Over The North Sea at 0:30 minutes & Alone

[casey jones]

I took off from RAF West Mauling at 2200 Hrs in Mr Olson's F-86 my destination Gander via
Iceland, Greenland, I refuled at an old RAF field EGPL on the coast of Scotland, my takeoff
was delayed due to incoming traffic a DC-3, I kept watching my fuel gauge needle moving
off the full mark, finally I got clearance...climbing to 13,000 ft I leveled off, at 12:30 AM
I was about 295 miles from Iceland, I looked to my left I could see the moon bright and
full, then I picked up a Avro York's lights passing me in the opposite derection. I began
to pick up turberlance I watched my fuel gauge now dropping to almost empty, my left
main tank went dry but at only 150 miles from the coast of Iceland I had to devert to
Rekelvick (sorry for my spelling) instead of Keflailk. I crossed the coast to 2500 ft I could
see the runway lights now I would have to make a hard left bank to line up with the
lights I lowered the gear and flaps my speed dropped to 150 knots I was just waiting for
my engine to quit over the threshold my wheels touched the runway I squeezed the brake
and the my engine quit I continued my rollout turning off the runway. My next stop is
Greenland. I found this flight for me so intense that I just wanted to share it, this I
think is what makes FS9 so great.

Cheers

Casey

[Sunny9850]

On occasion FS can truly make your palms sweat a little even if there is no physical risk, except maybe a significant other that gets POd if FS takes up too much time.

I don't know the numbers for the F-86 by heart or the planned distance but I think a higher flight level would have been the way to go for a transit flight. Down low these early jets gobbled up fuel as if there is no tomorrow.

Cheers
Stefan

[Motormouse]

You should try Goose Bay to Narsassaq, in the section f8 Sabre.
Have to remember to keep swapping tanks for that.

Ttfn

Pete

Ps all jets gobble fuel at lower levels.

[mrogers]

Great story Casey. Yes it can be interesting in FS sometimes. One day I downloaded real world weather, hopped into Rick Piper's Gloster Meteor and took off from KHIO Hillsboro. The sky was about 3 or 4 eighths cloud with calm winds. As I flew higher, I could see a wall of overcast coming off the Pacific covering most of the west coast. I thought this must be sea fog or something similar as I had read about it occuring often on the west coast. As I leveled off at 8000ft I flew along above the overcast towards the coast for some time then turned around to head south. Then suddenly all went quiet and I looked at the engine dials and saw that the engines were powering down. I quickly realized that the fuel had run out when I checked the fuel gauge, The fuel had been burned up more quickly in the climb than I realized. I thought that the meteor must have small tanks. The Meteor was now gliding along and going down. I pulled up the gps and looked for the nearest airport to land, the nearest one was Tillamook airport and it was right under the overcast. All the other airports were too far away. I was almost right over Tillamook so made a descending spiral down and went down into the murk and used the gps to keep track of Tillamook. Fortunately I had altitude on my side so had plenty of time to work things out, and used the gps to line up to the runway, checking the atitude as I went. I couldnt see anything in front, selected gear down and trusted the gps direction to the runway, checking the attitude as I glided along. At 200 ft I could just make out the tops of trees in the murk....then suddenly I was touching down on concrete! I just managed to make the runway in the murk, it was thick murk all the way down to ground level. I was all tensed up and was so relieved to have touched down safety, this was my first dead stick landing in a very challenging situation.
Things like this makes FS so interesting and great.

[casey jones]

Dear Mrogers,

Your experine in the Gloster was a great read! I could not imaging me doing that!

Cheers

Casey

[Drzook]

These are all great stories guys. :ernae:
I've had several white-knuckle misadventures in FS as well. They seem to have a common thread...the weather is usually so bad that only the certifiably insane would try to fly in it (at least in real life).
Just had one tonight.
I should have known it was trouble. Flying in real time real weather out of Dillingham. They said the visibility was 1/2 mile. Might be good for a short hop. Flight loads up and it is getting dark, it is pouring and I'm not entirely sure I can see past the nose. As I trundled down the runway I was thinking OK...not bad. Takeoff...still not bad. By the time the gear went up and I got to about 300 feet AGL I couldn't see anything. I broke cloud cover at around 3200' but trying to orient myself for a landing just couldn't materialize. Needless to say it didn't end well. Granted I didn't have anything to help (no working radio stack or GPS) and those trees came up fast. My guess is that I overshot the runway. I did get a few screenies in before the crash however. Hope you like them.Attachment 86201Attachment 86202Attachment 86203Attachment 86204