Simviation Forums

So I watched the movie "Spirit of St. Louis" and it has inspired me to try a trans-Atlantic flight with no navigation aids except for Compass. For the first attempt I am going to try to fly the route that John Alcock and Lieut. Arthur Whitten Brown took with their Vickers Vimy. So I have started from St. Johns, NFLD, to Ireland.

I am not too sure how the Ryan NYP will fly, but the Vimy needs to be hand flown the entire way, as there is no AP, or even a trim tab

After I try this flight, I may try Lindbergh's flight, starting where he did, in San Diego, California, then to St. Louis, then New York, and then finally, to Paris.

I have a great amount of respect for the early pilots flying trans oceanic flights, as the planes had open cockpits, they were slow tricky to fly, and were EXTREMELY unreliable. 

(by the way the movie is GREAT! And I would recommend anyone into the vintage days of aviation watch it)

So has anyone else tried flying these flights? or anything else similar to this? I would love to hear your stories!

Take care for now!
Mike out (see you in Europe!!    )

You're absolutely right!  Jimmy Stewart does a fantastic job in this film.  I have not watched it in about 25 years nor have I attempted the flight.  It would take me far longer than I care to commit to a single flight.  Can't wait to hear how it works for you though.

I agree the Vimy is practically unflyable, especially at maximum fuel on board. I had to apply the trim myself (after market modification, still trying to have the virtual FAA accept it... ...it was either that or fly constantly stick-in-the-gut to obtain level flight) to have it behave SOMEWHAT better... but SOMEWHAT doesn't mean a lot, here. It still doesn't climb worth a damn at full fuel... you're constantly on dead man's corner skimming the stall most of the times even only flying straight and level... a lost cause... I cannot really believe the real deal behaved like that. M$ MUST have messed it up. :-/

About your plan to replicate in virtual the flight of the Spirit of St Louis, as evocative as that is, personally I would not attempt to do the last leg in a one single swoop. The NY to Paris the way Lindbergh did is WAY over the top for me, if even him, a hardened real pilot of the first world war, fell asleep at the yoke and for little didn't fall altogether... I do know my limits.

Of course we all, and especially you who want to replicate that flight, DO have the facilitation that we fly simulated planes and that the flight can be saved in any moment, even in mid-flight (only remember to put the sim in pause before saving the flight or you might receive a not nice surprise restarting it), to give you time and way to get a few Z's without a disaster happening.

That and you do have the facilitation (though personally I refer to it as a handicap, since it compromises realism BADLY) that the default planes are almost all ice-resistant to the point almost invulnerability, so, even without an anti-ice system on board and always referring to the movie, you won't have to prepare to ditch only to be saved to do it from the skin of your teeth by the thawing of the ice at lower altitudes.

But it's always 36-some hours of continuous flight, and I would not swear on the FS9 default Spirit of St Louis having REALLY the correct range to make you overfly the pond in one jump. Not to add that it's really quite twitchy and not the most comfortable plane (Lindbergh must have had ball bearing grade steel balls it the real deal really behaved like the default FS9 plane). :-/

Of course there's a freeware add-on Spirit of St Louis around for FS9, which boast better performances than the default (really? Wow! That's a first... ) on the Flight1 freeware page... if you still use the unsinkable FS9, you can (and you better) use this last. You can find it here: http://www.flight1.com/view.asp?page=library


PS
Another suggestion I can give you is to not use the real-life weather, especially if you end up saving the flight... in flight to get some snooze time (if you do such, at the restart of the saved flight you WILL have some discrepancies, since the weather you'll find WILL be different from the one you left), but you better plot your own off-line weather, that should be as similar as the one met by Lindbergh as possible for the flight to be worth be remembered as a virtual replica.

I agree the Vimy is practically unflyable, especially at maximum fuel on board. I had to apply the trim myself (after market modification, still trying to have the virtual FAA accept it... ...it was either that or fly constantly stick-in-the-gut to obtain level flight.) to have it behave SOMEWHAT better... but SOMEWHAT doesn't mean a lot, here. It still doesn't climb worth a damn at full fuel... you're constantly on dead man's corner skimming the stall most of the times even only flying straight and level... a lost cause... I cannot really believe the real deal behaved like that. M$ [b]MUST have messed it up.[/b] :-/

Wow, you really do take any chance you can to bring your hate for Microsoft into your posts.

"M$," whatever that is, didn't mess up...ONE PERSON on the ACES team did. There's reasons for this...they didn't have access to the right performance data, false testing, or they didn't really even care. I would hope it didn't take an entire team to build one , very basic, plane. When only one or two people are developing a plane, there's lots of room to mess up on SOMETHING. And remember, it's an old plane, so extra weight may affect it more than you would think. (I haven't flown the Vimy with full fuel before, so I'm not sure how extreme it is, actually) I'm not trying to defend whoever worked on the Vimy, but just making a point. It is easy to let a small thing like that pass by. Doesn't matter who made the plane. I know I've let a few things pass by on the helicopters I've released that really shouldn't have made it into the final build un-noticed.

Brandon, you REALLY are exaggerating now.

So, by YOUR point of view NO ONE is allowed to talk about ANY of M$'s failures WITHOUT hating them now?

You Have Encountered a Reality Error. Please, Recheck and Retry Your Entries. This attitude of yours is becoming really unpleasant, irritating and difficult to bear.

Hey Brandon! I hate Microsoft and I hate it very much

The Vimy has a top speed of 103mph so with full fuel & a bomb load it won't climb easily.

Also I don't know how many (If any) Vimys there are flying. So how can you get good flight dynamics if you can't take a flight in one?

The Vimy has a top speed of 103mph so with full fuel & a bomb load it won't climb easily.

Ah, but the problem is that FS9's Vimy does not model bomb load. In fact is the supposed replica of the decommissioned bomber used for the first ever half successful transatlantic overflight.

And once you fill both tanks, even taking away the weight of the two pilots (not really a realistic choice) the thing barely can claw its way up a runway.

Also I don't know how many (If any) Vimys there are flying. So how can you get good flight dynamics if you can't take a flight in one?

This goes without saying, and in fact I did not make a huge issue of this, only calling it a messing up. Only calling it BY NAME. It would have been a mess up EVEN if it had been done by another, ANY other, but of course for some advocates of the lost causes EVERYTHING is a good reason to make appear like SOMEONE ELSE (not making any names) is always unjustly martyred, making quite interesting questions about his motives raise in the back of the minds of every naturally suspicious person around (yours truly being one).

WEll so far so good. No sight of land yet, and I have no idea where I am over the atlantic. I am trying to keep it on bearing the best I can, but it likes to wander... A lot...

BTW I am flying FSX, I am using the FS9 version of the vimy that is uploaded here. As for weight I am using full fuel load, plus 2 400lb pilots. You may ask why 400lb pilots? well I looked on Wikipedia, and they left St johns with 2900 liters of fuel. FSX only models the vimy with I think 2500-2600 liters. Also Wikipedia says they carried some mail. So I tried to incorporate a realistic weight. As for climbing, I have got up to 4000 feet off the get go, but then I went lower due to cloud coverage, as I wanted to get below them (I couldn't get above them quick enough LOL)

Although I am not doing it fully realistic, because I am pausing it to go do other things from time to time (and to sleep later)

I really have to say. It is quite a mystery of where I am right now. I know the bearing I have to fly (about due east now) but I am questioning that quite a bit. I am looking forward to when I make landfall. I have no idea where I will come off the ocean. It could be anywhere from ireland to Spain. Portigul, or even north Africa.

One thing I gotta say is it is quite an entertaining flight, even though it is over the boring ocean, just because I have no idea where I am, its just a guess that I am going where I need to be.

I will keep ya's updated!

Dude I should.... I'm doing VHHH-KSEA right now in my 747

How's it going Michaelb15, sounds like your on quite the adventure, hope all goes well. I did a cross country flight from San Diego North Island NAS, CA to Floyd Bennet Field CGAS Brooklyn, NY in the Curtiss Jenny which I converted into the JN-4H. It took me 31 and a 1/2 hours (just inflight time). I was stuck at home in a blizzard at the time so I almost did it in one sitting, but after 14 hours I had to land it to catch some Z's. Did it all with a stop watch and the compass and alot of dead rekoning, no GPS back in the 1920's. So good luck (might just have to try Linddy's flight one day) can't wait to hear more reports.

Every now and again I have a peek at the; "Spirit of Saint Louis" (Spirit of Saint Looee!) in my Hangar...

...wheel it out...get inside...

...and wonder why I cant see anything out in front!... ...!

...(and very quickly wheel it back again)... ...!

It must be like trying to fly a Steam Locomotive through the air!... :-?...!

How Charles Lindberg managed to see where he was going, in that very strange cockpit, is a total mystery to me!

A very strange flying vehicle!

I am always curious as to why the cockpit was constructed in that manner?

Paul....I like to see where I am going!... ...!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_of_St._Louis

Every now and again I have a peek at the; "Spirit of Saint Louis" (Spirit of Saint Looee!) in my Hangar...

...wheel it out...get inside...

...and wonder why I cant see anything out in front!... ...!

...(and very quickly wheel it back again)... ...!

It must be like trying to fly a Steam Locomotive through the air!... :-?...!

How Charles Lindberg managed to see where he was going, in that very strange cockpit, is a total mystery to me!

A very strange flying vehicle!

I am always curious as to why the cockpit was constructed in that manner?

Paul....I like to see where I am going!... ...!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_of_St._Louis

There is a periscope that gives a front view.

The reason that it is not like a normal plane, is there is a gas tank infront of him, and the reasoning of having the gas tank infront of him, is so that if he had to ditch, he wouldn't get crushed by a tank full of fuel.

Simple enough reasoning, but personally I would have liked to see out the front with more then just a periscope... but thats just me 

[quote]


There is a periscope that gives a front view.

The reason that it is not like a normal plane, is there is a gas tank in front of him, and the reasoning of having the gas tank in front of him, is so that if he had to ditch, he wouldn't get crushed by a tank full of fuel.

Simple enough reasoning, but personally I would have liked to see out the front with more then just a periscope... but that's just me

I can appreciate what you are doing and obviously enjoying it. Keep it up, but I suspect you have not clicked to see your Map!!! otherwise you would know exactly where you are....don