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Post by Slide on Jan 31, 2009 8:12:37 GMT -5
Or, set it on autopilot, go to bed, and see where you are when you get up in the morning. The Zep-Experience ... Thanks for this top thread, guys! I had no idea about these routes on "the other side of the world".
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Post by tomtest on Jan 31, 2009 15:40:42 GMT -5
I hope, for your sanity's sake, you are not sitting at the PC for hours on end as you fly each leg in real-time! On my long over-water stretches I call it quits at times, switch on the autopilot and accelerate to 8x then go and do something else for a while. Bruce Would I be doing this if I were sane? Most of the time, I fly these real time; vintage aircraft hands on, later ones in period appropriate autopilot modes, e.g. pitch hold for the old gyropilots not slaved to altimeters. I'm definitely not into programming a FMC to let if fly me to a destination as cockpit passenger, or letting it go while I go off to do something else. I see boredom, fatigue, loss of concentration as part of the long flight experience. How well it was handled probably was an important factor in early long-distance flight operations, as well as in record flights. The M-130 model trims nicely and is directionally stable. After I trim for cruise climb, I can watch low interest TV, checking or correcting course, and advancing power to maintain MAP, every few minutes. Once I reach full throttle, and the climb plateau, I will turn on the Sperry to hold heading and pitch. I can read, or watch old movies, checking track and IAS every 10-30 minutes, adjust heading and pitch as needed to stay on track and maintain target cruise climb drag (pitch needs slight adjustments as power fades and weight drops). I wonder what real flight crews did, still do, to relieve boredom and maintain concentration during long legs over ocean? If I'm in a more modern era, and using autopilot, I'm often IFR and hanging around to respond as ATC switches me back and forth between Center and whatever Approach I'm passing by, or controller to controller. Still, cruise workload drops to a level that I can be on another computer following forum discussions, reading the news, searching out aviation history, downloading, etc. That's when it is warm enough in my downstairs room to be flying on my old desktop computer, with the laptop on the desk alongside. In that setting, I'm about 1/3 of the way through a later era around the worltd, using a DC-4 and L-049, simulated navigator, autopilot for cruise. That went on hold when the room got too cold, mid-January. (I'm flying the Clipper on laptop in front of the fire). I've made a number of long flights that required a lot more hand flying and pilotage, with maps or Google Earth on one machine, FS on the other, in aircraft that were a lot less able than the M-130 to fly themselves: 10-15 hours of following roads under cloud base in a Jenny, the TAT plane/train schedule in the Ford Trimotor, the transcontinental airmail route in the Trimotor, Rio Grande from mouth to source in a Cub, Yangtze mouth to Chongqing in a S-39, some vintage seaplane "follow the coast" trips out of Southampton and Lisbon, testing model performance for RTW plans. I do admit, there is a lot less to look at, over the ocean. This is a seasonal thing. It is too cold for gardening, camping or fishing, the community center is in slow season and doesn't need my help just now. Hand flying vintage aircraft beats watching daytime TV by a mile ;D Most of my other projects are in that cold room downstairs.
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Post by bhk on Jan 31, 2009 17:11:40 GMT -5
Would I be doing this if I were sane? Good point! ;D I s'pose none of us are! ;D I fly my low-altitude, overland Flights in real-time, but switch to auto/accelerated when over vast stretches of water. Which would explain the reason why I prefer the Imperial Airways routes rather than the trans-Pacific or trans-Atlantic crossings (except for P.G. Taylor's journey between Oz and Chile - that was interesting. Bruce
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