levels, buuuuut...I forgot to refill the portable oxygen bottle (script of mine; not a REP feature).

 

The Turbo Arrow and its Reality Expansion Pack is as good as it gets, but the real thing has an utterly stupid gauge layout. Which genius decided to put the ever so important MP and fuel flow gauges smack dab behing the yoke?!

I have the Just Flight Arrows and Warrior in MSFS... Some of my favourite GA planes right behind the A2A Comanche! I only wish I had them in XP because I imagine they would be a little more fun considering the flight in XP is superior (and the ground handling is FAR superior). But it's kinda not fun to duplicate the aircraft exactly (even same developer) between sims. I am thinking about investing into some other GA in XP that's high fidelity - I need a couple now that my airliner game is caught up. I heard good things about a couple of those aircraft on X Aviation... Particularly, there is version with G1000, but there is another version with an all-new avionics system, which I think would be fun to do cause that avionics suite is not available in MSFS or P3D! 

 

Nice shots of the Arrow though, it kinda made me feel "at home" a little bit. I put in some serious hours in those in MSFS when they came out! 

8 hours ago, Bjoern said:

Which genius decided to put the ever so important MP and fuel flow gauges smack dab behing the yoke?!

It's actually not that bad as you fly it IRL (I fly the PA32R which has similar layout as PA28R) quick head jolt and you'll have the needles unobstructed in sight including the RPM which is right next to the MP/FF dial.

But yes, far cry from the luxury of having the same info displayed in a glass cockpit, however I have noticed that I developed a better tactile feel of lever position and actual performance output in the old 80s piper than on our 2020 plane with glass where you get spoon fed super accurate numbers from the EIS. (Oh no, MP of 15.15 instead of 15, can't have that let's micro adjust the throttle lever 1mm...)

Edited January 10, 20242 yr by SAS443

Bjoern that really shows off the sim - Turbo Arrow and winter weather. Seems the JF Arrow is ok - still not quite my cup of tea - I was ruined by Beechcraft to be able to really appreciate Pipers! Not that we will see a Beech Sierra in the sim same class but much better performer. Turbulence and freezing lovely afternoon! Framed by an interesting look at particular parts of the sim world. 

Edited January 10, 20242 yr by coastaldriver

WOW! @Bjoern !!!

 

16 hours ago, BostonJeremy77 said:

I have the Just Flight Arrows and Warrior in MSFS... Some of my favourite GA planes right behind the A2A Comanche! I only wish I had them in XP because I imagine they would be a little more fun considering the flight in XP is superior (and the ground handling is FAR superior). But it's kinda not fun to duplicate the aircraft exactly (even same developer) between sims. I am thinking about investing into some other GA in XP that's high fidelity - I need a couple now that my airliner game is caught up. I heard good things about a couple of those aircraft on X Aviation... Particularly, there is version with G1000, but there is another version with an all-new avionics system, which I think would be fun to do cause that avionics suite is not available in MSFS or P3D! 

Nice shots of the Arrow though, it kinda made me feel "at home" a little bit. I put in some serious hours in those in MSFS when they came out! 

The elevator trim is a bit too sensitive for my taste, but it's something that can easily be fixed with a script or in PlaneMaker. And it tends to drift all over the place on contaminated surfaces with a bit too much rudder, but this could as well be a general X-Plane issue. Other than that, it handles well. As per the real one, with Reality Expansion Pack, one can swap out the fixed turbo wastegate for an automatic one, which turns it from a dog into a bit of a rocket.

If you're looking for GA, start by browsing the available Reality Expansion Packs as they actually make GA flying fun for me. However, note that REPs for Carenado products are a risky investment because the required base aircraft are essentially abandonware and may stop working in future X-Plane releases. Some even do not work in XP12 at all (see the XP12 compatibility question here. If the base aircraft is interesting enough for you, the REPs for the XP12 default aircraft are a good investment.

 

11 hours ago, SAS443 said:

It's actually not that bad as you fly it IRL (I fly the PA32R which has similar layout as PA28R) quick head jolt and you'll have the needles unobstructed in sight including the RPM which is right next to the MP/FF dial.

But yes, far cry from the luxury of having the same info displayed in a glass cockpit, however I have noticed that I developed a better tactile feel of lever position and actual performance output in the old 80s piper than on our 2020 plane with glass where you get spoon fed super accurate numbers from the EIS. (Oh no, MP of 15.15 instead of 15, can't have that let's micro adjust the throttle lever 1mm...)

Yes, the real thing is likely just fine because of the increased possibilities for head and body movement, but if it wasn't for the hideable yoke in the simulator, I would blow up the engine on every takeoff. Always starting face tracking just to see over the yoke is also a bit too much effort.

Engine micromanagement in the simulator is perfectly possible. If the cruise table says 33.8 inHG MP at 2500 RPM and 11 gal/hr for 75% power you bet your buttocks that I will try to get those exact number showing on the fuel flow gauge.

 

10 hours ago, coastaldriver said:

Bjoern that really shows off the sim - Turbo Arrow and winter weather. Seems the JF Arrow is ok - still not quite my cup of tea - I was ruined by Beechcraft to be able to really appreciate Pipers! Not that we will see a Beech Sierra in the sim same class but much better performer. Turbulence and freezing lovely afternoon! Framed by an interesting look at particular parts of the sim world. 

I know what you mean. The main selling point for the Arrow was the quality base package and the REP as the icing on the cake. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't fly it because even the virtual Arrow feels cramped and out of fashion (which means a good job on JF's part to get that across).

An up to date Mooney M20J or Commmander 114 with a REP to match would be interesting.

Edited January 10, 20242 yr by Bjoern