Pre-Programmed Flights in FS2004

awesome! 😎

By the way.... I have to tell you that the Lockheed L10E Electra freeware by Dave Bitzer and Norman Hancock is a pretty sweet package. http://library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=sperry&CatID=root&Go=Search

They did a very nice job with it. In my recent flights with it, I was able to learn a lot more about wind correction angles because they included some good information on using the Flight Computer (and provided a working one in the software). They also include a sextant which I'll look forward to learning how to use as well. And they included a new tool that I've not seen before for checking for a wind correction ange. With it you look directly down at the ground through the instrument and can see how the ground moves under the aircraft and you are able to establish a good WCA. Pretty interesting.

I'll be interested to see how you do on the historic flights in the Vickers Vimy. I started the flight where you cross the Atlantic, beginning in Newfoundland. That thing is SO SLOW, and so hard to fly! I gave that one up after one evening's flying; I just don't have the time or patience to fight that thing for 36 hours.

Currently, I'm flying the first flight across the US. It's listed as a historic flight for the Piper Cub, although the original flight was in a Wright Biplane. I've been at it for about two weeks, only flying a few hours each week though. The trip starts at JFK (New York) and I'm currently in Ohio, headed towards Indianapolis, Indiana. I'm flying it all in real time, and when I need to take a break, I land-- no saving in mid-air.

I suspect this is going to keep me busy for a while.

Ed

see below, dual post.

👏 SpiderWings, great idea. I wish that I would've thought of that.

Guest Ed wrote:

I'll be interested to see how you do on the historic flights in the Vickers Vimy. I started the flight where you cross the Atlantic, beginning in Newfoundland. That thing is SO SLOW, and so hard to fly! I gave that one up after one evening's flying; I just don't have the time or patience to fight that thing for 36 hours.....
Ed

Ed, I have in fact flown the Vimy across the Atlantic. And I couldn't stand to fly it in real time so I was flying at 4xreal which kept me pretty busy with the stick and my eye on a cloud in the distance trying to hold the various headings that changed constantly all the way across. I didn't do too well, as you will be able to see on the map I'm adding in my next post. I hit land at the Island Mull in Scotland, 250 miles north of where I was shooting for according to the plan - Galway, Ireland.

Guest Ed wrote:

....

Currently, I'm flying the first flight across the US. It's listed as a historic flight for the Piper Cub, although the original flight was in a Wright Biplane. I've been at it for about two weeks, only flying a few hours each week though. The trip starts at JFK (New York) and I'm currently in Ohio, headed towards Indianapolis, Indiana. I'm flying it all in real time, and when I need to take a break, I land-- no saving in mid-air.

I suspect this is going to keep me busy for a while.

Ed

I have already done that crossing of the US and had a lot of fun with it. It made me master (or at least learn to manage) the Piper Cub. I now love to fly with it and might be tempted to replace the Vimy with it on the upcoming historic races to Australia and South Africa. Why o why couldnt' they have made some more historic flights in planes like the Vega, DC-3, Electra?

CRJCapt wrote:

👏 SpiderWings, great idea. I wish that I would've thought of that.

Not too late CRJCapt.... go for it and let us know of your experiences. It has been a lot of fun!

Yellow shows the pre-programmed flight/challenge. Dimmer yellow shows my flights from one such challenge to the next.

I've now got everything up to date.... to London England. I'd already done all the Kiosk (all complete now) and the historic flights on this map and had already started doing some transistion flights in the later portions. So what I've just completed was going back and catching up on the earlier transisition (connecting) flights.

Here are the new things added to the map since my last posting it.

a) 1911 first transcontental flight from New York to Los Angeles using the Piper J3-Cub (16 flights all dead reckoning)
b) Flew Boeing 737-400 to San Francisco
c) Ford Tri-motor for Kiosk flight around San Francisco, including landing on the USS Kittyhawk
d) Tri-motor from USS Kittyhawk to SF Int'l
e) Boeing 747 to Honolulu
f) Beechcraft Baron 58 to Kaua'i
g) Piper J-3 Cub for Kiosk adventure around Kaua'i
h) Beechcraft Baron 58 back to Honolulu via long route including tour of Maui and Hawaii and to fly over CRJCapt's resort on Maui
i) Boeing 747 headed for New York but due to spoilers only made it to Denver - landed on fumes and ran out on taxiway!
j) Boeing 747 rest of the way to New York City
k) Cessna 172 Skyhawk from KJFK to Farmingdale, New York
l) Ryan NYP "Spirit of St Louis" for Kiosk flight to Paris - decided to land for fuel at St. John's Newfoundland
m) Ryan NYP "Spriti of St Louis" on to Paris - missed Ireland and encountered land NW France
n) Convair B-58 Hustler to Washington, DC - flew from day into night
because of nice speed
o) 1918 first airmail flight Washington to Philidelphia - Curtiss Jenny
p) 2nd leg of same to New York City
q) 1918 mail flight from NYC to Lehighton, Pennsylvania - Curtiss Jenny
r) 2nd leg of same to Bellfonte, Pennsylvania - these were great fun and true learning experiences for old time navigation techniques
s) Beechcraft King Air 350 to St. John's Newfoundland
t) 1919 Crossing of the Atlantic in the Vickers Vimy (something I didn't know... I thought Lindbergh was the first) - missed Ireland again - to the north this time but turned south to Londonderry
u) P38 Lightning (love this a/c) to London, England

Next up? Vickers Vimy race to Australia. Ohmy.... can I do it in that slow slow hard to handle a/c? I'm tempted to fly something else and just experience the route. But I do want to experience the challenge of getting altitude in critical spots. This will probably take a while.

SpiderWings,

My hat's off to you, if you made that trans-Atlantic flight and only missed by 250 miles. Ireland's a pretty small target to hit at that distance! And even flying at 4X, that's a long flight.

Looking at your map, it looks like you had a similar plan for crossing the US in the Cub to what I'm doing-- heading south and crossing the Rockies where they're not so tall-- I figure I'll never get enough altitude out of the Cub to fly across unless I head down to El Paso, and go over there. Maybe with a proper map showing altitudes I could find a pass further north, but using the map in FS09, I don't think so.

I did the London to Melbourne race starting in the deHavilland Comet, but after the second or third time I groundlooped that crazy thing, I gave it up and went to something a bit more stable. It's been a couple of years, but I think I ended up flying a lot of it in the Beechcraft KingAir. That's just A LITTLE faster than a Vimy, too. 😉

Ed

Guest Ed wrote:

SpiderWings,

My hat's off to you, if you made that trans-Atlantic flight and only missed by 250 miles. Ireland's a pretty small target to hit at that distance! And even flying at 4X, that's a long flight.

Looking at your map, it looks like you had a similar plan for crossing the US in the Cub to what I'm doing-- heading south and crossing the Rockies where they're not so tall-- I figure I'll never get enough altitude out of the Cub to fly across unless I head down to El Paso, and go over there. Maybe with a proper map showing altitudes I could find a pass further north, but using the map in FS09, I don't think so.

I did the London to Melbourne race starting in the deHavilland Comet, but after the second or third time I groundlooped that crazy thing, I gave it up and went to something a bit more stable. It's been a couple of years, but I think I ended up flying a lot of it in the Beechcraft KingAir. That's just A LITTLE faster than a Vimy, too. 😉

Ed

Ed,

Yes... the VIMY! I just flew it from London to Lyon France and I was sure starting to think maybe I need to try something else because my computer's screen rates were terrible leaving the big city and I was having a terrible time keeping above the trees... I was dodging them (between screen jerks) as if I was trying to find a way through the mountains. But then as I got away from the city it got better. But I couldn't fly it in real time crossing the English Channel and cranked it up to 4x and then I ended up doing 2x for the rest of the flight. I guess I have to balance wanting to sense the historic experience with what my patience can deal with. So far I'm still going to keep the Vimy im guess.

As for as our mutual adventure flying the Piper Cub across the US... I only had one plan and that was to fly west and then "asking the locals where I was" when I landed.... mostly using sunrise and sunset as my main nav tools because the original guy didn't have any compass or maps along. With that in mind, I refused to look at maps for the two weeks I was on that project... but luckily I do have a fairly good memory of where things are in the western USA. But like you I knew to steer south of the Rockies.

However, I love finding my way through mountains with aircraft that make it a challenge. I do believe the Piper J-3 cub can get across in many places if you keep to the canyons and know where the lower passes are. I might someday have to try such a flight from Denver to Salt Lake.

Speeking of mountains and how they apply to my current adventure, I've just made my flight plan from Lyon, France to Pisa, Italy in the Vimy. The sim's planner shows the straight line going up over the Alps. I've picked a n alternate route a bit north of that line following the highway from Cambery to Torino. I don't know how high that pass is. There is an 11,000+ ft peak near it. I'm hoping the pass is at least 3,000 feet lower as the Vimy's ceiling is 8,000. It will also be interesting to see if I can even climb that much before getting there.

I know I should probably follow the river from Lyon to the Mediterraneon and then hug the coast to Pisa. But, I don't know what the historic guys did.... probably that but I'm going to keep as close to the flight plan line as I can.

London to Lyon in the Vickers Vimy - here's how I do my flight plan and flight logs - in word pad. It tells the story after all is done.

Not really happy with how this shows up. But with all the bold, underline and formatting it would be very difficult to copy here as text.

And here's a picture along the way.

SpiderWings,

I was looking around for information about the Piper Cub and came across this account of a trip across the US, only west to east:

http://www.pipercubforum.com/buckel.htm

There is some information about where he crossed the Rockies, and how high he needed to go. That will be useful information, if I ever get that far west. I've been flying off and on for weeks, and I'm only in Missouri! This is the slowest trip I've ever made-- yesterday I was coming in to land with a stiff headwind, and I glanced down at the GPS-- I was only making a groundspeed of 20 knots!

I need all the help I can get with this trip. I've ground-looped the Cub FOUR TIMES on this trip, due to crosswinds-- three times on landing, and once on takeoff. I set up and saved a flight to practice crosswind landings, but it's still pretty much a matter of luck. If a gust comes along, that baby is swapping ends!

Ed

the most you can do is..."hang on and hope for the best"

Hi Ed,

You are doing good if you've made it to Missouri. I hear what you are saying about crosswinds on landing. But I have to say that flying the Piper Cub across the country on that trip really taught me a lot about such things. And once I got fairly good at landing it, it became one of the most fun planes to land because you really have to have the right touch.

On my cross country trip, I spent quite a while and many attempts to land at Moriarty, New Mexico. The single runway is 9-27 and I had a 15knot crosswind out of 38*. I tried it from both ends of the runway and that wind was just too much of an angle. I finally gave up on the runway because I needed to get down and refuel. So I just swung out away from the direction of the wind then came back directly into the wind, ignoring the runway and landed on the tarmac. I think my groundspeed when I touched down was only about 15kts so it was no probably landing it on the short piece of pavement.

all sound really interesting. Im only at the 'mastering jets' stage atm, but when I have figured them out I'll move backward in time and do the historic flights. How'll ill manage without GPS god knows but I suppose it is on of the greatest arts of good pilots.

mossy wrote:

all sound really interesting. Im only at the 'mastering jets' stage atm, but when I have figured them out I'll move backward in time and do the historic flights. How'll ill manage without GPS god knows but I suppose it is on of the greatest arts of good pilots.

Actually thats been some of the best fun, trying to find your way without one.

I've been trying to get my images uploaded to imageshack so that I can post my latest progress, but I'm having problems with it. So it is gonna be at least another day before I post.

Hi Spiderwings, just found this thread, you don't like to do anything the easy way do you? My hat also comes off to you, it's no easy task flying any of those aircraft ( i tried it in small doses and gave up). A lot of people seem to be having trouble with imageshack, i suggest trying photobucket it really is very good.

Welshflyer wrote:

Hi Spiderwings, just found this thread, you don't like to do anything the easy way do you? My hat also comes off to you, it's no easy task flying any of those aircraft ( i tried it in small doses and gave up). A lot of people seem to be having trouble with imageshack, i suggest trying photobucket it really is very good.

Actually I do like doing some things the easy way... if there is such a thing when it comes to sim-flying. But I know what you mean. Some are harder than others and I freely admit that as I'm flying that Vickers Vimy across the desert trying to find spots to keep my eye on trying to hold a heading (as the scenery updates and changes the spots) that I often ask myself why I am doing it. But then, I experience something that makes me appreciate the challenges to the early flyers or learn something new on the basic level that I didn't really appreciate before.

I have to also confess that I can't fly it at real speed. I have resorted to using double speed. That is still a slow flight and gives me a good idea how excrutiating it must have been for the real pilots who couldn't double their speed while flying from Damascus to Baghdad as I did last night - still finishing up pretty late.

Crossing the Alps between France and Italy gave me another great adventure. First of all I should have done what the original pilots must have done and flown around the south end of the mountains at the coast, but I do like a challenge... and just had to see if I could follow the highway between Lyon and Torino.

I took off from Lyon with a full tank of fuel and climbed VERY slowly as I approached the canyons up into the mountains. None of my maps showed how high the pass would be but I guessed that it might be around 8,000 feet and that would indeed be a challenge for the Vimy. And it was! As I neared the pass I realized that I wasn't even going to clear an intermediate high spot in the road. I guess I'd hoped that as I burned fuel that I might gain greater climbing ability. I was at 61% fuel and decided that I really wanted to try getting further up the canyon. So I dumped all but about 6% of my fuel - hoping that that would be enough to fly down into Torino on the other side of the mountains if I made the pass.

I did clear the high spot ahead and then the pass a bit later and finally landed at Torino with 4% fuel.

From then on, I've decided that I wouldn't carry a full load of fuel unless the distances of various legs of the trip warranted it. Instead I've been loading 100 gallons in excess of my estimated needs for each leg. That has really made a difference - especially just after take offs when previously I'd had a hard time keeping out of the tree tops.

Great thinking on the fuel dump. That must have been quite an adventure clearing that pass.

I haven't had any trouble with Image Shack for my pictures but I had to learn not to erase my cookies in my web browser. Otherwise I had to find my original registration confirmation email and click on the embeded link.

Keep us posted on more of your adventures, it's great reading.

And.... flying the Vimy sometimes gets you into some pretty interesting circumstances as it did on my landing at Damascus.

As soon as the tower cleared me for landing and I turned to base I saw the yellow letters out 7.9 miles indicating another aircraft. And just as I was wondering if it was also on approach for the same runway, I heard the tower give him clearence and to follow the other aircraft (me) on final.

This provided me with a challenge that I very much like. That is to get down and clear of the runway before getting in the other guy's way. I realized that I was about to land on a 12,000 runway with the taxiways clear down at the far end. I figured I'd keep the Vimy up until I got nearer the taxiway so that I could then quickly exit. However... I was to soon realize the difference between my own 42knots and the approach speed of a 747.

I turned to final and just after crossing the end of the runway, heard the distinct sound of jet engines followed by the voice of the tower telling the Global Airlines flight to go around. It was then that I saw a giant shadow pass over my own on the ground to my right and realized an interesting photo opportunity might be had.

Here is where I'm at to date.

Thanks for your kind words Trailnut. I do have fun and I hope that while my screenshots aren't so good because of the low settings I have to fly on with my computer, that I will find some interesting stories to tell along the way. I have had to do like you do with imageshack for logging in. I finally just copied the link from the email and put it in a word pad on my harddrive. Then I just paste it into the address bar when wanting to go there.

And Welshflyer.... I'm just now using photobucket and already find that its going much better than the other one. Thanks for the suggestion!

that's one of the more entertaining screenshots that I've seen in a long time. 😂

I've had a bunch of those

I have asked myself many times while flying the slow Vimy toward Australia why I'm doing this, and if I actually complete the trip, can I do the one from London to South Africa. And I know from several comments that most of the others at this forum find this aircraft painfully hard to deal with.

With that said, I'm anxious to tell you about my latest leg of the trip flying from Basrah, Iraq to Bandar Abass, Iran.

As in many other occassions while flying these historic flights, I was again rewarded with some very good adventures. The limitations of the Vimy made me deal with things that you don't even think of when flying a modern aircraft at altitude. This leg took me through extensive ranges of mountains and I had to do some quick problem solving to manage my way through them. This flight gave me even greater appreciation of the old time pilots!

The following image shows that I had to dump fuel in order to climb to 6050 to get out of one canyon, then had to refuel at Jahrom, then had to seek ways around other mountains.

Keep in mind that I'm not using the gps, and don't look at the sim map once the trip is begun. As you see I have made copies of the map sections prior to the trip. These allowed me to find my way by carefully following the changes in terrain and recognizing the shapes and angles of the various mountain ranges. I am sometimes tempted to look at my current coordinates and use that information to figure out where I am on the preflight map... but I've resisted that also because I didn't know if they had the means of determining there coordinates. However, today, I researched on line and found out that other historic flights in the Vimy did make use of the sextant which could determine latitude, and I'm assuming an accurate time piece, some solor observations, and some math skills could determine longitude. I may figure out how to do those things later on in this trip. But for now I will continue to resist the temptation to look at my current position in the sim map or coordinates.

The challenge to read the terrain, and/or hold a compass heading is a fun one. I again encourage others to give these historic flights a try. I am learning so much from them.

SpiderWings,

I love the screenie with the 747! You're a man after my own heart-- absolutely crazy!

Ed

yeah i like that shot too

I have gotten behind in my on-line interests due to the holidays and helping several relatives set up new computers. (Sigh) The upside is I get to use them from time to time and both have high speed connections.

As a result I've decided to include a few more screenshots in this topic. But then I think it would be more appropriate in the FS2004 Screenshots section.

So I will continue the trip from London to Australia in the Vickers Vimy there.

https://forum.flyawaysimulation.com/forum/topic/25024/recreating-fs9-default-historic-flights/

👍

Sorry to see that the images for the first part of this thread. I was just looking back to when I had a good flight simulator and a proper computer.

Fun to look over some of the past adventures of all at this web site.

I hope you are all doing well.