My adventures flying in New Zealand over the last 2 days.
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Santa Paula - Big Bear Lake, a cloud surfing VOR flight most of the time
Facing San Bernardino National Forest
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UAL2231
KEWR-KCLT
The perfect evening flight!
Before boarding at KEWR.
Departure 04L turning direct to BIGGY
Over Round Valley Resevoir
Washington, DC
Beginning sunset approach into Charlotte.
On final for 18L.
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1930 and the now iconic Junkers JU-52 came along.
As I fly my way through aviation history in the sim, this is the first plane to actually have flaps. Have I missed them.
I remember the ‘Airfix’ model of this when I was a child.
Interior is nice and detailed. In the original version I flew the dials/guages need memorising : Altimeter - 2 of these, one in 1000 metres and the other in kilometres. This has to borne in mind when you are used to flying in feet.
Speed is in km/hour as well.
The Junkers takes off over a short distance, very easy to flly, drifts a bit on final approach.
Flew across to the Isle of Man from Liverpool, 1000’ ….or should I say 300 metres on the gauge. I wonder if the extensive wind farm really exists?
Not a greatly in depth aircraft, but a fun fly.
Moving into 1933 next and the Boeing 247D.
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I usually don’t do night flights, but at least there was a full moon. Skies were clear so plane was illuminated. Exeter to just north of Carentan and back via the Channel Islands. dot dot dot daaaaash…
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KLNA Lantana Florida - KIMM T&G - FL90 North Captiva Is Salty Approach
Thankyou @mbraortns for pointing out this great turf strip on the southwest coast of Florida.
I fired up my trusty #indiafoxtecho LongEZ this morning in the best weather we’ve seen in a week, and headed due west toward a “Salty Approach”.
This strip interested me as it has an over-water approach like my first IRL water approach to Cedar Key further north. (One of my PPL cross-country flights.)
There is not much going on in south central Florida - only sugar cane fields:
I did a T&G at Immokalee to break up the trip (so I could lose my carefully trimmed cruise settings and have to find that again?)
I planned to fly around the south end of the FMY/RSW class C but MSFS requested a transition, no problem. The VFR map shows a waypoint of “Buildings” called Wiggins Pass:
Maybe I was flying toward the “buildings” a little north of it.
I followed the coast up to the Sanibel Causeway and crossed over to follow Sanibel Captiva road. My heart was pained flying over this area still recovering from the category 5 Hurricane Ian nine months prior.
Continuing north along Captiva Drive and South Seas Plantation Road, while rechecking a nearby ATIS, I started getting set up to enter crosswind for a 9/10/East (depending where you look) turf landing.
Seeing a relatively short grass strip with water at both ends caused a bit of anxiety, especially as the MSFS LongEZ model does not model the airplane’s slow flight canard authority correctly. I have to keep 80 KIAS to hold the nose off (it should be 65KIAS) and the little retractable nose wheel on the EZ is not great for grass either.
Turns out my fear was over done - I didn’t even use half the runway.
I decided to pull off the runway down one of the road/taxiways to “my Salty Approach host family”, but did not expect what I saw after the turn:
Executing a “blind canyon maneuver” did not end well:
Guess I’ll have to put FL90 Salty Approach Airport on my “SDK To Do” list!
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What did I do? A lot. . . .
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Nuke and re-install.
My installation appeared to have gone all pear-shaped when I first attached a gamepad to the system to control the drone camera. I completely backed-out everything and re-installed.- Actually that took up both yesterday AND today. . . .
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Re-qualification testing.
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Verified that my control settings were back to normal, and began creating custom control sets for specific aircraft, (like the ICON A5, which has a water rudder).
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Flew the Diamond DV20 out of Ostafyavo (UUMO) to verify that things behaved as they should. After landing, I had my first encounter with one of those dudes with the two light-sabers that help guide you to your parking place. (You know, I don’t think he likes me.)
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Flew the Diamond DV20 as before except that:
- I had shut-down MSFS, attached the gamepad, and restarted.
- I flew with a friend watching me via Discord. (A “Discord” flight was an important test. A buddy flight in multiplayer mode is next.)
- I “Active Paused” the flight to experiment with the drone, and flew the drone around.
- I then returned to the aircraft, completed the circuit, and greased in one of the best landings I ever did. More’s the pity that I didn’t have SkyDolly running so I could have created a video of what was one of the best landings I ever did. I DID have a witness though!
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Flew the ICON A5, (an aircraft I had problems with prior to the re-install), over the Elizabeth River in the Norfolk/Portsmouth area of Virginia - concentrating on the Western Branch area, landing just beyond the Hodge’s Ferry Bridge.
- I then “launched” the drone and flew around the area, noting how there was way too many trees.
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The building directly in front of you is a McDonald’s - located on the site of the old Kirschmeirs General Store where many a hot and thirsty kid stopped in to have a Pepsi from their machine - 16 fluid ounces for ten cents! (Which became a quarter not much later on. . .)
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The street right next to it on the right is Dock Landing Road, shown being buried in forest vegetation. Here’s that same area shown in Google Street View. Note the lack of forest overgrowth.
All in all a successful test. If only MS/Bing could get the scenery right.
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left Italy to switzerland in C172 (LIBO - LSZC )
then left switzerland to reach a aifield near Tigne in france
had to fly back to italy but … 
first time I broke my blades ! 
so abit unfair how this happend to me 
gave me some headache to leave that place
finally I aborded with the c172 to go to fly in amazonia the C208 , and a bit the scrapyard in patagonia
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Today I test flew the new Twin Comanche by Shrike (Blackbird/Milviz) from the fantastic freeware Coco Point Lodge Airport. I think the flight model could use a little bit of tweaking, but otherwise it’s fantastic.
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Looking at that aircraft, it reminded me of the old TV show, Sky King.
He flew an aircraft very much like this one.
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I think the plane in Sky King is an early model Cessna 310. But you’re right they look very similar!
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Had some fun hand flying the ATR. I just like prop planes so much!
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MB339 KNKX to KEDW, cloud weaving, aerobatics, two bad landings, one perfect landing, and selfies with the stealth bomber!!
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Took the Cessna 140 out to Mt St Helens but forgot I had to swap fuel tanks regularly in that model… Ran out on the left tank and the engine stopped in mid-air. Got it restarted though and finished my journey! 
Here’s me being surprised, then checking the instrument panel and the fuel gauges and realizing my mistake.
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I’ve finally gotten comfortable with setting up the 737 for flights. I have a check list that i’ll be shortening to fit my needs, i can create flight plans and set performance.
My first flight was the one i’ve done most in real life, YMHB-YMML.
And today i did the return.
I am hoping that the live time gets fixed for Tasmania soon as it’ll be my most common to/from place in the 737.
I still have a lot to learn, but with what i already learned, i can now just hop on and fly without any/very few issues.
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