my first long flight.

[deuce]

i decided earlier this evening i would do a longer flight, and spend some of the in-flight time reading the ATC manual. So i plucked some of my old stomping grounds..

Anchorage (PANC) to Unalaska aka Dutch Harbor (PADU). 788 miles. It seemed like a challenge and it'd be fun, so I load up and roll out of Anchorage. After a few simple navigation mishaps I was on my way southwest towards Unalaska. Here are the various screwups encountered during the flight.

1) I chose a spitfire, it was the ozzy influence. The thing didnt have enough gas to make it so i ended up switching midflight to a King Air 350, a more likely plane to be found in that neck of the woods anyway.

2) My route missed some of the major (a CTAF is major in that area) airports so i was just licking my finger to find out the weather.. I missed having King Salmon in range by about 10 NM.

3) I did not learn about autopilot until i was about 300 miles into my trip. This is a good feature for steady en-route flying.

Those were relatively minor errors.. then came the major mishap.. my descent/landing into Dutch Harbor airport. First things first.. I was at 23,500 feet and didnt start my descent until about 30 miles in.. if i were carrying passengers i dont think they'd like that steep of a drop. I pulled up the weather freq in Dutch Harbor to find it was another glorious overcast day in Dutch Harbor. Ceiling was 200 feet. Now.. I have only successfully landed in this sim maybe 5 times up until this point.. and they were all in agile planes like the spitfire and corsair.. and they were all bouncing down the runway most of the time. if you load up the jet ranger in dutch harbor and scope the landscape.. i was coming in from the north, which means i would have had to ride a mountain on my descent. with a 200 foot ceiling, this is not good. especially with me behind the controls. so what ends up happening is i descend descend descend and try to come up under the clouds and just ride the lightnin at 180 knots 200 feet.. but of course, i had set the pitch for my descent, so when i tried to pull up it was like trying to drive a rollercoaster and i crashed into the ocean.

ill just quote the late great albert king here..

if it werent for bad luck baby, i wouldnt have no luck at all.

[ozzy72]

Hi Cam, well unfortunately most Spitfires (barring the Photo Recce models) have a range of about 500 miles.
To get better range try altering the prop and throttle settings
AP is useful, but I prefer to keep myself on the stick at all times.... I'm a masochist!
The landings sound like you are coming in to fast and too steep. Its difficult not too in a Spit as forward visability is NOT its strong point.
Best advice, get setup on your approach as far out as possible, and lower the flaps slightly, then hold the aircraft just above its stalling speed using the throttle, you should then be able to shut the throttle just as you come over the threshold of the runway and float onto it more gently than a fairys fart rather than coming down like a sack of potatoes
Let us know how you get on. Oh and its an idea once you're down to watch an instant replay of your landing press ALT and select OPTIONS and then REPLAY, and look at your landing from outside, you'll often find you quickly spot any mistakes you made that way
Oh and of course you can take pictures and post them in the screenshots forum too.

Happy landings
Ozzy

[OTTOL]

Landings are a matter of practice, practice, practice.........
as far as your decent, in the Jets we generally use the 3-1 rule.     exp; you were at 23,000' ----23 x 3 = 69---- start your decent at a 69 miles. Or you can take your ground speed for a reference if you want to do things the hard way.
At FL230 I think your 0 wind ground speed in the KingAir would be around 300KTS. That's about 5miles-per-minute. If you average a 1800fpm decent(23,000 divided by 1,800), that would equate to 12.7777 minutes. Multiply this by 5(for 5 miles-per-minute), and this comes out to 63.8 miles. Now you probably see why we just use the 3-1 rule.

[packercolinl]

I like Twin Otters especially flying where you are!

The 3-1 rule works equally well for lots of planes taking into consideration what you are using(a KingAir will descend at 240kts where an Otter doesn't even cruise at that!) You will also find that if you use only one aircraft you will become quite competent in your skills,THEN go fly something else-learning curve all over again but you've got the basics sorted so it's a matter of adjusting to the new plane.

Happy flying

[Scottler]

I've never heard the 3:1 rule, but now that I have, sweeeet.  Thanks OTTOL!

[fisharno]

I just printed a copy of OTTOL's explination of the 3-1 rule.

That's getting tacked up for future reference!

Great info.
Thanks, loads!!

[OTTOL]

Just remember, that this dependent on a constant descent rate. In other words, if your hand flying, don't omit the VSI from your instrument scan. In the Lear we use 2000FPM as a base figure. Tailwind, headwind, or a changing groundspeed
with altitude will alter your required rate of descent. But you simply recheck your figures as you descend. In the example; 23,000' =23x3=69 or 69miles, if when you get to 20,000 feet  
your DME or GPS indicates 50 miles, your'e 10 miles behind the profile. Increase your descent rate by 500 feet or so. Just as packercolinl said, you will have to cater your descent rate to the particular aircraft you fly.

[OTTOL]

Just wanted to make sure Scott, Fisharno and anyone else who was interested, got my follow-up. It was shuffled back pretty quickly, and is crucial to this method working properly.

[Tiptop]

Nice work on the 3 to 1 rule..  I tried it while going to Rio, and still couldn't see that Jesus statue...

[ozzy72]

Thats because M$ forgot to put in the statue in Rio!