One of the best FS experiences ever ended with a CRASH

[V1ROTA7E]

I’ve got to hand it to the folks in the community as well as the team at Asobo. This last flight ended with me crashing due to poor decision making. Mind you, I’ve got several thousand hours of real flight time with 2000+ being in the bush. What a humbling experience!

I was testing out the Bonanza mod in the back country in Idaho with real world weather. Normally, flying in the bush, I’d pick a plane that was more up to the task, but I wanted to see how this plane could do under extreme circumstances. No particular destination in mind, just flying around admiring the scenery and short bush strips that the community has developed.

Starting off out of a short strip about 1800ft long of gravel, figured it’d be cool to try a bush takeoff. Flaps 1 notch full power, flaps full before rotation. Full stall takeoff. The field was at 2500ft AMSL and the temp was about 25. Not ideal conditions at all. The plane performed pretty well. Got airborne and continued east following the river and staying around 200-500 AGL.

After flying for 15 minutes or so down the river, figured it was time to land somewhere. On the GPS, I saw that there was a paved runway about 10 miles to the north…the only problem was there was a mountain in the way. I found cutout in the mountain, and started following it up. Full power, climbing pretty well, winds weren’t too bad, maybe 10 knots from the west…but I knew there was going to be a downdraft from the wind over the terrain at some point.

I’m climbing just a few knots above stall speed to get every bit of vertical I can without moving too fast in a forward direction. No faster than you can blink 3 times, I got hit with that downdraft. It put me right into a stall. Mind you, it wasn’t strong…If I had maybe 10 more knots of speed it would have been no problem at all, but because I was pushing the edge…

I tried to wing it over, but was too close to the ground. By the time the speed was trending up again, WHAM!!! Face first into the ground. It was insane how quickly that manageable situation just slipped away. I’ve got to say, this was probably one of the coolest experiences I’ve ever had in aviation.

Now, would I have done this in real life? Hell no. I wouldn’t try to out-climb a mountain unless I knew I definitely had the performance for it. I’d circle up or something. But the thing I really appreciated in that situation was the speed at which things got out of control and became unrecoverable.

The best thing about FS is that you can do this kind of stuff and go into the other room and make a snack, thinking “huh, that was interesting.” You can put yourselves in the most unimaginable scenarios, over and over again, fine tuning your skills. As this sim gets better, I’m looking forward to learning more without having to actually die.

[ArcanePython931]

Really love this story… I can relate… mountain in the way. let’s fly over it… I tried a few times with C172… even with Grrrravel… but it seems you never win, you go slower and slower with full throttle ! When I encounter it now… feeling like it won’t work… turn 180 degrees, escape the stall, glide away… downward along the slope, then slowly circle up, full throttle…

[KiloWatt2339]

What a great story! Thanks for sharing it with us!

We can all find stuff wrong with the sim and complain bitterly about it. But when it works, it sure works well!

[Mainframe999]

Great story! It’s a good summary of what makes us enjoy MSFS most of the time!

@V1ROTA7E

I’m climbing just a few knots above stall speed to get every bit of vertical I can without moving too fast in a forward direction.

One remark though: A few knots above stall speed does not give you the best climb angle wrt the mountain. You should rather aim for the Best Angle of Climb speed, usually named Vx, which is a good bit higher than stall speed, and the best speed to climb over obstacles. Close to stall speed, you lose a larger fraction of your engine power to drag from the high angle of attack and/or flaps, instead of the lift you need.

For a normal climb after take-off, without any obstacles in your path, you usually climb at Best Rate of Climb speed Vy, which is faster still, and makes you gain altitude in the shortest time possible, at the cost of moving a larger horizontal distance.

For example, in a C172 the stall speeds are 40 kts (in landing configuration), and 48 kts (cruise config), but Vx is 62 kts and Vy 74 kts.

At Vx, the gust probably wouldn’t have put you in a stall and you would’ve landed safely

[Fartoolong3532]

Very exciting and detailed experience OP!

Before I started sim flying last November, as a newbie, I assumed I would start flying with crashes turned off but from the start I’ve always tried it on hard mode b/c to me it’s more enjoyable.

One of my more memorable experiences was flying through the Rocky Mountains in a cessna in bad weather, basically like less than 5% visibility. I was flying in mist and as soon as there was an opening, I was staring at the side of a mountain! I was too low, too fast, and I slammed into the mountain without much time to prepare. Seemed SO realistic. Even though it was a crash experience it was super cool!

[EvidencePlz]

Great write-up. Thank you. And special thanks to @FlyingCookie650 for linking me to it

[FarIslePilot]

Love the story and how it shows that you can experience something in the sim that would be deadly in the real world. As the sim is updated and advanced such flights will become even more intense and realistic. The average of 4 GA accidents a day proves, while rare, bad situations arise more often then we realize, and can descend into complete chaos if the circumstances outweigh options. Can’t wait to see what’s in store for us as we head down this road with MS and Asobo. Thanks @FlyingCookie6508 for pointing me to this story and well done, V1ROTA7E for the tale.