bernd1151

Today we are back in PNG, in Rabaul on the most eastern tip of an island called East New Britain. Our plane is the latest MSFS offering, the huge and very well executed Latécoère 631. For €10 it’s an absolute steal. This is what Wikipedia has to say about the aircraft: The Latécoère 631 was a six-engine flying boat built by the French manufacturer Latécoère in the 1940s. It was created as a result of a 1936 French government tender that called for a 40-passenger flying boat. It was intended for routes between the mother country and its colonies. The range was to be 6,000 kilometers, and the average speed was required to be 300 kilometers per hour. One prototype, now designed for up to 70 passengers, was built during the Second World War, and ten aircraft were built after the end of WWII. Due to several crashes and competition from land-based aircraft, service ended after only a few years. When it appeared, the Latécoère 631 was the largest flying boat in the world A small tugboat pulls us out of the lagoon before we start the engines Pretty impressive how the engines fire up Even the cabin is shown completely Behind the white door is the galley East New Britain is home to several volcanoes that are still active today. We are flying past one of them, the 2,334m high Ulawun. It is the highest mountain of the island Madang is directly behind us. The many small offshore islands make it difficult for our behemoth to find a suitable landing strip on the water. Best I land parallel to the tanker down there Thanks for viewing

And a DC-8 pleeease 😀😀

The first review of the Latécoère flying boat by Jonathan Beckett is quite favorable and considering it costs less than 10€, it's a definite buy for me! I just love these kind of planes 😀

Thanks a lot, my friend!

Thank you very much for your interesting comment, my friend! Tomorrow I will post another thread with a slightly better landing attempt 😀

Magnificient shots, Will. At first I thought you planned on landing on that other plane in your fourth to last shot 😃

Many thanks John, PM, Efis and Will for your comments!!

Fantastic shots, Andy. It's really amazing, how far we have come with our sim.

Cool shot ! 😄😄

This is a beautiful area on Vancouver Island, well known for its ecotourism and fishing Wow, look at this smoke belching tramp ship. Ecotourism? Maybe not here 🙂 Thanks for viewing

Cool! I assume this is FS9 with some photoscenery.

Great shots and great livery. I think the Longitude is now really well developed systemwise.

Wow, great shots, especially the first one 🙂

No Will, not really, it was the emblem of the word not allowed party that was enforced on all military vehicles, not just the Luftwaffe, but also the navy and army. Yes, it's part of the plane's historical livery, but as I don't want to have anything to do with the word not allowed party or its emblems, I won't use this symbol. But of course that's something anybody has to decide for himself. If you want to use it, of course you are free to do so.

Many thanks Jean Marc, and she flies quite well in her new environment 🙂

Many thanks, Will. I think there will be liveries with the swastika coming on the .to site, but I won't use them. Thanks, Marques, I will check whether any add-on I have for North Africa will be responsible for this. I have no specific add-on for Gibraltar installed. I'm glad you like them, buddy. Many thanks my friend, I love this kind of challenge 🙂 Many thanks for the info. The aircraft.cfg just calls it Yellow 6, it could be of the JG27, but I'm not certain. The yellow tactical markings were used in order to reduce friendly fire incidents (similar to the Allied D-Day stripes). Some painted the entire cowling forward of the windshield yellow (which I like), while others just painted the undersides of the cowling. With the entire cowling painted yellow, I once read that American pilots said to eachother: "this guy thinks he is good, so he wants to be seen by his enemies".

Many thanks, Gerold! And after having eaten the Bratwurst with a German beer I also found out, what went wrong during the landing: I had forgotten to lock the tailwheel. 🥵 I just did the flight again, with the tailwheel locked and I took off and landed on grass. Everything was fine now, this time including the landing. 😄 I don't know with the rock. When I fly with Google map installed instead of Bing, it looks more or less the same.

For some reason I always try my new plane additions around Gibraltar. So, this time it’s the Me-109 or Bf-109 Gustav. I already have the P-38 and the Spitfire Mk IX from Flying Irons Simulations and both of them I can handle by now. Ok, the good news is, I got her into the air. Not the way I wanted to, as can be seen from the picture. Luckily the runway here has lots of room on both sides and the plane was never intended to take off from anything but grass In the air she is easy on the stick, I love it Ok, now comes the hard part So far so good "Auf Wiedersehen!" What happened? I tried a gentle three-point landing, but as soon as I touched ground she swung around violently and went out of control. Oh well….I guess I need way more practice than with the Spitti. And on grass!! Somewhere I have read that due to the narrow undercarriage one third of all Bf-109 produced were not lost in combat, but during take-off and landing Thanks for viewing

Superb screenies, Will !

Top shots, buddy !

Great to see you here Jean Marc and thanks for your comment. Yeah, I wouldn't mind the roundavels either, but at my age I don't like to sleep on the floor anymore 😉

Thanks Gerold ! Me too 😉

Thanks a lot my friends for your kind comments !!

Thanks a lot for your kind comment, P_7878 and nice to see you here again!

That shot is magic !