PHNL to RJTT

[alan CXA651]

Hi.
Second leg from PWAK/RJTT winds not favourable , could be a long day in the office.
dist 1700nm
Engine condition
1 = 45.8 hrs good
2 = 45.9 hrs good
3 = 8.1 hrs excellent
4 = 45.9 hrs good
adi = 100/100
oil = 56/24/24/24/24
fuel
7965/9120/7260/9120/7965
payload = 137314
pax = 61
supplies = 728
cargo = 1130
regards alan.

[alan CXA651]

Hi.
Aircraft hdg for japan , encountering headwinds of 75knts , the closer i get to waypoint TONIK the stronger they seem to be getting i am at cruise alt of 28000ft and 115nm from TONIK , this could be awkward , as i was hoping to start decent then , but pax are eating lunch , so do i delay decent yill they have finished eating , and go down at 500ft min or start decent at TONIK at a steady 100/300ft min , the joys of responsability.
regards alan.

[alan CXA651]

Hi.
Thanks to a rare FSX crash i have just wasted an entire days flying , it froze as i was decending and getting the ASN weather report for destination , and setting the ils freq , i was passing 13000ft , about 30nm from japan coastline at the time , something about not detecting monitor , no apparent updates came in , so what triggered this i have not got a clue , except my aircraft as recorded the wear an tear of the trip , so i have it all to do again , but with older engines.
regards alan.

EDIT:- from the event viewer , i think that FSX /TrackIR5 stopped talking to each other and both progs froze.

[alan CXA651]

Hi.
Second leg from PWAK/RJTT winds not favourable , could be a long day in the office , due a rare fsx crash yesterday my engines are thr older and trying this again , fingers crossed all goes well this time.
dist 1700nm
Engine condition
1 = 53.0 hrs good
2 = 53.0 hrs good
3 = 15.3 hrs excellent
4 = 53.1 hrs good
adi = 100/100
oil = 56/24/24/24/24
fuel
7965/9120/7260/9120/7965
payload = 139831
pax = 62
supplies = 783
cargo = 1509
regards alan.

[alan CXA651]

Hi.
Since the fsx crash yesterday , the b377 this morning would not behave correctly to slew to take aircraft from runway 28 at PWAK to a parking bay away from the refuel bay , so it took about 3 fsx bootups this morning before i got the aircraft parked in same spot as i had arrived at.
Then i hit cold dark , but aircraft apparently did not fully initialise correctly.
I noticed on runway line up that the repeater compass needle was facing 180 deg out , i decided to take off , and useing map got the aircraft pointing in correct direction , once settled on climb i then started looking to see if i could fix the problem .
At first i could not see the problem , but now i have found the cause , on cold dark it did not fully initialise everything , all the compasses disagreed with each other , the main culprit for the pilots needle being incorrect , was the navigaters compass being way off , i have now corrected it to within 1 deg , i will see a bit later after pax eaten breakfast to see if i can get it bang on direction.
regards alan.

[alan CXA651]

Hi.
Had problems with the pilots repeater compass needle , even though i found the cause was the navigators compass at fault , at one stage i had it to within 1 deg of ware it should have been , monitored this throughout the flight , and it did vary by as much as 6 deg at time , but a vast improvement on what it was , so i could get by during the flight, ASN did its usual worst , enroute weather updates was giveing reasonable weather , IT LIED , on arrival to the japanese coastline , decending to 3000ft for the ILS beam of 34R , which gave a crosswind , but nearest i could get.
The weather gave very heavy turbulance , luckily i already had seatbelt signs on , i had to take manual control , but still got a lot of turbulance on the airframe , luckily no injuries to pax or crew , did one of my best landings , and vis was worse than even airport atis stated , it was overcast down to 1000ft then supposedly broken cloud at 500ft , it was solid cloud down to 100ft , 4 nm vis and heavy rain and thunderstorms , only thing ASN did not give me was windshear .
Aircraft state on shutdown:-
airframe = 71.7hrs
ENGINES
1 = 61.0 hrs good
2 = 61.1 hrs good
3 = 23.4 hrs excellent
4 = 61.1 good
ADI = 36/35% = 175 LBS
OIL = 38.9/12.7/12.0/12.9/12.4 = 712LBS
FUEL = 6823/1917/0/1917/6802 = 17459 LBS
DELIVERED
pax = 62
cargo = 1509

my career
tot flights = 6
tot time = 44h.9min
grd dist = 12670 sm
air dist = 13666 sm
pass miles = 876258
salery = 11031
you are a captain
you do a good job
--------------------------------
last flt
time in flt = 7h.20min
grd/air dist = 1982/1996 sm
fuel cost = $981
maint cost = $808
cost per mile = $0.90
pass coment:-
i didnt even realize were were flying
----------------------------------------------
personal notes:-
impressed the crew on that landing
i am feeling pretty confident
------------------------------

considering the weather and turbulance , i was surprised to get good comments.
ALSO today this aircraft is 15 days old in my hangar and between the pax and the guppy i have amassed exactly 100hrs
regards alan.
P.S. can i get my total A2A aircraft hrs up to 1000hrs before the connies release , i think i might as i am 46.4 hrs short of that after this flight.

[alan CXA651]

Hi.
Today i will be attempting a direct flight from PHNL/RJTT , engines have a few hours behind them , so it could be a troublesome flight , well see.
Aircraft state prior to flight:-
AIRFRAME HRS = 71.7
ENGINES
1 = 61.0 good
2 = 61.1 good
3 = 23.4 excellent
4 = 61.1 good
ADI = 492 LBS
OIL = 1216 LBS /152 GALLS
FUEL = 46740 LBS
MTOW = 146505
PAYLOAD = 14197
PAX = 71
SUPPLIES = 810
CARGO = 1317

Just had the worst possible runway for take off when fully loaded at PHNL wind was 050/12 so used runway 04R straight towards the mountains , trying to get this slow beast to climb and turn , i elected a left turn as mountains not as high as if right turn over honolulu , but she was on the verge of stalling but needed a certain climb rate to miss them , so flaps where down longer than i would like , but had no choice , now on route climbing clean towards 28000ft.
regards alan.

regards alan.

[alan CXA651]

Hi.
Attempting this flight again , changed num 4 engine after last flight , as i did not think it would manage a long flight as condition was fair.
Airframe - 82.9 hrs
engines
1 72.2 hrs good
2 72.3 hrs good
3 34.6 hrs excellent
4 00.9 hrs excellent
fuel 46740 lbs
oil 1216 lbs = 56gall res 24 gall ea eng
adi 492 lbs
mtow 145381 lbs
payload 13073 lbs
pax 65
supplies 807 lbs
cargo 1215 lbs
regards alan.

[alan CXA651]

Hi.
Well i made it , the weather at RJTT was in favour of vis runway 04 , but it was swinging all over , first from my left , then from the right , it took some controlling to get her down on the center line , must have done something right as i got a round of applause from the cabin.
Airframe hrs 97.3
engines
1 86.6 hrs fair
2 86.7 hrs fair
3 49.0 hrs good
4 14.4 hrs excellent
oil 254 lbs = 1gal res 7.7 gal/7.7gal/7.3gal/8.1gal
adi 0 lbs
fuel tot 3954 lbs
1029/997/0/990/938 lbs
mtow 101141 lbs
payload 13073 lbs
pax 65
supplies 807 lbs
cargo 1215 lbs
flight time 13:15
distance 3346nm
Had tailwinds at honolulu , shortly after that they changed to headwinds , started at only 5knts but as i got closer to japan they got a lot worse , up to 80 knots at one point.
------------------------------------------
career
tot flts 7
tot time 57h25min
grd dist 16518
air dist 17646
pass miles 1126393
salery $11661
you are a captain
you do a good job
-------------------------------------------
last flt
time in flt 13h15min
grd/air dist 3848/3980 sm
fuel cost $1762
maint cost $1503
cost per mile $0.82
pass comment
i didnt even realize were were flying
----------------------------------------------
personal notes
i wish i had aced that landing
i fit in pretty well around here i think...
----------------------------------------------
regards alan.
before next flight i will replace engines 1/2 , i dont know why i dont get more life out of them , i dont abuse them in any way.

[Jacques]

.......i dont know why i dont get more life out of them , i dont abuse them in any way.

Hi Alan,

One of the keys to longer engine life is lower fpm climbs ( 500'/min, give or take) and higher speed climbs (obviously determined by your climb rate). I try to maintain a speed around 200 kts and vary my ascent rate to meet that goal.

I also reduce power as soon as possible after takeoff. If I can takeoff with a lower power setting, I will. Always use ADI (I'm sure you do already!)

Quick decreases in power will subject your engines to damage through shock cooling. Reduce power slowly and gradually, 3" MP or less at a time, while pausing after each reduction to allow the engine to adjust to the new setting.

[alan CXA651]

Hi Jacques.
My aircraft is usually at or near max load , so climbs greater than 500ft min is next to impossible , and while getting to 28000ft , i have had to climb at 1/200 fpm , as for speed , on climbout at 4/500fpm , the max speed is usually around 180knts , as for adi yes i do use that , i also use just enough power to get off the runway , and as quick as i can i reduce rate of climb , to increase speed , so i can get the gear/flaps up as soon as possible , as for the increase/decrease of engine rpm , that is not as smoothe as i would like , but seems to be a fault of FSUIPC/ch quad throttle set up , and they sometimes move more than i wish them to , with the slightest of movement of the ch quads , so that is looking like the likly problem of my eng ware.
regards alan.

[Jacques]

Yeah, I always try to be gentle with the engines and some still start to degrade at a paltry 50 hours. They're always the ones sucking up more oil! I've also had all four go well over a hundred hours in excellent condition so I assume some are "dogs" regardless of what you do.

[TreeTops]

Also a tip passed on ages ago was to use most of the ADI water since its just weight not required to be carried for long distances. Leave it on during the climb to use it up.