Help me with my journey.

[TNHunter]

Well, being the kind of guy that like to test "unexplained" things, and try to explain them, I am about to embark on a FS journey that may be my last.

Now that we have had some drama, and all that crap, let's get down to the business at hand.

I am going to put my life in my ability, and fly from Baracoa, Cuba to Bermuda International.

Straight through the famed "Bermuda Triangle", the area where many have embarked and never returned.

I have only one major concern: Oreintation on a vast area without reliable landmark. The only way I am fairly sure I could eyeball my altitude would be if I saw a ship. I MUST trust my gauges with my life.

I have considered the Mooney Bravo (Customized), but I am unsure if the fuel capacity can make an nearly 900 NM trip. There aint no gas stations on the ocean!

The Standard Bravo is capable of 975 NM, but my bird has a few engine modifications that may increase the burn a little. According to the MSFS Flight Plan, I need 443.3 pounds of fuel (73.9 Gallons), and the Mooney will hold 532 Pounds (89 Gallons). So according to this, I should have enough to make the trip and have fuel left over.

As far as payload goes, I will be carrying 10 pounds of baggage, and my own weight of 160 pounds.

The reason I would like to take the Mooney is due to familiarity with it. I have 800 hours in it alone, so I know its little quirks.

Would anyone like to offer advice on this endeavor? Any info would be greatly appreciated. (this is why I posted this in the flight school, as the information I need may be helpful to others as well.)

[TNHunter]

Also, I forgot to add that I am planning to take off this saturday, providing that everything goes according to plan.

[Brett_Henderson]

My Mooney is highly modified too. I'm not sure what your mods are but this should help..Climb quickly to 8,000 ft..

[beaky]

Not sure if you'd consider it cheating, but any time you want to correct your altimeter for local barometric pressure in the sim, just press "B". That'll eliminate any worries about that... but why not make it interesting, and plan to fly a portion of the trip with an inop altimeter- a real good time, especially in IMC... But over the ocean, it's not so scary, really.
 
As for navigating,  I haven't flown that trip yet, but I know Bermuda is pretty big, as remote islands go... if you choose a good heading based on wind, etc., you stand a good chance of seeing it before you run out of fuel.
 I did some overwater legs in excess of 2,000 nm last fall in the sim, in a DC3, often out of range of any navaids and with no input from ATC, no map-peeking, no GPS, and my greatest error caused me to miss a tiny island by only about 100nm or so. That's a lot of ocean when you're out of fuel, but that's not too bad an error for "blind" ded. reckoning over more than 2,000 miles... I didn't even check the winds while enroute, just occasionally hit "D" to adjust the compass to local deviation and tried to hold my heading. And that was my worst: most legs, by the time I got a fix via visual contact with terrain or ATC radar, I was not very far off course at all.
Good luck in theTriangle, although in the sim I doubt anything weird will happen.

[elite marksman]

I haven't used FS9's flight planner yet, but if its the same as FS8, only trust the distance, heading, and altitude. You always need more fuel because it calculates fuel usage based on consumption at cruise alt. and speed, it doesn't take consumption during taxiing, or increased power for take off and climb. It also calculated ETA based on cruise speed, again, not taking taxi time, slower speeds at take off and climb, or landing into account. It says 73.9 gallons, but expect to need between 75-80 gallons, stock. You should still have enough gas, but if the Bravo uses fuel anything like the Maule I'm using for my RTW, you will only have .5 to 1 hour of gas at cruise consumption remaining, not much to fall back on if you miss your target. At cruise speed in the Maule, that means you get a 50 to 100 mile margin of error.

[beaky]

I haven't used FS9's flight planner yet, but if its the same as FS8, only trust the distance, heading, and altitude. You always need more fuel because it calculates fuel usage based on consumption at cruise alt. and speed, it doesn't take consumption during taxiing, or increased power for take off and climb. It also calculated ETA based on cruise speed, again, not taking taxi time, slower speeds at take off and climb, or landing into account. It says 73.9 gallons, but expect to need between 75-80 gallons, stock. You should still have enough gas, but if the Bravo uses fuel anything like the Maule I'm using for my RTW, you will only have .5 to 1 hour of gas at cruise consumption remaining, not much to fall back on if you miss your target. At cruise speed in the Maule, that means you get a 50 to 100 mile margin of error.

Sounds a lot like FS9... I only use the Planner to get a course heading in cases where I have no chart, taking the other info as thumbnail estimates, if that. The rest of the calculating I do just as I would for a RL flight: with the E6B. I'll also use that enroute to account for any changes in wind, or diversions from course or alt. due to weather.
I've found I can almost always lean for more range than the planner indicates...

[TNHunter]

Well, I flew the mission and I think I have found out what has caused so many airplanes to go down in that region.

Here is my report. I took no screenshots due to a desire to maintain the flight as realistically as possible. I put my earbuds in, turned the volume up, and started my flight. I will not be getting out of this seat for 5 hours.

For the first part of the trip, I was really enjoying looking at islands. But once over open waters, I found it to be a very sleep inducing journey.

About the only thing keeping me truly awake was an abundance of little buttons and knobs to keep my interest. I did find out that I could keep my mooney in the air at only 4.4 GPH fuel burn. good to know if I ever need to make that last little smidge of fuel last for a while.

I was expecting that FS would do something mean like cut my engine, or jam my compass. Do something to me that might cause a problem. NOPE! This flight went just as well as other flights, albeit a very educational one.

About halfway through, I discovered that I really need a new computer chair. I also realised that I should have asked if it is a bad idea to smoke in the plane. I decided that since I was unsure of it, I would tough it out.

I should have known that having a pretty high tech airplane would be a bad idea. Auto-pilot took care of 90% of my flying, all I was in charge of was course correction, and flipping the fuel selecter lever to keep the fuel coming out of the wing tanks at an even pace so that when AP does come off, I won't be fighting my plane for level.

The drone of the engine is not a very exciting thing.

I finally got within 100 NM of the island I was aiming for, and I decided to spice things up a bit.

I cut the autopilot, and GPS off.

Whoa! I had not been doing a very good job keeping my fuel coming from each tank evenly. The plane tilted deeply, and I brought it back to center. I flipped the fuel selector to the tank with the most in it, and layed on the throttle. I wanted to get the tanks evened out before I was trying to land crooked.

Once the tanks got level, I made it a point to flip them over at 5 minute intervals. That way, there might be a little tilt, but not much.

I found what I believed to be the island I was aiming for. Lined up, and landed. No engine trouble, no nothing. 4:39 learning not to believe all the hype.

I really wish I could report a compass issue, or an engine issue that I can't explain, but the simple fact is, this flight went just as smoothly as a routine flight out of KSZY in Tennessee.

[elite marksman]

Happy to hear that you made it.
Doesn't the Mooney have a selector to use fuel from both tanks at the same time, that may have made your flying a little easyer. Also, in order to make it not so boring, you could do what I do. Turn windows media on in the background and keep the volume just quiet enough that you can still hear your engine and ATC. I made the mistake once of turning it up louder than the engine, the engine quit. I didnt realize it until I had fallen 2-3000 feet. I was cruising at 4500'. Thats just my kind of luck.

[BFMF]

When MS was doing the RTW flight for FS2000, someone reported that they had unexplained problems while cruising acrossed the burmuda triangle.