My Flying Page.

There is always the dreaded though when entering the cockpit ,,, “Where from and where too”. In the early years it didn’t really matter but once some-one’s been there, done that a hundred times or more, a flying “direction” was required.

I wasn’t into long haul flying or flying by FMC etc ,, I was a “hands on” pilot.

I chose the following and made hard and fast rules for doing it.

Fly around the world,,, in real time,,, no pausing,,, no “cheat” refuelling,,, each hop about 50 to 100 miles (where practical),, log each flight with minimal log,,, in ROUGH WEATHER,,, LOW altitude (Where practical, no more than 500 ft above the highest airport of that hop) and also had to be able to land and take-off on aircraft carriers. (More on this down the page)

All landings and take-off’s had to be “real”,, so if you messed it up,,, you done that hop again.

Once I had been around the world,, from that circuit,,, I made loops for getting “All the countries of the world” (FSX data)

A lot of this is being done online,, however my type of flying doesn’t suit everyone so I stay away from “group” flights..

The Plane.  FREEWARE ! ! !

The plane I chose was  Tim Conrads GRUMMAN MOHAWH OV1D.

Marvelous wee airplane and flies like a dream,,, great for flying up valleys,, short take-off’s and landings. It also does 230 knots, so its not too slow.

In the FSX one, there is no real 2D cockpit but the 3D one is really neat.

The bubble side window give you great views outside.

The FS2004 one doesn’t fly very well but apparently if you transfer some/all ?? the config file ?? over to it , it performs very well.

Its range is about 600 miles.

You can get Tims Grumman Mohawk OV1D (FSX) from just about anywhere ,, get it from your favorite sim site or do a search for “ov-1_pak.zip” (The FSX one ,, about 24 M/B’s)

Thank you Tim for creating such a wonderful plane.

Aircraft Carriers. FREEWARE ! ! !

On a trip like this you need refueling on the long ocean trips ,,, what better than aircraft carriers you can put anywhere you like ,,, in fact you can plonk them down a few miles ahead of you while you are actually still flying.

Yes you can steer them, stop and start them, put them anywhere you like,, 1 aircraft carrier or a whole fleet. AND ITS ALL FREE ! ! !

Unfortunately Lamont seems to have closed his website (or moved ??) but if you look for “aicarriers2r2.zip” by Lamont Clark (lc0277) at your favorite FS website you should find it. (FSX only)

Thank you Lamont for such a wonderful add-on.

The Map..

An obvious thing to encourage you on during “lulls” in you enthusiasm is some visual representation of what you are trying to achieve and/or a track record of progress. A world map was an obvious answer. I got mine already covered with plastic so it was just a matter of pinning it to the wall and filling it in “as you go” with a felt pen.

I really recommend this for any big mission.

You can see where I’ve flown around the world and also the “loops” off it to get other countries of the world. (The Mongolia loop and the South America loop)

I am currently going from Luxembourg down to Africa to get all those countries and will rejoin around India somewhere.

The log..

A real aid to all this is the “log” ,, I fill out the flight plan off my flight planner and as I fly each hop, I fill in the time date etc. just with a pen and catch up the new entries later on when I get the urge.

The real indicator here is the “average over”(The right most column) ,, the extra height I have used to make the hops. (I want to keep that as low as possible)

I started off at 2000 ft but soon I dropped that to as low as I could go and still have fun.

After going completely around the world,,, my “average over” was 875 feet,, not bad considering I started off not really trying and in a lot of hops I had to go over huge mountain ranges.

The first bunch of hops are actually from the ATW site but I caught up with them and continued with my own hops. (All included)

You can download the “Jim’s Around the world” log here… http://www.jimspage.co.nz/jatwlog.zip

It is XLS format and I have left all my entries on it so you can compare. To use it yourself, just erase my flight entries.

The columns you would empty are ,, Date, Notes, Weather, Altitude, plane and hours. Don’t erase the “over” or “avg” columns as there are formulas in them and they will change as you enter your own data. (Just a point ,, there are good comments in the Notes column so you may want to leave them there until you have done the flight yourself.

The zip file also includes a list of all the countries of the world according to FSX. (Printable,, in 2 pages)

You can also see a video taken by Willie of my last hop in the “Around the World” here … http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEC2skdcYO4

What you see is Willies FS2004 scenery and plane … And yes the plane color variants are in the FSX pack too.

Other add-ons… PAYWARE ! ! !

As much as it goes against my grain ,, to enjoy this mission I had to have 2 bought add-ons.

The first is obvious ,, a terrain add-on for FSX ,, I used Global 2008 but there are a couple of them that do the same job. All I needed for low flying was an accurate terrain representation of the world and that done it reasonably well. There are free ones out there too but to do the hole world would be a huge download.

The other was a terrain indicating system in the plane to show me where the hills etc were. (Remember I fly low and in rough weather so lots of times I cant even see the hills)

For that I use RealityXP’s GNS 530W XP. Amazing gauge ,,, besides being a full blown GPS and radio head it shows you what is around you.

In the pictures above you can see (red) the ground at your height or above,, while the yellow is below your height to 1000 ft below you. The black is more than 1000 ft below you. You can see I would be flying nearly all the time in the yellow area. You can zoom in and out to suit.

Just to add a bit of “color” to the miles and miles of open space ,, I also bought the scenerytech landclass packs.

So why post this,,, ???

Actually,, I wouldn’t have a clue ,, I just thought some-one may be interested in doing something different.

90% of cockpit builders seem to make a 737 or an A320,,, sit in it, feed in data to the FMC and their twiddle the thumbs while the flight takes place. That sort of flying isn’t for me,, I want to do something in the cockpit while I’m flying ,,, This low flying does it for me ,,, I love the “hands on” stuff.

You can see the other things on my site that makes the scene in my cockpit very busy some times ,,, it all adds to the fun.

When I’m finished doing “all the countries of the world” I’m not sure what direction I’ll go ,,, Maybe bush flying ?? We’ll see.

12-8-10