Spitfire K5054 90th Anniversary Circumnavigation of the UK: PIREPS

[Tako_Kichi]

Thanks, this is my set-up:

P3D v4.5 plus Orbx FTX Global with OpenLC Europe (plus other regions too), TOGA Environment Plus for airport, land and water textures, Active Sky P3D for real weather enhanced with Active Sky Cloud Art for cloud textures.

I am very happy with the results.

 

[bosspecops]

View attachment 188368

Hah, my old house is about 10 nm to the left of you there. And I've lost count of the number of times I drove over it in the 34 years I lived in the area, well into the thousands I'm sure.

And Melo and I know that bridge very well indeed, or at least the underside view of it anyway.

 

[Tako_Kichi]

My first wife's cousin used to live close to it too. First in Cwmbran when he still lived with his parents and then in Lydney after he got married. He used to cross the bridge twice a day to get to work at the RR engine factory where he was a junior designer for military aircraft engine after-burners.

 

[bosspecops]

Lydney? That's EXACTLY where I lived!

 

[Melo965]

Spitfire K5054 TR9 Flight 3: Leuchars AB (EGQL) to Lossiemouth AB (EGQS) Part 1

For this event I am flying in FSX. Using Active Sky 2016 for weather and Little Navmap for navigation.
Flying an Aeroplane Heaven Mid-War pack TR9 Spitfire. Repainted to match the livery of the K5054 TR9 Spitfire.


Ready to fly. Wind direction indicates a takeoff on runway 04.


It was an interesting taxi to get to runway 04.


Ready for takeoff on 04.


I took off to the North but swung around and headed South following the flight plan. Crossing over Leuchars AB again on the way South.

Again I adjusted the throttle, mixture and prop settings to conserve fuel. Moved the throttle lever down to the third of the eight marks on the joystick so about 63% throttle. I then coarsened the prop pitch and moved the mixture back to get a RPM of 2500 with 4 boost. Had an average speed of about 175 knots with these settings.


Of course, I could not resist heading under the Forth Railway Bridge.


Pulled up rather sharply to avoid the Forth Roadway Bridge. Did not plan as well as Kit on the approach so it was only one bridge.


Headed North now in foggy conditions. Over Scone (EGPT) near Perth VOR (PTH).


We are securely strapped in with our parachutes on and a full emergency briefing was completed before we started the Merlin engine. One thing to note in these TR9 Spitfires is that each pilot is responsible for opening his or her own canopy in case of emergency.


Flying along the beautiful UK coast.


Dyce (EGPD) is below.

Continued in Part 2

 

[Melo965]

Spitfire K5054 TR9 Flight 3: Leuchars AB (EGQL) to Lossiemouth AB (EGQS) Part 2


Flying further up the coast. The foggy weather is clearing at least a bit.


Turning West to head toward Lossiemouth AB.


Flying over Banff. Only 27 miles to go and with 50% fuel on board.


Overhead Lossiemouth AB with 44% fuel on board. I got tower permission to come around and do a fast pass down the 23 - 05 main runway.


Just getting over the top on my Immelmann to reverse course for the fly by. Pulled 3.8 G's in the process!


Getting lower on this fly by. 265 knots at 111 feet altitude.


Tower view of me at 96 feet.

Based on wind direction, I then came back around for a landing on runway 23. Full flaps, gear down, and canopies open.


Base leg for runway 23.


Curved short final for runway 23. Landed safely with a short rollout.


Parked at Lossiemouth AB (EGQS). Shut down with 30% fuel remaining.

The flight was 262 miles. The flight was completed in 1 hour and 23 minutes at an average speed of 165 knots.

I used 59.5 gallons of fuel on the flight. For this flight the Merlin engine used 43.0 gallons per hour. Almost identical to the last flight.

 

[bosspecops]

Nice flight Melo, specially the inverted bit.

FSX really don't have the Lossiemouth scenery correct, the Tower there is NOTHING like the one they've done. I know it well having spent many happy hours in there when my youngest daughter, Anita, was doing Air Traffic there.

I'll try to find some more accurate scenery before I follow you up that way.

 

[ScottishMike1]

20th. May 2026
Leg 8 RAF St. Mawgan / Newquay Cornwall Airport (EGDG) to Exeter (EGTE)
FS9 and FS Global Real Weather

PART 1

Time: 10:00
A rather gloomy day, with an overcast at 400ft. Yannik is wondering if it is worth going ahead, we would have to fly above the overcast for safety but what would spectators on the ground see? Apart from being tantalised by Merlin noise? Another question arose over dinner last night: Where do you stow your surfboard in a Spitfire? All questions with no answer. But we have a timetable to keep to so we will fly today.


We ask ATC for VFR clearance and are denied, St. Mawgan is IFR only at the moment. Well thanks to Melo we have an IFR flight plan and it has been submitted as an alternative. We hold as ATC scrutinise it and give approval.
So off we go into the overcast:


Turning onto a 231º heading at 2300 ft. and not a lot to see although we are passing over Perranporth (EGTP)


A brief break in the overcast sees us over St. Ives Bay (prime surfing beaches, with Atlantic rollers braking onto the sand.):


Land’s End was a must, but any sensible pilot would have passed by at 2000’ rather than diving down into the overcast looking for that small patch of grass. But hey! Belgians are almost as crazy as Scotsmen. There she is! With name on the roof for good measure:


Recovering hart rate from the dangerous pass over Land’s End and we completely mess up WP4 over Penzance. I hope the musical pirates are not too disappointed. We have time to recover our composure in time to do a fly past of Naval Air Station Culdrose (EGDR):


This is a spectacular coastline and it would appear the Gods are not totally against us as the overcast clears revealing the rugged Cornish coastline as we pass St. Austell and Fowey Inlet

 

[ScottishMike1]

20th. May 2026
Leg 8 RAF St. Mawgan / Newquay Cornwall Airport (EGDG) to Exeter (EGTE)
FS9 and FS Global Real Weather

PART 2

Now heading almost due east for Plymouth, passing over the river Tamar and south of Plymouth airport (EGHD) at 1300 ft.:


Turning onto a 130º heading for Salcombe then turning north east following the coast for Dartmouth (do the navy boys and girls still train here?):


Time to make contact with Exeter ATC and we are cleared for rwy 26:


We join the left circuit on downwind, first stage flaps and gear down on base, speed slowed to 110 kts as we turn onto final and ATC vector a Cessna 182 in front of us. Yes I know, a sensible pilot would have done a go-around but F@*! it Yannick is tired and the Spit has good brakes. We touch down safely, the Cessna a few hundred yards ahead of us:


Don’t you just love FS9 ATC; it’s at this point ATC ask us to do a Go Around:


We are now stopped anyway, and start following the ATC pink arrows to our parking spot following the Cessna, but suddenly the Cessna does a 180º turn and is coming towards us:


At least the Cessna stops as do we, now in a Mexican stand-off. We all could learn a lot of French and Walloon swear words but I wont repeat them. All we can do is teleport off the taxi-way onto the grass as the Cessna happily goes on it’s way:


We teleport back onto the taxyway and follow directions to our parking spot across the main runway from the passenger terminal. Apart from crazy ATC Exeter looks like a nice airport:


Switch off procedures completed.
Time in the air 1 hr. 4 minuts
Fuel used 32 gallons.



Not an easy leg, weather and ATC saw to that.

 

[Tako_Kichi]

The SrG and T_K Spit Tour Adventure: Flight 8

Flight 8 required a Spit and an A400M and I happened to have a P3D A400M lurking in a back-up hangar where I keep aircraft I rarely fly so I took that and Rob jumped in his Spit.

There is quite a size difference on this leg but not quite as bad as the Poseidon leg.



Does my bum look big in this A400M? It's a good job RAF St. Mawgan has wide runways.



The first point of interest was the seaside town of Perranporth and an over-fly of its airport.



A hard banked double left hand turn was required to round Lands End.



The next place to visit was RNAS Culdrose and the camo on these birds make them really hard to spot.



Here's another example of effective camo (you can give me a nice camo over cookie cutter low-viz grey any day of the week)!



Whatever you do Rob DO NOT slow down!



Rob is somewhere amongst all the clutter in this HUD!



Oh oh, the camo is not quite so effective over open water!



It was at this point that I was reminded why this particular aircraft sits in my back-up hangar and rarely gets flown despite it having a really nice external model and a nice VC (albeit a little dark) and hand flying like a big fighter. It has a bad habit of dropping FPS over time almost like it has a memory leak of some sort. On this system I usually see 65-75+ FPS regardless of what or where I fly but as you can see from the data in the top left corner of this shot my FPS has plummeted to just 19 FPS and it is starting to get stuttery!

 

[Tako_Kichi]

I just hit the 10 Kodak limit so here is the continuation...........

Thankfully there wasn't far to go and here I am getting lined up on the runway at Exeter.



Down safe and another leg completed. Just one more left now!

 

[Tako_Kichi]

The SrG and T_K Spit Tour Adventure: Flight 9

The final flight and Rob is in the Spit and I opted for the now freeware AH C-47 from Orbx which just happens to include the former BBMF C-47 Pegasus paint scheme so we are good to go!



Forming up after take-off and the Spit has no problem catching me up.



Here we are flying along the famous Chesil Beach and I left the flight data on in the top left corner so that you can see what a difference a plane change brings. I am now getting 67.3 FPS instead of 19 FPS at the end of the previous flight!



Just about to make a left turn over Weymouth Harbour.



Shortly afterwards it was time for a right turn and onto the Isle of Wight.



Rob is starting to disappear into the haze as we approach Cowes.



We got to the finish line safely so it was time to celebrate with a low pass..........



...... followed by as close as you can get to a 'zoom climb' in a C-47! .............



.....and finally a paired fly past to finish.



Here we are all tucked up after a very enjoyable event that gave us lots of opportunities to fly lots of aircraft in lots of different WX conditions and with some compatibility issues to deal with too.



Our thanks go out to @Melo965 for putting the event on and we both look forward to the next one (which we have actually already completed in helos as it happens!)

 

[bosspecops]

The next one? What is the next one and where is it posted?

 

[Tako_Kichi]

The next one? What is the next one and where is it posted?

It's Phroggy's Rotorhead event here:

Marrakesh Aerial Express

Welcome to the latest Rotorhead Rotor Run... The Marrakesh Aerial Express. You will fly 400nm from Seville to Marrakesh. Flying at 100kt this will be a simple 4 hour flight. Prefight your favorite helicopter and take lots of pictures along your route. No rules other than a) Have Fun, b)...

sim-outhouse.org

 

[lucb]

I just hit the 10 Kodak limit so here is the continuation...........

Thankfully there wasn't far to go and here I am getting lined up on the runway

A400m flow often around my house fast and low. Really impressive!

 

[Tako_Kichi]

I like the A400M, it's a good alternative to the C-130 in many cases.

 

[Melo965]

Our thanks go out to @Melo965 for putting the event on

Thanks to you both for sharing your joint flights. Very impressive! Something new that I want to learn how to do.

 

[bosspecops]

Thanks to you both for sharing your joint flights. Very impressive! Something new that I want to learn how to do.

You know how to do it Melo, remember the 'Aspen Event'?

 

[Melo965]

Don't remind me. Hopefully by now I can do it more successfully!

 

[ScottishMike1]

21st. May 2026
Leg 9 Exeter (EGTE) to Southampton Intl. (EGHI)
FS9 and FS Global Real Weather

PART 1

Time: 10:00
The last leg, along the south coast Exeter to Southampton, an interesting journey for the detail as only a few features are memorable.
Better weather today:

It’s time to power up and get on our way:

Is that Cessna parked just in front of us not the Mexican delinquent from yesterday? I’ll be giving it a wide berth.
We are cleared for take off and are back tracking down the runway while a Cessna 208 is holding for us:


There is a turning circle at the 26 end and we are cleared for take off as we turn, so power on immediately and we are off. A nice airport if you don’t mind homicidal ATC:


We have to do an almost 180º turn to get on an easterly course for WP1 and the carpet capital of the UK: Axminster. But not much of interest from the air as we turn onto an 115º heading along Chesil Beach heading for Weymouth and the Isle of Portland.
Portland was a Royal Naval station that specialised in helicopter warfare (submarine detection) and other specialist fields. I will fly a few miles south to salute what still exists in my FS9:


It closed in 1996 and has been re-developed. How it is now with Chesil Beach in the background:


Back on our easterly heading and passing over Poole harbour:


The rest in part 2