What a wonderful job Dil!!
A tremendous effort very well laid out.
Now take a well deserved break and let the rest of us blokes follow along.
See what sort(s) of questions come up.
Thanks Man!! ... this is terrific!
What a wonderful job Dil!!
A tremendous effort very well laid out.
Now take a well deserved break and let the rest of us blokes follow along.
See what sort(s) of questions come up.
Thanks Man!! ... this is terrific!
salt_air
Thanks salt
We decided to give it a try with Duenna so we used the weather. Once we acquired we saw that the winds aloft were from 256° at 30 knots at 18,000'. With a little E6-B calculations we figured that at a 100knot climb we'd slowly increase the WCA to 12 degrees or from 197 to 209. Once we reached cruise speed we decreased the WCA 9 degrees WCA.
Settings for DC-3 RR41 1940s edition.
Aircraft gross weight: 23806.9 lbs
Fuel weight: 2401.9 lbs
Departure: FS Time: 04/08/2011 07:59:468:00AM
Landing:
System Time UTC: 04/08/2011 19:36:10
FS Time: 04/08/2011 10:52:43
Aircraft gross weight: 22202.3 lbs (-1604.6 lbs)
Fuel weight: 797.3 lbs (-1604.6 lbs)
Location: S 32* 49.671' / W 68* 47.612'
Airport: SAME 0.6nm
Valid: VALIDATEDrrival:
We seemed to have made much better time this flight, the WCA seemed right although a bit of gyro drift, and WCA put us about 10nm east of SAME LOP, which is not bad at all for the sextant.
Here are some screens and the Duenna map.
Sorry I accidently closed Duenna before attaching the map and text file.
.....I just notice they're included in the flight map link...sweet!
Another fantastic SOH feature!
http://fs-duenna.com/flights/ShowFlight.php?detail=flight&value=5gNB2vIeKWKkAVW oRD9FJdiXoI
The screen shots should be in correct sequence.
Attachment 45209
8:30AM 55nm from SASA
Attachment 45208
Green line 9:00AM 90m to Fix#1 LOP
Attachment 45207
Red line 9:19AM 50nm to Fix#1 LOP
Attachment 45206
Blue line 9:37AM 5 miles past Fix #1 LOP
Attachment 45213
Blue line 140nm to SAME LOP
Attachment 45212
Green line 50nm to SAME LOP begin descent
Attachment 45211
On SAME LOP Heading 287 degees
Attachment 45210
Field in site on left
Sorry I can't fly on Saturday morning, but will be available to answer questions Saturday night and Sunday.....and beyond.
I hope you enjoy the fight as much as I have
It was much more enjoyable just flying and taking readings without needing to document and write.
dil
Dil, well done, reaching the Ap with wind.
Nice to follow along.
Thanks Gutner,
I'd rather be lucky as they say! The 30 kt cross wind is just a breeze up here in the S30's latitude.
Once we reach the Roaring Forties, Furious Fifties, and Screaming Sixties, the crosswinds are going to get tough.
Cape Horn is noted for the worst winds in the world, because there's very little landmass to break them up as exists in the northern hemisphere.
This is the kind of flying that Carmen, my very lovely copilot, cut here teeth on, since she's from down around these parts. She can't wait to get back to the Horn. Hmmm...?
I over heard a conversation down at the local watering hole that her "claim to fame" is skinny dippin at the Horn every time she gets back down there. It's a tradition or something like that. Who knows, you can only believe about half of what you hear when folks are full of stout.
We'll just have to wait and see!! There's no way I'm going to bring up the subject to her.
You should give this a go......no sense using the weather until you're comfortable with it. By the time we reach the S50's there'll be others leading the flights......
I'm sure of it.
dil
Ok, I might give this a crack.Originally Posted by salt_air
Ok, found it. Lets see how this goes shall we?
edit: I'm getting a cross reference to gauges, so it isn't just the sextant I have up in this window. Also, after taking my 1 min reading, there was no graph. Other than that it works fine though.
Any suggestions?
Thanks
Yeah ... could you open your panel. cfg in notepad and take a screen shot to post?
Better yet is to make a copy (to desktop) of the Panel.cfg and change the (rename) the cfg to txt ... answer yes ... and attach the new copy txt file to a post.
Copy not cut!
Should be able to get rid of the conflict and get the chart working no worries.
salt_air
Thanks Dil ...
Things look great, just need some time to catch up .... should be on board soon.
Handy with the E6-B too I see ... good show mate!
salt_air
cputters,
It'll be great to have you along.
You need two sextant file downloads, the BB3 (the original sextant) and the BBsx, which adds the graph.
Depending on the aircraft you're using you can add an the icon as well. In the DC-3 RR41 as you see in the pics my sextant icon is located here in the panel cfg.
gauge60=BB_sextant!icon, 16,725,19,19
That locates it on the far left of the top row.
If you have any more questions salt_air will get hooked up, I'm sure of that.
salt_air,
Don't worry about catching up, we have plenty of time. Mendoza has a lot of tourist attractions.
We're going to visit a ranch and see these Argetinian cowboys (gauchos) use one of those funny looking lassos called a boleodoras.
Edit: Also, Gunter is still in La Paz on the cargo haul, so it'll be awhile until he reaches Salta.
dil
Hey Dil,
don't wait for me!
I won't have any time to fly to Antarctica, however much as I'd like to.
Currently pushing along to Salta to finish before vacations, but once there, I've got tons of other urgent stuff to do.
I'll watch from the jump seat.
Gunter
While I'm flippin' and floppin' around in the "Deep End" .... is there a way to see if the moon is visible and if so maybe some fixes as well as LOP's ....
We can do that later if you want ... don't mean to ring the rag out ... just enthused.
Screen shot of the plane as I prepare time tables and charts for my first attempt.
Attachment 45295
salt_air
Here's the text file attached.
Thanks for the tip on the extra download, I'll get on that now.
Attachment 45372
Here's a new panel file in notepad as a txt .... just download or copy and change (rename) the extension to cfg.
Attachment 45381
Drop it in your panel folder and let it overwrite what you have now.
It is complete for both downloads ... just need to make sure have placed the cab file from the bbsxa.zip folder (dc3_bbsxa/BB_sextant4.cab) in your fs9 main gauges folder.
This will clear up the double assignment and call up the sextant w/chart by the simicon on the panel.
No more GPS ... the sextant has taken it's place.
If after a few tries you want the GPS back, then hollar again and I'll be happy to do a quick fix for that.
You can always go to the map if you get completely lost instead of the GPS, but that's your call and like I said if you want the GPS back .... in addition to the sextant let me know ... no worries.
Cheers,
salt_air
Hi Salt,
Good question about the moon.
In FS the rise and set times of the sun moon and stars are accurate even to this day, because the calculations are definitive and linear and are accurate for hundreds of years in the future.
The problem arises with the phases of the moon. They still exist in FS9 and FSX however the phases of the moon are variable and need to be calculated differently all the time. For that reason a program required to calculate the phases of the moon for years in the future would have been huge so MS didn’t do it. The phases were accurate back sometime in 2003 when FS2004 was programmed, but have slowly gotten out of sync though the years.
Depending on which version of FS you’re flying the moon’s phases will be different, since they were originally programed in different years. FSX is still a bit closer to being correct than FS9; however in a few years the future it will gradually get out of sync as well. I'm sure it's already happened, just fewer days out of sync than FS9.
I believe, if I remember correctly, that FS9's phases will be correct again sometime in 2020 or so. I may be wrong, I'm just going from memory, which gets me in trouble every time.
Someone is going to take the time to figure that out, I'm sure.
The rise and set times of the moon are also available on theUSNO site here.
http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/RS_OneYear.php
So for Salta, we enter the coordinates, and use 4 hours west of Greenwich for the time zone.
This gives us the rise and set times of the moon for a wholeyear. (local time)
Since FS2004 was programmed the phases of the moon are about 10 days out of sync now, Again I'm not positve, but I know that's pretty close.
By going to this page here in the USNO site, http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/MoonPhase.php we see that the full moon for this month is August 13th at 13 57 UT
Here is a shot in FS9 on August 13th, 19:00 local time at Salta, Argentina.
Attachment 45385
As you can see, in FS9, the Moon only a cresent at this time in August when it will actually be Full.
I don't know if anyone has ever noticed it, but I've actually seen the phase of the moon change while flying at night. That's pretty awesome IMO.
We can get into trouble is when we go outside an see the moon, then go to FS and we don’t see it. The reason could be that there’s a New Moon in FS but not in the real world. The New Moon phase is not visible in FS.
Now, to answer your question.
The flight starts at 8:00AM Salta local time and is about 3 hours in lengh. Notice that, on August 6th, the rise and set time of the Moon is 1138 and 0022 respectfully. So we wouldn't see it during this flight and probably not until dark, although there are times we can see the moon in day light hours in FS it is rare.
I hope this helps
dil
Thanks a lot Salt
I will be keeping the GPS because I'm using the same aircraft for my RTW antics. (Teaching myself instrument operation as we go.
Anywho, it should just be a matter of changing the window the sextant appears in rather than replacing the GPS?
Then adding a description of the new window at the start of the file.?
I'll hopefully go for my test flight tonight.
Chris
Thanks a lot Salt
I will be keeping the GPS because I'm using the same aircraft for my RTW antics. (Teaching myself instrument operation as we go.
Anywho, it should just be a matter of changing the window the sextant appears in rather than replacing the GPS?
Then adding a description of the new window at the start of the file.?
I'll hopefully go for my test flight tonight.
Chris
Very well then Chris .... this is what you'll want to use instead of my first offering.
Attachment 45419
Same directions ... you'll have the sextant in working order with no conflicts AND a GPS with it's own simicon on the panel.
Happy Days!
salt_air
Read with interest Dil's info on moon phases in FS so I thought I'd take a look outside and then compare it to FSX. Must only be a couple days off because I can't really see any difference between the two, not that that's an exact measurement ( my eye calibration that is ). I was going to start using the sextant for moon shots during my first attempt at a classic era transatlantic flight so I'm glad it seems to be close to in phase.
Al
Okay .... gave her a rip this morning after stealing some time from work ..
It's not going to be possible to match your (or anyone's) flights to the degree, minute, or NM .... same plane, same route same weather ... different pilots with different ways of managing cockpit duties and different results (slightly) in the end.
So just working in the same ball park I was able to follow to the letter everything you did technically (beautiful), but the thought process (which is what I believe most of us struggle with) still leaves me feeling like I'm on the outside looking in.
Lot's of "why" questions like a child (that I am) are generated while "going through the motions" and coupled with the slight immediacy of the flight duties themselves I find myself just skipping over them and moving on to the next task .... maybe thinking that the answer will show up down the road.
Basically, the grey area (for me now) is with the logic behind sextant based flight plans.
Part of that is with some of the other navigation methods you can play, to a certain degree, catch up and, with modern enough equipment, figure out exactly where you are.
That ability will allow you to not pay real close attention to position ... because it's just a few clicks away when you need to know.
Sextant Navigation requires a very disciplined (in comparison) acclimation to navigational duties ... pro active if you will.
A considerable amount of work with relation to flight plan is done before you even get in the cockpit or can be and to go along with what I just said .... should be.
Net so far is another notch with sextant operation and confidence with setting up and the physical action of grabbing shots.
But alas no idea of how to ask the fill in the blank questions so that I would wind up with the info I needed for the trip.
[This for average Joe who may be reading and trying to follow ... and to some extent myself as well]
Was there any particular reason for picking the time of day other than optimizing Sun angle?
I'm guessing that the aircraft's altitude is of little or no consequence?
First leg tracked out while the second tracked in to minimize the chance for error ... right?
The planned course heading (line on the map) was equal to the 0 horizontal line on the chart up until fix ... then it was equal to the vertical 0 line from there to destination ... How would average Joe know to do that?
This was a time and distance measurement exercise where the info we gathered from our sun shots equated to lines (red, green, and blue) that crossed our path (that same o line on the chart) ... yeah?
Why were shots taken at 60NM intervals again and should we always do it that way?
In this case we were using the Sextant to back up our figures we came up with by staying on course heading (as close as we could), keeping a constant ground speed (at cruise level) and keeping close eye on time and distance with the clock ... is that about it?
You nailed down the whole Moon thing very well and brought up some very interesting points on how it is rendered (or not) in MSFS.
Yeah. I knew something wasn't right between real Moon and FS Moon, but didn't have a handle on it till now ... thanks!
[BTW]
This puts me and Pedro in Mendoza ... yeah Pedro, he had to leave before the gringo's came back to find their plane broken, out of gas and a hundred miles south of where they left it ... and I needed a local guide until I get a grip on how to use the Sextant .... so things are working out for the three of us.
Me, Pedro and the ransom payment crate.
Attachment 45440Attachment 45441Attachment 45442
salt_air
Fantastic Salt_Air!!!!!
Great questions and that's great for all.
Keep them coming!!
Actually these aren 't "in the dark" questions, but rather affirmations that you got it right!......and you have!
Was there any particular reason for picking the time of day other than optimizing Sun angle?
Yes and no.
Yes, in that this was our first flight using the sun lonely. It’s important to note, that the sun’s Hc (elevation) should be at least +15° when taking readings.
((In the real world the atmosphere refracts light (distorts it.) As example we can actually see the sun, moon, and starsbefore they reach the horizon do to this refraction. That also explains why the moon looks so huge when it first comes up. The atmosphere actually stretches it. Once the sun reaches about +15 degrees the atmospheric refraction is reduced considerably. Notice how the moon gets more proportionate after it’s up for awhile)).
No, in that we don’t necessarily let the sextant determine when we’re going to fly. This flight basically only used the sun ( a single star).
Once everyone is as familiar with the sextant, as you obviously are, I believe we’ll do a flight starting at night, take some star shots, and end up in the morning daylight to locate our airport. I’d also like to do the flight ending to the Horn by starting out in the late afternoon and ending up at night.
Airports SAWH and ACGZ are only 22 miles apart and both have runway lights. ACGZ also has a beacon, which could be a great help atnight.
I’m so excited that you nailed it!
I'm guessing that the aircraft's altitude is of little or no consequence?
Correct: The amount of bouncing you get trying to read the sextant in a airplane, with just a little turbulence, more than overrides the tiny bit of difference that compensating for altitude would have on the readings.
First leg tracked out while the second tracked in to minimize the chance for error ... right?
Correct: It was to illustrate that the coordinates we’re reading are actually our assumed position no matter which direction. When we say assumed position we’renot necessarily talking about where we are, but where the coordinates entered into the sextant are. Think of it as the exact angles to the sun from the entered coordinate. That’s why we enter the destination latitude and longitudeand and the exact time when bringing up a data chart. The difference is the reading we get.
The planned course heading (line on the map) was equal to the 0 horizontal line on the chart up until fix ... then it was equal to the vertical 0 line from there to destination ... How would average Joe know to do that?
It just worked out that way. I’ll try to explain a couple different ways.
1. When we started out, early in the morning, the Zn (azimuth) of the sun was more an eastern direction than north of us (ENE you could say in this case). The more (east or west) a star is, in relation to our ASSUMED POSSITION (reading location), the better the longitude accuracy. So, on this flight, when the azimuth of the sun was between 90° and 45° our longitudinal readings were (better) than latitude. As we flew and the sun approached noon (Zn=0°) between45° and 0° our readings became (better) latitudinal wise.
2. It is also easiy to determined by the looking at the plotted lines on the graph as well. If you noticed the readings taken early in my demo flights you can see that the lines were more vertical earlier thus the longitude distance is better. As the flight progressed, and the lines became more horizontal, the latitude distance readings were more accurate. If we had flown until high noon, the resultant reading line would have been flat and been a pure latitude only reading.
NOTE: Once you have the relationship between the data charts an the graph, firmly planted in your mind, all of a sudden you'll see how easy this is!
The Zn (azimuth) we set into the sextant is the verticle and horizontal (angle) of one particular reading (blue, green, red) line.
The Hc (elevation) we set into the sextant gives us the distance to/from the coordinates set into the sextant.
Hmmmm?
It has suddenly dawned on me that the angle of the line on the graph is also the (trueheading LOP not magnetic heading) we needed to locate our final destination airport. I didn’t do that during my flight but should have. In other words, ifthe line was (flat) horizontal, our LOP heading would be 90 or 270 true east orwest depending on which side of SAME we thought we were. That would occur atexactly high noon.
Taking another look at the data charts.......
Check high noon at SAME, here http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/celnavtable.phpby entering S32° 50’ and W68° 50’ and for time enter 16:41 UT. Notice that the sun’s Zn=0°, at that exact time. If we were still flying we’d have a totally accurate latitude reading.
As a prelude to night flying and reading stars, and since we have this particulardata chart opened, notice that, if it were dark, we could read the star MIAPLACI Hc=+53 04.0 Zn=180.0 and get an exact latitude reading as well. And, if it were dark, we could read GIENAHwhich has a Zn=80.1° or RIGEL which has a Zn of 280.2° for an (almost) perfectly accurate longitude position at this particular time.
This was a time and distance measurementexercise where the info we gathered from our sun shots equated to lines (red,green, and blue) that crossed our path (that same o line on the chart) ...yeah?
I’m not exactly sure what you’re asking here, but I should point out the we didn’t need to use multiple lines for a single star reading. The multiple lineshowever are good for comparing the distances traveled between readings. I usedmultiple colored lines more as a reference and illustration more than necessity.
Why were shots taken at 60NM intervalsagain and should we always do it that way?
No particular reason. We can take as many readings as we want, at any interval, as long as we know what the reason for them is. Suppose you’d like to take readings 5 or 10 minutes apart just to get an idea of your rate speed for example. I believe the 60nm was to determine when we were 60nm out from SAME's LOP as a BOD (beginning of Descent) point. I believe, in subsequent flights, that I’ll allow more distance than 60nm to descend approximately 15,000’, depending on terrain of course. J
In this case we were using the Sextant to back up our figures we came up with by staying on course heading (as close as we could), keeping a constant ground speed (at cruise level) and keeping a close eye on time and distance with the clock ... is that about it?
Yes, in a sense you're right, but it's not all pilotage and wind correction angles. We can start a flight cold as long as we know where our NAVAIDS are when planning a flight. With the sextant, instead of NDB and/or VOR frequencies we use Fixed Points and airport latitudes and longitudes as NAVAIDS. Also, like VOR and NDB, intermittent "fixed points" should be spaced no farther than about 250nm. Instead of a VOR having a range of 195nm, our sextant readings have a readable range of 180nm. So yes, we make a flight plan, just as we would do any other. Perhaps we set in a frequency and wait for a gauge to come alive with VOR and NDB. When using the sextant we set in a coordinate and wait until the reading lines fall inside the 180nm mark on the graph. The only is we use the rate of speed formula two ways. One to find the rate of speed for a distance and time traveled. The other is to determining the time to the next point with a know GS (at cruise) and a set time. I have examples of the math problems in the demo flight.
In case you noticed my demo flight, using weather, was much faster than with no weather even though I’d checked the weather before TO and found a pure cross wind. It seems that sometime during the flight, the wind switched from cross to a tail wind and we averaged more than 200 knots GS between readings. This is proof that the sextant is a great tool for measuring GS. Another reason to take readings often is to determine if there’s a directional wind shifts as well as velocity changes. In fact, the sextant works as well as a DME for this purpose.
You nailed down the whole Moon thing very well and brought up some veryinteresting points on how it is rendered (or not) in MSFS.
Yeah. I knew something wasn't right between real Moon and FS Moon, but didn'thave a handle on it till now ... thanks!
Thank you Salt!
[BTW]
This puts me and Pedro in Mendoza ... yeah Pedro, he had to leave before thegringo's came back to find their plane broken, out of gas and a hundred miles southof where they left it ... and I needed a local guide until I get a grip on howto use the Sextant .... so things are working out for the three of us.
Me, Pedro and the ransom payment crate.
Great Job!!!! :salute:
PS Sorry about some words running togther. It seems to happen when copying from word.
I'd actually spent over an hour responding to the post, and when I was ready to post my login has expired. When I reloged the post didn't save and the screen was just blank.
Panel config works great, thanks
If I was to use my MAAM payware Dc, could I replace one of the windows with the window info you provided and it would work? (Add the guage number to the end of window00, then your info to the window I'll slot the sextant into.)
They use a full 10 windows, so I was thinking of replacing the co-pilot's window with the sextant.
Sure Chris,
Just as you discribed, additional gauge number under window00 and slot for sextant.
Also
You don't need to replace any Icons. The ony reason for repalcing one is if you wanted to maintain the shift/number hot key for some reason. Personally I never use the hot keys, unless it's an addon of some kind.
Here's a pic of my MAAM R4D-6 panel using the sextant with an additional icon location.
Attachment 45465
The coordinates of the icon in the panel cfg are
gauge57=BB_sextant!icon2, 44,695,17,18
which put it in the right column, forth down (last) icon from the top.
I only have it in the pilot's window at this time.
Come to think of it, I should add an icon in the copilot's window as well. I'm getting tired of doing all the work while Carmen just sits over there looking pretty.
Nice. (I should be a pro at this modding business by the end of all this
I'll have a go at this tonight.
Thanks again
Hi Al,
You're right.
FSX is only about 58 or so hours out of sync at this time. The Full Moon forAugust, according to the USNO data charts, will officially start the 13th at 1857 UT. http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/MoonPhase.php
I checked FSX and the Full Moon starts on August 11th at 0800 UT
In MSFS there are 6 phases. They are New Moon, First Crescent, First Half, Full Moon, Last Half, Last Crescent. During the New Moon phase we only see a sliver of the moon, however it’s still observable for sextant purposes. The moon’s still there, it's just that all we can see is a sliver. J (FYI only….in the real world they actually use the sides of the moon for sextant readings due to the size of it).
You can check out a New Moon in FSX on August 27th at 6:00AM EST or 10:00 UT in the mid to eastern part of (the eastern time zone) in the USA. After that, as you can see here, http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/RS_OneYear.php by setting in the Territory or Latitude and Longitude. The moon is going to begin syncing with the sun and will be up pretty much during daylight hours and not visable again until the middle of September. However it is visable after sunrise and before sunset at times.
Don't get confused by these examples. The moon is always visible at the times, except for a small differences each day, all around the earth when it's dark that is. Like the sun, comes up at 9:00PM in one time zone it comes up pretty much at 9PM in all time zones....jsut as the sun does.
The reason I used the USA as an example is that it's dark and visible when this particular Full Moon change occurs. You couldn't observe it in London because it is 0800 AM and too light.
Instead of slowly changing phases the moon snaps from one phase to the next. I'm guessing this usually happens on the top of an hour.
If you’d like to observe a moon "phase change" set the date to August 11, 0755 UT and fly anywhere in the USA from EDT to PDT. You will see it change at exactly 8:00 UT. If you set the time too close to the top of the hour, the scenery may already have changed it. That's why I suggested 7:55 instead of 7:59.
It is probably better to observe in a more western part of the USA, because it rises at 4:13AM local EST when it’s beginning to get daylight there. Of course in the PST zone it would only be 01:00AM local time.
August this year (2011) is a good time to use the moon for navigation since it’s out at night or “out of sync with the sun.” There are times when the moon is in sync with the sun or close to it, and not visible due to the brightness of the sun.
The improvement in FSX over FS9 is that you can see the New Moon as a thin sliver of a crescent.
It looks like the phases in FS9 are about 13 days out of sync at this time. The rise and set times are very accurate as always. If you don't see the moon when it's supposed to be coming up or be there it may be that the phase is in the New Moon.
dil
Thanks for sharing all this info with us Dil, you have alot of knowledge about this sextant stuff and how to use it in FS.
Al
Attachment 45484
Can you please have a look over this? The sextant comes up only momentarily before disappearing.
I've checked it over and over but can't find the problem.
Thanks in advance.
Hi Chris,
under "window titles" you have the sextant listed twice...that could be the problem
In case you earsed it, here's my MAAM C47 under windows titles.
[Window Titles]
Window00=Pilot Panel
Window01=Pilot IFR Panel
Window02=First Officer Panel
Window03=First Officer IFR Panel
Window04=Overhead Electrical Panel
Window05=Quadrant
Window06=Cowl Flaps
Window07=Flap and Gear Controls
Window08=GPS
Window09=Audio
Window10=Mini Panel
Window11=Sextant
dil
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