Yakutat Mail Run stories

Frag Guest

I am very interested in hearing other people's experiences with this mission. I have done all the expert missions with fixed wing aircraft except for the red bull one, and I am ready to deem this as the hardest mission in FSX. Makes all the other missions seem like *pffff*....

I completed this mission on my first attempt. This is my story:

So, we taxied to the runway and took off. Shortly after takeoff, my indicated airspeed went to 0. I started looking around for the pitot heat switch while my copilot told me that I must have forgotten to turn it on back at the airport, which was stupid because I was like "Oh, really?!"

Finally found the switch, and we continued our climb to 16,000ft. Once we were well on our way, the copilot decided it would be a good time for a nap... ok. He woke up in time to hint that we were going to have an engine failure. Ok, I've had engine failures before, not in IMC, but I think I can handle it.

A little before we started to descend, the attitude indicator malfunctioned. I had a flashback to the days of doing the instrument checkride in fs2000, which I never passed because I was all over the place. Now was not a good time to mention to the copilot that I had no experience with this kind of failure since then. At least I had all these years to think about it, and I had some confidence in my abilities.

We descended in to the murky fog. My piloting skills without an attitude indicator were proving a little rusty, but at least I wasnt wildly all over the place. Then, in the turn towards the ILS, the left engine caught fire. "Oh FFS!" I was doing ok till then, but this!? This was going to be my most challenging flight ever. We got to the point where we were to descend to 1,300ft. I extended full flaps, which was a mistake that I will not do again, and overshot my altitude. With full engine power, I was hanging on for dear life just trying to keep 1,000ft and stay on localizer.

Finally intercepted the glideslope, and didn't have to hang on to my altitude, but that's not to say it was any less of a problem. I was releaved when the copilot reported runway in sight, and I made a safe landing. My reward: a stupid turkey dinner! "****! Why couldn't it be a $10 rebate?!"

The End

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Alex The Guest Guest

I don't mean to be talking myself up, but it was pretty easy comapred to what they could have done eg. complete engine cut out at 12000ft. But it was good fun and a Turkey Dinner would be pretty satisfying after going through that...

Oh, and watch out for the BEAR on the runway.

Frag Guest

The engine fire occured much lower for me. I'm sure if I tried the mission again, it would be easy, as I know now to keep my speed up.

As for the bear... it kinda got in the way of the propeller. Chopped off its head and made a nice trophy on my wall.

I didn't acually notice the bear.

787 Guest

This was a very difficult mission. Extremely turbulent the moment the wheels leave the ground. It goes smoothly until of course your attitude indicator fails. From there on ought I tried to get a rough image of my attitude using the turn coordinator and the vsi. Still difficult nonetheless but manageable. On my first try I found the easiest way to do it was to try a controlled descent below the 300 ft ceiling. That way I can use the horizon for reference. At that point all you need is the gps to guide you to the rwy. To be completely honest, the engine fire really didnt prove to be anything more than an inconvenience. You can still produce more than enough thrust with the other. Once you see the runway steer clear of the bear and you should be fine. Again this is still easier said than done.

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