The one memorable time I almost ran out of fuel was with a Bae146 at the airport of Bangkok. It was night, the visibility was nil (the deepest, densest fog I ever encountered on FS) and I was unable to do anything but descend on the ILS with a panel with no autoland down to a
hard landing with no flare on gas fumes. I had so little fuel remained in fact that the engines went out while I was taxiing to the gate.
As for an emergency I'm one of the few people that had a real one, the reasons for which are still unresolved. I was in a MD83 (freeware), in Alitalia livery, the flight was a LIML-LICR. I had recently deleted the old panel for this plane and in the meantime I found a better one decided to use the default 737's (yes, I know, I know, at today I'm still ashamed of myself, but I really wanted to fly that evening
) just for that flight.
Note that I never used the programmed failures of FS, EVER. I always found that part of FS a shameful waste of programming code that if the people in M$ can't get themselves to better would be best removed altogether.
The emergency happened over Rome, almost on the vertical of LIRA af FL330, while I was re-reading for the n-nth time the charts with the landing procedure for LICR, suddenly and for reason never to be explained I had a double engine flameout.
I was so surprised that for 5 seconds I did nothing but stare, mouth agape.
The first order of things was, of course, to restart the engines... and I tried... unsuccessfully. So I disconnected both autopilot and throttle and annulled the flight plan (at the time I still used the default ATC, even if partially. I took off, made the SID, then opened the IFR, followed it almost ot the end, annulled the IFR a little before the start of the STAR and landed on my own) I began an as-shallow-as-I-could-get-it spiral descent toward LIRA, where I would have to land with no flaps nor gear (that with both engines off don't work), trying at the same time desperately to get the engines running (even the CTRL-E manouvre didn't work, and I was using it desperately) and to understand what the heck was happening.
My repeated tries were rewarded with engine 2 (the one on the right) spoolig up to power (the number 1 had a little before once again refused to start) at about FL200.
So I found myself in the position to continue a difficult descent to LIRA (from my position, it was) or to direct to LIRF, that with its larger and longer runways is a lot better to land in with one engine out. I went for LIRF. And there I landed on the 34L, undisturbed, luckily, by any AI plane. Exited from the runway and made my way toward the Alitalia gates (I know their locatiin by heart, no need to contact the ATC
).
Then while I was taxiing and just out of spite, I hit again CTRL-E, to see what would happen... and this time engine 1 spooled up normally.
I was so mortified and po-ed, I never completed the taxiing, just closed brutally the simulator and went for a cold beer.
Even nowaday I still from time to time wonder what the hell happened to the simulator that evening to get me to live that unique simulated experience.
There's but one real cure for human stupidity. It's called DEATH.
At the moment mourning the assassination of sarcasm and irony for the good of the "higher".
Proud FSIX user. Active user of FS98, X-plane and novic
