Alphabet Challenge Leg 35 KL88 - KL90

[Talan2000]

Pilots,

Well you made it. The LAST LEG. Fly it a little slower and savor it...Who am I kidding firewall the throttle/PCL and lets get this thing DONE! The A/FD description of New Cuyama "cracked me up". Literally

Situation:
The LAST FLIGHT
Another trans-california expedition so uncommon there aren't any airway connectors to start out with so it's DIRECT baby DIRECT for us...

Lessons Learned:
Filmore is Far Away: Ok so it's really NOT that far away but it must have crummy signal (real world) because I couldn't receive it departing KL88 until 8500MSL and 45NM.

Getting into the KLAX B can be really hard: Ok, so I went out of my way a bit to be a cool kid and practice the B transition. I was at 11500 but Descended to 9500 - for PAX and crew comfort! so I would need a B clearance. I announced my destination way in advance and my route (PDZ) and I just wanted to cut the teeniest of corners and 500 whole feet of Bravo (Up to 10000). I was surprised that I had to press twice - stating I wanted a B clearance rather than being told up front...I was watching that DME tick down. Part of it was calling in for FF just before a shift change I'd warrant. Still I wanted to get denied or admitted with plenty of time to take appropriate action. Over KEMT I got the heismann so "Leaving 9500 for 11500." I do love VFR. No mother may I.

That said - I did get a sort of odd instruction "Maintain VFR" -- Well, ok, sure. (No IMC anywhere). I think he was trying to say was "remain clear of the B, and maintain VFR" or an abbreviation of "Maintain VFR navigation" as i I'm not going to give you a vector and own you, but he never said "Remain clear of the Bravo" until the second or third time I talked. It was a bit confusing. "Maintaining VFR" has nothing to do with being in or out of the Bravo - at least not to me. Anyway, just trying to clear up my understanding of the phraseology. You can be sure that I repeat "Cleared into the B airspace" if and when I get a clearance.

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Dustbowl: Lovely Ocotillo. Dirt Strip next to a big hill. Right traffic on 31. Savor the moment. Pop a brew. Remember 8 hours bottle to throttle. Or has that changed too?

The END

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Thanks

I'd like to thank those who came up with the idea for this little challenge. I certainly have enjoyed it and I know I have learned many things along the way. I hope these "monologues" have been of some help to those who are flying along behind me and I look forward to reading of your adventures along the way. One thing I would certainly recommend - fly this with a friend! It would have been so much more fun to have a tag team partner to compare notes with in real time. I hope that many of you get to fly it this way.

And finally, now that I have finished the contest in second place - where do I get my steak knives?

ABC

[Keith Smith]

"Maintain VFR" is standard verbage that controllers sometimes use when you first initiate flight following. It has no bearing on any airspace considerations.

Getting cleared into the LAX Bravo via anything other than one of of the published transitions is tricky (real world) if you're going to cut through the final, slowly. Imagine a steady stream of ILS 25L/24R arrivals into LAX coming in at 10k, right to left and descending. There just isn't a practical way to send you through the final at conflicting altitudes. Go under, over, or around, but I wouldn't plan on a Bravo transition that cuts through the final.

Congrats on finishing the challenge.

[flyingdrill]

Phew! Finished! Flew a good IFR route, with no ATC errors! I decided to use CAVOK skies, with the actual winds and altimeter settings. I didn't want to get caught out like yesterday, with unexpected clouds at the last minute - there are no close weather reporting stations by L90 (nor L88 for that matter).

However, things were not all rosy in the X-Plane department. My beloved Malibu did not want to get unstuck at L88, despite my hauling on the joystick, so I applied a load of trim and finally got it into the air. Hmm.... Odd, I thought. I popped in the autopilot in heading mode, and examined my joystick settings. All not calibrated properly, and neither were my Saitek's throttle quadrant's axes (I don't always use that piece of hardware). Well, they were OK yesterday, but maybe I should have booted up with the Malibu instead of going to it from the 340 I was flying yesterday - and, yes, I had swapped the odd USB socket.

Undeterred, I quickly calibrated everything (I thought) while flying, and clicked back to the pilot's view! Hmmm. Not quite tracking the GPS nav course - well, tracking it, but a tad to the right of course all the time. Had a look at it in VLOC mode, and it still wasn't quite on it - just off, and the flight director bars were urging me to definitely go left all the time! Hand flew it on to course, and then back on A/P - it went off again, a bit. OK. Let's put it back using heading mode. Nope. I could move the bug 20 degrees left, and it just about made the plane lurch left a bit. Had another quick look at calibration. Well, it'll do....maybe.....

Never mind, I thought. we're still doing fine. Level at 10,000'. We'll get there OK. Given a direct to Julian, as a nice shortcut. Thanks. Airport in sight. Canceled IFR. Disconnected the A/P, and I was flying a virtually uncontrollable PA46! A tiny bit of left stick, and I was in a 35 degree bank, steepening quickly. Same to the right. Ascent or descent really difficult. Oh, b---er it! Let's get this baby down. Somehow, got myself on a right downwind for 31, made appropriate calls, including a reference to having a pretty broken aeroplane, and got it very ingloriously on to the runway and off the side...... Right side up. Engine smoking, but all in one piece.

An inglorious but safe end to the Challenge. My thanks to the authors of this. It's kept me amused and challenged. Now, back to regular PE stuff, although the precision flying challenge looks interesting, but that is really more of a simulator skill test.

By the way, half an hour later, rebooted X-Plane and - guess what? - my Malibu was sitting on the runway, in perfect repair. The magic of software. A quick flight test, and all was perfect. Joystick, etc. all OK. A/P tracking properly, etc., etc. Lesson learned (again)! I should know better. So many reports of odd behaviour in planes which are not the original ones in the boot up - same in FSX...... This was not quite like I had experienced before, but why on my final Alphabet Challenge flight?

[Talan2000]

Flying Drill,

Congratulations on finishing off the Alphabet Challenge and fending off the X-Plane Gremlins!

I had something weird occur recently with my CH yoke - just as you described, between one flight and the next, it became completely uncalibrated. XP 10.35 seems to have introduced some quirks for me.

As to the Precision Challenge, I've been flying the default Cessna 172 trying to model the real world aircraft in the club I just joined (yeah me), but I find it very difficult to be "precise" at all hand flying it. So, I too will likely not embarrass myself with the precision challenge!

See you out there

Todd

[flyingdrill]

Thanks Todd.

I agree that precisely hand flying the sim (particularly with some planes) is really tricky. I think it's also a function of your yoke or joystick - there are so many variables.

In the RW, you can trim a 172 pretty quickly, and get it so the VSI and altimeter hardly budge on a nice day. It's so stable. The PA28s are pretty much like that, too, aren't they? Probably why they called them (unkindly for both manufacturers!) spam cans!

The FSX 172, and A2A's Cessnas and their PA28 are more benign, but that's the way FSX is compared with X-Plane. Microsoft's methodology for simulating flight is based on a totally different approach from X-Plane's, as you know. Maybe it would be easier to try the precision challenge in FSX. I'll try a dummy run to see, maybe......