Thursday August 13th - Cross The Pond Long Haul

[ianfisher 101]

Details to come but this will be a flight from Shannon to Gander in the A2A Constellation

[Paughco]

Ian: I downloaded and installed the weathership files. Looking forward to a nice flight across the Atlantic Ocean in my A2A Connie. Will have to do a couple test flights. You will be our "Yoda" on this one.

Seeya
ATB

[ratty]

Looking forward to this one! Two questions:

One: Have we determined a start time? If anything, 6 am Local / 1300 Z is better for me.

Two: What are we using for local time at Shannon? Local? At 220 knots (we'll probably do better) it's an 8.25 hour flight, so we'd be there by 2200 Z.

I'll try out the weatherships sometime, but I've decided to eschew additional aids and rely on my trusty driftsight-backed dead reckoning. I'm eager to see how we each fare; we should be sure to get before-and-after screenshots of the Payload and Fuel Manager and the Navigator's Map.

[ianfisher 101]

So here are the details for Thursday.

Meet EINN at 1230z
Take Off at 1300z
Sim time 0900

We are going West Bound so expect prevailing head winds.
Ground Distance is 1747NM
Air Distance is 1833NM

Expect 8hrs 45mins flight time depending on winds.

Payload
ZFW 28041
TOW 36095
LAW 28734

Fuel
8145kgs will give us 9hrs and 20mins of flight time. The medium preset in the Connie will be OK giving about an hour in reserve. If we expect a strong headwind all the way then full tanks may be a good choice.

Flight Level depends on the winds on the day. We will be too low for one of the NAT Tracks so we'll just vector ourselves.

Routing
EINN/06 UNBEG3A UNBEG DCT GISTI DCT MALOT DCT 5230N020W 5245N03530W
52N040W 50N050W DCT YQX DCT CYQX/31

So we take off runway 06 or 24 depending on winds. We'll do the UNBEG3A departure from 06 so thats runway heading for 4 miles then left turn to 346 for 5 miles then left to 273 for 17 miles to GULTI then a further 12 miles on 272 degrees to UNBEG then on flight plan course. The first weathership is Juliet at 5230N020W. Remember it is designed to drift in a 200 square mile box so it may not exactly be where you think it is. Then after that it's onto Charlie at 5245N03530W, again it can drift 200 miles from that point. Continue Westward till you pick up the Gander HF station, between 600 and 800 miles out. Then once you get closer still pick up the YQX VOR to take you to the airport. Runways 13 and 03 have an ILS so we'll look at that as we approach depending on winds.

Should be fun. See you.

[Gypsy Baron]

I flew portions of the route tonight, from Shannon out to within 100 nm of Juliet. I had the Shannon HF alive, on the schedule all the way out. Its' range encompasses Juliet almost to the western extent of Juliet's coverage.

There is a small gap where Juliet's coverage ends and Charlie's coverage begins.

About 160 nm past Charlie you will pick up the Gander HF station and can follow that station for the 565 nm to Gander.

I had winds from the forward right quarter to the starboard beam, 10-20 mph.

I flew in segments for 2 hr 40 min total, jumping ahead with Plan-G to check the weatherships and HF stations, and only burned 10% of my FULL fuel load. I was burning between 700 to 850 PPH per engine at various times during my flight. Climb was sluggish with the full fuel load and no Pax or cargo.

Barring severe weather this should an uneventful flight once out to sea and at altitude.

-=GB=-

[Lewis - A2A]

This one Ian?!

So long as I can work as I sit here and fly, then hell yes I can have P3D flying in the background

cheers,
Lewis

[ianfisher 101]

Yes Lewis you've found us. VOR & NDB Radio aids allowed along with the weathership addon. However NO GPS or Moving maps should be used. We are seeing how close we can get using old school aids.

[Lewis - A2A]

Follow those that know what they are doing, in a big follow the leader across the pond. Check

[ianfisher 101]

[ianfisher 101]

Preparing to take a group of PAX from London Heathrow to Shannon ahead of our flight to Gander on Thursday

[ianfisher 101]

[ianfisher 101]

[ianfisher 101]

[twsharp12]

Ian: I downloaded and installed the weathership files. Looking forward to a nice flight across the Atlantic Ocean in my A2A Connie. Will have to do a couple test flights. You will be our "Yoda" on this one.

Seeya
ATB

What's the weathership file?

Edit: Never mind, I found it.

[Paughco]

I loaded my Connie at Shannon to pre-position the aircraft, and also to check out the weather ship thing. I found that it only works if you have the autopilot option set for the Sperry. It doesn't work with the default autopilot. Bummer. I might try using the ADF for the weather ships. Maybe that will work.

UPDATE: I think maybe I got it. I need to do a test flight, but I think I have the weathership 2D panel and the original radio/autopilot 2D panel working both at the same time. I wrote up the changes I made to panel.cfg and posted it in the Connie forum here: viewtopic.php?f=133&t=71228.

IT WORKED! I did a test flight. The default FSX autopilot worked. The weathership panel worked! A was a great flight. Nobody died!

Seeya
ATB