Craig's Modern MacRoberston Rocket to Mildenhall

[Craig Taylor]

Time to get on the stick. YMEN to YBCV in the Duke Turbine, using AS2012.

[Craig Taylor]

Drat - just realized that I forgot to set the duenna up for online tracking. As temperamental as it is, I figure I'll need to wait until I land at Charleville to fix that.

[Craig Taylor]

Okay, the first leg is in the books! Pretty uneventful flight, which is great since I only gave myself about an airspeed needle's width of a safety margin. Fortunately there were no unpleasant surprises, considering how quickly this thing can go to overspeed/overstress.

Anyway, here's the important stuff:
FlightLog_16-13-57.TXT


Flight Time 2:48:35
Routine Ground Time 00:00:00
Special Ground Time 00:00:00
Penalty Time 00:00:00

Edit: corrected the flight time. I was in a rushrush when I made the original post.

[Craig Taylor]

Dawn launch from YBCV to YBMA. Have to get to Darwin in two goes. I could make it in one by throttling back to extend the range and skip the 45 minutes of ground time at Mt Isa, but the loss in airspeed would negate any savings.

[Craig Taylor]

Down safely at YBMA

FlightLog_16-20-53.TXT



Flight Time 02:10:18
Routine Ground Time 00:45:00
Special Ground Time 00:00:00
Penalty Time 00:00:00

[Craig Taylor]

On to Darwin: YBMA -> YPDN

[Craig Taylor]

Arrived safely at YPDN. Had a nice tailwind on that one. Mother Nature decided to park a nice fluffy cloud right on top of the airport at about 1,000 ft just to make things interesting.

FlightLog_19-20-42.TXT



Flight Time 2:46:28
Routine Ground Time 00:45:00
Special Ground Time 00:00:00
Penalty Time 00:00:00

[jt_dub]

Nice run in the Turbine Duke Craig. You are putting the hammer down today.

[Craig Taylor]

Nice run in the Turbine Duke Craig. You are putting the hammer down today.

Thanks, Jeff! I've got fly it like I stole it if I want to catch you guys.

[Craig Taylor]

Departing YPDN for WAOO. It's going to be tight on fuel, but I should be able to make it with proper management.

[Craig Taylor]

Arrived at WAOO (aka WRBB according to the duenna). Picked up a nice tailwind along the way, so I still had about 7 gallons of fuel left in each tank (rather than the 1-2 gal. each that I was planning for... ). Now I'm off to look for a nice place for some local rijsstaffel before I continue on to Singapore.



FlightLog_11-54-54.TXT

Flight Time 4:12:41
Routine Ground Time 00:45:00
Special Ground Time 00:00:00
Penalty Time 00:00:00

[Craig Taylor]

Heading off: WAOO to WSSL. I hope I don't land at the wrong airport...

[Craig Taylor]

Was sightseeing too much and failed to notice that the airspeed had crept up on descent into the red.

*sigh*

FlightLog_20-56-08.TXT

[jt_dub]

Arrrghh!!!!! What a bummer. That turbine Duke is very unforgiving. It only takes a very brief excursion past Vne and you're done. It has happened to me more than once.

[Craig Taylor]

Yeah...like 1kt over Vne for 1 second. We have a love-hate relationship, she and I. Well, it's a high risk, high reward machine. Appreciate the sympathy, Jeff.

[Craig Taylor]

Reflying the leg from WAOO to WSSL. Will be monitoring the ASI more carefully this time...

[Craig Taylor]

Arrived safely (this time) at WSSL. Whew! Mixed bag of a flight, with precipitation enroute (leading to worries of icing) and clouds over Singapore on arrival. Off to the FBO to plan the next leg.

FlightLog_16-19-02.TXT



Flight Time 2:48:35
Routine Ground Time 00:45:00
Special Ground Time 00:00:00
Penalty Time 01:00:00

[Craig Taylor]

After a restful night in Singapore, it's off to Port Blair. WSSL -> VOPB

Looks like I'm taking off in a thunderstorm, so I know real weather is working. In fact, it might be thunderstorms at Pt Blair as well. Yay.

[Craig Taylor]

Arrived safely at VOPB. So glad to see dry land, or anything besides clouds!

FlightLog_11-44-47.TXT



Flight Time 3:28:04
Routine Ground Time 00:45:00
Special Ground Time 00:00:00
Penalty Time 00:00:00

[Craig Taylor]

Another dawn departure, VOPB to VIAL. Fingers crossed for good weather.

[Craig Taylor]

Down safe at VIAL. Held a nice tailwind until I hit 'feet dry,' and then the winds shifted to westerly. Very little weather at VIAL, but visibility was crap!



Forced to perform an overhead recovery followed by a quick 3/4 circle to land. Good thing they build low here.

Here are the particulars:

FlightLog_12-39-46.TXT



Flight Time 4:01:28
Routine Ground Time 00:45:00
Special Ground Time 00:00:00
Penalty Time 00:00:00

[Craig Taylor]

VIAL ->OPKC

Not looking forward to those headwinds.

Edit: Crash on take-off. Restarting...

[Craig Taylor]

Arrived safely at OPKC.

FlightLog_21-11-48.TXT



Flight Time 3:28:28
Routine Ground Time 00:45:00
Special Ground Time 00:00:00
Penalty Time 00:00:00

[Craig Taylor]

OPKC to OMAD. 'Nother long over-water leg. Hopefully no visits by trigger-happy IRIAF. I should stay just outside of their airspace.

[Craig Taylor]

Had shifted away for just a second to check on something - next thing I know I'm getting the "red" duenna output of death. After looking at the logs, the only thing that I can hypothesize is a sudden bout of turbulence that caused an overspeed while the autopilot was trying to maintain altitude. The altitude reading jumps up slightly on the last few flight points, with a -119 entry for VS at the end. Less than 100nm from OMAD, to boot.

Will have to cool off before trying this again.



FlightLog_09-53-20.TXT