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Gaiiden

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  1. Gaiiden

    4N1 to KBLM

    By Gaiiden,

    Today's flight was completing the loop I started two weeks ago when I took off from KBLM and traveled south down the New Jersey coast to Cape May for an arrival at KWWD. Now that I'm way up in north Jersey right by the New York border, I needed to get back to KBLM but had to make full use of my available VFR scenery, which extended out east onto Long Island.
     
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    So the plan called for a departure from 4N1 on Runway 6, turning SSE to intercept the Hudson River, following that south until I hit the tip of Manhattan. From there I would catch the 270° radial inbound to the Deer Park VOR, which would take me straight between KLGA and KJFK and out to KFRG, which is at the far east of my current VFR scenery. After a touch and go at KFRG, I would turn south to the Long Island coast and then track that back east until I picked up the 30° radial inbound to the Colts Neck VOR. After crossing over Colts Neck I would track outbound on the 190° radial to set me up for a direct approach to Runway 14 at KBLM.

    I was back in the Cessna 172 for this flight. The Mooney Bravo was fun but had too much speed for VFR flight - I just wanted to cruise nice and slow this time out. I'm also way more comfortable in the Cessna having logged the most hours in it. Once I start taking on farther flights, the Mooney and other aircraft will become more suitable.

    The flight was largely uneventful. I hit a couple of bumps transitioning from land to water in several areas, but I was able to stay within +/- 200 feet of my cruise altitude of 2500 feet despite some nasty updrafts. Approaching KFRG for my touch and go, the controller cleared me for a right traffic entry to the pattern for Runway 1 - but I had already unconsciously set myself up for left traffic since that's all I've flown so far. Checking the airport information on my laptop I saw that Runway 1 is indeed a right traffic runway, so I had to circle out of the left pattern I was in to re-enter in a right pattern and then land and go.

    For both airports this time I checked the traffic pattern altitude and descended to that prior to entering the pattern as well.

    The next flight won't happen for a while as I return to the classroom to work on my Instrument Rating. After that I'll most likely chart a long flight up north to one of my favorite places - Martha's Vineyard.
  2. Gaiiden

    Aerosoft's Rotterdam X

    By Gaiiden,

    Click here to read my review of Rotterdam X.
     
    There are a number of issues with Rotterdam X that can be solved through the use of your AI traffic program and the freely-available Airport Design Editor (ADE). The commercial product Airport Studio (AS) is recommended also as you can edit the airport while the simulator is running and see where you are putting things in relation to the airport ground textures. Fixing these issues has lent a much more realistic feel to the airport as the scenery looks amazing but does not function all that well when you actually use it. Let me just say right up front that modifying commercial scenery is okay so long as you do not distribute any of the files you edit, which is why I'm simply describing here the things I did for other people to consider implementing themselves. Perhaps Aerosoft would be willing to work some of these into a future update to the scenery.
     
    Issue #1: Unclassified parking
     
    <a href="http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumParkingCodes.jpg"><img'>http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumParkingCodes.jpg"><img src="http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumParkingCodes.jpg" align="right" width="202" hspace="5px"></a>None of the parking spots in the airport are coded to accept certain aircraft, which will lead to GA craft parking in airliner gate spots. This isn't completely the fault of the scenery designers as assigning airline codes could cause issues for customers who are using AI traffic that doesn't use the codes they used, and also because there's no rule saying some commercial GA traffic can't be routed to a gate parking spot. But for the purpose of my scenery usage I want airlines parking at gates and all GA aircraft using ramps.
     
    If you are only using FSX default traffic, then you can use ADE or AS' parking properties airline code drop down list to select the airline codes to assign to a parking location. If you use a 3rd-party traffic program like Ultimate Traffic 2 make sure you use the airline codes from that program as they can be different. If you are using extra traffic from packages like World of AI, they also may use codes different than what FSX has listed by default and your traffic program uses. To find out what code any aircraft is using, open up its aircraft.cfg file and look for the section(s) [fltsim.x] where x is a number. In these sections you will find the property atc_parking_codes. These codes are what you should put in the parking spot code list in ADE or AS.
     
    Issue #2: Lack of GA parking
     
    The default scenery does not include a lot of parking options for General Aviation aircraft and if you run your sim with a lot of AI traffic you can reach capacity easily as this is a high-volume GA airport. This means arriving aircraft will disappear from the runway when they can't locate an open parking space. The default airport has 13 ramp parking locations and now that I've made it so GA traffic can't use a gate spot this makes the parking situation even worse. To increase capacity I added 40 more parking locations. The tie down area west of the main tarmac can hold as many as 17 20' (radius) parking locations. I also added 2 20' and 2 33' parking to the end of Taxiway A. 4 33' and 4 46' parking spaces were placed over in the Jet Center parking area and 12 20' along with 12 33' parking spaces were squeezed into the rear tie down area at the end of Taxiway F.
     
    I also made added a "JET" code to the parking spaces in the Jet Center, then went into my AI traffic aircraft.cfg files and added the code to the atc_parking_codes line in all the business jet aircraft so that only jets park in the Jet Center. Makes sense right?
     
    <center><a href="http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumXtraParking.jpg"><img'>http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumXtraParking.jpg"><img src="http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumXtraParking.jpg" width="250" hspace="2px"></a><a href="http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumXtraParking2.jpg"><img'>http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumXtraParking2.jpg"><img src="http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumXtraParking2.jpg" width="250" hspace="2px"></a>
    Parking layout for West Tiedown and Taxiway A (left)
    and Jet Center and Taxiway F (right)</center>
     
    Issue #3: Lack of names for GA parking
     
    <a href="http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumATCParking.jpg"><img'>http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumATCParking.jpg"><img src="http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumATCParking.jpg" align="right" width="250" hspace="5px"></a>None of the GA parking spots have names, which gives you limited options when you taxi off the runway and ask for a parking location - ATC will simply assign you an open spot somewhere in the airport that matches your aircraft's specifications. I went and named all 4 GA parking locations based on their position to the airport's center. So you end up with a West (Taxiway L), Southeast (Taxiway J) and South (Taxiway F) parking as well as Gate A (Taxiway A). Now when you pull past the hold short on arrival you can request to be sent to a specific parking area of the airport. If you still don't care you can do a generic parking request. Asking to be sent to a gate will always put you at Gate A if you are a GA aircraft small enough to park there. Another benefit is that when you go to start a flight at Rotterdam you can see from the list of parking options in the FSX Location window where in the airport the parking is located.
     
    Issue #4: Runway extends onto threshold
     
    AI aircraft only use runway properties to determine landing distance in addition to their own configuration settings - they do not follow PAPI or ILS glideslopes. Since Rotterdam X's default runway extends onto the threshold but does not have any threshold value of its own set in the runway properties, AI aircraft will see the beginning of the threshold as the beginning of the runway, which isn't correct as you are not supposed to land on runway thresholds. Larger aircraft will still overshoot the threshold on approach, but smaller aircraft like the Piper Cub will indeed land short of the actual runway markings. In some cases this will create a longer roll-out period for some of the larger aircraft to find their exit taxiway. To get aircraft landing as they should you need to shorten the runway length to 5,907 feet. The runway will shrink from both ends so you don't need to reposition it and this new length will expose the threshold and place the runway only under the runway markings.
     
    Issue #5: AI aircraft taxi off the taxi lines
     
    This is a relatively simple fix, although if you don't have Airport Studio you'll need to import an image of the ground textures into ADE so you can drag the taxi links over the taxi lines drawn onto the ground textures. Basically it's just a process of making the two lines lay on top of each other. There is a downside to making the aircraft follow the lines in that to do so you need to lay significantly more nodes to get the aircraft turning properly along the taxi line curves. AI aircraft taxi speed is determined by the distance between two nodes - longer the distance the faster the speed. Since you are adding more nodes and closer together you are effectively making aircraft take several seconds longer to taxi around the airport. The impact isn't huge, but it is noticeable if you happen to get stuck behind one of them. But if you can't bear to watch your AI aircraft taxi with apparent blatant disregard to taxi lines, this slightly reduced taxi speed is just something you'll have to deal with.
     
    <center><a href="http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumTaxi.jpg"><img'>http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumTaxi.jpg"><img src="http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumTaxi.jpg" width="250"></a>
    Airport Studio with transparency enabled to see under the aprons and
    taxiways so you can align to the taxi lines. Some links have been deleted
    to expose the taxi line for this image</center>
     
    Issue #6: AI aircraft don't hold short properly
     
    <a href="http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumHoldShortAS.jpg"><img'>http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumHoldShortAS.jpg"><img src="http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumHoldShortAS.jpg" align="right" width="250" hspace="5px"></a>AI aircraft look for a special hold short node when taxiing to tell them when to stop and ask for takeoff clearance on departure and stop and ask for parking on arrival. This node can be placed anywhere, although generally it's in close proximity to the runway so that ATC does in fact grant departing aircraft takeoff clearance - arriving aircraft don't care if the node isn't close to the runway. In the default Rotterdam X airport file the hold short nodes are too close to the runway, causing aircraft to taxi over the hold short lines drawn on the ground textures. To fix this we simply move these nodes back to just after the hold short markings (see image from Airport Studio on the right). This will have aircraft stopping just short of the yellow line and ensure that aircraft arriving taxi fully over the hold short marking before requesting parking. Some of the taxiway hold shorts are very far away from the runway, but those taxiways are only used for arriving aircraft and we don't care if the hold short is far from the runway.
     
    <center><a href="http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumHoldShort.jpg"><img'>http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumHoldShort.jpg"><img src="http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumHoldShort.jpg" width="250"></a>
    ADE says our hold short nodes aren't close enough to the runway to work,
    but the top one does. If you modified the runway to not use the threshold,
    then that will indeed be too far away for the hold short on the bottom
    to work, otherwise it will too</center>
     
    Issue #7: AI aircraft don't follow proper ground movements
     
    I've saved the most complex issue for last. Rotterdam is laid out so that it can use two parallel taxiways to bring aircraft in and send them out at the same time without any serious interruptions in traffic flow regardless of which runway end is in use. Recreating this in FSX is, I have found, not entirely possible thanks to limitations with the AI in the simulator. I may be wrong, but hours of research and testing have yet to show me otherwise. You can come very close though - I'd say my current implementation is about 95% effective and only every now and then do you see a plane behaving improperly. It has created issues with ATC giving the user proper taxi-in directions however. Where it may tell an AI craft to taxi in via the proper "arrival" taxiway, it could send a user aircraft down a "departure" taxiway depending on where they stop after the hold short line and call in for parking. While I never witnessed an AI aircraft vanish off the taxiway after arriving due to not receiving complete taxi-in directions, I have had ATC merely say to me "taxi to general aviation parking ." and leave out any taxiway directions.
     
    So because it's not possible to guarantee proper AI movement or proper user communications with ATC, it's obvious why this wasn't included in the commercial product release. But if you don't mind a few glitches here and there in the fight for a more realistic FSX environment then it can be worth the effort to get this system up and running. In my review I showed Runway 06 ground movements. Here is a video showing proper ground movement for Runway 24.
     




    <a href="http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumR24.jpg"><img'>http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumR24.jpg"><img src="http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumR24.jpg" align="right" width="250" hspace="5px"></a>If you're interested in trying to get this ground movement system working, the most important thing you need to understand is how to control AI aircraft's departure from the runway. Taxi for departure is a trivial matter to set up and get functioning, arrival is the tricky part. Airplanes of different classes will land in different spots on the runway (smaller the aircraft, closer the landing to the runway threshold) and also slow to taxi speed over different distances (smaller the aircraft, shorter the roll out). Once an AI aircraft has slowed to taxi speed it will immediately look to exit the runway to a parking location via the shortest route possible. In some cases, this exit point may be behind them. Back-taxiing to a taxiway isn't an unheard of technique for smaller planes in the real world, but you have to account for this possibility and try to prevent this from happening in some instances. For example, when Runway 24 is active, you can't let small aircraft use Taxiway V2 to exit the runway, or else they will taxi back along Taxiway V and either cause an arriving and departing aircraft to end up head-to-head and stop taxiing and time out or the two aircraft will simply taxi through each other. The image on the right shows how you can "intercept" aircraft before a runway exit and lead them down the runway to a further exit (as long as that exit happens to be in the direction of parking - remember, shortest route is the main determining factor). Red is for R24 arrivals and green is for R06 arrivals.
     
    <a href="http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumDoubePipe.jpg"><img'>http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumDoubePipe.jpg"><img src="http://www.blade-edge.com/images/avsim/rotterdamX/addendumDoubePipe.jpg" align="left" width="250" hspace="5px"></a>What if you have no choice but to deal with aircraft exiting off the same taxiway for both arrivals? In this case you will have to look into a double-plumbing system that will guide the arrivals down the proper taxiway depending on where they exit the runway onto the taxiway. In the image on the left, red is once again for R24 arrivals (you see it extend off the image to the right, where it connects to the runway in the previous image) and green is for R06 arrivals. Once on the taxiway these lines overlap - they are exposed side-by-side here to make it easier to see them. Blue lines represent the base taxiway network where no double-piping needs to exist as these taxi lines do not connect in any way that would lead an AI aircraft astray. For R06 arrivals, the first exit point is meant to capture the smaller aircraft like Piper Cubs before they try and back-taxi and the second is for small aircraft that need to back-taxi. The red exit you see is for aircraft that don't need to be pulled away from the Taxiway V2 exit as their roll outs take them far enough down the runway when arriving on R24.
     
    I won't lie - getting this working was not easy. It was educational, I'll tell you that, but it took hours of testing and I must have come close to giving up at least 5 times. And again, it's not perfect. But it's close enough for me and maybe for anyone else out there willing to give it a go. For further reading on AI behavior I would recommend this wiki article from FSDeveloper. You might also consider tweaking aircraft dynamics to effect things like roll out distances to further control where airplanes exit the runway, however be warned that you would be tuning aircraft for one airport in particular - which may cause unforeseen effects when dealing with the plumbing system of other airports.
     
    Good luck!
  3. Gaiiden

    Airport Hopping

    By Gaiiden,

    For this flight I decided I was going to fly in and out of some of the airports I've been designing recently to get some use out of them. I also decided I was going to finally start paying attention to check lists. FSX has a "kneeboard" you can call up in flight to see important speeds, check lists, etc - but I realized that these are just HTML files, so I simply found them in the FSX directory and loaded them into Firefox for easy reference in another monitor. I also started the practice of better pre-flight preparation during the planning stage. SkyVector does a lot of work for you in laying down waypoints and such, but to actually reference it during flight takes a bit too much attention. So I created a flight plan log that contained all the need-to-know info for each leg of my trip - a leg being from one airport to another.
     
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    I had several issues on this flight, so much so that it took me two days to complete it and I finally just flew half of it completely over again. First, I crashed twice trying to land at Eagle's Nest (31E) because I didn't clear the trees properly. It's important to remember that you're dropping even as you travel forward while on final approach, so being above the trees doesn't necessarily mean you'll stay above the trees. The crash threw me all the way back to northern Jersey where my last saved flight originated from - this makes we wish FSX had an auto save! The second issue was my graphics card started to act up - perhaps because it was overclocked although on my previous flight in the Jet Ranger I had no problems at all. Third, I suffered some sort of mechanical (aircraft) or gameplay error that made my elevator trim stick at full down. All the restarts and resets on Sunday frustrated the hell out of me so I said screw it, and I redid the whole flight today.
     
    Leg 1: KFRG to KHPN
     
    The first leg called for a north departure from Republic (KFRG), so I called up the tower and got my taxi clearance behind a Grand Caravan making for Runway 14 as well. I was headed for Westchester County (KHPN) at the border of NY and CT - it wasn't an airport I had gotten to yet in scenery design but it was on the way and let me practice a touch and go. I traveled via Deerpark VOR, which means that once I departed KFRG I swung around north and picked up a radial (the 324) that guided me straight for the airport. I cruised at 25oo feet to stay below LaGuardia's 3000 foot Class B airspace floor, and I wasn't traveling far anyways. Crossing over the water between Long Island and the NY mainland I contacted the tower at KHPN and got clearance to make straight-in Runway 34 for a touch and go. I descended to the 1400 foot pattern altitude about 5 miles out until I intercepted the glide slope then took her in.
     
    Leg 2: KHPN to 12N
     
    Climbing out of Westchester I turned west to track to the Sparta VOR. As I climbed to my cruise altitude of 4000 feet, I leveled off at 3900 and contacted NY Approach for clearance through the Bravo airspace. I got my clearance and continued my ascent. In case I had been denied clearance (I'm not even sure the sim will do that) my alternate plan would have been to descend back to 2000 feet until I was 19nm out from Sparta, which would clear me of Class B and I could ascend up to cruise altitude. Once I crossed over Sparta I started my descent to 12N's pattern altitude of 1600 feet. 12N (Andover) was an airport I didn't have to do any scenery design for since I found some great freeware scenery for it that I couldn't match. I crossed the airport just as I hit pattern altitude and entered a right traffic pattern on the upwind leg. You're not supposed to cross Lake Lenape on Downwind so I made sure to stay east of the lake. You're also not allowed TGL (touch and go landing), so I had to come to a full stop landing. The first time I flew in I parked and shut down because of graphics problems. The second time things were going okay so I simply turned around at the end of the runway and departed back out the way I came in.
     
    Leg 3: 12N to KBLM
     
    This next leg was my longest at 68nm via two VORs - Solberg and Robbinsville. If you look at my flight plan log you'll notice Solberg doesn't have a track for me to follow, that's because I don't need to stay within a certain corridor while flying, so simply tracking from one VOR to another I can align with whatever radial I want. From the VOR to the airport however, I need to align with a certain track to guide me towards it. Because of the length of the leg I upped my cruise altitude to 5500 feet. Another reason I chose this is because I follow the Quadrantal Rule - which isn't even required for VFR flights (or in the US, for that matter) but I like imagining flying roads in the sky, and this helps me choose which elevated highway to travel on. Since KBLM does not allow TGL on the weekends, I had to perform a full stop landing, then taxi up to the other end for departure back out the way I had come. On the second attempt (Monday) this rule wasn't in effect but this is where I noticed the elevator trim problem, so I taxied to park to restart the sim.
     
    Leg 4: KBLM t0 31E
     
    Leaving KBLM behind it was time for a bit more hardcore VFR flying - none of this VOR nonsense. I flew to the coast and followed it until I crossed over Barnegat Inlet to start descending along a heading of 249 until I spotted the airport. Eagle's Nest (31E) has a pretty tricky approach for Runway 32. Not only is there a broadcast tower just left of the approach corridor, but you have some pretty tall trees immediately before the runway threshold. I crashed into those trees on the first two attempts and even on the third attempt I was nervous about my clearance. It's just one of those things that is difficult to gauge in the sim without  a lot of practice. So you really have to trim up for a short field landing since you are literally dropping onto the runway after clearing the trees. I didn't trim fully so I didn't even let my nose gear touch before pouring the power back on to climb out - narrowly avoiding the trees on the other end of the runway! I will have to pay closer attention to runway lengths in my pre-flight planning.
     
    Leg 5: 31E to 19N
     
    As I climbed back out from 31E I turned west after passing 500 feet AGL for a heading of 294. This would put me in the direction of Camden County (19N). Still following the Quadrantal Rule, I climbed to 4500 feet to give me a better view since I needed to spot some landmarks to ensure I was on the right track. Very soon I was able to see Hammonton (N81) out my left window right where it was supposed to be. Then I flew just north of Atsion Lake - I was right on track! Thus assured of my course, I began my descent as I passed N81. Throughout the flight I was playing around with decent profiles, and have found that the 172 can descend without risk of overspeed at 75% power at 500 FPM, and at 50% power at 1000 FPM. This means I can start heading down to pattern altitude and keep my speed upwards of around 120kts simply with trim settings. I hit the 1200 foot pattern altitude as I was crossing north of the airport for Runway 05, so I entered the left pattern on Downwind. This airport had no restrictions on TGL so I put her down and picked her back up. I remained in the pattern and departed along the downwind leg.
     
    Leg 6: 19N to 17N
     
    This leg was the shortest, only 6nm, so I only climbed to 2000 feet for the short trip. Departing 19N on the downwind leg set me up perfectly for a nice 45-degree entry into the right pattern for Runway 09 at Cross Keys (17N). Because of skydivers, I had to vector east of the drop zone, but that was exactly where I had to go anyways for my pattern entry. Yes, I could have flown straight in for Runway 27 but there was little or no wind and I wanted pattern practice. Plus, Runway 09 is a more difficult approach over trees, although they do not come as close to the runway threshold as at 31E. I had originally planned for a TGL at this airport, but graphic issues once again made me taxi to park and shut down. It was cool flying into this airport since it was one I had already modeled and also one I've been to in real life once for skydiving.
     
    Leg 7: 17N to 26N
     
    The last leg of the flight I undertook at dusk to add a bit of variety to the scenery. More clouds had moved in since I landed at 17N and the winds had picked up a little bit, but the weather was still more than fair enough. I departed from 17N on Runway 27 and turned southeast to track towards the Cedar Lake VOR, then outbound on the 144 radial. It was back up to 5500 feet and I was going to skim the Class C airspace of Atlantic City Int'l so I paid attention to my location in order to contact ACY Approach at the proper time to request clearance. Once again, I had an alternate route planned in case I was denied, but they let me through with no problems. Once clear of Class C I tuned to the Ocean City (26N) traffic and announced my position. I was planning to enter the pattern at base and make a short turn to final, but when I was about 4-5 miles out another Cessna radioed in that he was 4 miles out making for the same runway. All AI traffic in the sim flies straight-in approaches, so I immediately looked out and spotted him. Less than a minute later a Piper radioed in that she was 10 miles out. So I decided to just overfly the airport, enter the patter on Upwind and just fly long legs to give the incoming traffic time to land. As I was flying downwind I cruised past the Piper on final, and as I turned final she announced clear of the runway - great timing! I had a messy approach this time - I was so caught up in planning around the other traffic I forgot to run my Before Landing checklist before turning final! So I was trying to hold my approach while setting things up. Made it down in once piece though and taxied to a parking spot with no trouble.
     
    Checklists and Fast Approaches
     
    I'm still forgetting my checklists at times, but I'm getting better at it. When I forget, I don't feel too bad as priority numero uno is flying the aircraft - it's useless referencing a landing checklist when you plow into a mountainside, after all. Once or twice I would be halfway through my climb to cruise and realize my trim was still set. Or I would land and realize I forgot to turn on my fuel pumps and landing lights - or forget to turn them off while climbing/cruising. Again, the good thing about a 172 is that all these things won't cause you to crash and die (well okay, the engine dying on takeoff due to a fuel flow failure and not having the pump activated can get messy). Fixed gear FTW.
     
    The other thing I got accustomed to this flight is keeping my speed up on approaches. I flew all my patterns at around 100kts. When I turned final, I cut my engine to 25% and began to trim up the aircraft. For short runways I would set 10% flaps on downwind, which is possible since the 10% flap speed is 110kts, then go more flaps on final. For runways with more than enough length I would just set 10% flaps on final. This profile worked great for all of my approaches and helps when you're trying to slot in with heavy traffic.
     
    I'm going to hang out in Ocean City for a while, enjoy the last of the nice beach weather for the season. I'm going to whip some more airports into shape in the meantime and do some more field hopping next time out. It was a lot of fun plotting, planning and flying this trip - even with the difficulties involved with the flying part
  4. Gaiiden

    Airport Hopping 2

    By Gaiiden,

    After spending several more weeks designing some new airports it was time to hop back in the cockpit and actually fly to them. I've been pretty productive since my last flight, and now have 37 airports up on AVSIM - that means I only have about 100 more to go, hahaha. Oh boy, I wish I were joking I spent the night of Thanksgiving plotting out the various airports I had added and ended up with 17 spread from south Jersey to north Jersey and ending back in central Jersey. This was going to be quite a trip! The majority of them were also turf airstrips which meant I got to practice soft-field landings. Although this time of year the ground is pretty solid thanks to the cold temperatures.
     
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    As with last time, I created a Flight Log to use as reference to get me from airport to airport. I also changed around a couple of things in the format of the log to get even more information included:
     
     
     
    I now list the frequencies of CTAF/ATC and ATIS/ASOS for the airport (although I still use AutoTune to set Com radios). "NA" is used for some CTAF/ATC because they are private airfields in real life, but do have CTAF in FSX. "NA" is also used for some ATIS/ASOS frequencies because the airfields either don't have one or are too close together to bother re-checking the weather.I now list the available runways for the airport, their length and width, and their surface type. The "L" and "R" after the runway number tell me the pattern direction for that runway.I now list any fuel that is available. I noticed that SkyVector lists in the airport's information page several nearby navaids you can use to get to an airport - it also lists the radial to travel on and the distance from the navaid. This I now include with my navaid info on the leg and has helped me determine distance from the airport. I now say "To" or "From" a navaid to give me a better sense of direction and make sure I am setting to the proper radial when I tune my instruments. "Via" is used to indicate that I will first be tracking to the navaid on whichever radial I choose, and then tracking from the navaid on the radial given.  
    I might devise a spreadsheet to better format all this and actually start tracking my flight hours.
     
    Leg 1: 26N - 28N
     
    My first leg of the trip was from Ocean City Municipal Airport (26N), where I last left off, to Vineland-Downstown Airport (28N). I originally planned to take off at sunrise the day after Thanksgiving so I could get full use of the short daylight hours this time of year since the majority of the airports on this trip have inadequate or no night lighting - however weather did not cooperate and so I stayed on the ground and monitored. Finally at around 10am things cleared up enough for VFR conditions to return and I was able to depart 26N. However while the clouds lifted and the rain went away and the visibility increased, the wind stayed at around 15kts with gusts up to 20kts out of the WNW. Wicked!  Needless to say when I lined up for my approach to 28N Runway 20, I was coming in just a wee bit sideways! This was my first experience with crosswind landings in high wind, and I managed to get her down okay although staying on the runway was another matter. Luckily it's a grass field so plenty of room to muck around.
     
    Looking at the flight log you'll notice a slightly different notation for the navaid listing: To VCN 115.2 > 330° - this means that I should track to the VCN VOR on a radial that is greater than 330°. This is so I stay out of KACY Class C airspace. The additional note "1000' until established on inbound VCN radial" is in case I had to depart to the north, staying at 1000 feet until I was sure I was out from under Class C airspace.
     
    Leg 2: 28N - 29N
     
    Taking off from 28N I chose to do so the way I came in, because having the crosswind coming at you from the right helps a lot when you're in a single-engine plane that by nature of its one propeller tends to want to yaw left on the takeoff roll, and at the same time a plane wants to yaw into a crosswind. So this effectively nullifies the left-yaw propeller tendency and helps reduce the right-yaw crosswind tendency - although the crosswind was strong enough that the airplane still wanted to yaw right. I was very very close to the maximum crosswind component for the Cessna.
     
    The trip to Kroelinger Airport (29N) was only 4nm, so I didn't bother to switch off my fuel pump or turn off my landing lights after I cleaned up the aircraft. Since it's so close to 28N they share a CTAF, however I still need to dig through the ATC window to set the proper airport code for my traffic transmissions, so I'm doing that while trying to depart from 28N and almost immediately enter the pattern for 29N! Having destinations spaced so tightly together added yet another nice challenge to this flight. Coming down into 29N Runway 28 I was facing more into the wind and had an easier time setting down.
     
    Leg 3: 29N - 00N
     
    Another short hop, this time 7nm to Bucks Airfield (00N). The winds had picked up a bit more, flying over the airfield I spotted the windsock sticking straight out from its posts, which signals winds greater than 15kts. Coming down on final I found myself way too high and drifting towards some trees so I poured on the power, cleaned up the aircraft and called a go around. The second attempt was almost just as messy but I felt safe enough going for the landing and got her down in one piece. This is a public grass airfield that has a decent amount of traffic, but luckily the pattern remained clear as I shot my approaches.
     
    Leg 4: 00N - 04NJ
     
    I had some trouble finding my way to Emmanuel Airport (04NJ) for some reason, and had to track back to Bucks and try again, and finally found it. Wind continued to be a problem as I made my approach to Emmanuel Airport (04NJ). I had to call 2 go arounds and after the second one I just decided to continue on to the next airport, which was a decent 34nm away and hopefully had slightly better conditions.
     
    Leg 5: 04NJ - 3NJ1
     
    Turning east after aborting my landing attempt at Emmanuel I headed for McGuire airspace to put in at Pemberton Airport (3NJ1). I had down in the leg notes when I should contact McGuire Approach to let them know I was flying around their airspace. Conditions at Pemberton were indeed a bit better, and I was able to land without any problems. Still, en-route things were very bumpy, as they had been all morning.
     
    Leg 6: 3NJ1 - 3NJ6
     
    Next stop was a short hop west 7nm to Inductotherm Airport (3NJ6), where I was able to refuel, even though I was barely past 3/4 tank, it was the last fuel stop for a while. I did kind of get blown off the runway after landing, but thankfully didn't damage any gear since in this case I was getting blown off asphalt onto grass instead of just meandering about an open field. Going from hard surfaces to grass (soft) can really rip up your undercarriage. This isn't really simulated in FSX however. Still, it's not a good thing and if you have to do it, make sure you do it at an angle. Also having fixed gear helps and is less fragile.
     
    Leg 7: 3NJ6 - 2N6
     
    Departing Inductotherm (damn that's such a cool name) I immediately re-established communication with McGuire APP and traveled 7nm back west to land at Redwing Airport (2N6). Here I had a couple more options open to me in regards to runways and was able to choose one that was further into the wind than most I had been forced to land on so far.
     
    Leg 8: 2N6 - 46NJ
     
    Next leg kept me just within McGuire airspace and ended up with me at Perl Acres Airport (46NJ). Runway 34 was only slightly off the ~330° wind direction so landing was a cinch, without even any trees nearby the runway threshold to present a problem on final. Just set 'er down and taxi 'round.
     
    Leg 9: 46NJ - 3N6
     
    By now I was up in central Jersey and heading for Old Bridge Airport (3N6), which is right next to Raceway Park, where I take my car every now and then to drag race. Along the way I flew over the now-closed Marlboro Airport, and as I approached 3N6 a Maule called in he was 6 miles out. So I set up on downwind and just flew until I heard him announce he was only 2 miles out and then turned base and final to follow him down, although by this time I was about 11 miles out! The smarter thing probably would have been to calculate when the Maule would be past me and on final - but that takes math. In my head. Ouch.
     
    Landing at 3N6 went so-so, it was perpendicular to the cross wind and I barely managed to stay on the runway after landing. Taking off was harrowing, however - I almost got blown into the trees along the left side of the runway!
     
    Leg 10: 3N6 - 2NJ3
     
    This airport was the one I was most worried about. Weidel (2NJ3) has a fence surrounding the runway that I modeled accurately, so although it's a grass strip I don't have the room to meander about upon landing that I had at pretty much all the other grass strips I had landed at so far. Plus the approach I had to fly, which was only about 45° into the wind, was over trees and power lines right at the runway threshold. And if I overshot the landing I would crash into a fence on the other end of the runway! So yea, no problem.
     
    I was clenching my &amp;@(&#036;* as I came in over the trees, remembering my last attempt at clearing trees on final in a previous flight, but I made it over okay and dropped her on the runway with room to spare. Turning around to taxi back to the runway for take off would have been tough if I had rolled to the end, but I was able to turn off into the pasture area that had a lot more room.
     
    Other than clearing the fence at the other end of the runway, take off was no problem although I was worried about yawing into the fence on either side.
     
    I was also within Trenton-Mercer (KTTN) Class D airspace at this time but forgot to plan for that. Ooops!
     
    Leg 11: 2NJ3 - 39N
     
    By now it was a little past 2pm as I departed Weidel and headed for my next stop, Princeton Airport (39N). After landing I taxied to a tie down spot and shut down the aircraft. Princeton is a helicopter field as well so I loaded up the Jet Ranger in the helicopter area and proceeded to practice a few landings and flying around the general area. I wasted a good half hour trying to manually start the Jet Ranger, and even Ctrl+E to have the simulator auto-start it for some reason refused to work. After shutting down FSX and reloading and still no luck, I just loaded the C172 back up, started it, and then switched to the Jet Ranger so it would be running.
     
    After choppering about for only 30 minutes or so I grew tired and decided to call it a day and catch a nap before coaching early that evening.
     
    Leg 12: 39N - 2NJ1
     
    The next day (today) I once again woke up before dawn only this time the weather was perfect for flying - but I knew it was going to deteriorate fast as the morning went on in terms of wind conditions so I wanted to get up in the air ASAP. I took off from Princeton while it was still dark out and although I found Jugtown Mountain (2NJ1) okay, it was still too dark to really see the runway very well (it was unlit). So I continued on track but had to divert south to avoid Lehigh Valley Int'l (KABE) Class C airspace. I ended up just looping around in a wide arc to return to Jugtown when it was just light enough to make a safe approach. I had to clear some trees on final but I managed to do so okay and drop her down on the runway.
     
    Leg 13: 2NJ1 - 2NJ5
     
    The trip to Hartung (2NJ5) was another 7nm hop like several I had done the previous day. So while I cleaned up the aircraft after take off I left on my fuel pump and landing light. Hartung was a wide-open field so landing was easy, as was taking off again. It helped of course that the wind was still very light.
     
    Leg 14: 2NJ5 - 2NJ6
     
    This next leg was also 7nm and was flown pure VFR, all I had to do was follow the Deleware River north and the next airport, Markle (2NJ6), was right on it. While there were no trees on this approach, the end of the runway does sit on a pretty steep cliff, so coming in short wasn't an option. Also this was the only right-pattern I had to fly. In fact I almost didn't - I realized at this point I hadn't been paying full attention to my new "L"/"R" pattern notation. Luckily all the other runways where I just flew a left pattern out of habit actually were left-pattern runways.
     
    Leg 15: 2NJ6 - 13N
     
    After a longer 23nm trip to Trinca Airport (13N), I was descending over the mountains to land. The wind had started to pick up again and I had a slight crosswind component, but after the brutal breezes of yesterday this was a cakewalk.
     
    Leg 16: 13N - 3N5
     
    Newton Airport (3N5) was only 4nm from Trinca so it was a quick pattern entry pretty much right after take off. I was supposed to do a touch and go since this was an asphalt strip that was long enough (I didn't do it back at 3N6 because they do not allow TGO) but I was so used to calling out a full-stop landing when entering the pattern that's what I did. So I just did the full-stop landing. No biggie.
     
    Leg 17: 3N5 - 47N
     
    After taking back off, it was about 35nm back south to central Jersey and the aptly-named Central Jersey Regional Airport (47N). Unfortunately while I was on final for Runway 25 my anti virus popped up a status box saying it had been updated and then FSX hung up and crashed. I don't know if it was a direct result of the AV pop-up or not, but either way that was the end of my flight - so close to finishing!! At this point there was no real purpose behind reloading at the last airport and flying the leg over - I was practically on the ground when the sim crashed (better it than me!)
     
    Back to airport design
     
    Now that I've hit all the airports I've modeled, it's time to model some more! I'm glad this flight for the most part turned out okay. I got plenty of much-needed crosswind operations practice, having a lot of the airports so close to one another made things interesting as well, and I found myself getting better at remembering to carry out my pre- and post-landing checklist items.
     
    This will most likely be my last flight of the year, but it was a good one!
  5. Gaiiden

    Bumpy Ride

    By Gaiiden,

    <p>Man, Hurricane Igor may have missed us, but you could feel his wrath in the air today that's for sure! Never had to deal with so much damn turbulence while flying - it got to the point of being just plain annoying, especially in the helicopter which is already difficult enough to manage. But I rode it all out and got where I wanted to go today.</p><p> </p><p style="text-align: center;"><object width="500" height="375" classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param name="flashvars" value="offsite=true&lang=en-us&page_show_url=%2Fphotos%2Fgaiiden%2Fsets%2F72157625001417498%2Fshow%2F&page_show_back_url=%2Fphotos%2Fgaiiden%2Fsets%2F72157625001417498%2F&set_id=72157625001417498&jump_to=" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="src" value="http://www.flickr.com/apps/slideshow/show.swf?v=104087" /><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><embed width="500" height="375" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://www.flickr.com/apps/slideshow/show.swf?v=104087" flashvars="offsite=true&lang=en-us&page_show_url=%2Fphotos%2Fgaiiden%2Fsets%2F72157625001417498%2Fshow%2F&page_show_back_url=%2Fphotos%2Fgaiiden%2Fsets%2F72157625001417498%2F&set_id=72157625001417498&jump_to=" allowFullScreen="true" allowfullscreen="true" /></object></p><p style="text-align: center;"> </p><p>I picked up some awesome HD textures for the default Bell 206B <a data-mce-="" href="http://aussiex.org/forum/index.php?/files/file/366-ozx-hd-expansion-pack/" target="_blank">from the OZx community</a> and they are pretty great. I mean if the shot I featured above doesn't convince you, then check out a <a data-mce-="" href=" " target="_blank">before</a> and <a data-mce-="" href=" " target="_blank">after</a> comparison of the virtual cockpit textures. Plus, I found my favorite black/yellow/white paint scheme in HD to boot. Additionally, I also  installed <a data-mce-="" href="http://www.strikingsoftware.com/fswc.shtml" target="_blank">FS Water Configurator</a> and the <a data-mce-="" href="http://www.strikingsoftware.com/downloads.shtml" target="_blank">HD wave textures</a> from Striking Software to beef up the water even further. I also <a data-mce-="" href="http://ultimatetraffic.flight1.net/forums/forum_posts.asp?TID=7293" target="_blank">downloaded a new traffic database</a> for Ultimate Traffic 2 to increase the amount of general aviation traffic.</p><p> </p><p>I decided to humor ATC for my departure and arrival while flying the 206B, so I contacted Long Island (<a data-mce-="" href="http://skyvector.com/airport/ISP/Long-Island-Mac-Arthur-Airport" target="_blank">KISP</a>) Ground and requested a runway taxi, the proceeded to fly along the taxiways assigned to me while trying to stay less than 100 feet off the ground. I only got yelled at by ATC twice for taking off without clearance, but besides staying below 100 feet I also had trouble making the chopper go where I wanted it. It always seemed to want to slide off to the side instead of just fly straight forwards. But I made it to the runway, contacted the tower and got my clearance okay, so it worked at least. Arriving at Morristown (<a data-mce-="" href="http://skyvector.com/airport/MMU/Morristown-Municipal-Airport" target="_blank">KMMU</a>) I made to land at Runway 5 and just as I was turning base this Piper Cub comes whizzing past me! Good lord that's the second close encounter in two days, and this one was like 150 feet off my bow! Apparently the cub was taking off from the runway I was landing on - good job ATC! After landing on the runway, it took me long enough to hover taxi off that ATC instructed me to go around to clear the runway for incoming traffic - luckily I touched down on the taxiway just as they told me this and instructed me to contact Ground instead, so I did and got my taxi to parking instructions.</p><p> </p><p>Departing from KMMU in the Cessna, I flew via the Robbinsville VOR down south to McGuire AFB (<a data-mce-="" href="http://skyvector.com/airport/WRI/Mc-Guire-AFB-Airport" target="_blank">KWRI</a>), dealing with more turbulence almost the whole way - there were periods of calm here and there, but then I would start bouncing about again and sometimes a gust of wind would push me a good 5 degrees off course for a second. McGuire directed me to enter the pattern left downwind for Runway 6, although the real-life airport diagram shows that runway is still under construction - whatever, it'll be finished someday so why not today?? I then taxied around looking for parking and finally just parked at the fuel pump. I'll have to see if I can dig up some scenery for this place because the default scenery is extremely lacking.</p><p> </p><p>So now I'm at a military airport hmmm?? That leaves me with some interesting options...</p>
  6. Gaiiden

    Cruising the Keys

    By Gaiiden,

    Finally cleared up my development commitments and made it through a successful FSDevConf so I was able to focus on getting the sim set back up to fly the SkyMaster again. I got a great deal on LatinVFR's Key West scenery from a sale on SimMarket so I decided that would make for a nice shakedown cross country flight before I headed off across the open sea to the Bahamas. The scenery is overall very good, but it does have a certain lack of quality that makes me glad I didn't pay full price for it. There are several very visible seam lines in the photoreal textures and the textures themselves change quality from sharp to blurry in various areas. A portion of a bay area even shows landclass textures through the water instead of a sea floor. Even the airport AFCAD had a bug in it where aircraft would taxi straight onto the runway and pile up without holding - I had to modify the hold short node position to get the proper behavior. I also added a bunch of additional boats to wake trails that were empty on the photoreal water textures. But again, it's way better than default and even has night textures so I'm satisfied with the price I paid for it.
     


    Anyways, the flight down from Miami to Key West went very well. There was some rain bands moving through the area and I got caught in one for a few minutes about 1/3 of the way down the keys but other than that it was just some low cloud cover I had to avoid. Taking off from Opa Locka (KOPF) I was able to depart straight out to the east and turn south along Miami Beach. I used the Dolphin VOR to stay 14nm distant and remain outside of the Miami Bravo airspace - the floor above me was 3,000 and I was at 2,500 and within 13nm the floor drops to 1,500. So a bit of DME arcing to the tip of Key Biscayne and then I was free to just follow the coast of the Keys the rest of the way down. I did my best to remain at 2,000+ for the first few keys as that was over a wildlife refuge area marked on the charts. I did have to drop to 1,000 feet as I got further south to avoid a drop in the cloud cover.
     
    I had timed the flight so I would arrive at sunset but I forgot to adjust the time in FSX to account for DST - I need to advance the FSX clock an hour ahead of the actual time to get the proper lighting in the sim. So as I approached Key West and the sun was still above the horizon I went and bumped the time up to sunset. I followed the Overseas Highway since that took me around the naval base and set me up for a downwind entry into the pattern for runway 7 at Key West International (KEYW). I was a little rushed getting configured for landing so I missed looking back for my turning point to final and swung wide and had to S-turn back to line up for landing. Touchdown was pretty good - although like last time I got a little wobbly and came down rear left, rear right and then dropped the nose. I think I just need more power when I land.
     




    Ignore the straight lines - I forgot to disconnect Plan-G before running some replays for landing shots
  7. Gaiiden
    Ahhh my first flight of 2012! Also my first flight since the start of November, yikes. Reminded me why the FAA mandates check rides every few months for proficiency, especially considering some of the mistakes I made on this flight. Thankfully I was able to run my computer at 4.5GHz again after accidentally wiping out my overclocking settings a few weeks ago. I didn't remember I had included details as to how I set up my overclocking in a previous Flight Log entry until I looked back and so getting it setup and running again was easy. Phew! Those extra megahertz do indeed make a difference in performance!
     
    So the objective of this flight was two-fold. One: to get in some night time flying, of which I don't have many hours logged. Two: to visit some of the airports I've designed and released over the last three months.
     
    Here is the flight plan.
     

     
    Leg 1: KFWN to N73
     
    This was originally supposed to be two legs, from KFWN to KMMU and then on to N73. However I decided that KMMU was way to close to fly to, even for a touch and go – too much too fast for me to handle after just hopping back into the cockpit after a while on the ground. The longer flight from KFWN direct to N73 gave me more time to get back into the groove from takeoff to landing, especially considering I was flying the quicker Bonanza V35B.
     
    The first attempt at this leg is where I made my first mistake by failing to visually inspect my aircraft for properly operating navigation lights. Granted it’s not something that’s on any of my checklists, but it is now! After departing and climbing to cruise altitude I stepped outside to capture some photos and noticed I was running without any lights – strobe, navigation and beacon were all not showing up. Realizing I couldn’t continue into growing darkness without navigation lights, I immediately considered landing at a nearby airport but I was at 5ooo feet and didn’t want to descend to anything right beneath me. I decided instead I still had enough light to turn around and head back to Sussex – bonus would be the sun would be behind me illuminating my instruments as I found my panel lighting also to be malfunctioning. So I backtracked my VOR radial and entered the pattern, cutting my downwind leg a bit short to beat in an aircraft on direct approach – I tried to clear the runway in time for him to land but he waved off just as I pulled onto the taxiway. Sorry dude, but my situation was bordering on emergency with coming darkness and I had to get to ground fast. After pulling up to the repair hangar I shut down and troubleshot the problem – turns out the new updated aircraft.cfg file released with the optional patch had the light positions all wrong for some reason. I replaced them with the light positions from the original .cfg file and all was right again.
     
    So a bit later I was back in the cockpit and once again leaving Sussex behind and climbing for FL05. There was a crapton of traffic still in the air so I called into NY Approach for flight following and I tracked towards my VOR. As I was just hitting the VOR and getting ready to turn east I ran into a small bank of clouds at around 4700 feet, luckily there was a gap between them that allowed me to circle around and resume course without breaking VFR or changing altitude. As I approached the NJ Turnpike I switched off instruments to visual navigation, tracking the Turnpike southwest and trying not to lose it as it snaked past several other major highways. I personally find it a lot harder to identify roadways at night. After intercepting the Turnpike I also began a nice slow descent while NY Approach handed me off to McGuire Approach. I used flight following until I dropped to around 2500 feet and was closer to N73 when I switched to McGuire for a weather report. However it seems ATIS at KWRI is non-existent in FSX so I simply fell back on my weather planning I had done prior to flight and overflying the field to check the sock. My weather plan was spot on and I made my planned approach to Runway 23, coming in a bit high on final causing a little dive towards the runway but still had plenty of roll out and managed to give the Cessna behind me enough time to land afterwards. Once parked and shut down, reviewing my flight made me realize I had forgotten to do an ident on the VOR to ensure it was properly operating and that I was in fact tuned to the right station. Luckily (this time) it wasn’t an issue.
     
    Leg 2: N73 to KBLM
     
    The next morning it was up early and into the Tailwind W10 tri-gear, which was designed by Lionheart Creations. It’s a nifty little plane and I hadn’t really flown it more than once or twice since I got it during a sale so I figured I might as well take it out again. I got into the cockpit and went through a modified preflight – it doesn’t come with its own checklist they just ripped the Cessna 182S one from FS9 – but had trouble getting the engine to turn over. I think this is from the V35B having only left/right fuel tank selection, so when I reloaded the flight from last night and switched aircraft, the Tailwind effectively had no fuel flow since it only has a single tank (or two with one feed, dunno for sure). Eventually I just reset the flight with the aircraft already running. My first impression is that the volume for everything in this aircraft is a lot louder than the other aircraft I fly. The fuel pump, for example, is a loud as the engine itself. Also when toggling the panel lights with a keystroke it doesn’t toggle the dash switch. So if you toggle the lights on with a key then click the switch on, the panel lights will go off.
     
    After fiddling around a bit more and getting used to the instrument layout I taxied towards the runway but after the heavier V35B I wasn’t ready for how quickly this aircraft accelerates and ended up crashing into a hangar. Whoops. Luckily damage was minor and I was able to get back to taxiing in short order, keeping a lighter hand on the throttle as I did so! Once departed from Red Lion it was a quick climb to 1500 feet cruise – this sucker is indeed fast! But once you get it leveled and trim it’s very stable and well behaved. Switching to spot view for some pictures I didn’t stay long because the outside engine noise is on a blatantly obvious loop lasting only about 3 seconds – it was pretty annoying. As I approached the coast and throttled back to slow down and drop lower for a buzz past Barnegat Light I also noticed no real discernible change in engine pitch until I had throttled down to near 50%. Oh at this point too I realized I had forgotten to continue my checklists after takeoff and upon returning to them I realized I still had flaps down from takeoff. And the VOR I used to track out to the coast? Didn’t ident. GAH!!
     
    After following the coast north I made a direct approach for Runway 32 at KBLM after calling in and checking the weather matched the report in my plan. However on final another aircraft decided to ignore the fact that I had been announcing my approach for the last 10 minutes and taxied onto the runway for takeoff. I tried to slow down to let him go ahead of me but ended up having to call a go around. My second time around there was more traffic departing but thankfully they were kind enough to wait for me to land. However I then went and flipped the aircraft as I tried to rush and exit at the nearest taxiway. Although I will say I thought for sure I had slowed down enough to make the turn, apparently I hadn’t – no doubt my inexperience with the aircraft led to this disaster. I should probably have handled it with more care not having flown it much huh?
     
    Leg 3: KBLM to KVAY
     
    So technically I made it to KBLM and was totally not in the mood to try that entire leg again so I just hopped into the ol’ 172S which I had left stashed in one of the long-term hangars north of the airport. Before that though I reset the time to bring the sun up a bit more. I realized a bit later that since FSX was designed prior to the recent Daylight Savings Time changes, when I set the clock to real-world time it would put it an hour behind and not expect dawn to arrive until 8:21 instead of 7:21.
     
    After the disaster of Leg 2 this leg was. thankfully, much nicer. I had no troubles departing KBLM and after reaching cruise I even remembered to finish off my checklists and ident the VOR I was tracking towards. Then it was just time to sit back and enjoy the sunrise and watch the traffic moving about the sky around me. Once I hit the VOR I began a gentle descent that put me near pattern altitude as I approached KVAY, which is bunched up with Flying W N14 and Red Lion N73. I threaded over both runways which set me up nicely for a pattern entry to Runway 08, although I was a bit off on the altitude I otherwise flew the pattern without issue, ending up on slope and centered as I turned final. I made sure to stay on slope to clear the power lines in front of Runway 08 and came down to a slightly bumpy landing.
     
    Since KMMU was the only recently-developed airport I didn’t get to visit, that will be the target of my next flight, though I’m also working on a small grass field a little ways south as well that I might take a small plane to and back, and then cruise up past NYC to get to KMMU and then take a helicopter into the city? We’ll see.
     
    Cross-posted on my personal blog
  8. Gaiiden

    Day Trip

    By Gaiiden,

    So the good news regarding my throttle quadrant issue from the last flight is that it's not broken. I noticed the same issue when I swapped it for my newer quadrant and that led me to think of other problems, which eventually made me realize that one of the adjustable controls on my X52 HOTAS was to blame. Specifically it was the wheel that I use to control the throttle on the Bell helicopters, and to do that it is set to the propeller pitch axis. D'oh! But good to know I don't need to spend another $70 on a new quadrant.
     


    I did a lot of prep for this flight, like making sure that I had scenery that would be useful along the way. I noticed I would be flying right past Cedar Point, which contains an amusement park, and I managed to find some scenery that put some simple 3D objects in that area. It wasn't anything sophisticated but it did make it easy to spot while flying for a landmark reference. I've been to the park before and it does indeed have some amazing roller coasters.
     
    I also made sure that all the airports I would tune to for traffic advisories along the way had spoken names, not default phonetic ones, and used EditVoicepack as necessary to ensure this. It's a lot harder to remember the airport designations when flying along and listening to see of there are any arriving/departing aircraft I may need to look out for. While mucking around in EditVoicepack I thought about the fact that CTAF transmission are pretty poorly rendered in the sim. I don't know why I never put much thought towards this before but it's true. Aircraft don't say their type and they don't repeat the name of the airport at the end of the transmission. These are pretty standard rules, to my understanding, so I was surprised to not find any voicepack mods for this in either the AVSIM or flightsim.com download libraries. So of course I just figured out how to do it myself. It's available on the AVSIM library.
     
    I also imported some additional phraseology mods I stumbled across on my search for the non-existent CTAF mod. You can find more on that and the Ohio scenery in my FSX Installation and Tweaking Log.
     

    I decided to hop into the Beech Staggerwing produced by Alabeo as I hadn't flown it in one of my flights yet, only for a review. It's a tail dragger, and I normally don't bother with tail draggers because they are a pain in the &@($* to handle on the ground and during take-off and landing but I'll make an exception in this case because the Staggerwing is just a beautiful aircraft and has one of those big rotary engines that just sounds awesome under power, with the deep thrum I can really feel through my subwoofer. It took me a while to get up and going - I wanted to be wheels up with the sun but first I had to troubleshoot the recurring propeller pitch issue, then I realized I never installed the aircraft since I last reformatted my system, and then when on taxi to the active I actually crashed into another aircraft! I don't know why Ground didn't tell me or the other aircraft to stop, like it usually does, but - BAM! So after I reloaded the flight and got ready to depart of course I had to wait a few minutes for the deluge of taxi clearance requests to fall off since the AI traffic reloaded with the sim... and then I just taxied in spot view. Screw it.
     
    Anyways I finally made it into the air about an hour after sunrise and made my way west towards the Bass Island group out on Lake Erie north of Sandusky, Ohio. I kept her low and slow the whole way and it took me about 30 minutes to get out to the islands. On the way I monitored some traffic frequencies and checked in on the weather report before tuning to the CTAF for the airport on South Bass Island, Put-In-Bay (3W2), to see which runway was active. I figured 21, but turned out to be 3. There were three other aircraft arriving so I took a long swing around the islands before entering the pattern to give them time to land and get out of the way - especially because one said it was making for 21, not 3. What I didn't count on was to be on short final and find an aircraft positioned on the runway for takeoff! Honestly, unless I had paused the sim and set up for an external screenshot I probably wouldn't have seen it since by the time I was close enough to spot it I was too nose-high. Fortunately there is a displaced threshold so I still probably would have flown over it on landing had I not seen it. Not sure if it was going to start taking off I announced a go-around and swung back into the pattern. I checked the ATC window and saw no notification of the aircraft taking off so I just shrugged, swung back around and landed over it! Turns out the airport was poorly designed by the US Cities developers and I fixed it to allow aircraft to depart properly.
     




    My wonderful pattern work around 3W2. Longer, shallower approach 2nd time to spot & clear the aircraft

    So in the real world after I parked and shut down I went off to bed for a few winks but my virtual self was off exploring the islands for the day until it was time to climb back into the cockpit for the flight home around 4pm.



    There was some more confusion on active runway use when taking off - the sock was pointing at runway 21 but I heard traffic coming in for runway 3 so I hustled to the hold short, rolled and took off from 21 while they were still 4 miles out. I flew back on the opposite side of Kellys Island but other than that the flight was essentially the same going as it was coming. Sandusky traffic was landing from the west so it didn't get in my way and I cruised around FL017 back along the shore of Lake Erie until I was close enough to get ATIS from KBKL and contact the tower for landing instructions. I was hoping they were also landing from the west so I could just fly straight in but instead had to enter downwind to land out of the east. Either way though it's really cool to be approaching from the west and flying past downtown Cleveland. I considered flying back to a different airport in the area covered by the US Cities scenery but the lakefront airport is just too cool to pass up - reminds me of Meigs in Chicago - RIP

    I had a weird case of yawing almost uncontrollably off the runway shortly after touchdown and I still haven't really figured out why. I managed to stop before falling off a small cliff in the terrain mesh near the water and had a few good bounces taxiing back onto the runway. Would have really sucked to crash at the end of a flight. I'll have to remember to do a replay of my landing if that happens again - I wonder if it was from my tail wheel touching the ground while it was unlocked. I may have unlocked it too soon and should have slowed down further until I felt my rudder authority weaken. Again, not much experience with tail draggers here...



    I've got ideas for two helicopter flights, one for the 206 and one for the 222 if I can find time to do them before the start of November in two days. Then it's down south for the winter!
  9. Gaiiden

    Down and Up the Hudson

    By Gaiiden,

    So I've been spending the majority of my free time these past few weeks designing scenery rather than flying. Although the satellite scenery I'm using for the NJ/NY/MA/RI area is awesome, it's a bit of a double-edged sword when it comes to airports. See, the default FSX airports are not designed to match the exact real world layout of tarmacs and taxiways - they come close enough to match the airport diagram so you can find your way around properly, but that's about it. For example, here is the default Newark Airport and here is my modified Newark Airport (incomplete - just check the taxiways tho). It's a striking difference. So to that end, I'm embarking on a pretty ambitious project to redo all the airports in the satellite coverage area to match the ground textures. That's well over 100 airports!! So far, in the last week and a half I've done twelve (at the time of this post) - but they've all been small single-strip fields without much infrastructure to deal with. Still, that's pretty good progress. Hopefully I can find some way to turn a small profit from this - still working on that but I have some ideas.
     
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    However I can only design for so long before I miss flying so I finally hopped back in the cockpit for some night time and day time VFR.
     
    I decided I was done with the Osprey for now, I just didn't want to take the time to learn to land it properly although it is a pretty fun craft to fly - however the lack of a true VTOL capability that is present in the real thing just makes it kind of lame. I needed to shuttle it back to McGuire though, since my Cessna was still parked there as no one was willing to ferry it up for me. I decided to fly VFR since conditions were good, so after departing Falmouth I used the coastline of Massachusetts, a very visible landmark, to travel up to Boston, at which point I simply turned west. I aided my navigation with the help of two VORs but by then it was also light enough to see ground features that led me to my main VFR guide - the Hudson River. Once over the Hudson it was a simple matter of following the river all the way down past Manhattan and then sticking to the coast of NJ before picking up the VOR for McGuire to turn inland for the airport.
     
    Along the way I originally planned to fly around 4-5 thousand feet, as that was high enough to easily clear the largest obstacle in my flight path (important when you're flying VFR at night!) but I bumped it up to 10,000 feet because traveling that low at close to 200knots didn't give my PC enough time to load the higher-resolution textures. Flying higher made this better. At that height though I did have to dodge a few clouds scattered about.
     
    Coming in to land at McGuire I was back to the problem of setting this bird on the ground in one piece. The most frustrating thing about landing this thing is I could not find a power setting while the blades were fully up that allowed for a nice, slow descent to the runway. It would start slow, but then all of the sudden I would be dropping at over 500 feet per minute! Not good! So I would pour on a bit of power, stabilize my descent but then before I could decrease power a bit to try and slowly bring her down I would start to climb out! I made it 3/4 of the way down the blasted runway before I finally just said screw it and basically did an air carrier "crash" landing and prayed my gear would stay attached. Somehow I actually almost nosed over - no idea why, but finally settled on all wheels and was able to taxi off the runway and to parking without further incedent.
     
    The Osprey is a pretty cool plane, and maybe one day I'll return to it to try and master its landing, but boy does it irk me. On this flight down from MA I finally had to engage the autopilot because it's pretty impossible to trim it out stable. The Navigation screen only allows you to set a intercept course for Nav1 - Nav2 simply acts as an ADF. Anyways it's good riddance for now, as I gratefully climbed back behind the yoke of my trusty old Cessna 172.
     
    Using the Cessna I took myself west to the coast of NJ and followed that north up to Long Island. I had to request clearance to transition the JFK Class B airspace but this early in the morning it wasn't a problem. I skirted the coast and called into KFRG for landing instructions - they told me to make right base for Runway 14... while I was still 17 miles out!! Lesson learned: don't radio into airports via the default FSX AI until you're more like 5 miles out in a slow pokey Cessna. I was still 7 miles away and only going like 80 knots since visibility had dropped to 9SM and I was still trying to find the airport, when ATC held some poor sucker in a Beechcraft short of the runway while I completed my base to final. Boy he was in for a bit of a wait! Then a King Air on GPS approach to Runway 14 had to go around while I still trundled slowly along. Finally I picked up the runway lights and completed my base turn to final - right on the glide slope. Then things went a bit screwy as I realized - hey I don't have vertical-shifting rotor blades to slow me down almost instantly to my landing speed! Here I am on short final still pushing around 80 knots! So I was all scrambly to lower speed, then lower flaps, and kind of drunkenly slammed her down onto the asphalt. It was a horrid landing. Thanks, Osprey. Although I could have called a go-around too I suppose. That's one bad thing about the sim, you're more willing to just say "screw it, I'll get her down!" where in real life you would have instantly thought "uhhh... I'd better pull out and give this another shot."
     
    Anyways I taxied to my assigned parking and then hopped into the Jet Ranger for the final leg of my day's flight. I took off from KFRG and followed routes that took me past JFK and lined me up perfectly for an approach across the Hudson to East 34th St Heliport (6N5). I swear I was mere inches from slamming into the elevated highway (again) so I kind of dropped her hard onto the landing pad. Turns out I was still several feet away and safe - still need to get used to the perspective of how close things appear from the cockpit. I didn't stay long, immediately lifting back off (after catching my breath) and flying down the East River to downtown and the Wall St Heliport (KJRB) where I made a much, much smoother landing on the pad. After that it was a hop up the Hudson to Midtown Heliport (KJRA). However I got fed up trying to land while my PC was stuttering along at like 5FPS (need 10-11 at least) and pulled out to just continue my flight.
     
    Side note about KJRA though - I was up in NYC at the Javits Center for New York Comic Con this past weekend and it was so nice out I spent a good 3 hours outside taking a break from the convention hall - most of that time was spent sitting next to the Midtown Heliport in real life watching some helicopters land and depart to get a better idea for how its really done. Unfortunately the majority of the traffic goes in and out of Downtown/Wall St and only 2 helicopters took off and 1 landed. You can stand literally 50 feet from a chopper though in their parking lot - I arrived just in time to witness the take off of a twin-turbined Sikorsky - wow! I had to lean into the wind that sucker pushed out when it lifted off. Then a smaller 4-person heli approached and landed, idled on the pad until finally a guy showed up with three small dogs, loaded them all up into the chopper and away they went!
     
    Anyways, that little sojourn was mildly educational, now back to the flight. I left the city behind as I flew north along the Hudson. My destination was actually an airport I added to the simulator called Haverstraw Heliport (H43). It's one of the few public heliports in the region (the other I've found so far being 87N out on Long Island) and really does offer up a great excuse to fly along the Hudson, which is very scenic. Still VFR, I found the airport no problem with no navaids needed and as per instructions I descended over the grass field before hover taxiing over to land on the tarmac. Once again the perspective from withing the cockpit had me thinking I was flying into some of the trees that ring the very tiny field. I never really noticed this before but it becomes readily apparent in tight spaces.
     
    After landing I did a manual systems shut down and remembered to save the flight so I will restart at the same airport and need to run through all the manual start up tasks.
     
    I've also finally dabbled with overclocking my system to try and eek out some more performance since I cannot afford an i7 chip/mobo upgrade until at least early next year. Right now I'm running my 2.4GHz E6600 at 3.11GHz and I've completely maxed out my graphics card to 900MHz clock/1300MHz memory. Normal operations have the system running stable, and I've done some stress testing as well - no crashes yet! Hopefully soon I'll be able to hop back into the cockpit and see how my game performance is affected.
  10. Gaiiden
    I got bored of lounging at the beach so decided to check the FBO over at the airport to see if there were any charter flights available. Turns out a family of three that just arrived in port on a cruise ship were looking to meet up with some friends aboard a private yacht arriving at Key West this afternoon. But the yacht wasn't looking to put into port and it had a helipad so the family decided to just charter a helicopter to pick them up from the pad on the cruise ship and ferry them out to the yacht. Man, must be nice to have the dough to splurge on that! Well, at least I get a cut. So I hopped in the Bell 206 sitting on the tarmac and fired her up, took off and skimmed the south side of the key, around Fort Zachary Taylor and landed on the bow of the cruise ship where the family was waiting. My landing was straight in, no wobbles, no futzing - a smooth approach and the softest touchdown I've ever done ever. Which was good cause I had an audience and they were sitting right on the pad!
     


    After I landed I pulled the throttle back but in messing around with Shift+# keys to find a window that would help me open up the doors I accidentally shut off the engine. Oh well, probably safer for the family to board that way anyhow! I finally remembered just opening the co-pilot door up front opens all the doors except mine, so the mom, dad and daughter could finally stow their day-trip luggage and climb aboard. This time I remembered to go into the Fuel and Payload menu to add weight for my three passengers and their baggage. I gave the dad 175lbs, the mom 115lbs and the daughter was 75lbs. Their baggage was only 35lbs. We took off from the ship and circled north around the key to find the yacht. The captain was nice enough to stop for us but apparently ignored my suggestion to turn into the wind. It was a 10kt breeze so even though I approached slightly crosswind it didn't push me around too much and wasn't a real issue. What I did find surprising however was that coming in to land I was having a much more difficult time keeping the helicopter stable on my approach. It wanted to oscillate back and forth a lot, since the center of gravity had shifted further to the rear with my passengers and baggage. Still, after a bit of hovering and nudging around I finally found the edge of the pad and then scraped my skids along to the center to let people out.

    Once my passengers were offloaded I went and removed their weight from the Fuel and Payload screen, took off an made the short hop back to the airport, completing a nice circle around the key. Coming in to land at the airport was exactly like landing on the cruise ship - back to the loadout of just me the helicopter was really stable and I made a smooth approach and landing with no need to hover and futz around. I'm really annoyed now I didn't remember to change the loadout the other two times I simulated passengers, the difference is very noticeable! I've always read about how important it is to properly load an aircraft but I've never really experienced it like this before. I'll have to make sure to always remember from now on - I will actually make it a checklist item for pre-flight and takeoff in the helicopters and pre-flight in the aircraft.

  11. Gaiiden

    Fair Weather Flying

    By Gaiiden,

    Yea so it's been a while since I've gone on a planned flight - and even this flight I'm blogging now actually took place back on October 22nd! Besides my airport scenery development I've also been busy getting started as an AVSIM staff reviewer - I've already written two reviews and will be working on a third this month. Also at the time I was rather frustrated after not completing the entire flight I had planned out and that put me off blogging it right away. Then the rest of life caught me up in a whirlwind that still hasn't quite set me back down.


    I guess this flight was doomed from the start when I began planning it at like 2 in the morning. It was so long since I had planned a flight that I was forgetting things that needed to be done - my memory retention has never been all that great. So that slowed the process and to make things worse SkyVector decided to stop loading charts on me before I could complete my planning. Then I added to the problem by deciding not to sleep since it was by now after 4am and just get set to takeoff with the dawn and fly all morning/afternoon and then crash the rest of the day.
     
    Here's the full flight plan.
     
    Leg 1: KBLM - KFWN
     
    I started out in the Bonanza V35B out of Monmouth Executive, where it was parked last. Once airborne I had a simple VOR route plotted that would take me within spitting distance of Sussex. Weather was calm and clear and the VOR beacons came through strong and steady. I realize now that I completely forgot to tune into their Morse frequencies and identify that I was setting course towards the proper beacon - luckily that wasn't an issue this time around (I have caught myself in earlier occasions of being tuned to the wrong VOR!). I did let my attention drift every now and then (sleepiness probably didn't help) so I was banking left and right to get the course needle back to center, and of course thanks to the tip tanks keeping the wings level wasn't made any easier. I probably should have topped them off before departing KBLM but didn't bother.
     
    I pulled int KFWN airspace right on target and flew the pattern around the airfield, lining up perfectly with the runway as I rolled out of my base turn to final. Sussex doesn't have much useable runway left for landings these days - my theory is that to save money on repairs they've simply moved the displaced thresholds further and further towards the runway center. Anyways it's best to land a bit fast in the V35B, so I touched down around 60kts and immediately had to stand on the brakes to come to a stop with just enough room to taxi off at the end of the runway.
     
    Leg 2: KFWN - 1N7
     
    Once I parked, shut down and saved the new location of the V35B I loaded up the American Aerolites Falcon, which was an aircraft I had recently reviewed. It's a nifty little ultralight and I was going to make a short hop with it down the Delaware River to Blairstown - since the Falcon can only go around 55kts for a normal cruising speed. The falcon is a stick and throttle aircraft so I had to reconfigure my hardware setup a bit to get ready to fly, including some axis and button assignment changes as well. By the time I got off the ground the sun was fully up over the horizon.
     
    The flight down the Delaware and to 1N7 was largely uneventful. I found the river okay and followed it down to the Water Gap, at which point I turned off the engine and glided down through the gap, enjoying the wind rushing past me before kicking the engine back on again near the ground and continuing to power towards 1N7. This I found through dead reckoning and flew the pattern down to land and taxi to a parking location. In doing so I ended up "below ground" and realized I would need to add a flatten polygon to this airport scenery when I revisit it sometime in the future.
     
    Leg 3 Fail
     
    Next it was time to load up a freeware aircraft in my library I hadn't tried yet, a Cirrus SR20. It looked good at first glance, enough for me to want to try it, but ultimately proved to be less than adequate for my demanding sim realism needs. The controls, especially the radios, were hard to read and see, and every time you so much as tapped the brakes the whole nose would dip down like 2 feet as if you slammed on them instead. It was so bad that when I used the pushback function to move the aircraft backwards out of a parking space, when I stopped the craft tipped back onto its tail and stood there! I had to power up, start moving and tap the brakes to drop the nose back down. To add to my frustration I had forgot I had set my yoke/throttle null zones extremely wide to prevent dual inputs from being sent to the sim when I was using my joystick to control the AA Falcon while the yoke was still plugged in. So I didn't have enough power, yoke control to take off when I rolled down the runway the first time.
     
    Finally, after making it into the air clouds had moved in to prevent me from climbing to 8000' like I had planned. Rather than go around I decided to go over - but at around 12,000' I started losing climb performance and only then discovered that apparently this aircraft has an adjustable propeller pitch but couldn't see a control in the cockpit for it. Regardless, I was beginning to get seriously tired and annoyed in general so I just shut down the sim right then and there, and went to bed.
     
    Hopefully my next outing will be a bit more enjoyable overall Hopefully it will be sometime soon as well... heh
     
    Originally posted to my personal blog
  12. Gaiiden

    FedEx Delivery

    By Gaiiden,

    Was looking for more things to do around the Buffalo/Niagara areas and realized that one of the airports that was done for the photoscenery was actually owned by the Eurocopter company (CNJ3). I had the Nemeth Designs Eurocopter AS-355 Ecureuil II in my library from a sale on PCAviator that I had only used for my HeliTraffic NYC flights. Looking on OZx for repaints for the chopper I came across a fictional FedEx paint. I checked for flights out of KBUF and sure enough there were FedEx cargo planes. So I created the fictional story of FedEx wanting delivery of a chopper to their KBUF hub so they could handle last-minute deliveries to the airport or make fast deliveries from the airport.



    I spent some time last week getting familiar with the systems and procedures for the AS-355 and already had a flight saved with the helicopter shut down. But when I loaded up the flight all the controls were reset to their "on" positions and I had to turn everything off again to go through the engine start checklist properly. Only problem was that I couldn't get the engines to actually start. So I ended up having to reload the flight to turn everything back on (except the engines) slew up a few hundred feet and disable slew so FSX would make the engines run, then slew back to the ground. With the engines running and the collective as low as it went the helicopter still wanted to rotate on the pad. After I lifted off and started flying around I found that the thing was extremely sensitive - being used to a more docile Bell I was having a hard time not over-correcting for just about everything. The chopper has an autopilot and trim controls for all pitch axis but I couldn't find a good way to use them without the mouse on the 3D panel. Also during the flight I had this weird issue of the cockpit not rendering the outside world and just showing me black all around. It cleared up after a few minutes but I'd never seen this before.



    Coming in to land at KBUF I made the initial approach from spot view because my cockpit view was still nonfunctional. When I started having trouble I switched back into cockpit view and found it working again - but it didn't really help. The chopper is so damn nimble and my joystick sensitivity is set so high I could barely control it down to a hover over the pad. I finally said screw it, toggled slew mode and put it on the pad that way for some nice closing screenshots. Not proud of myself for having to do that but if I had crashed things probably would have been broken. I think I need to do a lot more research into the aircraft's capabilities with FSX, but honestly I'm more than happy to stick with just the Bell 206/222 for now. It made for a nice role playing flight, but the AS-355 can remain an AI craft with my HeliTraffic flights for the foreseeable future, until I have the time and patience to properly grok all its systems and flight characteristics.
  13. Gaiiden

    Fixed Wing and Rotor Wing

    By Gaiiden,

    So today I decided not to wait for good weather to fly and just go out in whatever conditions presented. Turned out that things were a bit crummy around where I was flying, but not horribly so. I began at Martha's Vinyard (KMVY), where I last flew this past weekend. Such a beautiful place - will definitely be back someday. I always meant for KMVY to be a stop-over in the flight to Boston, so I decided to continue on to Logan International (KBOS). Ultimately, I wanted to fly a Jet Ranger around the city. Upon researching though, I found here are no helicopter operations out of KBOS, so I then hunted down a regional airport in the area and found Norwood Memorial (KOWD), which is about 13nm south west of Boston.
     
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    I filed an IFR flight plan with Providence Departure so I wouldn't have to worry about conditions when I got there. Departure instructed me to climb out at runway heading and make for 4,000 feet. According to the weather report I was reading from the airport weather station, that would put me right in the clouds. Sweet! I've always been under the puffy whiteness, and now I get to go through it. Getting clearance from Vinyard tower, I took off on Runway 24 and Departure guided me out then handed me over to Providence Approach, which then handed me to Cape Approach which then handed me to Boston Approach. Along the way I was up and through the clouds, relying more on instruments than I have so far, but I never neglected my instrument study while flying VFR all this time so I had no troubles staying on course. Descending through the clouds to approach Norwood the ride got bumpy, and I came out under the clouds to rainy overcast, but things managed to clear up several miles later when I hit the airport and I was able to make a visual approach to Runway 10.
     
    I immediately hopped into the Bell Jet Ranger after I had parked and secured the Cessna, marveling at the wonderful view I had from the cockpit. Seriously, the floor viewports made a huge difference even when taking off. After flying the nimble Robinson around, the heavier Jet Ranger felt relatively slow, but it was still a very responsive craft. I could twitch the joystick and see it lean or dip. Also, it required more of a hand on the stick to maintain forward flight. With the Robinson I could tilt it over to start moving forward, and then centering the stick it would stay like that - with the Jet Ranger though centering the stick immediately causes the nose to come back up - and even over if you're not careful. Everything else about flying the Jet Ranger was the same as the Robinson though, so it didn't take me long to get into stable flight maintaining an altitude.
     
    Looking at the Boston Heli Chart, I decided to loop around Boston using Route Quarry (QUARE) and then returning along Route Fenway (FENWA). Traveling up Quarry was no trouble at all, as Interstate 93 was a prominent road feature on the ground. Approaching the city I buzzed downtown and then turned west to look for Fenway, which was a rail road line heading south. I found what I thought was the railroad and banked over hard left to follow... and didn't realize something very important - I can't fly this craft exactly like a Robinson. The key difference between the two is that the Robinson's engine is located low and to the rear of the craft, whereas the Jet Ranger has a huge turbine engine high up amidship. The top-heavyness means if you bank too far you can flip the chopper easily. And that's what I did - right into the Charles River.
     
    I restarted the flight back at Norwood and this time completed the loop as I originally planned, following the railroad tracks after passing Fenway Park to get back to the airport. Landing, I put her down on the first try. Seriously, I love the floor windows soooo much. I hopped right back into the Cessna and after checking conditions along the route home decided to stay VFR, although I plotted my course VOR to VOR so I would be navigating by instruments. As I was completing my pre flight and setting all my radios, I heard an engine noise. Since my engine was still off I figured a plane was taxiing by. Turning to look, I see a Piper Cub come trundling past... right into the tail of my plane. *sigh* So I had to reset and tune my radios all over again, then when I moved to taxi out I realized I had forgotten to ask for clearance from Ground. So I stopped, radioed Ground to get taxi clearance, but when I started up again I crashed into another plane that the AI traffic had injected into my vacant parking spot! ARRRGH!!
     
    I finally made it in the air on the third try, although I set the sim to Slew mode while I prepped so that any aircraft passing by me would also pass through me and thus leave me in peace. To mix things up a bit I decided to climb to 10,000 feet to be above the clouds again. It took about an hour for me to reach 10,000 feet, mainly because I had to zig and zag a bit to avoid the clouds and climb through the clear patches. I finally leveled off at 10,000 feet (brrrrr it was like 27 degrees Fahrenheit up there!!) and realized I was at full throttle going about 80 knots. #####? Then I realized I needed to alter the pitch of my propeller blades to bite more air because it was thinner up here. So I reached for the prop pitch control and... wait... where is it?
     
    I didn't have one
     
    So, with a fixed propeller it was pretty useless cruising at an altitude that kept me at 80 knots, so I descended down, going all the way to 2,500 to stay under some scattered clouds at 3,000 feet. There I was able to cruise around 115 knots. Much better! Besides getting knocked around a bit by some pretty hefty wind gusts along the way from Massachusetts to New Jersey, the trip was largely uneventful, although it was good practice for my radio navigation skills, which I hadn't used in a while. The weather stayed great all the way into KBLM, where I landed on Runway 32 and taxied to the ramp to shut down for the day.
     
    I must say flying the Cessna 172 has been fun, but I'm ready for something new. Not too new or too fast, I still like poking along slow so I can have extra time to do things - until I get used to procedures a lot more I will continue to fly things that don't go very fast. So to upgrade I'm sticking with the Cessna but going with a newer model - a C182 Skylane II RG. Unless something better comes along between now and tomorrow.
  14. Gaiiden

    FSX Heli Traffic

    By Gaiiden,

    Manhattan Heli Traffic Information Page

     

    I spent a week learning how to utilize the payware FSX add-on
    Heli Traffic 2009, which I felt was a bit pricey at first but now feel it was money well spent. Beyond figuring out how to use the add-on itself was the challenge of creating my own schedules for aircraft to fly. Rather than letting the add-on generate random traffic that would flit about directly from one pad to another I decided it was much better to have the aircraft follow real routes and flight rules. At first I used the in-game method of creating schedules which the manual leads you through – you slew the aircraft to a point in space and add a waypoint to the schedule through the add-on interface. This is great and easy for a single schedule, but how to keep track of where they are all going so you don’t have mid-air collisions? And not just with other aircraft but skyscrapers too.

     

    So I looked at the Heli Traffic 2009 files that contained the schedule data and they are in XML format, which is very easy to edit by hand and very easy to decipher as well. Lat/lon coordinates in decimal format gave the location of the waypoint followed by the height in meters the aircraft should be above sea level (not ground level) when it reaches that point. Easy.


     

    So first I used the SkyVector
    NYC helicopter sectional charts and right-clicked to add GPS waypoints to my flight plan along the routes I wanted the aircraft to fly. This gave me coordinates in degrees, minutes, seconds and I needed to convert that to decimal format. At first I tried looking up an online converter but they all wanted me to plug in the three values separately and not a simple copy/paste of the whole lat/lon pair. So I simply turned to Google Maps, which turned out to be better in the long run as it let me visually check multiple routes at a time. I pasted the degree, minute, second coordinates into the GMaps search box and it would give me the location in decimal format. By creating my own map, I was able to easily save the location to the map as a pin. Then I copied the decimal lat/lon and saved it in the pin’s description box and titled the pin with a waypoint number and height (in feet). Once I had all the waypoints in I drew a line connecting them.

     

    Here are the three Google Maps I created with all the routes:
    Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

     

    If you open them all in the same window you should be able to overlay all three together as I can. Still, it was annoying to find that after a certain number of pins/lines GMaps would paginate the markers so only one page would render at a time, hence splitting them up into three separate maps so I could see them all at once. By creating waypoints near other waypoints it was easy to make sure one aircraft stayed above/beside another. Still it was hard to visualize in just 2D so next I loaded up Google Earth and imported the GMap KML files. That gave me the same as GMaps. I then had to hand-edit the KML files to add altitude data (in meters) to the lines, as the KML file was also an XML schema.


     

    Once I had all the routes’ elevations plugged in (thank you Google for the conversions) I made a few tweaks in areas where I noticed lines intersecting, but surprisingly I managed to do a good job with just the GMaps plotting, though it was definitely harder within the city. Fortunately once I had the lines in Earth and the 3D buildings layer toggled I could use the mouse cursor to place it atop a building and get the height of the building to know the elevation needed to fly over it if needed.


     

    Now it was finally back to the Heli Traffic files to create all the routes. This involved nothing but lots and lots of copying and pasting. First copy paste the general schedule layout, then add the proper number of waypoints, then copy in the coordinates for each and the height for each. I know from experience in programming how horribly easy it is to screw things up when you copy/paste so hopefully I didn’t make too many errors – although I caught myself a few times.


     

    Now that I have a better idea of what’s involved with getting a whole bunch of schedules working together I’ll be looking at a way to automate more of this process of converting KML data to the XML format used by Heli Traffic.


  15. Gaiiden
    Given that I'm about to install FSX on a clean computer for like the 4th time and still don't entirely remember all the stuff I've done with it over the years I decided to create a log here to chronicle all the additions and tweaks I make so that next time a clean build is required I can just follow the steps rather than trying to remember what to install/tweak next. It's also a way for others to get ideas for tweaking their system and FSX products as well.
     
    Things to Back Up on Main Drive
    Ultimate Traffic 2 databases - primarily ones I've created
    Standards.XML
    FSX.cfg
    Flight Simulator X Files folder
    ENB mods
    Saitek device profiles
    FSWC profiles

    Initial install procedures and additional tweaking taken from NickN's all-encompassing guide
    Additional information used for tweaking gotten from the AVSIM FSX Hardware & Software Guide
     
    Uninstall Note: FSX Acceleration is installed on top of the default FSX install and only one at a time will show in the Programs and Features window. So after uninstalling Acceleration go back and then you can uninstall FSX
     
    4/10/14 - FSX Deluxe Edition installed
    Program run after install to create folders

    4/10/14 - FSX Acceleration Pack installed
    Program run after install to activate, update settings, create new folders
    My Documents/Flight Simulator X Files replaced with backup
    Standard.XML control file replaced with backup
    ai_player.dll modified for AI timeout extension - do not replace with backup from previous install
    fsx.cfg replaced with backup
    ENB series replaced from backup (using John Venema's settings - set EnableBloom=0 under [Effect])
    Use these settings for good image quality/performance

    4/10/14 - ORBX BOB installed
    Required for my default scenery design flight scenario

    4/10/14 - FSUIPC installed
    Make sure to register at end of install - license key in email

    4/10/14 - Confirmed the Windows Aero framerate tweak still works
    However there is a slight issue with the Autohotkey fullscreen method that requires a certain procedure to make it work properly

    4/10/14 - Converted system to DX10 preview mode
    Disabled ENB
    Restored FSWC shaders to default
    Set D3D10=1 under [GRAPHICS] in fsx.cfg
    Installed DirectX 10 fixer
    Setup graphics according to this guide
    Re-installed REX texture set with DX10 optimization settings checked
    Installed FSWC Lite to set DX10 water shaders
    Deepened color of inland water/ocean textures in REX
    Further DX10 guides (in About Me section of profile in signature)
    AI traffic lights appear/disappear in distance - no fix yet

    4/10/14 - Real Environment Extreme Essentials+ Overdrive installed
    Installed REX Auto Updater, updated to latest version
    Restored settings
    Initial texture install

    4/10/14 – Installed REX4 Texture Direct HD
    Service pack 1 installed

    4/12/14 - Shade installed
     
    4/12/14 - Soundstream installed
     
    4/12/14 - A2A Accu-Feel installed
    Upgraded to 2.0
    Disabled turbulence modeling

    4/12/14 - Ultimate Traffic 2 (SP2) installed
    Greater general aviation database applied
    Summer/Fall 2013 schedule applied
    2013 time zone update applied

    4/12/14 - A2A ShockWave Lights installed
    Updated to 1.2
    Default C172 modified to add taxi light and remove beacon flash from cockpit view:
    light.4 = 1, -20.51, 0.00, 6.20, fx_shockwave_beaconh_lowl
    light.7 = 6, -1.45, -9.1, 2.6, fx_shockwave_landing_light_narrow_down_22
    Add shockwave strobes to UT2

    4/12/14 - Tweaked Maule and Cub turn radii
    For tighter turns in Maule AI aircraft overwrite in aircraft.cfg [contact_points] with this:
    point.0 = 1, -8.0, 0.00, -3.5, 1500, 0, 0.36, 350.0, 0.3, 2.5, 0.7, 0.0, 0.0, 0
    For tighter turns in Piper Cub AI aircraft overwrite in aircraft.cfg [contact_points] with this:
    point.0=1, -6.00, 0.0, -3.6, 1800, 0, 0.238, 350.0, 0.300, 2.5, 0.40, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0

    4/12/14 - Installed FS Global Ultimate The Americas
     
    4/16/14 - Re-implemented some stuff from Install #3
    Flusifix tweaks
    HD Moon
    Edit Voicepack
    Touchdown effects
    Environmental Reflection X

    4/16/14 - Installed Carenado Cessna SkyMaster 337H
    Service pack installed
    aircraft.cfg modified to allow ATC to callout aircraft type/model - "atc_type=Cessna" and "atc_model=C337" (under [General] section)
    Need to add atc_id to any fltsim profiles used
    Shockwave light settings

    Previous Install #3
     
     
     
    Previous Install #2
     
     
     
    Previous Install #1
     
     
  16. Gaiiden

    H43 to KFRG

    By Gaiiden,

    Although the winds were pretty rough today, I decided it was otherwise to beautiful to past up a chance to get some flight time in. Thanks to a Nor'easter that just passed through the previous day, winds were pretty wicked - we're receiving gusts of up to 40mph - sometimes even 50! I'm looking out my window right now and watching trees bending over when the stronger gusts rip through. Even without the gusts we're still talking sustained winds of around 15-20mph out of the northwest. So there was a little trepidation in deciding to fly today, I wasn't sure if the conditions would put me into a building or something.
     
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    So I hopped into the Bell I had left parked at Haverstraw (H43) and fired her up. Even just sitting on the pad I could see the wind's effect as I was pushed ever so slightly to the right. The helicopter acts like a wind vane basically, so my nose will always want to turn into the wind. On takeoff I was immediately counteracting the wind effects to make sure I didn't drift into any trees. Soon though I was clear and over the river heading south. It really wasn't that bad. I leveled off at 1,000 feet and every so often I would get pushed around a little bit, but it was just gusty, it wasn't turbulent. So I would be shoved aside a bit but never really had to fight to maintain my altitude or anything like that.
     
    It was like this the whole trip down to Manhattan - as I approached the city the gusts started getting a bit stronger it felt like, but still only occasionally. When I crossed the river to land at West 30th St (KJRA) I made sure to turn into the wind as much as possible as I made my approach. There was a bit of futzing around in my hover as usual, but I eventually set down between two pads. Not the best positioning, but at least I didn't compress my landing skids. I considered hitting KJRB next, but realized a better approach would be to travel back up the Hudson a little ways and cross over Central Park to head down the East River for an easy approach to 6n5. I made a great approach and landing at 6N5, zooming down the East River and descending and rotating to face into the wind just off the pad over the water. I didn't sink below the dock level and instead held my hover and nudged over the pad and set her down facing the dreaded elevated highway. At no point during the approach did I feel like I was about to ram it. I'm also getting a better feel for how close I can approach things when viewed from the cockpit.
     
    Departing 6N5, it was a short flight to the Downtown Heliport of KJRB. Another spot-on landing and I was looping south of Governor's Island to head up the East River and try a new route out to KFRG. Referencing the NY Heli chart, I was planning to take Williamsburg to Track, which would then put me on Meadowbrook for a short time and the transition to Republic. Willamsburg is easy since you're starting from a prominent bridge landmark and heading towards another visible landmark, the Ridgewood Reservoir. But then I got a little lost trying to pick out the railroad tracks I would follow. I circled and hovered a bit before finally picking them out, although not before mistaking Aqueduct Racetrack for Belmont Racetrack and following the wrong train tracks for a little bit. Once established on the proper route though it was easy, and I had already flown Meadowbrook and Republic before so once I spotted the Nassau Colosseum I was home free.
     
    Another thing that definitely helped was that I spent several hours earlier this week further tweaking FSX to boost my framerates to the point where I was getting 11-15FPS anywhere around Manhattan. This is very important because it is near impossible to fly the helicopter at less than 10-12 FPS. While I got a slight boost from overclocking my graphics card, overclocking my processor didn't really do squat. Still, cruising around areas without the huge mass of scenery Manhattan puts out, I now have silky-smooth 30FPS. I'd probably drop back down to ~15FPS if I enabled autogen scenery, but I'm content to leave it off.
     
    So I'm back at Republic. I guess I'll be taking the Cessna out again next time, maybe hit some of the small fields I've been remaking to properly align with the satellite ground textures. I have a few more up now on the AVSIM file library - if you're using MegaScenery Earth you should be using these scenery files too!!
  17. Gaiiden

    KBLM to KMMU

    By Gaiiden,

    Such beautiful weather this evening, couldn't resist seeing the sun setting from the air. I also wanted to take the Jet Ranger into Manhattan tomorrow, so I had to get back to an airport that gave me access to helicopter services. I originally planned to head back to Teterboro (KTEB) but I realized that another airport in the area, Morristown Municipal (KMMU) also offered heli services. I also wanted to get in some more traffic pattern practice so I plotted my route to KMMU along two small airstrips - Old Bridge (3N6) and Central Jersey Regional (47N).
     
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    I know I said I was going to buy a new plane - and I did do a lot of looking around the market. I researched the Cessna 182 a bit more and realized it was more of a step back than a step forward in terms of aircraft capabilities. I would really like a plane that challenges me in new ways. I almost bought the Beech Bonanza instead, but then I caught sight of the V-tail version in the "coming soon" section of Carenado's site. Given that it was next in line to be released (at least, that's how it appeared since all entries below it were released in chronological order leading up to those images) I decided to hold off and wait - hopefully it's an HD version of the craft as well.
     
    So it was back in the good ol' trusty Cessna 172S for this flight - no complaints. No troubles running through preflight and departing from KBLM straight out from Runway 32. From there I intercepted Route 18 and followed it to the north until I spotted the beacon for Old Bridge, then set myself up to enter upwind at a 45° angle and fly the left pattern down to Runway 06. I ended up turning short on final and below the glide path, but overall a decent pattern. I landed and came to a full stop, taxiing off the runway since Old Bridge does not allow touch and gos. Whether they allow transient craft to just land, taxi around and take off again I dunno, but I didn't do a touch and go. So there.
     
    So I departed along the same runway I came in on after taxiing back down its length. Next stop was Central Jersey Regional, which I found by flying north out of Old Bridge to the Raritan River and then followed it until I spotted the beacon for 47N. Then, as I was setting up to enter the pattern, I lost sight of the airport and thought it was a beacon way off to my rear port side - so I banked to the runway downwind heading of 25 and found myself lined up with 47N! Turns out I had seen the beacon for Princetown (39N) - I knew it was too far away yet after losing sight of 47N that was all I had seen. So I quick banked back to the right for the crosswing leg to Runway 07 and flew a pretty perfect left pattern - downwind and then base and then final, without having to make a big sweeping turn from downwind to final to line up with the runway and skip base. 47N did allow touch and gos so I set her down and pushed the throttle back open to take her out again.
     
    As soon as I was climbing back out I tuned to Morristown ATIS to get the latest weather info and then Morristown Tower to request landing clearance. They directed me to enter downwind for Runway 23. I climbed to 2,000 feet to make sure I got a good view of the area because I had no visible landmarks to follow to the airport besides a heading once I left 47N. KMMU is a bigger airport than the single strips I was using for pattern practice though, so I spotted it with no problem and descended to enter the pattern. Everything was going fine until I made another visual error - mistaking the threshold of Runway31 as Runway 23, due to the skewed perspective of being up in the air and the way the night lighting plays tricks on your eyes. So I turned towards it for final but realized my error and S-curved back into the proper pattern. I then turned base and then final on the proper runway. As with 47N, I kept my approach high  to avoid any unseen obstacles in the darkness. Still, I managed to bring her down steep enough to still hit the touchdown marks and not break my undercarriage.
     
    Taxiing to the ramp was a bit of an issue though - I had some custom scenery installed for the airport and for some reason all the taxi signs were gone! I had the airport diagram open so I knew the taxi path I needed to take, but with no signs pointing out where the paths intersected it was very hard to see in the dark. Yes there was lighting but unless you're traveling on that taxiway you can't tell what lights belong to what. I'll need to fix that, but in the meantime I made it to my parking area, found a tie down spot and shut down.
     
    Tomorrow (or sometime later this week) I'll be taking the Jet Ranger into NYC.
  18. Gaiiden

    KBLM to KWWD

    By Gaiiden,

    It was cloudy, dreary and rainy outside today, but the best thing about a flight simulator is that you can choose to ignore the real weather if you want to. Certainly you can set FSX to pull down and then update current meteorological conditions, but then who wants to fly in rainy weather when they don’t have to? So after setting up a trusty Cessna 172 trainer (in yellow!) with my tail number N727DS, I changed the weather to fair conditions – no wind, partly cloudy skies, >20mi visibility. Well, where’s the fun in that?? But this trip I’m not out to battle against the forces of nature, but to take a nice leisurely VFR cruise down the Jersey Shore.

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    So I filed the flight plan in FSX, allowing it to chart me out VOR waypoints that would vector me from Monmouth Executive airport (KBLM) down to Cape May County Airport (KWWD). But I don’t have my instrument rating yet and even if I do have rudimentary knowledge of VOR navigation from previous FSX flight lessons and experience, this isn’t an instrument flight. But it at least let me get an idea of how long the trip would take and how much fuel I would burn. I effectively doubled both figures since I knew I was taking a roundabout course down the shoreline.

    After going through the pre-flight checklist and doing an exterior check of control surfaces I turned over the engine and taxiied off the apron, radioing to local traffic my intent to take off from Runway 14 departing to the South. Airspace was clear in the area, so I was able to taxi straight on to the runway and take off immediately. After climbing to my cruise altitude of 2,500ft, I contacted McGuire to get on their radar and find out if there was any traffic in my area. I freaked the controller out because I hadn’t finished trimming for cruise and ended up ascending to 2,800ft without realizing it, and a Mooney Bravo buzzed by me relatively close, so she was screaming at me to eyeball the traffic that was right on top of me. That’s what I get for spending too much time looking out the windows.

    The rest of the flight was uneventful. I stuck to the coast and flew over Atlantic City, Ocean City and Wildwood before finally circling around the very tip of New Jersey at Cape May. The sun was just kissing the horizon and I had to make it to ground before it got too dark and I broke VFR rules. Tuning into Cape May traffic, I announce position and intent to land on Runway 1. Getting no response and checking around to make sure there was no traffic, I took her straight in, picking up the PAPI glidepath and touching down just left of the centerline. Taxiing off and announcing clear of runway, I pulled onto the nearest apron and parked, shutting down.

    Great cruise, and gave me a chance to check out some more of the MegaEarth scenery I bought for the NJ region. Excellent VFR quality (as you will see in the gallery), I look forward to continuing my tour – I think my next hop will be across the Delaware Bay to the Middletown area over there.
  19. Gaiiden
    This review addendum addresses issues with KC Flight Shop's Republic RC-3 Seabee product. You can read the review of this aircraft here on AVSIM.
     
    Revised Checklist
     
    There were several things I felt were wrong or missing from the checklist included in the product so I have revised it and uploaded it to the file library here at AVSIM. This is for the kneeboard checklist only.
     
    ATC Voice Pack
     
    The aircraft is setup to identify itself as "Seabee" with its type as "Amphib" - however there are no such entries in the default FSX voice pack to allow the default ATC to actually display or say these phrases when appropriate during communications. So for example when talking to ATC or on a CTAF your pilot voice would say "taxiing to runway 02, NC1701". When contacting a Center for flight following you would also identify yourself with just the registration number and say "is type " with a blank because the voice pack has no entries for saying or displaying "Seabee Amphib".
     
    There is actually a model type in the default voice pack for "Seabee" but that would be only if you wanted to identify yourself as "Republic", so that during ATC/CTAF traffic communications you would say "taxiing to runway 02, Republic NC1701" and then you would identify yourself to a Center as "is type Republic Seabee". However then you have the problem of there being no "Republic" aircraft type in the default voice pack.
     
    I've given you both options. You can either refer to yourself as "Seabee NC1701" and "is type Seabee Amphib" or "Republic NC1701" and "is type Republic Seabee". The former will require no aircraft.cfg editing while the latter will require you change some values around after installing the voice pack to get it to work (see next section). You can download the voice pack from the AVSIM file library.
     
    Aircraft.cfg Modifications
     
    There are several changes that need to be made to correct issues with the aircraft. Before you modify your aircraft.cfg file be sure to make a copy as backup in case anything should go wrong in the process.
     
    X'd Out Performance Figures
     
    In the [General] section you'll find "xxx" for some of the performance figures. They are supposed to read "520nm" and "12,000ft".
     
    Improper Empty Weight
     
    In the [WEIGHT_AND_BALANCE] section you'll find the empty_weight parameter is wrong. Set it to 2190 to match the actual performance figure.
     
    Allow Tail Wheel Locking
     
    In the [contact_points] section add to the end under gear_system_type the line tailwheel_lock = 1 - this will allow you to now use the keystroke assignment to lock and unlock the tail wheel
     
    It has since been explained by the aircraft creator that only certain models of Seabees came with a locking, castering tail wheel or a steerable one, not both. Since this aircraft has a steerable tail wheel the real solution here is to ignore the "Lock Tail wheel" procedures in the checklists. But if you still want a lockable tail wheel then here you go.
     
    Disable Autopilot and Trim Tabs
     
    There is no autopilot in the aircraft yet it can still be accidentally activated with a keystroke if you have any assigned to AP functions. To prevent this from happening go to the [autopilot] section and change the autopilot_available parameter to 0. The aircraft also has fixed tabs on the aileron and rudder that you should not be able to adjust during flight. To disable this, head over to the [flight_tuning] section and set the aileron_trim_effectiveness and rudder_trim_effectiveness parameters to 0.
     
    Alternate Voice Pack
     
    If you want to identify yourself as "Republic Seabee" instead of the default "Seabee Amphib" using my custom voice pack files then go to the [general] section and change the atc_type parameter to "republic" and the atc_model parameter to "seabee".
  20. Gaiiden

    KPHL to 4N1

    By Gaiiden,

    This time out I hopped into a Mooney Bravo because I had a lot of ground to cover, and the Mooney cruises at 160 kts while the Cessna 172 cruises at only 100 kts. The flight plan called for a departure from KPHL (where I arrived yesterday), then I would follow the Delaware River Northeast until I intercepted the 115° radial inbound to the Robbinsville VOR, which would let me skirt around the restricted airspace surrounding McGuire AFB. This would put me in line with KBLM, where I would enter the pattern, do a touch and go, then depart Northeast to fly over my house and out to the tip of Sandy Hook. Turning East at Sandy Hook, I would track the 110° radial inbound to the Solberg VOR, then track out on the 30° radial which points me straight at VOR Sparta. Upon hitting Sparta, I track the 90° radial outbound until I establish visual on Runway 6 at 4N1, then take it straight in for a landing.

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    Starting off at KPHL, my first impression of the Bravo was that I couldn't see over my nose very well, and this bothered me a lot initially. I jacked up the seat, which made things better, but damn that thing has a snout. The views out the side and rear quarter windows though are fantastic. Remembering how I was unable to comply with taxi instructions upon landing yesterday because I hadn't pulled up an APD beforehand, I had it all set to go this time, with a notepad and pen ready to jot down instructions. After checking out the layout of the instrument panel, setting up my NAV radios, and performing the pre-flight checklist, I contacted Ground and requested taxi for takeoff. Ironically, they tell me to taxi to Runway 8 via Delta... and that's it. It's the small runway right next to the GA parking, so I didn't even need the damn APD!

    So I taxied up to Runway 8 and held short as per my instructions from Ground. Tuning to the tower and requesting clearance, I was told to continue to hold as a C172 completed its final approach and landed. Once it was clear of the runway and got its taxi directions the tower gave me clearance for my takeoff and departure. After leaving the ground and turning upriver, my climb kept my speed below 105 ktas, which was good because I totally forgot until like 17oo feet that I needed to retract my gear! I leveled off at 2500 (for reals this time) and trimmed for level flight, setting the throttle to cruise at 160 ktas. The Bravo is definitely more responsive than the Skyhawk, which is both good and bad of course, but I like how she handles.

    I got handed off to Philly Departure who tracked me out of the airspace and then handed me back over to the general frequency. I passed Trenton and then turned to intercept my 115° radial towards KBLM. Zooming across the state I spotted the airport in the distance and, after announcing my position, started my descent and entry into the pattern, which I did somewhere between the Upwind and Crosswind legs. I meant to do a 45° entry into the Upwind but ended up a little too far up. Turning Downwind and turning Base, I announced my touch and go intentions and started to take her in. This is where the nose came back as an issue, although it was also partly because I was way below glide slope. Regardless, I couldn't see the damn runway during the last few seconds of my approach, which was scary. Even worse, I was so low I had to pull up, announce a go around and climb back out to fly the pattern again. But, it was my first attempt at landing this bird, so it wasn't too bad. My second time around was better, I was at least able to touch and go as planned.

    Heading back Northeast I circled around my home town a few times, looking for my house which I eventually spotted, then flew up the coast to the tip of Sandy Hook, where I picked up the 110° radial that would lead me to Solberg. I also contacted New York Approach for Class B airspace transition. I picked up a few bumps clearing Sandy Hook, but things smoothed out quickly and stayed calm until I hit the mountains around Sparta. At 10nm out from Sparta I slowed to 110kts and descended towards 1500 ft, though I had to level off a bit higher because of the terrain. Updrafts gave me a good buffeting here and there. I switched from NY Approach to 4N1's traffic frequency and announced my position as I set up for a straight-in approach. A minute later a Piper announced herself three miles behind me on approach, so I didn't dilly-dally and brought the bird down as quick as I could. The landing went off slightly better, but I'm still too used to seeing over my nose, and to do so in the Mooney means I'll always set myself way low on the glide path. Just need more practice - I hit the middle of the runway (not center, middle) so I was lucky it was long enough.

    Again, a few minor mistakes on this flight. Although I set my NAV radios to frequency prior to taxi, I forgot to set my OBS, so I did that prior to takeoff but after I had received clearance (when I thought about it) so that wasn't such a great idea. In addition to forgetting to put my gear up I forgot to put them down for my approach to KBLM. Luckily the plane beeps at you if you descend too low without them - but at first I misinterpreted it as the stall warning. Then I forgot and left them down when I flew the pattern the second time I also mixed up my degree settings a bit once again on the compass.

    Next flight is most likely going to take me East to Long Island to KFRG, which is the farthest East my VFR scenery goes. I'll touch and go there, fly West to Manhattan for a buzz of the city, then head back to home base - KBLM. After that it's back to the classroom for my IFR rating.
  21. Gaiiden

    KTEB to KMVY

    By Gaiiden,

    Today I took my longest flight yet - almost three hours in the air. I wanted to go to Martha's Vinyard (KMVY) because it is a destination I've flown to many times before in past iterations of Flight Simulator, but I didn't want to take just a simple direct flight there. I have VFR scenery now that extends up into Massachusetts and Rhode Island so I figured I'd check out as much of it as I could. I also hadn't been all the way out along Long Island. So I decided to fly along LI, head north to RI then northeast to the tip of Cape Cod, and then follow that back down south then southwest to Martha's Vinyard.
     
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    So next came the course plotting, of course using SkyVector - that site is so full of awesome and win. My first step was to figure out how I was going to get around NYC airspace without having to bother anyone for transit clearance. Thankfully, the Class B floor northeast of Teterboro was 1500 feet, so skirting the airspace was a simple matter of staying below 1500. After that it was simply a matter of tracing out a route I wanted and making sure there were no serious obstructions in the way (not just buildings and towers but restricted airspace) and then taking note of any further airspace I would be transiting - mainly Class C and D. I then used SkyVectors route plotter to draw the route and see how long it would be to make sure I had the range - no problem at 273nm when the range of the Cessna 172S is rated up around 700nm (there's more to that, but I'll talk about it later). Even better than the range, the route lines told me the heading I needed to travel on. Awesome!
     
    So I climbed into my Cessna at KTEB and ran through pre-flight. I wanted to depart before dawn but the sky was already starting to light up by the time I contacted KTEB ground and requested taxi clearance, just beating out a Beechcraft. I pulled up to Runway 6 first and after holding short contacted KTEB tower and got my clearance to depart VFR to the north. No problems climbing out and leveling off at 1000 feet to stay well below the 1500 foot floor of La Guardia's Class B airspace - which actually drops to 1300 feet when you hit the Hudson River! Being so low, and not too familiar with the area from above (not helping that it was still rather dark out) I fumbled around a bit before being sure I was actually where I wanted to be.
     
    Once I made it over Long Island, KLGA's floor rose to 3000 feet, so I climbed as well, not just to get a better view but to leapfrog over the 2600 foot Class D ceiling that surrounded Republic (KFRG). After passing over KFRG's airspace I cut the throttle and dropped to 1000 feet  to scoot under Long Island Mac Arthur's (KISP) 1500 foot Class C airspace floor. If you really want to know why I went through all this trouble to avoid minor air spaces well - it made things more interesting okay?? Anyways, I ended up having to contact KISP for Class C clearance anyhow because I wanted to buzz the condo complex where some friends of mine lived and it was within the airspace of KISP that extended down to the floor. I had no problem getting clearance from KISP ATC of course, so I circled the condos and then headed out, informing KISP that I was clear of their airspace.
     
    I had one more hop to get over the 2600 foot ceiling of Gabreski (KFOK) Class D, then kept her at around 2500 feet the rest of the way out to the tip of Long Island, where I had to drop down to 2000 feet to stay below some clouds that had moved in. I considered climbing above them but they weren't scattered enough for me to slip through and I was really more interested in seeing the ground anyways.
     
    The rest of the trip out over Rhode Island and Cape Cod was largely uneventful. Got buffeted around a bit by winds as I transitioned from land to water, there were some areas where it was choppy for a few minutes, but that was about it. I was able to recognize all the points at which I would turn to the next leg of my trip, pointing down the heading indicated by SkyVector, and it worked perfectly. Several times en route I would tune into ATIS for airports as I passed by just to get a weather update. Over Cape Cod a low cloud layer snuck up on me and I literally had to cut throttle and dive to 1500 feet from 2000 to make sure I stayed out of the clouds.
     
    I contacted KMVY tower at 11nm out after listening to the latest ATIS and they instructed me to enter the pattern downwind, so I dropped to pattern altitude (1000 feet) and lined up  parallel to the runway for the downwind leg. Although I turned base at the proper time (45 degrees off the end of the runway and as I got landing clearance from ATC) I was too close laterally, so that when I rolled out onto base I was already abeam the runway. D'oh! Out of practice already. So I S-curved it into final and crabbed slightly into a light cross breeze to set her down nice and gently slightly off the center line. After clearing the runway and stopping past the hold short, I contacted ground and they directed me to my parking.
     
    Now, the fuel issue I mentioned earlier. I said the range of my craft was around 700nm - yet I landed at KMVY with half a tank of gas left after traveling a little over 1/4 of that distance. Two main reasons for this: I did a lot of climbing to hop over air spaces and I didn't fly at 12,000 feet. The Cessna tops out at around 13,000 feet, so 12,000 feet is its usual cruise altitude. Up there, the air is thinner and thus offers less resistance, which means less fuel burned. If I want to go farther, I have to go higher. Now, I did not calculate the fuel burn or anything - I just saw that the distance I was traveling was less than half the maximum range of the craft, so I guessed (and felt sure about it) I would make it no problems. Obviously this isn't a good practice but I really didn't think of how far I would be flying on this trip before I plotted it, so I didn't have time to sit down and figure out how to properly calculate fuel burn and thus trip range (I wanted that damn sunrise!). That will be my next ground school assignment.
     
    So! Here I am at Martha's Vinyard. I think I might fly up to Boston next...
  22. Gaiiden

    KWRI to KFMH

    By Gaiiden,

    I decided to go for it and plot a flight up to Massachusetts in the MV-22, there's a Coast Guard base up there on the Cape that I could justify a military flight to. While it's listed on the sectional as Cape Cod Coast Guard Air Station (KFMH), it actually services Otis Air National Guard base, so in the simulator it's called Otis ANG. I plotted a simple VOR to VOR route that took me out along Long Island before turning northeast to vector in to KFMH. Studying the weather along the route I decided that a 15,000 foot cruise altitude would be best.
     
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    As I pre-flighted and set my Nav radios, I contacted McGuire Departure to get clearance through to Otis. They cleared me to 13,000 feet along runway heading. I then tuned to Ground for my taxi instructions and held short of Runway 6. Tower cleared me for take off and I was on my way. When I switched to external spot view to take a picture I realized I had forgotten to raise my landing gear. You can tell how good I am at using a simple thing like a "checklist". Okay, guilty as charged. Then, as I passed through 10,000 feet, I noticed my airspeed indicator read 0, which meant ice had gotten into my pitot tube - so I turned the heater on and that fixed it. Switch the carb heat on too for good measure. Enroute over Sandy Hook, NJ I started flying straight into some clouds so I radioed NY Approach for permission to take it up to 17,000. They told me to go to 15,000, expecting 17,000 (which meant that my request would eventually be fully approved). So I skimmed the clouds for a bit before climbing all the way up to 17,000 - which put me right below a layer of Cirrus, but in clear air. At one point I let my attention drift and climbed to 18,000, but corrected back to 17,000 before ATC took note of it. The MV-22 cruises very nice, I didn't feel any need to use the autopilot after getting it trimmed out. The winds were gusty, which made for constant course corrections, but I don't mind being hands on so much. ATC vectored me a few times but for the most part left me alone to my own navigation. Passing over the end of Long Island they dropped me down to 5,000 feet and informed me to expect a Runway 5 visual approach. Three vectors later and I was lined up with the runway 5 miles out at 2,100 feet, which put me into a pretty steep glide slope. I aimed short of the threshold (trees made me lengthen the approach a little) and started tilting up the rotors at around 500 feet, which ballooned me up to 700 but I was ready for it and reduced throttle to keep me in a descent after the initial "bounce". Final approach brought me almost halfway down the runway but I managed to set her down intact - although I may have loosened a few bolts in the process!
     
    I have two new complaints about the MV-22 after this flight. First, the radio tuning sucks. I can select the radio stack on the MFD but my normal selector buttons on the joystick don't highlight any of the frequencies for me to change. Having to use the mouse, the +/- hotspots are stacked vertically, not horizontally. So to change a frequency I have to have the mouse cursor slightly higher or lower than the number to do so. Problem is the COM 1/2 and NAV 1/2 frequencies are stacked so close it feels like a pixel between them. So it's very difficult to decrease the frequency without instead increasing the frequency below it. Even worse when you're maneuvering and the relative head motion effect moves the panel under your cursor. So basically if you're at 110.15 and have to go to 114.05, the easiest way is just to advance .15 up through .95 and around again to .05 instead of just down a few short changes.
     
    Secondly, it appears you can't modify the payload of the aircraft. No options show up in the menu and the payload field of the loadout screen only shows 0lbs.
     
    As neat as the MV-22 is, it's really no fun unless you can put its VSTOL capabilities to good use. It's more unfortunate that it's not truly VTOL capable like a helicopter. The real thing is, so that's another thing wrong with this aircraft. We'll see if I like it any better after a flight back to McGuire.
     
    Once I taxied and parked at Otis, I hopped into a USCG Agusta helicopter to cruise around the shore of Cape Cod Bay for a while until dusk fully set in and close out VFR operations. As with my prior flight in the Agusta, the horrible resolution of the main flight display makes it annoying to fly since you can barely read the altimeter and airspeed, and your heading is only displayed on the lower flight screen's ADF dial. That's hard to read too, and you need to be looking down to see it. Otherwise still a sweet ride - put her right down on the threshold of the runway returning to Otis light as a feather - so responsive for such a large helicopter.
     
    So I also forgot to save my flight after switching off all the Agusta systems. It's a new habit I have to get into that I should have gotten into from the beginning - saving my flight at the end so I can quickly restart from my last position. I also need to get better at using checklists - it's just hard when the checklist for your aircraft is more like notes than items to follow, another small failing of the MV-22 product.
  23. Gaiiden

    KWWD to KPHL

    By Gaiiden,

    Another great flight this morning. The actual weather was, once again, not very preferable so although I used the real-world time for my flight, I simply set the weather to Fair just like last time so that I could enjoy the focus of this flight, which was the VFR scenery. Someday I’ll want to battle my way from one airport to another through a raging snowstorm or torrential thunder shower, but for now I would like to cruise easy and enjoy the scenery. All you hyper realism junkies take a hike.

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    So you may notice that I started this flight off at the airport I landed at in my last flight. I'm going to continue to do this. Despite having the power to pop up at any airport in the world and take off from there, I've decided to make things more interesting - if I want to go someplace, I have to get there by actually flying there. This serves two purposes. First, it means that I can't go very far right now, since I don't have much radio navigation experience and I'm stuck in a rather slow aircraft. But this is good, because I still have lots of scenery to explore right here in the tri-state area. Second, it helps motivate me to learn more in order to reach places I can't get to at this time. I'll need to get my Instrument Rating so I can handle longer flights in varying conditions, I'll have to get comfortable flying faster planes so I can travel farther quicker, and I'll have to gain more flying hours overall to achieve this.

    So, for today's flight I checked out the Southeastern-most limits of my current VFR scenery library in this region, which is the bottom of New Jersey and Northeastern segment of Delaware. Since I'm from Middletown, I decided it would be cool to fly over Middletown, DE. To get there, since I don't know the land anywhere well enough to fly there by sight, I had to set myself up to bounce from VOR to VOR. The flight plan to get there called for takeoff from KWWD, intercepting the 330° radial outbound from Sea Isle VOR, tracking that to KMIV, turning due West to intercept the 330º radial outbound from the Smyrna VOR, and track that until I intercepted the 30° radial inbound to the Dupont VOR. At the intersection of these last two radials is Middletown, DE.

    Once I flew over Middletown, I continued to track the Dupont VOR which brought me to KILG, where I contacted the tower and got clearance to do a touch and go on Runway 1. After the T&G I flew the pattern (thanks, Colin, for the suggestion!) and did another Runway 1 T&G before vectoring out along the Delaware River to head towards KPHL. I contacted Philly Approach to be mindful of traffic until I was closer to the airport then contacted the tower for landing instructions. They slotted me in behind a Learjet 45 and I made a direct approach to Runway 9R. Upon landing and clearing the runway, I switched over to Ground and of course received taxi instructions I couldn't even begin to remember. Thankfully FSX has a progressive taxi feature which gives me arrows to follow. On VATSIM I would have had Ground do the progressive for me, though they probably wouldn't have been happy I didn't do my homework and had an APD of the airport ready.

    Couple of minor mistakes on this flight. First, I seem to not know how to read an altimeter, and I belatedly realize (looking at the screenshots) that I was cruising at 1500 feet instead of the 2500 feet I filed in my flight plan. I did ascend to proper altitude after my final departure from KILG though. Second, I set my OBS incorrectly for the Dupont VOR and barely fixed it in time. I was supposed to track in the 30º radial, so I of course set the OBS to "30" on my NAV2 gauge. Ooops. "30" is actually 300º! I should have set it to "3", which I did just as I was intercepting the radial. Third, on my traffic pattern around KILG, I executed the base turn to final too late and rolled out to the right of the runway and was too high and had to cut throttle to idle in order to descend in time. Oh and I still taxi like a drunk driver.

    I will, however, pat myself on the back for making three successful visual approaches without the help of any glide slope indicators. Both runways I landed on (landed on one twice) didn't sport any fancy VASI or PAPI indicators, which was a first for me. I almost, almost came down short of the runway at KPHL and I'm pretty sure I was below the slope on all three approaches, but I didn't crash. I'll give myself another pat for successful use of Navaids on this flight to get me where I wanted to go.

    Next flight will be back up into Central Jersey. I'll touch and go at Trenton and then fly back out to KBLM. I might be in a different plane as well.
  24. Gaiiden

    Long Island Loop

    By Gaiiden,

    Wow, awesome flight today! It happened in two parts. First part was lifting off from KMMU to fly into the city. I got lost leaving the airport and couldn't find Route 10 to take me to Route 280 (Heli chart for reference) so I had to turn around, go back to the airport and upon flying over re-oriented myself properly. After that the flight into the city went without a problem. I hit the Hudson and turned upriver to touch down on the pad at KJRA with no problems on the first approach. Pleased, I lifted off and headed back downriver to The Lady and flew past Governer's Island to land at KJRB. Once again I smoothly decelerated and although I hit a hover early, I kept her straight and nudged her in for a landing on the pad. Next was to continue up the East River and land at 6N5, using the proper approach of coming in over the water. Well, I almost ended up in the drink but I managed to increase the throttle enough to keep me dry, then slowly crept in for a landing - this time with my entire tail boom over the tarmac! Still, I put her down hard on the skids because I felt I was drifting into the terminal again. Finally from 6N5 I flew a new route, which was Throgs to Republic - leading me to Republic Airport (KFRG) where I touched down on the tarmac since it had no helipad (but does service helicopters in real life).
     
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    After that I had to shut down and go run open workout at the gym. When I got home again I was back in the sim at KFRG. Refueled and ready to go, I decided to fly out to the tip of Long Island. Studying the heli chart for Long Island I saw my only option was to fly along the shoreline, no doubt to reduce noise over the residential areas which make up the majority of the island. So I took routes Republic and Meadowbrook to South Shore and plodded along the coast at around 110 knots cruise, low at 1500 feet since I planned to make landings at two airports along the way. The first was Brookhaven (KHWV), and although the airport in FSX didn't have a helipad (I'll have to fix that) the satellite ground textures did! So I put her down on the pad, or where one was supposed to be. From there it was back to South Shore and my next stop, which was Gabreski (KFOK) not too far away. Again, no helipads in the sim so I set her down on the tarmac and hover taxied to a parking spot. A hover taxi is moving around the airport just a few feet above the ground. Managed it pretty good. I climbed out of KFOK to 2500 feet since I didn't plan to set down again, but as I flew I continued to study the heli chart and noticed that one of the many heliports listed wasn't marked Pvt (Private). This was pretty much the only one so I decided to check it out since it was right along the shore. Turns out Southampton (87N) isn't in the sim but as with KHWV, I could see the pad in the ground textures so I set her down there. Then it was back to 2500 feet, around the tip of Long Island just as the sun was hitting the horizon, and back along Route North Shore. A few minutes into my return leg a plane flew no less than 500 feet under me - very close in aviation terms. So I tuned into NY Approach for flight following so they could notify me whenever traffic got close. I continued on without mishap until I spotted my landmark to turn over land and make for Long Island Mac Arthur (KISP). So used to not finding a helipad, I almost missed the one KISP had! But I approached slow and almost, almost descended straight onto the pad without having to futz around in a hover to orient myself over it properly. But I did have to do that - bright side is when my skids finally kissed the Earth I was dead center of the pad oriented along the H. Win!
     
    A couple of technical notes about this flight.
     
    First, long flights in a helicopter are tough without an autopilot. I mentioned previously how much attention you need to give the controls since there is no trim to hold it level, and I mean it. You can look away for a second and find yourself 200 feet higher or lower than you were previously. While I can keep my hand off the throttle, my right hand has to remain on the stick at all times, constantly adjusting pressure to keep the helicopter level. Really the single most important gauge on your control panel is the Vertical Speed Indicator, as it will tell you if you are flying level or not. You can't use your Artificial Horizon, as the helicopter's pitch adjustments are too minute to be able to tell by looking at it whether you're in level flight. The VSI needle goes up, a touch more pressure on the stick. The VSI needs sags down, ease up slightly on the stick. It's a constant adjustment.
     
    Second, turning still needs work. I can keep the turn coordinated by "stepping on the ball" properly using the rudder pedals and the turn coordinator, but it's interesting how the helicopter wants to climb so much when you bank into a turn. So I need to get better at anticipating this increase in vertical speed and dip the nose further as I roll into a turn. And it's not even that easy, because at some point in the turn I will start to lose altitude, so I need to pitch forward into the turn, but then start to level back out before the VSI needle begins to drop. Still, the entire flight I was able to stay +/- 200 feet of my target altitude like 98% of the time.
     
    Speaking of the turn slip indicator, I noticed for the first time how even in level flight with no bank you need to step on the right rudder pedal and hold it ever so slightly to counter the torque of the main rotor - and the slip indicator tells you this. Centering up the ball really makes the chopper fly straight. Luckily my rudder pedals stick very well and so I don't have to maintain constant pressure on them once I get them into position - I just have to exert pressure to move them. As you can imagine, when I vary the throttle, the slip indicator is affected as well since the amount of torque from the main rotor changes. I'm learning to better anticipate this.
     
    Finally, my throttle and pitch control are insanely better, which is the main reason I was able to make every single landing today on the first approach. Yes, when I got down to within 50 feet of the ground I usually futzed around in a hover for a good minute or so before finally setting her down, but I was able to keep the chopper slow and in control so even if I came down short of the pad I was able to increase throttle just enough to maintain altitude and work the pitch to nudge me over the pad before setting down, and in most cases setting down without bouncing back up or bumping or sliding along the ground on my skids. I can also transition to and from a hover much smoothly and better control how fast I want to move over the ground.
     
    Things'll get more interesting next time. I'm going to mix it up a lot...
  25. Gaiiden
    After my last attempt to pilot a helicopter around Manhattan ended with me in the Hudson due to an engine failure, I decided it was time to try again. That, and it was a beautiful day out and I had some time where I knew I (probably, most likely) wouldn't be interrupted. So I got everything set up and logged into VATSIM. Now, flying VFR in a helicopter doesn't really give me much of a reason to bother with VATSIM. But, along my route I would be entering within 6mi of La Guardia, which is where their Class B airspace hits the floor, which means I'm required to contact the tower even though I'm just passing through. So I was hoping KLGA tower would be staffed - it wasn't. But oh well, maybe it would be at some point during the flight.

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    So I took off from KTEB and started out much as I did last time. If you reference the Heli Chart for the NYC area, I planned to fly the same route I attempted before, which was Echo to the Hudson and then back up the Hudson after looping around The Lady to cross over at Central Park and then down the East River to land at the Downtown Manhattan Heliport on Wall Street (KJRB). Flying along, I began to get a better sense of how I was controlling the helicopter. Unlike a plane, where speed is primarily controlled by throttle, in a helicopter it's primarily controlled by the pitch. You only increase the throttle because tilting farther forward to go faster means you lose altitude. Likewise, tilting back to slow down you only have to back off the throttle to prevent from rising. It's all a bit different and takes some getting used to, especially since there's no real "cruise" mode where you can sort of sit back and let the craft fly itself. Although I can grip the stick lightly with just my fingers while flying along steady, I can't ever completely let go. The throttle is a bit more lenient since, as I said, I can control my speed and altitude with the stick alone if I need to for short periods of time while flying - but forget while maneuvering or landing/taking off.

    Coming down the Hudson I hit my first snag, which made itself apparent when I tuned to the general VFR frequency used by craft flying up or down the Hudson River. This frequency is for pilots to announce their position and intent so others know who else is out there. Unfortunately, VATSIM treats this general frequency like it does the main aviation general frequency and limits it to text-only transmissions. This is turn limits me to typing with one hand - lefty. So yea, rather awkward and requires more attention than I would like to give it. Luckily there is a hot key that lets me switch between the sim and text window so I don't have to grab the mouse to select the text window to type out my transmission. But still.

    So after looping around the Statue of Liberty and heading back up the Hudson, over Central Park and down the East River, I was ready to make my first real landing. I flew low over the heliport  to get the lay of the land, then swung back around to take her in. For all the nimbleness and responsive handling that makes the Robinson such a nice craft to fly for a beginner like myself, I noticed for the first time that, unlike the Jet Ranger, it has no viewports in the floor. This made things a bit more difficult, and I sort of just hovered around for a minute or so trying not to spin out and crash before I was finally able to bring it in line and set her down just short of the pad, but thankfully not in the water considering that this heliport is on a pier.

    Inspired by my success, I decided to open a new flight plan and partially retrace my route to go back to KTEB. This time, I chose to fly up the East River, along the Hudson River, back down the Hudson, but halfway I would turn inland to follow I-95 along Route Sierra to swing over the Meadowlands sports complex (home of Giants Stadium) before landing just north at KTEB. Along the way I passed notable landmarks like the Brooklyn Bridge and Yankee Stadium. I also spotted another helicopter flying along the East River headed for KLGA. Luckily I spotted him before we ever came close, because he never broadcasted his position over the general East River frequency - but to be fair I realized then that neither had I.

    I had a much easier time flying back to KTEB, becoming ever more familiar with how the helicopter handles in flight - banking without shearing my altitude, keeping level (obviously I'm pitched forward but I'm neither gaining or losing altitude) longer, and getting a better sense of how the throttle reacts - it's very very touchy. I can nudge it a bit in either direction and watch my vertical speed indicator shift 500 feet/min in the same direction in an instant. Landing at KTEB was a bit easier, mainly because there was no water to worry about. However I did have parked aircraft nearby. Still, I managed to set her down off center but still on the pad.

    As I powered down (again) and considered maybe making one more flight, I got a private transmission from the other helicopter pilot, who was pleased to see another chopper. We chatted a bit and I will have to shoot him an email to get some of his experiences flying helicopters on VATSIM. Again, even though we have limited interaction with ATC a lot since we fly mainly VFR, I know VATSIM controllers don't deal with helicopters a lot, so I'm interested to see what the experience is like.

    In the end, I decided I had the time (and the fuel) to make one last trip back into Manhattan, this time aiming for the West 30th St Heliport (KJRA). The other guy was also making a last flight, shuttling some passengers from KLGA over to 6N5, which was the heliport on 34th St pretty much right opposite the one I was going for. So we both knew we didn't have to watch out for one another, but I still made sure to properly announce my positions this time as I traveled back down the Hudson towards Manhattan's West Side - just in case.

    Landing at West 30th took the longest, for no other reason than I still lack the experience. I just floundered around the general area for about 2 minutes before I was finally able to get low and slow enough to bring her all the way in. I almost took out a fence with my tail rotor tho! While I'm still white-knuckling the stick as I land, it's definitely started to get easier once I make it to a certain point in the hover. The transition from flight to hover (and even vice versa to some extent) is still a touchy point for me, which is understandable given that's a highly unstable flight profile.

    Still, all in all I managed to take off and land three times without crashing, or landing so hard that I caused damage to my craft. I'm extremely pleased by this. I think the next time I take her out, I'll go around for a closer look at some of the city's many landmarks.

    I'm still working with scenery too, by the way. I recently finished modifying the custom KTEB scenery I downloaded to add some new taxiways that were built recently so it now matches the current airport diagram. I will return to KEWR to finish that up as well. It takes a lot of time tho - even when I know what I'm doing. I have a much better appreciation for scenery designers now! I'll most likely upload the improved KTEB scenery to AVSim once I get the original author's permission and have him look it over to see if I screwed anything up in the process of upgrading it.
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