My new Archer in Portugal. How to get it home?

[Keith Smith]

I can put you in touch with Lee if he isn't reading this thread aleady and if it would be helpful for you.

[Geoff]

Thanks for the offer. Well, if Lee wants to trade his Archer for an Archer that's now in Manchester, in Great Britain, I might be interested! But I have no money to speak of. I've got only $9000 virtual dollars, all earned flying this little Archer north from Portugal.

I'm actually enjoying my Archer Trek! The only downside is it means time away from the PE network. But it's been interesting to learn about the range of this aircraft, and to experiment with fuel efficiency. And the World2XPlane scenery around Manchester was neat.

[Geoff]

Flew from Manchester to Carlisle, then on to Edinburgh. Lovely approach into Edinburgh, with a nice view of the Firth of Forth. Except I've got "Trees and Farms" installed (using X-Plane), and there was a line of trees crossing the runway. But otherwise the Aerosoft free airport scenery looked nice against the World2XPlane scenery I've got installed.

Now flying empty north to Kirkwall, where I'll pick up some passengers for the hop up to the Shetland Islands. I'll use time compression for this flight, but at 2x max, it still means an hour of real-time flying. No matter; I'm loving it.

[Geoff]

Heh, this is turning into a little travelogue. So be it! I'm finding it fun to write about.

After a nice stay in the Shetland Islands, I took a single passenger to Vagar, in the Faroe Islands. I have no GPS onboard, and I don't let myself look at X-Plane's moving map, so I was entirely dependent on navaids (mostly NDBs) and charts. (In a real Archer, I imagine I'd have 3 GPS's!) I know NDBs are declining in the USA, but I sure get plenty of practice using them when I fly X-Plane in Oz and, now, in the north Atlantic.

Anyway, I breathed a sigh of relief when I heard the Morse Code of the Nolso NDB station in the eastern Faroe Islands. The wind had apparently pushed me off course a few degrees, even though I thought I'd compensated for it enough. But the NDB straightened me out, and I had no trouble finding the airfield. (One unexpected bonus: time compression went as fast as 4-5x over the water. Only the clouds slowed me down.) The landing at Vagar is quite exciting -- you have to navigate a canyon, and it even has an ILS. I used the ILS and a published approach plate but still managed to land coming in too steep. Still in one piece, though.

After a break, on to Iceland! On this flight, at least, there was a VOR/DME about fifty miles south of my target airfield, Hornafjordur, on the east coast of Iceland. So I was able to chart my progress once I picked up the VOR and rotated my OBS to match my heading to it. Hornafjordur also has a helpful NDB. I had excellent fuel economy by leaning "lean of peak," as Keith suggested. Almost 14 miles/gallon. Once again, I strayed a couple degrees off course, but not so bad this time. Like Vagar, the approach into Hornafjordur is rather memorable, this time over an enclosed little bay or lagoon framed by mountains. I was pleased to find a cute little FBO and hangar at the ramp.

Next stop: Keflavik!

[Geoff]

I had a pleasant and profitable flight to Keflavik, earning $2000, which is pretty good pay as Archer jobs go. Then it was on to Greenland! A scary four-hour flight over the North Atlantic brought me to the east coast of Greenland, and an NDB showed me I was only a couple degrees off course. The approach to Kulusuk airfield is certainly eventful, as there are mountainous snow-covered islands everywhere, and the safer approach (from the west) still made me feel like I was riding a ski slope down to the runway. I was delighted to find airport scenery there. Even a couple of lonely little buildings are better than the empty strips that used to be the norm in X-Plane.

And I just finished my latest flight, to southern Greenland, in which I got thoroughly lost. OK, in the real world, I'd have at least a hand-held GPS! But I stubbornly eschew GPS in my Archer, as I want to make myself navigate by ded reckoning, VFR, NDBs, and VORs. (With the GPS, I used to convince myself that I'm really following VOR radials, but the truth is I tend to watch that magenta line.) All was well until about 200 miles down the east coast of Greenland, when I lost sight of the coast, thanks to worsening weather and inattention on my part. I steered a little right, convinced (by my flawed timing-and-ded-reckoning skills) that the coast was not far. Many miles later, I was in the middle of the North Atlantic, with no sight of land, and a faint feeling of panic. Ten gallons of fuel left. I steered due west, and still no land.

Finally I decided that I had underestimated my aircraft's speed over the ground, and I steered northwest, and finally straight north. At last I raised an NDB beacon on the southern coast -- not the beacon I'd been listening for. (I have only one ADF receiver, alas, so I was switching among frequencies, hoping I'd hear one.) I steered for it and finally found the southern coast. This introduced a series of three NDBs that lead you up a fjord directly to the airfield, the approach to which again is yet another mountain-filled bit of excitement. FSE says the flight took seven hours (o.o). Even with time compression, it was a marathon! If I hadn't been doing lean-past-peak (at 11,500 feet of altitude), I'm sure I'd have run out of gas. Thanks for that tip, Keith.

[trigger_fsx]

Sounds like you having fun! This last airport you had issues finding, is it Narsarsuaq (BGBW)?

[Geoff]

That was the one -- Narsarsuaq (BGBW). Did you find it okay? I had tuned to its NDB but I didn't catch its signal as I came down the east coast, and then I lost sight of land.

And that's where I am now. I'm going to try your flight from BGBW to CYCA tonight, after work. I do think I have the range to make it, but I'm going to have to lean the mixture very aggressively, and fly very high. I'm looking forward to it!

One question I have is whether X-Plane and FSE model the fuel efficiency cost of carrying passengers. I could take a job from BGBW even with full fuel tanks, but would the extra 150kg cost me crucial miles per gallon?

[Geoff]

Success! I had no trouble making the Greenland-to-Canada run, from BGBW to CYCA. Riding at 11,500 feet with very lean mixture, I made the 580-nm journey with plenty of fuel to spare. In fact, I slightly overshot Carthwright airport, as it took me longer than I expected to descend. I thought about heading on to Goose Bay, but I decided not to push my luck.

And this evening I pushed on, down through Newfoundland, Quebec, and New Brunswick, taking odd jobs along the way. I just made the 19-mile hop from Florenceville over the border to Houlton, Maine, where I once camped with my parents. So I'm in the United States! I've got a lucrative job from Houlton down to Boston next. Might not have time to do it tonight, but if not, it will be on tap for tomorrow night after work.

After the Portugal-UK-Iceland-Greenland-Canada adventure, getting from Boston to Arizona will feel like a walk in the park.

[par2005]

you should have flown it on vatsim with real comms along the way

[Geoff]

I didn't even think of Vatsim! But now that I'm using Pilot Edge, Vatsim doesn't interest me as much.

I hope to make more progress down the East Coast of the US tonight!