London-Melbourne 2014: A Heads-Up for October

[Willy]

Working my way across the Atlantic towards England via Greenland and Iceland. Wonder if there's an Autozone nearby?

 

[PRB]

Nothing a little duck tape and some spot welding can't fix. I wouldn't worry about it. Miss. Cochran said all Gee Bees Land like that, more or less...

 

[Willy]

There I was at 5500ft flying from Reykavik to BIHN on the east coast of Iceland across an icecap just minding my own bidness. Spent about half the time in a cloud. Suddenly, I get into the clear and the icecap is rapidly rising to meet me. I kick off the altitude hold and start climbing. I leveled off at 7500ft and start paying a lot more attention to the ground between clouds.

I forgot one little thing. With the Gee Bee when you climb, you have to recheck your engine rpm. It wants to climb as you get higher and if you don't throttle back, it'll overspeed the engine. Sure enough now that I'm not paying any attention to it, the engine starts running rough and smoking. And there's no airfield anywhere near me. I start thinking about maybe I can reach the coast and land on a beach.

At this point, I'm wondering if there's still enough power to maintain altitude. A quick look at the altimeter confirms that we're slowly going down. No way I can reach BIHN. And looking forward, there's a ridge up ahead. Time for a quick decision. So I decide that my only chance is to risk a landing on the icecap. And this thing is very picky about wanting to crash unless it's set down very gently. No guts, no glory.

I make a slow turn to the south so I'm not pointing towards the ridge and slightly increase my descent rate. By this time the engine is cutting out a lot. I'm thinking I really want to try to land with even a little bit of power rather than try to dead stick it in as you need to be a bit hot on short final with this one. By this time I'm down to about 85ish knots which is a bit slower than I usually land it. Suddenly the wheels touch and it bounces back up in the air like it usually does. This time only two bounces before it plants on the ground. Once below 70 knots, I haul back on the stick to get the tail on the ground and start pumping the brakes for all they're worth. About this point the engine finally packs it in and dies. I manage to get it coasted to a stop and check the map to figure just where I am. About 45nm west of BIHN. Looks like it's going to be a long walk and it's getting late in the afternoon.....

 

[Dev One]

If any one wants to enter the H.L.Brooks Miles M3 Falcon Major, I have put up on the FS2004 & FSX aircraft new aircraft.cfg & .air file to replicate the larger fuel capacity. These mods also delete the use of flaps as they were not fitted to G-ACMT & I have modified some parameters to keep performance in line with the reduced HP noted in 1934. There are other minor tweaks. I have also further developed the aero prop braking initially developed for my Falcon Six.
I hope to modify the visual model at a later date to reflect the exterior windscreen & canopy profile of CMT, hopefully before 2015's race.
Keith

 

[Moses03]

Thanks Keith!

 

[PRB]

Got a great deal on a sporty little plane. Been flying circuits around a top secret flight test facility. Something that has a really long runway... Lets see, she's tried to kill me seven times now. She is nothing if not persistent... I'll try a few more landings before I decide. Maybe 8 or 9...

 

[Willy]

Yeah, she will bite if not handled the way she wants. Kind of like a woman.

I'm still getting the occasional crash. Usually from something dumb that I knew better than to do. I'm just curious how many times I'll crash during the race!