The A2A Simulations Community

The last leg of this around the world tour brings me back to the starting point (Boston Logan).

This journey around the world has really made me appreciate the capablities of this magnificant propliner particularly the abilty to get up to Flight Level 310 for long range cruise. The Stratocruiser never let me down. At the end of this journey I had two engines in good condition and two engines in fair condition.


Starting final round the world leg (KSFO-KBOS), taxing out to the 28's


Rolling!


Turning east with a view of the Golden Gate for passengers on the left side.


Cruising high above the midwest.


Afternoon light south of Lake Ontario


Final approach to Boston Logan


Configured for landing.


Almost home now.

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Jeffrey Williams

More fantastic photos. Thanks. Is that all default scenery? They look great.

How do you get up to Fl 310? I must be too heavy when I fly. I'm usually down in the 20's. I'm sure that extra speed at 310 sure helps.

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Jim

Thanks for comments. The screen shots show the following add-ons:

KSFO San Francisco International Airport - Flightbeam
KBOS Boston Logan International Airport - Fly Tampa
Ultimate Terrain USA - Flight One (Land Class and Roads)
Flight Environment Extreme (FEX) - Flight One (Clouds and Water Textures)
Active Sky Evolution - HiFi Simulations - (Real Weather Generation)

On my longer flights I target Flight Level 310 for cruise not so much for speed, but for range. At that altitude I can manually lean out the mixture and get very good fuel economy. It takes me about two hours to climb to that altitude but it is usually worth it. On long flights (2000 nm) I will take medium fuel and heavy passenger/freight load, for very long flights (3000 nm) I will take full fuel and medium passenger load. I will usually climb directly to about 26,000 to 27,000 feet tageting an airspeed of 175 knots. It can take close to an hour to get there. I then level off, set prop rpm to 2100, turbos at about 40", and start to lean out the mixture to about 70%, letting the speed build up to about 185 knots. At that point I turn off altitude hold and put in a very small increment of up trim. That is usually enough to start climbing at two to three hundred feet per minute. I target an airspeed of 180 knts using trim only. I set altitude hold on once I get to FL310. I can then lean again to about 60% with a target speed of 183knts. This may not be the proper procedure but it seems to work pretty well and the engines held up for the whole trip around the world so I am pretty pleased about that.

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Jeffrey Williams

Jeffrey

I love the last two landing shots.

Congratulations on the trip and well done!

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FAC257

Thanks for filling in the info on all the scenery and tips. I'll have to try some of that scenery out. Looks good.

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Jim

Well done on completing the trip. Nice shots.
I've been using the 377 when i have time to try and enjoy and learn this great product (with COTS, of course).
Glad to see it takes you a while to climb to higher altitudes as i've been struggling to get past the the low 20's even with medium load. I suppose the aircraft just requires time and i have not done any long haul flights yet.

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Kind Regards
Simon

P-51 Mustang + ACCU-SIM - Spitfire MK1&MK2 + ACCU-SIM - P-40 Tomahawk + ACCU-SIM - Piper J3 CUB + ACCU-SIM - B377 Stratocruiser + COTS - ACCU-FEEL V2

Very nice. You should check out the contest that was done In the spring. Maximum range with a given load. This configuration made you depart just over Max gross with 100% pax full fuel and 3000lbs cargo. Over 4600nm were reached. It's amazing. Very good writeups are In there. 2 hours to fl310 seems rather long. You can climb direct nonstop without any worries. Though you have to fiddle the turbos around fl26-280. But a constant climb can be done and I do it every single flight even to fl330. Fpm suffer once around fl300. But you can still get 3-500 Fpm.