The Ongoing Trials of the Impoverished Commercial Pilot.

[Simon Davey]

1. Compass and position of EGND beacon, I reckon you've you've just left LBA, which is to you port/stern??. I'm probably talking bolloc** though

 

2. Compass says you're on the east coast, old looking Blackpool Pleasure Beach?

 

I'm off to walk me dawg.....

Edited January 17 by Simon Davey

[Tinkicker]

Emley Moor TV mast.  I mentioned it previously as one of my friendly landmarks to the south of LBA.  Highest freestanding structure in the UK, can be seen from much of Yorkshire.

 

And indeed, Blackpool Pleasure Beach.

[Simon Davey]

25 minutes ago, Tinkicker said:

Emley Moor TV mast.  I mentioned it previously as one of my friendly landmarks to the south of LBA.  Highest freestanding structure in the UK, can be seen from much of Yorkshire.

 

And indeed, Blackpool Pleasure Beach.

 

I'm rather pleased with myself

I did spend a considerable amount of time researching those positions. 

 

What are the beacon(?) called though? Only one was searchable. 

[Tinkicker]

1 hour ago, Simon Davey said:

 

I'm rather pleased with myself

I did spend a considerable amount of time researching those positions. 

 

What are the beacon(?) called though? Only one was searchable. 

 

 

Do you mean the NDB called POL?  That is probably the closest  beacon to Leeds Bradford.  POL is short for Pole Hill and is located high in the Pennines on the site of a modern windfarm.  POL has been there decades before the windfarm though, as one of the highest points in the Pennines.

[Simon Davey]

I was looking at the letters in the red circles, I thought they were navigation beacons?

I also thought I was being clever using your position and flight direction according to EGND, which I searched and found is Crosland Moor, I then found where it was on Google maps. 

Probably just fluke then that I got where you were, although I didn't get the transmission tower. 

 

This was my reference..

Edited January 18 by Simon Davey

[Tinkicker]

If it starts with EG that tells you it is an airfield or heliport located in the UK.  Looking back at my previous flight plans for the Prague trip, my routing was:

 

EGNM (Leeds Bradford)

Heads south to Dover and cross the Channel at the shortest point.

Input EDDV direct into the nav system; which is Hanover.

Leaving Hanover, set up LKPR direct which is Prague Viclav

 

[Tinkicker]

I pull up in front of the hanger at multiflight and climb out of the toasty van into the chill air at LBA.

 

The service receptionist pops her head out of the door.  Oh. James wants to see you in his office ASAP..

 

Oh crap.  What have I done now?  An urgent summons to the Chief Pilots office is a thing to be feared.  Will I be having a stand up, one sided interview without coffee and biscuits in the near future?  

I knock on the door and push firmly into the office, shoulders squared.  Look brave..

James is sat there with Pete, one of the directors of multiflight and the one who organises the ferry flights.  My shoulders slump. 

Great, two onto one.  It looks serious..

 

Hi guys.  What did I do?  James's eyes light up.  Dunno, what have you done?  

Me? Nothing.

James's grin gets wider.  Well it seems that it was a waste of time getting out of bed then if you have done nothing.

Doh.  Walked right into that one.

 

Pete kicks across a chair and I sit.  Appears the damaged Comanche presently languishing at Icelandic Air Services is about to get a brand new engine fitted.  One which multiflight supplied.  So not only have we managed to wreck the customers aircraft, we are profiting from it..

As far as the Turbine Duke, over in Florida that needs ferrying to europe is concerned, it is still unserviceable in its present state and it is not clear when this will change.

 

To business.  I need to deliver a Sensenich propellor to Donegal of all places, and on my return, pick up a box of P&W PT6 spares that have arrived at Prestwick from the US and just cleared Customs.  The multiflight maintenance bods are screaming for them.

 

The prop is loaded up and the Comanche is ready to go.  As I walk out to do my pre flight inspection, I wonder how on earth they got a prop in the plane.. It is too long for the baggage compartment and too long for the cabin.  I soon find out as I am shown a shallow, long fibreglass pod lashed under the belly of the aircraft by straps.  I had seen the mounting points under the aircraft before and wondered what they were for.  I prefer not to ask if it is a Piper approved mod or not.

 

In any case, off we go.  Wheels up at 09:30 and set course for Donegal.  It is very misty and the cloud base is below 2000ft.  No good over the Pennines, I need to find the tops.  Up we go and find the tops at 4500ft, so I climb to 6000ft.  The air is warmer up here, a balmy 8 degrees C.  But I also have a 17kt headwind to contend with.  No problem, I have plenty of fuel, but it will mean slower progress.

Once we crossed the Pennines, I decide to descend and lose the headwind to save time and fuel.  Back down to 1500ft or so.  The air is temp is about 3C.  Must be an inversion, which explains the low cloud.

We coast out over Barrow in Furness and set sail over the Irish Sea, crossing the very northern tip of the Ise of Man.  To the North, Dunfries and Galloway is very visible and out in front, Ireland is just visible in the mist.

 

Isle of Man to the south.

 

We coast in over Ireland, pass just north of Belfast and over Lough Neagh, then we arrive at the Sperrin Mountains.  Weather not too bad, I elect to stay under the cloud and pick my way through, rather than climb above again.

 

Picking our way through..

 

Sperrin mountains passed and another area of hills about 20 miles away from Donegal Airport.  The weather closes in a little, but no rain or snow.  I have enough visibility to carry on, but I must admit I am pushing a little.  But then again, I am expected to.  Aviation white van man is not a job for the faint hearted, nor is ferry flying.  The job is to get the parts / aircraft to the customer as quickly and efficiently as possible.

 

Weather closing in.

 

Made it to the beautiful Donegal Airport with water close by on two sides.  Prop offloaded, the ramp guys did not bat an eyelid at the pod slung underneath, so I guess it is not the first time they saw one. Meanwhile, I just had time for a quick packet of crisps before setting out for Prestwick.

 

Donegal.  Beautiful, but a pity about the weather.

 

Departing Donegal, I went above the clouds to 7000ft, as now I would have a useful tailwind.  The cloud was about broken about 7 octas, so very limited view of the Irish countryside beneath.  I began letting down through the cloud while still over water, just before the Isle of Arran and Prestwick hove into view.

With a 35kt wind from the south, the main runway was out, so I had to use 21, the poor mans runway with no fancy additions.  Perfect for the Comanche.

 

Overhead Prestwick, looking for runway 21.

 

Down at Prestwick.  Parts picked up and loaded aboard.  Time to kick the tyres and light the fires.

 

Time to go home, we set out for Leeds Bradford.  The cloud once again built up over the Lake District.  No problems, when overflying the Lake District, if the ground is partly or fully obscured by cloud, my mimimum safe altitude is 5000ft.  The highest peak in the lakes is Scafell Pike at 3210ft and I like to give myself around 2000ft of air below.  I will not go below 5000ft in cloud, unless it is an emergency.

 

The glass mountain.  Scafell Pike hiding in the clouds ahead.  You can just see the summit poking up.  1000s of airmen have died flying into glass mountains, so called because they are hidden by cloud and you cannot see them.

 

And finally back to a very foggy Leeds Bradford.  Taxying in from runway 14.  I have taxied down those very same taxyways in a Cessna 172 at least 30 times in real life back in the mid 1990s.

 

Route.  Time logged, 4hrs, 01 mins.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 19 by Tinkicker

[Simon Davey]

Great pictures, and a very easy to visualise story, as usual.

I'm assuming the pod underneath is aerodynamic enough not to cause too much drag. Of course it is, but interesting that it can be done.

Also find it quite interesting that the manifold pressure whilst shutdown on the tarmac is a little higher than in flight.

 

 

[Tinkicker]

Manifold pressure in a normally aspirated engine, whether a car or an aircraft is a function of the throttle valve and ambient air pressure.

 

At engine shutdown, the manifold pressure will always be higher than when running partially throttled back.  Because that is the the natural ambient air pressure.

That is why the right hand twistrgrip on a motorcycle. Or the right pedal in a car is called the "throttle".  

 

I was always taught to respect an aero engine, so I run the comanche engine very easy.  I could get more power, and more speed, but at a cost of fuel burn and engine life.  I keep her throttled back.  I usually run 20" of manifold pressure.  The international standard atmospheric pressure is 29.92" or in a form , I understand, not being american, 1013mb.

 

So 29.92 is what you will see with the engine at rest. Far different from when it is running.

[Tinkicker]

Where am I?

 

1.  Nice and sunny place.

 

[

 

2.  Has to be said, a lot of fog around.

 

 

[bonio]

That'll be Whitby then.

[S-Westerly]

1 minute ago, bonio said:

That'll be Whitby then.

Definitely Whitby. 

[Tinkicker]

Indeed it is Whitby.

 

The second one is very hard to guess, so I threw in a few clues..... Kudos if you get it without google.

 

Edited January 19 by Tinkicker

[Simon Davey]

I reckon it's Whitby

[Tinkicker]

Foggy down your way this afternoon.  Did you hear me fly over?  Never mind, 3000ft above your head, not a cloud in the sky.

 

haverhill map - Search

Edited January 19 by Tinkicker

[Simon Davey]

1 hour ago, Tinkicker said:

Foggy down your way this afternoon.  Did you hear me fly over?  Never mind, 3000ft above your head, not a cloud in the sky.

 

haverhill map - Search

 

As it happens, we do get a lot of aircraft over us from/to Duxford. As well as all the darned commercial jets in/out of Stansted. 

No fog though.

[Tinkicker]

Living slap bang in the middle of bomber country, and with three or four old bomber airfields within 10 miles of my house, of course I take an interest in what went on during WW2.  Several bombers crashed in the vicinity, and two of the closest just two or three miles away.  They had a mid air collision.

 

I knew where the aircraft roughly came down, mid way between Haddlesey and Birkin, and local old timers said they came down in fields, just to the north of the Haddlesey road.

Despite knowing the rough area. I was unable to locate any sign of them.

 

Been flying around this afternoon, just searching out places within 100 miles of Leeds Bradford; with the sim on summer setting.  

Located Castle Howard in North Yorkshire.  Located Chatsworth in Derbyshire.  Located Matlock Bath, also in Derbyshire and located Yorkshire Safari Park in South Yorkshire, almost next door to RAF Finningley. 

 

Of course, I had to do a touch and go on such hallowed ground at Finningley, mixing Comanche tyre rubber with rubber deposited by countless Vulcan bomber landings.

 

Then headed towards my village.  The bomber crash entered my thoughts and I wondered if there was any evidence from the air???  Old airfields, now agricultural land can often be made out as outlines across fields from the air.  So maybe impact craters are the same.

 

Yup, two large impact craters in fields almost central between Birkin and Haddlesey and just north of the Haddlsey road.  Altitude when screenshot taken, around 1500ft, so they are big.

 

Sad Tale:  Aircraft accidents in Yorkshire.

 

Edited January 23 by Tinkicker

[Simon Davey]

Wow, that's something else!

The farmer clearly goes around them, wonder if they're fenced off?

 

The Vulcan bomber is a childhood memory from a day at Biggin Hill air show. That roar was phenomenal, and only matched by Concord. 

Edited January 23 by Simon Davey

[Tinkicker]

No idea.  I do know that when I went lower, the one closest in the pic is pretty deep.  The one further away, more bowl shaped, although both have the round fuselage impact, with the inner wing impact shape at the sides, indicating an almost vertical dive into the ground for the closest one and slightly less of an angle for the furthest away. Perhaps 45 degrees.  The wing trenches looked more triangular.

There are a few other shallow craters scattered around.  Engines perhaps?  Too small to know for sure.

 

Seems a bit ghoulish taking an interest in such things, but the aircrew spirits looking on, would they prefer it to be ignored, or an interest in their final seconds brought to light?

 

God bless them all.

Edited January 24 by Tinkicker

[Tinkicker]

I am summoned to James's office once again...

 

I judge you have been outside and stuck a wet thumb in the air to judge the wind?

 

Indeed I have.

 

And? 

No flying today, I will not even get the Comanche to the runway in this wind... 65mph gusts...

 

Very true, what are you up to? 

 

Err just tidying up around the stores area.

 

Have you been to maintenance today?

 

Nope.

 

You should, the boys have assembled an aircraft for a good commercial customer and are looking for a test pilot, I wondered who had a helicopter rating and more importantly, was stupid enough to give it a go, and your name immediately sprang to mind.

 

Err thanks, I think.  Cannot fly in this wind boss. 

 

No problem you can fly in the hanger and hug the sides of the buildings.

 

What!

 

Here are the pilots notes.  He throws me a pamphlet...

 

Hai Carramba.. what have I gotten myself into now?

 

Edited January 24 by Tinkicker

[Tinkicker]

Wow, what a hoot.  The aviation equivalent of little yeller.  Simple and extremely good fun to fly.

 

I want one..

 

I like that pic.  Still not as sharp as it appears in my VR headset, but it is a fairly good pic for once.  For some reason, probably because of the compression turning the pic to jpeg, then sending to flickr and it getting compressed again, then sending it back here, where the forum software has a mess with it as well, it is very hard to get a good clear screenshot put up here.  What I see is infinitely clearer.

 

 Sim on summer setting, no wind for the quadcopter to be able to fly.  Trees have leaves on and you can even see the windfarms on top of the Pennines. Wind turbines all automatically face into the wind and all turn at a speed commensurate with the strength of the wind.  If there is a wind turbine there in real life, it is there in the sim. 

Sod you storm eowyn.

 

Grounded, I continue to explore the default aircraft.  I came across the A10 Warthog.  What can I say?  Truly abysmal rendition of a Hog.  Nothing like the Eagle Dynamics; US Department of Defence certified for flight training aircraft of which I have over 1000 hrs in.

 

I have no idea why they think it is good enough to be in a flight sim.  Nothing right about it whatsoever.  This is why I buy addon aircraft from third party developers who are absolutely anal about getting it right and I have no interest in the default aircraft provided in the sim.  They are intended to be flown by Xbox users with Xbox controllers, as well as the power PC users with full blown cockpits and must be flyable for them all.  Of course, this means they are far too docile to be realistic for users at the power end of the spectrum.

Pretty much no one at the enthusiast end fly the default aircraft.

 

And I come across an old friend, the very first aircraft I ever trained in.  Tiny cockpit and unfortunately, at that time I was a bodybuilder, and Don, my full time instructor was also broad across the shoulders.  I had to lean forward in my seat and he had to lean back so we were not jammed together.  I ended up paying extra for the much larger, and more powerful Cessna C172 Skyhawk to train in as it was thought I would not learn much in the little C152 Aerobat.

 

Cessna 152 Aerobat,  Unlike the C172, it was certified for full spins and mild aerobatics, so I got to do some proper spin recovery training, not pretend ones.

Tiny thing.

The flight model seems a lot less twitchy and sensitive than I remember, either the flight model is way off, or my flying skills are much improved and far smoother since 1995, having got several thousand more flying hours under my belt.

The cockpit is exactly how I remember it though.

 

 

 

And then we come to my beloved... The Cessna C172 Skyhawk.

 

Of course, it felt way underpowered and slow compared to the stuff I routinely fly now, but it did feel quite familiar.  One thing they have got wrong though, is when lowering the flaps.  The C172 dropped its nose a fair bit when full flap was selected.  This rendition actually noses up slightly.

The purpose of flaps is to allow a slower speed with a lower angle of attack, it moves the center of lift rearwards, so the nose will naturally drop and the view of the runway during the approach phase is much better.

 

Turning onto base for an expedited short final, the port wing blocked the view of the runway as I remember and once again, turning onto final, until the nose comes around enough to sit normally and see the runway, you have to lean forward in your seat to keep the threshold in sight through the extreme left edge of the windscreen, or bang your head on the side window as you try to look between the door pillar and the wing leading edge.  All just as remembered.

 

Taxiing in on familiar taxiways, it was like Deja Vu.  All very familiar, like revisiting your childhood home 30 years later.  Of course, some things change over the years.  We did not have GPS in those days, so the center radio stack was identical to the one in the 152.

 

 

 

My beloved golf bravo echo uniform xray.  Taxiing up the very same taxiway I am turning onto in the sim.  Right about where the dot is on the I in multiflight on the fin, I found a missing rivet during a pre flight inspection.  Don sauntered out a few minutes later and I reported my findings.

He disappeared into the hanger and returned with a young lad in tow, who proceeded to screw a self tapping screw into the hole!  You could have knocked me over with a feather, I thought she was grounded until the rivet was replaced with the correct part.

A common, but surprising theme when I was studying for the aircraft technical exam.  Expectations high, reality low.

Light aircraft are infinitely less complex mechanically, than the trucks and buses that I worked on for a living at that time.  They have to be because they have to be as light as possible and simple means less to go wrong... Another thing that I was not expecting.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 24 by Tinkicker

[Simon Davey]

I'd love to fly a helicopter, or even one of those quadcopter thingies, but I'm not good with heights

 

The 152 looks so basic with the GPS screens. 

[Tinkicker]

I am uncomfortable on a stepladder...

 

The thing is that the fear of heights goes away when there is nothing tying you directly to the ground.  The only time I felt a bit alarmed during my flight training was flying fairly close (not within 1500ft) of the Emley Moor TV Transmitter.

 

I was just a little higher, and I let my gaze follow it all the way down to the ground...  However the alarm was no worse than being up at the top of a tall building looking almost straight down through the windows because I was in an enclosed cockpit.

[Tinkicker]

Thanks to the remnants of Storm Eowyn, once again the adventures have been cancelled.  Rain and broken cloud over Leeds at 700ft, full overcast 900ft.  Runway elevation at LBA is 620ft.

 

Weather over much of the country the same, rain showers and cloud bases at 1000ft or less.  Waste of time.

 

Plan was to go somewhere where I could fly there and back in one afternoon, so chose RNAS Culdrose.

 

I am doing the flight in any case (on my return as I type), but I had to turn off live weather.  Real time and date is still on though, but I cannot call it an adventure without real weather.  Just a sightseeing trip.

 

Sun is just going down... be dark in half an hour or so.

 

I did get a couple of screenshots on the way down of some well known places I flew over, and I thought I would give you another where am I competition.

 

1.  Where am I?

 

 

2.  Where am I?

 

 

 

Edited January 26 by Tinkicker

[Grumpy Old Git]

Avon Bridge (Bristol) and the Eden project.

 

What is the ceiling of your aircraft?  I am a 'retired' glider pilot and I obtained by Diamond badge reaching a height of just over 21,000 feet in Wave close to Aboyne in Scotland.