So, I've been enthusing about the C-130 recently, and I thought I'd take it for a trip to the Scillies to see how it fitted in there, but following some other posts about the C-130 and it's inability to open it's ramp in flight compared to the Transall, I found myself wondering if the C-17 could fly with its ramp down (it can), one thing led to another and I found myself doing a trip from Exeter EGTE down to St Mary's EGHE in the C-17 instead of the C-130. This is all what feels like "my" territory, being Torquay based, and I do know quite a lot of it quite well in real life. And it is all well served in MSFS, especially with all my little extras added on.

This set is focussed on the arrival at EGHE though. I recorded the whole flight and will go back and grab some more pix of the rest of the flight, as there's some lovely scenery in this part of the world and both the C-17 and C-130 (and no doubt the Transall) look pretty good flying over it. But I had wanted to see if EGHE could cope with these two monsters. The C-17 is certainly a biggie but supposedly has good STOL capability so I was hopeful. As I have said many times, I'm in no way a serious piloty simmer, so things like this are all a bit hit and miss for me. It's all hand flown, and I will happily admit that I have been known to cheat a bit for the purposes of a good screenie and occasionally will fall back on tricks like slew mode or slowing the sim right down, but I was determined to do this for "real". Took me five attempts, but I did manage an unfaked natural landing in the end (and I grabbed a video to prove it!), and to my surprise the C-17 didn't even actually need the entire length of the runway 27 (but only just).

I have both Superspud's and RealVFR's Scilly Isles scenery, and this set is actually using the RealVFR version, as I usually use Superspud's version but wanted to see what this looked like. All in all I prefer Superspud's and that is what I'll use for the next flight in the C-130.

So grab some popcorn, settle back and watch a rather unusual arrival on the (for this flight, appropriately named) Scilly Isles.

No idea if any of my settings (flaps, speed etc) would be appropriate in real life, but after a few attempts I ended up coming in with all flaps and speed brakes on early at around 120 kts at this point. Seemed to work and that's all I care about

Nice day for it. You can't see them in this shot but there were huge flocks of seagulls circling the end of the runway, just to add to the fun

Nice bit of a slope here to help drag down some of the arrival speed

And if you look real close you'll see that I don't think there was a single inch of runway unused (all accidental of course, I wouldn't dream of claiming any precision on this)

She came to a full stop just befor the turn off

But I wasn't sure about making the turn without taking the roof off the terminal!

Taller than I thought so was way above the terminal roof and made the turn quite happily

Not much room for anyone else though

Great fun, and highly recommended!

Sir, this is a Flight Simulator!!!

You can't just barge in here having fun and showing off wonderfully irreverent flight skills!

Love your "can do" attitude, Andy. Several of these after-landing shots are humorous just by themselves. The absurdity of it all doesn't even require narration. 🙂

Edited April 26, 20242 yr by John F

I have never seen such a masterful touchdown, on the numbers, as they say..., Andy...with such a massive a/c on such a short runway...🙂...I was recently there you know...🙂...

Great set pf pics, and, btw, St Mary's Island scenery looks marvelous too ...!

Fine set of shots, but i think this Airport is to small for the Herk in real..

But yes, it is a Flightsimulator and all or most is possible 🙃

Seems you did a good pilot job with this landing..

cheers 😉

16 hours ago, UrgentSiesta said:

Sir, this is a Flight Simulator!!!

You can't just barge in here having fun and showing off wonderfully irreverent flight skills!

Sorry about that US, I'll try and be more serious in future. And if you believe that, I still have some shares available in a nice tower in Paris if you're interested? <grin>

15 hours ago, John F said:

The absurdity of it all doesn't even require narration

Cheers John! And if you think that's bad, I got to thinking about the AN-225 after this. Some pix coming soon!

11 hours ago, P_7878 said:

I have never seen such a masterful touchdown, on the numbers, as they say..., Andy...with such a massive a/c on such a short runway...🙂...I was recently there you know...🙂...

Great set pf pics, and, btw, St Mary's Island scenery looks marvelous too ...!

Cheers P_7878. It was you inspiring me after me inspiring you (if you see what I mean). And I was eventually quite pleased with myself and my landing, even if it did take several attempts!

11 hours ago, pmplayer said:

Fine set of shots, but i think this Airport is to small for the Herk in real..

But yes, it is a Flightsimulator and all or most is possible 🙃

Cheers pmplayer! I did look it up and the C17 needs 3000 feet, the C130 2500 feet, for a landing, so no, neither of them should be able to get down in real life as the longer of the EGHE runways is only 2000 feet. So not sure how come the sim let me do it with the C17 on the shorter runway! Maybe the inaccuracy was in the approach speed, I have no idea what speed I should have been doing but I just kept retrying until I managed to a) not fall into the sea as I approached, and b) didn't run off the end of the runway. Ah, the joys of simming! I've already redone this in the AN-225 (almost successfully!) - can't decide what next - Space Shuttle? SR-71? How about the SR-71 at Lukla - now there's a challenge!

Yes, large plane on that airport Andy! 🙂 The last shot is a nice view....

That is terrific....you might as well have a crack....and you did it. How you turn around and get out again is another story.

Such a small airport, and such a huge airplane.

Darryl

On 4/28/2024 at 4:46 AM, andiflyit said:

Yes, large plane on that airport Andy! 🙂 The last shot is a nice view....

 

On 5/1/2024 at 1:11 AM, SP2472 said:

Such a small airport, and such a huge airplane.

Cheers guys! Nice thing about the C-17 as a private jet is that you've got plenty of room to pack all those little extras to make life in the air more comfortable (snooker table, jukebox etc)

On 4/30/2024 at 3:21 AM, ozcanuck55 said:

How you turn around and get out again is another story.

Didn't even try. If need be it can be a donation to the island. I've got plenty of 'em!