2019 RACE screenshots and tall tales

[srgalahad]

As is often the case when the clerical staff get tied up with other things, we never got a corner set aside for the non-essential stuff, so here we are.

It's a cold day over the sea NE of Korea (but the sunshine is a pleasant change)...
A very close 1:59 leg - hey, I had a minute to spare, huh? - fighting 65 knot winds. It's not a lot of fun staring at the fuel flow and clock for two hours.

 

[Spookster67]

On leg 7 I took off from Phu Quoc in the Sea Fury. It's the only airport on a Vietnamese island just off the Cambodian coast. Happy memories of a vacation I'd taken on the same beautiful island last November. The evening sunsets really were this good in real life, too.

 

[Spookster67]

Welcome to Australia!

This was a memorable leg. I was wingman for Paul, and we'd had an uneventful trip across, but then the forecast from YBRM (Broome) looked pretty bad. It was. It was dark, raining, cloudy, and gusting 40 knots. It took us a couple of attempts to get the Tigercats down safely.

If you look hard, you can just make out the runway lights.

 

[Spookster67]

Snow in Chicago

I grabbed the baton for the Douglas C-47 leg into Midway. It would have been a great sightseeing trip, except the weather was bad.

Here I am waiting to depart Dodge County. I can barely see the length of runway 20, so it was no surprise that it took incoming pilot Derry a couple of goes to find it and get down safely (with extra pressure, as he'd started as wingman but become baton pilot).

I waved at Meigs Field as we passed, but no chance of seeing it.

It was nice of them to close O'Hare airport so that we could fly right over.

 

[Spookster67]

Crazy dash for the finish

It always looked like it was going to be a tight race, but I had no idea it would be this tight. AVSIM had got further ahead than I expected after we had to fight some strong headwinds on the KMDW to KMPR previous leg. I set off hoping to catch Eamonn (and his team) in a Bearcat, but without knowing whether I could.

My aim was to fly about 1000 AGL all the way, to maximise the speed of the F-80 down low. That was fine until two big aerials popped up. I thought about flying between them, but decided the better option was to pop up over them!

With 20 minutes to go, I was convinced we'd lost. Then I caught the back of the AVSIM flight, but Eamonn was still well ahead. Coming over the last mountains at 7000 I just decided I had to dive and fly straight at the airport, no approach, and just pull a hard right banked turn over the runway 30 threshold, throw out the airbrakes, and hope the wings didn't fall off. It worked! The wheels came down just in time, I screeched to a halt and I got my baton post in within a second or two of the Duenna message popping up.

 

[ponchovilla]

Reach out and touch ya!

When I was setting up for the flight from Taraz to Leh, Rob reminded me that K2, the second highest mountain in the world at 28,250 feet, lay astride the route. If you ain't careful, somethin' just might reach out and grab ya!

 

[Spookster67]

The AVSIM team has some great pictures and stories too. Check them out here: https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/550465-pics-pireps-rtwr-2019/

 

[MaddogK]

This rivals some of the memories I had from my first couple of RTW races, ones that will be remembered always:
VMMC-RKNC
It was late on Saturday night and the team was a bit crispy from the opening day events. I had spent the day installing aircraft on my fresh drive I set up 12 hours earlier, after leaving FS running a flight from ohare to hawaii the AM before. I had confirmed the system was stable enough to participate, and while the crew was begging for some shuteye I was asked to step up and wing the flight. I hadn't scouted the run, nor asked for details since it was a jet leg. I had 20 minutes to install a 727. Enough time I figured. I had forgotten how many packages needed to be installed to get the HJG 727 working. It was 2 minutes before flight time when I got it all installed, so I fire up the sim and load up the plane. To my horror I'm flooded with error messages about gauges that wont load, and every guage is missing when the plane finally loads.

Clock keeps on ticking....

I discover a module is missing..fssound.dll is nowhere to be found, so I quickly google it, and suck it off another website end install it. Reload the sim and plane..no error...but half the panel is missing gauges. No time for this, Baton already left. I quickly restart the sim and load up a 747 and kick the passengers to the curb. Weather is loaded, duenna is green as I lift off into midday skies.

Flight remains uneventful for 2 hours, and I start my descent into what appears to be open desert, 75 miles from the airport. Wind looks pretty smooth, and blowing about 100 kts into the front quarter so I adjust my descent speed to about 230-ish with the speedbrakes on. I cross 20K feet and start looking at the GPS pages then suddenly the stall warning starts going off. I look at the airspeed and it's reading 220-ish and I can't figure out whats going on... but AP is pulling the nose up and my altitude is dropping like a rock. I switch the AP and speedbrakes off and push the nose back down and look at the airspeed. It's still pretty good, over 200 but I'm still falling like a meteor. I push the nose ever further down, and the airspeed hits about 300 before the stall warning goes back off. Altimeter is reading about 4k feet. WHEW, I'm still alive. Time to trim up and find that airport. Gotta watch them wind shifts.

I set the AP to get me down to 2500 feet since the terrain looks pretty flat, and I'm zooming in on the gps map since the airport should be right in front of me, bout 10 miles out. Suddenly I glance up and there's a mountain right in front of me. Where the heck did that come from, there's no terrain on the GPS ! AP off and full throttle I pitch back up and I'm thinking 'here comes the stall warning again', but luckily nothing but the screaming engine sound in my ears, and blue sky in the windshield. Somehow I didn't land on the 'hiil' and levelled out to continue my approach...if I can ever find that airport. Seems that LOD7 mesh I copied over to this new PC wasn't such a good idea.

I finally spot the airport. It's perfect visibility, and I can only wonder why it was invisible till I was less than 5 miles from it. I'm lined up and inbound. The chatter on teamspeak mentioned a tower close to the runway and I should aim for the grass just to the side of the 4000 foot runway. I thought they were joking. That tower looked to be about 10 feet off the runway. Oh snap, my wings gonna take out that tower. Guess I better aim for the grass. I finally get her down and hit the reversers. The empty 747 stops on a dime, even in the grass. I go and post my green duenna thinking I'm glad I practiced putting mad dog down on Telluride a few weeks ago.

Lessons learned: plan. recon. listen. pray. Paying attention and not panicking always helps.

 

[ponchovilla]

Some approach shots

When Martin was planning the Route, he happened to find this little airfield in Korea.......
Martin DID mention that the control tower was right next to the runway, so I shot my first approach to see what's up.
It ended badly.
Control towers do not move.
My precious lil' B721 with the UAL Friend Ship paint job hit the tower with a wing tip and went "BOOOOM!"
So I did a few more practice runs, trying to establish fuel load, a good Top of Descent Point, approach path, and sight line. Coming into the airport from the south, the approach end of the runway is guarded by low hills, so I ended up deciding on the stock FS9 GPS approach, which avoids the higher hills that are in the way of a straight-line approach.
Oh, and did I mention that it's only a 4,000 foot runway?

The flight from Macau to Chuncheon...

Gear up, flaps in, banking right to get on course like a bat out of Macao

The view from the office.
Hand on the throttles and keeping track of the airspeed as a duenna would keep track of her charges.
Not a moment's rest for the whole flight!

AND... I forgot to mention that there is a building and trees right in front of the approach end of the runway!
Plus, there was a quartering tailwind to boot!

Lettin' it ALL hang out!

Missed the tower! HAH!

Oh, Yeah! Plenty of room to spare - PLENTY of room!

It was interesting to say the least. At least the seat wasn't stuck to my backside when I stood up!
Thanks for having my back, Maddog! Knowing there's a wingman does seem to lower the heart rate and the blood pressure!
Oddly enough, these are the kind of RTW Race moments I seem to live for.
Since I now seem to be the "tuber" for Team SOH, should I change my avatar and nickname to "Mr. Potato Head?": )

 

[srgalahad]

By the last leg I was running on fumes and this is how it felt for most of the leg as wingman for Martin-

Martin mentioned "towers" and I tried to re-focus - hmmmm - oh, THOSE! pull gently, squint, push over more gently... PHEW!

OK, I'm awake now. Santa Fe NM looks rather pretty, and all those people looking up at the whining P-80...

You know, that was kinda fun!

 

[MaddogK]

When Martin was planning the Route, he happened to find this little airfield in Korea.......
Martin DID mention that the control tower was right next to the runway, so I shot my first approach to see what's up.
It ended badly.
Control towers do not move.
My precious lil' B721 with the UAL Friend Ship paint job hit the tower with a wing tip and went "BOOOOM!"
So I did a few more practice runs, trying to establish fuel load, a good Top of Descent Point, approach path, and sight line. Coming into the airport from the south, the approach end of the runway is guarded by low hills, so I ended up deciding on the stock FS9 GPS approach, which avoids the higher hills that are in the way of a straight-line approach.
Oh, and did I mention that it's only a 4,000 foot runway?

The flight from Macau to Chuncheon...

Gear up, flaps in, banking right to get on course like a bat out of Macao

The view from the office.
Hand on the throttles and keeping track of the airspeed as a duenna would keep track of her charges.
Not a moment's rest for the whole flight!

AND... I forgot to mention that there is a building and trees right in front of the approach end of the runway!
Plus, there was a quartering tailwind to boot!

Lettin' it ALL hang out!

Missed the tower! HAH!

Oh, Yeah! Plenty of room to spare - PLENTY of room!

It was interesting to say the least. At least the seat wasn't stuck to my backside when I stood up!
Thanks for having my back, Maddog! Knowing there's a wingman does seem to lower the heart rate and the blood pressure!
Oddly enough, these are the kind of RTW Race moments I seem to live for.
Since I now seem to be the "tuber" for Team SOH, should I change my avatar and nickname to "Mr. Potato Head?": )

No problemo, having or being the wing is a great stress relief. I learned that lesson when I slid off the Antarctic ice a few years back. VERY nice pics btw, those mountains are bigger than I remember.