Cannonball Run 2022 [Charity] [PRIZES]

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Since the dawn of time, mankind has been forced to compete for survival. The spirit of competition has reached a pinnacle in the MSFS endurance race community, so myself @intheblueyonder and @comiccrazy will be holding an endurance race between New York and LA, as an authorized spiritual successor to the endurance race series held by SeedyL and FactualGull in 2020 and 2021.

This race, we will be raising money for Make a Wish. Donations can be made directly to the charity, via the tracked links, and should not be made to the streamer.

Prizes will be awarded as a draw for the competitors. The higher one ranks, the greater their chance to win. The current prize pool is $200 worth of gift cards (was $100) for the XBox/MSFS store or Steam. To be eligible, you must register prior to the deadline.

Please read ALL of the rules, as they have changed from previous years.

Registration Form: https://forms.gle/uAhJ1jdC4H1kv2cF6

Official Streams:
https://twitch.tv/InTheBlueYonder
https://twitch.tv/ComicCrazy3

Donation Link:
https://donate.tiltify.com/+cannonball-run-2022/cannonball-run-2022

Discord:

Rules

  1. Full realism settings in MSFS must be enabled. In the Options Menu, “Piloting” must be set to “Hard” with the exception of “Take-off Auto Rudder” which can be on or off depending on your preference. “Aircraft Systems” and “Failure & Damage” must be set to “Hard”. All “Navigation Aids” must be turned off with the exception of “Taxi Ribbon” which can be on or off depending on your preference.
    1. The procedure for refueling is as follows: land at any airport and come to a complete stop. You can then re-fill your fuel tanks using the in-game menu along the top of the screen. You must wait a minimum of 10 minutes before taking off again for the next leg of your flight. During this 10 minute wait, you are permitted to taxi and reposition your plane, but you must remain on the ground and not exceed 50 knots. It is generally recommended to restart the simulator at these stops to limit CTDs.
  2. Live Weather and Live Time must be turned on for the entire duration of the flight.
  3. Everyone will take off form KJFK simultaneously at exactly 8AM EST, 1300Z, on Dec 26, 2022. We will be on the East USA server.
    1. Your race ends as soon as you com to a full stop landing with the parking brake on at KLAX. Your time is measured as a total number of hours and minutes elapsed since 1300Z on Dec 30, 2022, not the amount of time you spent flying. For example, if you flew for 10 hours, took an 8 hour break, then flew another 10 hours, your time would be 28 hours and not 20.
    2. You have a total of 96 hours from the race start time to complete the event.
    3. There are no default times. If you do not land at KLAX within the allotted time, you will be considered a DNF.
  4. Pilots are free to pilot their own individual flight plans. Waypoints and cruising altitudes are at each pilots discretion.
    1. NEW RULE: This race will be flown as a Scramble! At the start time, a 5-7 letter word will be drawn at random. You must land at one airport, by their ICAO code (NOT the IATA code), for each letter in the word, in any order. Each airport may only count for one letter. K is a given, as it is the prefix for USA airports. KLAX and KJFK both count. Eg, if the word was BELL, and you landed at KBE, it would only count for B or E, but not both. KLAX would count for one L and not the second.
  5. You may choose any of the default aircraft included in the Standard, Premium, and Premium Deluxe versions. No custom add-on aircraft allowed. You must chose a single engine piston aircraft. No airliners, turboprops, or multi-engine aircraft.
    1. The Beechcraft Bonanza is specifically banned as it has dramatically better performance.
    2. All planes must be flown as STOCK. No performance add-ons, or liveries.
    3. You may not switch the plane partway through the run. You must fly the same plane during the entire race.
    4. Game of the Year, and 40th anniversary planes are allowed.
    5. NEW: External software is permitted. Eg, Littlenavmap or Foreflight is explicitly allowed for navigational purposes. However, this software must NOT push commands into the sim, such as slew or fuel flow commands.
  6. Autopilot is ALLOWED, and Encouraged. Please take time for bathroom breaks and stand up.
  7. Successful landing, or touch and go, at any airport creates a “save point”. If you crash your plane, or experience a CTD, you are to start back at your last save point with the same amount of fuel you had while there.
    1. NEW RULE: If you experience a CTD or other crash, you may chose to start at the most nearby airport, no more than 10 miles more advanced along the race, or any airport behind you, no more than 100 miles north or south.
    2. If the crash is pilot induced, eg a crash landing or overstress, you MUST sit out a 20 minute wait.
    3. A CTD does not incur a penalty. This is not a test of your IT skills.
  8. All pilots on PC must track their flight with https://simair.io/ OR the GoRace Client (available on Discord). This is to validate their time, path, and refueling. Xbox or Cloud gaming pilots must provide screenshots of their in-game logbook.
  9. The deadline to register is Sunday, Dec 25, 2359Z.
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Please submit your results here:

Results thread, coming soon.

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Sounds fun.
Funny, i was just reading about the actual Cannonball standings from during the pandemic lockdown earlier today.

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Also, if anyone is so inclined, I did a video about the races last year. It’s a bit longer, but if you’re looking to win, its a must-watch.

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@intheblueyonder and @comiccrazy Thank you guys for taking on such a major organizational undertaking ..

I particularly like the new rules about not being penalized for CTDs – thank you.

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So am I understanding this correctly? New rule 7.1 supersedes the text above? I.E. No need to return to your last saved T&G any longer? So this makes the T&Gs no longer worth doing?

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So I take off at JFK, look for a route that fulfills the hangman rule, type a DTO into my GPS, hit alt hold and nav and let it fly
 come back to land, poke my finger up my nose for 10 minutes and do the same again. And all that in a default SEP at 100 kts. In all honesty, that sounds entirely boring to spend my Christmas holiday.

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Basically yes. It could still avoid a 20 minute stop if you crash into a mountain, but generally T&G are not really useful this time around. The biggest feedback we heard from previous years was that people felt pretty discouraged when they had a CTD out of their control and had to go back and do 2-3 hours of flying again. Many would just drop out from the race entirely. I personally found the rule kind of challenging and fun but many didn’t, so we’re trying a different tact this time around.

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Looking forward to this! I’m glad to see this tradition continue in some form.

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Great job guys keeping this contest alive. Had a blast last year participating with the Cirrus.

For me big part of the race was planning a good T&G stop every hour or so, just to be safe and also keep me somewhat busy. Now only refueling is really necessary so other than that it’s just 4-6 hours of sitting at a time. And even then if you crash you can pick up where you left.

Last year I crashed one time and suffered one CTD. It took me back 3-4 hours total and yeah, it sucked. But it made me plan more carefully because the stakes of not messing up were higher, like the excitement was too. These new rules kinda takes them away, at least for me.

Anyway, it is great to see this race coming back again!

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Yea, I hear ya on that. That’s why we added the Scramble rule so that there were some added constraints. We wanted to ensure people didn’t end up feeling left out if their PC crashed or they had some technical issues.

There is a good case to still require pilot error to need to go back to a save point. We will talk it over tho.

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Nice to see someone picked this up, good job Blue! I will not join, but wish you all good luck!

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Am I correct to read this as ‘other sim/system crash’? In that way the t&g’s every now and them might still be relevant to create save points. I assume that an empty tank crash is pilot induced?

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Yep! Empty tanks is pilot induced. So it’s faster to just land than run out.

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Does using the beta of the new avionics and aircraft update count as a mod for the purposes of this race?

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Yes, you’ve gotta be running the released version, no betas.

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I should have asked this at the same time. Does stuff like the WT G1000 count as a prohibited mod since they don’t improve aircraft performance or will I need to uninstall that for the day?

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Thats a great question. I think since its a fun run, we will allow that.

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Where is the word being chosen from? Is this from a specific dictionary or word list? Are we using English (UK) or English (US) spelling?

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Concerning the new scramble rule:

Does that mean if I get a 7 letter word I have to Land at 7 airports and if it’s a 5 letter word I land at 5 airports?