Spookster67 - Golden Age - Mew Gull E2H, G-AEXF

**Spookster67** · October 24th, 2009, 23:51

The Percival Mew Gull, G-AEXF, is ready to go. Panel all working, flight testing complete, time to leave Mildenhall.

**Spookster67** · October 24th, 2009, 23:52

Flight 1, leaving EGUN for LRBS (Bucharest).

**Spookster67** · October 25th, 2009, 05:22

Down safely at LRBS.

Quite cloudy over Germany, but some good tailwinds as well. Cleared over Czech, and had a nice view of the mountains crossing into Romania. Navigation worked nicely, although at one stage I was confused by there being two NDBs quite close together with the same frquency - ARD on 517.0, and another one quite close but in the wrong direction!

MM · October 25th, 2009, 07:19

Good to see a fellow Mew doing so well!

SWSucceed · October 25th, 2009, 07:21

Originally Posted by Spookster67

Down safely at LRBS.

Quite cloudy over Germany, but some good tailwinds as well. Cleared over Czech, and had a nice view of the mountains crossing into Romania. Navigation worked nicely, although at one stage I was confused by there being two NDBs quite close together with the same frquency - ARD on 517.0, and another one quite close but in the wrong direction!

Cool start Martin ... hope success stays with you

**Spookster67** · October 27th, 2009, 10:57

Flight 2, LRBS to ORBI (ORBS). Rain and localized thunder at Bucharest for an early morning start, fingers crossed. Estimating 5:05 to Baghdad.

**Spookster67** · October 27th, 2009, 12:43

Real life interuption - wife needed me to cook dinner, and her to check emails on the PC. Controlled flight into terrain!

Will have to re-fly tomorrow morning.

SWSucceed · October 28th, 2009, 01:13

Originally Posted by Spookster67

Real life interuption - wife needed me to cook dinner, and her to check emails on the PC. Controlled flight into terrain!

Will have to re-fly tomorrow morning.

Bad luck ... worse still your beers are now warm and flat ...

**Spookster67** · October 28th, 2009, 02:01

Originally Posted by SWSucceed

Bad luck ... worse still your beers are now warm and flat ...

Well, that's the way I like my beer!

OK, trying again, this time without interuptions. LRBS to ORBI, in a bit more than 5 hours. Starting pre-dawn local time, to try to get 2 or 3 flights done in daylight today.

**Spookster67** · October 28th, 2009, 07:19

Safely down at ORBI. A reasonable flight, but I hit some bad thunderstorms over northern Iraq which last 45 minutes, with low vis, turbulence and rain. Anyway, cleared up nicely for the arrival at Baghdad. Came in very hot on the runway, but there's plenty of it, and I must have glided half its length just losing speed before I dared put the wheel on the tarmac.

Just time for a kebab for lunch, the (now warm and flat) beer that Stuart bought me yesterday, and we'll be refuelling and off to the Persian Gulf.

Flight time 05:12:16
Cumulative 10:37:34

**Spookster67** · October 28th, 2009, 07:50

Flight 3. And the next one, ORBI to OIBB. Target 2 hours.

Actually I would like to have routed straight over Iran to VIJO (Jodhpur), but at 1573nm that is at least 100nm further than the range of this little Mew Gull. It would have needed some good tail winds, a bit of fuel leaning, and a lot of luck!! So instead, it's a series of "lightly loaded" sprints around the Gulf coast.

SWSucceed · October 28th, 2009, 08:55

Well done

I had crap weather over Baghdad too, not written the flight report yet, but it was very rough in places and I am surprised that I'd not received structure damage.

Testimony to the DC-3, no wonger she lasted such a long time in aviation terms.

As for the warm flat beer reaching the parts others do not, you know that with all the expense on fuel and provisions for the flight that I only bought you half a Fosters, so if warm cat-pee is your thing ... ... ...

**Spookster67** · October 28th, 2009, 09:54

Safely down at OIBB, just a minute quicker than I guessed. Completely uneventful flight, which in a way is nice.

Flight time 1:58:59
Cumulative 12:36:33

**Spookster67** · October 29th, 2009, 07:41

Flight 4. OIBB to OIZJ. I'll be following the coast, and hoping for around 2 hours.

**Spookster67** · October 29th, 2009, 09:52

Landed safely at Jask (OIZJ).

It would have been a nice VFR flight around the coastline, but I picked up coastal fog almost immediately after departure, so I was relying on bearings and stopwatch at times rather than following the coast. Anyway, it cleared, and it got a lot easier. Jask was easy to find - not a cloud in the sky.

Flight time 2:03:31
Cumulative 14:40:04

**Spookster67** · October 30th, 2009, 07:32

Flight 5. Continuing along the coast to Karachi, OPKC. Maybe 2 hours 25 ish.

**Spookster67** · October 30th, 2009, 10:06

And down at Karachi (OPKC). Had to try lots of different flight levels to avoid some fairly gentle headwinds. With the Karchi NDB popping up at 122nm out, navigation on this one was relatively easy. Just a little misty on arrival, otherwise weather quite nice.

Flight time 2:25:06 (oooh, just 6 seconds out...

Cumulative 17:05:10

**Spookster67** · November 3rd, 2009, 11:00

All set for the next hop, to Allahabad. OPKC to VIAL.

**Vicious** · November 3rd, 2009, 11:27

I was watching your flight on the race tracker. It looks like you're having to work pretty hard to find favorable winds. Keep up the good work!

**Spookster67** · November 3rd, 2009, 14:55

Originally Posted by Vicious

I was watching your flight on the race tracker. It looks like you're having to work pretty hard to find favorable winds. Keep up the good work!

Yes, I had thought that it would be a case of finding the right altitude, and then going with the flow, but in fact within 5 minutes of finding a tail wind I lost it and had to go searching again. In the end I think I ended up with slightly more headwind than tailwind.:isadizzy:

**Spookster67** · November 3rd, 2009, 14:59

Safely down at Allahabad (actually about an hour ago, but the forum has been offline. I posted on the AspireFSX.com forum at the time, but am now repeating the post here).

Every tailwind I found was quickly followed by a headwind, so in the end it wasn't as quick as I had hoped. Like many others have found, India is often fogged in, so there was not much to see. It was clear at Allahabad though, so the approach was easy.

**Spookster67** · November 3rd, 2009, 15:17

Until this event, I had thought that NDB navigation was just a case of "joining up the dots", with the flight plan consisting of overflying every beacon. Having read about the navigation techniques on some of the websites linked from this forum, I've learnt that there's much more to it than that! Being able to quickly establish "distance from station" means that you can plot and fly a much straighter course, but still be confident of knowing whether you are drifting to the left or right of the line.

My first couple of hops in Europe included overflying some NDBs, and checking distance to others. This most recent flight from Karachi to Allahabad is I think the longest hop I have done without actually crossing any NDB, until the final one a couple of miles from the field. En-route I had 6 NDBs to monitor, ranging from 24 miles left of my track to 59 miles right. According to my calcs I was occasionally up to 5 miles off track, but on a leg of 800nm length that really wasn't a problem.

I've learnt a new skill, and am having a lot of fun practicing it...!

**Vicious** · November 3rd, 2009, 17:42

I was telling Ozzie (Rob) the other night we should dump this GPS stuff and go back to NDB it's so much fun!

But seriously, the technique you described is exactly what I've done in all my races. Using Super Flight Planner (SFP) I determine the compass headings at both fields to determine my course. I then plot the straight line route between the two airports and take NDB readings as they pass 90 degrees to my flight path. I then check the calculated distance to the station with the distance that SFP shows, if I were on the ideal flight track. If I’m off by more than a mile or two, I’ll adjust my path by a few degrees and fly on the new heading until my trig shows me I should be back on the flight path.

What’s even more fun that NDB is dead reckoning. I plot the ideal flight path in Google Maps and then use the terrain map as a guide for the various landmarks. The Google terrain map matches very well with the terrain in FS9, so it’s easy to find large landmarks like lakes and cities, but I’ve even been able to navigate by roads and rivers.

Enjoy!

**Spookster67** · November 5th, 2009, 08:57

Moving on again, this time to Rangoon, VYYY.

**Spookster67** · November 5th, 2009, 13:40

Safely down at Rangoon, VYYY. A nice flight, good weather the whole way, with a mixture of head and tail winds. I missed a couple of NDBs (too far off my track to receive them I guess), but my speed and heading calcs had me in about the right place most of the time. :mixedsmi:

Flight time: 4:33:02
Cumulative: 25:26:29