bosspecops
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Onwards, ever onwards, and that low level clag seems to be all OVER the Southern States just now. It surely can't be like that all the time, can it? The times I've spent in N Carolina have always seen CAVU skies.
After flying one weird American twin, the Vega Starliner, I've gone for another on Leg 16 to Birmingham Al. the Miller HM-4 Arovel. No, I haven't clue about it either, and nor does anyone else! I can't find a thing about its flight performance anywhere to setup its profile in FST, so I gave it the same numbers as the Starliner. It was about the same size, maybe a bit smaller, carried 3 pax and a pilot, and was a twin too, even if the engines faced backwards!
Here it is parked up at Memphis ready for the trip east.
With my usual luck the Active Sky wind was from the north so I was faced with a LONG taxi to the south end of the 36L runway, so off I went. As I started up a PA28 taxied out ahead of me so I thought I'd follow him, like the C208 I followed inbound.
But when we got to the north end of 18R, the same runway I planned to use, he turned off for a downwind take-off!
Don't the AI aircraft take the stated wind direction into consideration? It took me an age to get to the south end of course and in that time the PA28 took off and overflew me.
I took-off, OK in the CORRECT direction, and the HM-4 seemed to fly quite nicely, but wasn't that quick. Running at about 75% manifold pressure I was cruising at 120 kts at my intended altitude of 5000 ft, but that didn't last long as this happened...............
Checking the met again it looked as if the cloud had really come down since I was at Flight Ops checking it earlier, so I came down to 2000 ft and back into VFR land. The HM-4 had quite a good panel, fine for IFR stuff, but the idea of the Tour was to SEE the USA of course, so I stayed low.
Much of the time I was flying over quite dense forests, as on leg 15, but now and then there was a clearing giving way to a small township. Oh, they're all cities in the US, aren't they, sorry?
There was a hefty sized Military Ops area en route, but luckily their restrictions started at around 7000 ft and I was not going anywhere near that high! Heading further south east I crossed a pretty large river, which turned out to be the Black Warrior River, which I'd never heard of before, but it was pretty large.
Birmingham itself stretched quite a way south of downtown, which I could just see on the horizon, and the ground was getting a tad hillier too, which worried me a tad as I was so low, but I cleared them OK. One thing characterised the area that I'd not seen before and that were these long corridors of felled trees with power lines running down the middle.
My waypoint north of Bessemer National Airport was right on top of a bit of high ground and I just cleared it!
Lining up on KEKY's 23 runway went OK, and as usual there were trees right in front of me, this time a whole forest of them!
Landing went fine, the HM-4 was easily able to get down quite softly with a bit of throttle and stick control, which was nice and I taxied off to parking. For the pervious 20 minutes or so it had been raining quite strongly and I was looking forward to coffee and buns in the FBO, but not only there wasn't an FBO, there were no buildings at ALL! Such a pity that FSX left so many basic requirements off the scenery, and try as I might, I could not find any add-on scenery for this field.
Parking up was easy, only two other aircraft were visible, and I was soon calling for a cab to take me to civilisation!
The flight went pretty well and took exactly 1.5 hrs, giving me an average speed of 129 kts, not so bad, but the fuel burn was ridiculous!
The HM-4 only held 60 galls when full of fuel, which I just didn't believe, and burned only 16 galls en route! That gave a burn rate of 0.8 galls/nm. and I've seen motor gliders with heavier fuel burn rates!
I'll fly something a bit more conventional next time I think, this weirdness can be carried too far.
After flying one weird American twin, the Vega Starliner, I've gone for another on Leg 16 to Birmingham Al. the Miller HM-4 Arovel. No, I haven't clue about it either, and nor does anyone else! I can't find a thing about its flight performance anywhere to setup its profile in FST, so I gave it the same numbers as the Starliner. It was about the same size, maybe a bit smaller, carried 3 pax and a pilot, and was a twin too, even if the engines faced backwards!
Here it is parked up at Memphis ready for the trip east.
With my usual luck the Active Sky wind was from the north so I was faced with a LONG taxi to the south end of the 36L runway, so off I went. As I started up a PA28 taxied out ahead of me so I thought I'd follow him, like the C208 I followed inbound.
But when we got to the north end of 18R, the same runway I planned to use, he turned off for a downwind take-off!
Don't the AI aircraft take the stated wind direction into consideration? It took me an age to get to the south end of course and in that time the PA28 took off and overflew me.I took-off, OK in the CORRECT direction, and the HM-4 seemed to fly quite nicely, but wasn't that quick. Running at about 75% manifold pressure I was cruising at 120 kts at my intended altitude of 5000 ft, but that didn't last long as this happened...............
Checking the met again it looked as if the cloud had really come down since I was at Flight Ops checking it earlier, so I came down to 2000 ft and back into VFR land. The HM-4 had quite a good panel, fine for IFR stuff, but the idea of the Tour was to SEE the USA of course, so I stayed low.
Much of the time I was flying over quite dense forests, as on leg 15, but now and then there was a clearing giving way to a small township. Oh, they're all cities in the US, aren't they, sorry?
There was a hefty sized Military Ops area en route, but luckily their restrictions started at around 7000 ft and I was not going anywhere near that high! Heading further south east I crossed a pretty large river, which turned out to be the Black Warrior River, which I'd never heard of before, but it was pretty large.
Birmingham itself stretched quite a way south of downtown, which I could just see on the horizon, and the ground was getting a tad hillier too, which worried me a tad as I was so low, but I cleared them OK. One thing characterised the area that I'd not seen before and that were these long corridors of felled trees with power lines running down the middle.
My waypoint north of Bessemer National Airport was right on top of a bit of high ground and I just cleared it!
Lining up on KEKY's 23 runway went OK, and as usual there were trees right in front of me, this time a whole forest of them!
Landing went fine, the HM-4 was easily able to get down quite softly with a bit of throttle and stick control, which was nice and I taxied off to parking. For the pervious 20 minutes or so it had been raining quite strongly and I was looking forward to coffee and buns in the FBO, but not only there wasn't an FBO, there were no buildings at ALL! Such a pity that FSX left so many basic requirements off the scenery, and try as I might, I could not find any add-on scenery for this field.
Parking up was easy, only two other aircraft were visible, and I was soon calling for a cab to take me to civilisation!
The flight went pretty well and took exactly 1.5 hrs, giving me an average speed of 129 kts, not so bad, but the fuel burn was ridiculous!
The HM-4 only held 60 galls when full of fuel, which I just didn't believe, and burned only 16 galls en route! That gave a burn rate of 0.8 galls/nm. and I've seen motor gliders with heavier fuel burn rates!
I'll fly something a bit more conventional next time I think, this weirdness can be carried too far.
