Thanks for catching that, @ZERO36! It looks like @Hypertxthero himself submitted the slower time earlier in this thread. I’ve updated the results spreadsheet.
1 Like
Finish in GOOY
eventTime: 2021-07-04T00:59:13.050Z
type: PARKED
Elapsed: 18:59:13
Diamond DA40NG
I crashed (physically, aircraft into a hillside, not a CTD) in North Western Africa on my LEZL >> GMMX leg). Set AP and took a 1.5 hour nap, only to wake up and find “YOU HAVE CRASHED” window 
Apparently I was delusional and set ALT too low. Went back to LEZL for another departure, lost about 2 hours.
I noticed my PARKED status has a non-zero velocity, but still PARKED. Don’t know the details of how SimAir determines parked status. I noticed others posted with non-zero velocity as well. If you need 0 velocity, it’s the next PARKED status: 05:59:43pm (2021-07-04T00:59:43.419Z)
MSFS and SimAir held up well this time around. I did restart MSFS at each fuel stop, thereby creating separate SimAir logs for each leg.
GREAT FUN as always, enjoyed the community and more learning as I went along.
THANK YOU SeedyL and Factual Gull for hosting!
2 Likes
Seedy mate, I really think we should re-open the discussion on CTDs.
I know you’re not keen on the idea but, above all else, these races are supposed to be fun and…I’ve gotta tell you…sometimes a CTD can be so demoralising that pilots drop out of the race altogether. I don’t want people to drop out of the race, I want lots of great competition. Was it manx in this race, was in 2nd place with 480 miles to go? My 300 miles setback was heartbreaking and I finished the race in not the best mood of my life. Others gave up though after their CTDs, I noticed.
Sim air has the capability to show us exactly where we disconnected, we’ve already got the time penalty of PC & sim restart…that’s enough IMO. What does everyone else think?
1 Like
Nope.
The rules are designed the way they are for a reason. I want there to be a variety of different strategies chosen by different pilots. These events would be terribly uninteresting if everyone flew the same plane (as some others have suggested should be the case) and followed the same flight plan. I encourage all pilots to make a conscious choice between taking a high risk/high reward strategy or a slower more cautious approach with many touch and go’s for safety based on their own personal risk tolerance. If there was no danger of any kind of setback following a CTD, everyone would just simply fly the magenta line until they needed to refuel. If you’re the type of person who would give up in frustration if you lost progress to a CTD, then you should plan for a more conservative flight plan with many T&Gs. On the other hand, if you’re the type of person who will “risk it for the biscuit”, then full send it! These races are great because both types of personalities take part.
6 Likes
It would change the character of the race in any case.
There would be hardly any need for stop and go landings then.
I guess everyone only makes stop and go landings because of the possible CTDs.
This could end in total autopilot boredom?
2 Likes
Precisely. My personal strategy was to do a touch and go for safety every 60-90 minutes. That’s my personal risk tolerance. That’s how much progress I’m willing to lose in the event of a CTD. So I manually hand fly a landing and takeoff every hour or so. If I wasn’t doing that, then my entire race would be a takeoff, five-ish hours of afk autopilot, landing, a 10 minute refuel break, repeat. BOOOORRRRING.
2 Likes
Devils advocate here: people who are inexplicably plagued by CTDs in this game will have to do constant touch and goes and those that inexplicably run MSFS nice and stable can have an advantage by being boring and staying on autopilot.
And I put it to you that not doing touch and goes is a lot more complicated than staying on autopilot for 5 hours. You have to follow the wind layers if you want to maximise your speed and do constant fuel calculations, you can’t just ignore the plane and go for a nap.
And the other question is then…what are you going to do once Asobo has solved all the CTD issues? You’ll need to find another reason to touch and go cos no-one will bother anymore.
That is very kind of you, ZERO36! I’m in it for the fun and not the positions, but I appreciate it anyway. Thanks to SeedyL, too!
It was a lot of fun and I am looking forward to the next race.
I will be away from computers this week and will unfortunately miss SeedyL’s stream with the results and awards ceremony, so I wish you all a wonderful week!
2 Likes
Big thank you here too to seedy and factualgull for organising this
great fun always (been participating since first cannonball run) and their twitch stream makes it clearly more motivating to go till the end 
3 Likes
Hi mates, encouraged by SeedyL’s invitation to finish the trip I’ve added another Leg to my hand flown trip without AP assistance to Dakar.
My original intentions were to take advantage of strong tailwind. The downside: This tailwind is somewehre between 1000 and 2500 Feet MSL as you see in the forecast. So I “Scud-Raced” my way south somewhere close to the ground.
When finally reached open water I was looking forward to land in Taraya, but somehow I miscalculated my flighttime and when the sun set instantly patches of fog apperead on the coastline and I realized, it would be fatal decision to continue my flight into the darkness, with heavy fog and possibly an unlit runway next to a small village. Things would really go south. So I diverted to Inezgane Airport (GMAA) next to Agadir.
On inbound back to the coastline, I was deeply impressed by the colors of blue and red and white of the fog I realized the thunder and the lightnings. I instantly thought “boy this divertion was the best decision on this trip so far”.
Leg 6: Casablanca (GMMN) - Inezgane (GMAA)
Watch the altitude, after my decision to divert I climbed to 3000 Feet to stay clear of the mist.
This was the original plan, to take profit of the strong tailwind over the Atlantic:
A little bit lower or higher the tailwind wouldn’t be profitable anymore:
Sunset on my right wing in the west…
Almost instantly I saw patches of fog, increasing and getting larger…
Decision made… diverted to the closest airport on land…
The Weather began to turn against me rapidly… flying through the patches of fog with the rest of the daylight…
… when suddenly thunder and lightnings appeared.
I used the S-Word when seeing the runway unlit…
What a flight! I’ve miscalculated my timings and did not respect the weather. In fact my flight preparation was quite ugly. The right decision saved my (virtual) life and of course my progress on my way to Dakar.
8 Likes
As a counter, I spend a lot of time ensuring stability in my setup. I deliberately removed all 3rd party planes and liveries, totally emptying my community folder, just to be sure there were no issues (The DC6 specifically causes me nothing but grief). My condo was extra hot for the last few days, as Seedy can attest living nearby, which also caused me stability issues. I intentionally turned off gear in my condo and cranked up the AC to ensure adequate cooling system to my system. I cleaned my radiator and GPU heat sink of dust. I even took a 787 from Paris to Dakar on full autopilot just to pre-cache the scenery and hopefully limit any possible hiccups.
You’re not only playing the flight game, but it’s almost gamifying building and maintaining reliable systems. I know many people install all kinds of extra software, leaving their systems collecting cruft, as a ship collects barnacles. I haven’t reinstalled in a couple years, but only because I’m very deliberate on what I install, dedicating the system to games. (and there’s no force on earth that could make me run Windows as a daily driver! Yuck!)
Hopefully Microsoft and Asobo will solve all the CTD issues, but from my background with software, a complex system that’s evolving new features like MSFS will always have some kind of bug. It makes it exciting and demoralizing at the same time. I certainly support that extra gamification.
5 Likes
Hi guys,
Thanks again for having me on such a well run event. Was good fun and hopefully can join on the next race. Here’s my submissions for race completion.
https://simair.io/logbook/LayeredSphere51/flight/31680
![2021-07-05|690x388]
3 Likes
Well alright, but basing a gameplay element around the lack of stability of the software isn’t going to continue working well once Asobo have stabilised everything. At the rate they claim to be fixing CTD conditions, fingers crossed no-one’s got a reason to touch and go by Christmas.
23h 14m 34s
LFPG->LFBD https://simair.io/logbook/OzKamikaze2497/flight/31414
LFBD->LEMD https://simair.io/logbook/OzKamikaze2497/flight/31476
LEMD->LERT https://simair.io/logbook/OzKamikaze2497/flight/31521
LERT->GMMT https://simair.io/logbook/OzKamikaze2497/flight/31568
GMMT->MA-GLN https://simair.io/logbook/OzKamikaze2497/flight/31592
MA-GLN->GMML https://simair.io/logbook/OzKamikaze2497/flight/31637
GMML->GMMH https://simair.io/logbook/OzKamikaze2497/flight/31653
GMMH->GQNO https://simair.io/logbook/OzKamikaze2497/flight/31685
GQNO->GOOY https://simair.io/logbook/OzKamikaze2497/flight/31732
1 Like
Flyandmore, Me and you were the only ones to go via the Canary islands, was watching your progress from mid Spain as you became me rival lol. Interesting to see the difference because I was thinking about pushing to the same airport you went to but I decided Lanzarote was far enough, did you sit in that lovely 20kt tail wind most of the way???
1 Like