Two weeks ago was the "Spring" break at the school I teach in. So as a week project, I decided to take my civilian mustang on a 11 000 nm trip. I took of from my home plate, CYMT at 0450 local time, heading south with a crazy goal in mind, to make it to Antartica in real time, real weather. So I flew most of my trip in Direct GPS, FL300-FL320, unless winds dictated other wise.
I had about 3.1 hours on the engine, with fresh winter oil and full tanks of 100LL, including fuselage tank. That made for a slightly uncomfortable take off, but with a with nose down trimming and a bit more airspeed before lifting, things went alright.
My first refuel was Jackson'sville, Florida. Landed with 5 gals in the left tank.... That made me reflect about my minimums and decided to respect my 45 min of reserved fuel for the reminder legs. That mustang is fast, but defenitly love gas.
Taking off from Jackson'sville after a quick brunch with the wife, I headed for Panama. Same plane configuration, fresh refill of oxygen and things went all smooth. I set my shift-9 pause option to 30 minutes and emergency, to remember to switch and balance my fuel thank. On this leg, I manage to recover a solid 10 gals in the left wing while burning the fuse tank.. thats pretty much 15 minutes of flight time!
Here's a shot, leaving Florida:
I got a bit scare in Panama because I had not realized that my destniation airport was located in a very tight "crater" shaped ground depression. Too bad I did't screenshot it. It was not an issue to land with 20 gals of fuel, but the takeoff will have to be done without fuel in the fuselage thank...
Anyway, thanks to the relativly light weight of the civilian version, Things went smooth and before I realized it, I was on my way to Uruguay.
Save the flight and continued the next day...
Then Agentina...came, and made my way to the southern tip of it. Great airport SAWE but very windy! 23 knots on final!
This is where the challenge really started to be serious. 30 minutes of research on the internet to realized that I was gonna be feet wet for 600 nm+ with only once possible alternate... Strips on antartica are few, and far appart!.
Filed in an IFR and took off around 1630 local time. A bit late, but was expecting the daylight to be kind of long since its the summer there. That was not my smartest call...
I route to SAWB, my sim pauses.. its getting late, I still have 100+ nm to fly before land... and I know i'm not due for a fuel thank switch.. which leaves me with.. an emergency pause...
I inspect every single engine dial in the dash, nothing seems out of place, all the needle are in the green, oil temp is a bit low, but oild dilution keeps the pressure around 75 psi, fuel pressure and flow are good, MP and RPM haven't bulge, engine sounds smooth as violon, I'm baffled... so I uncheck the Emergency pause option and push toward Seymour Island...
Get directed to approach by the ATC, 80 gals of fuel left, but the weather.. ouch... I can't see nothing and I struggle to keep the bird upward without the AP.... so I opt to fly my approach using HDG mode on the AP. At 11 Mile, the ATC ask me to confirm runway in sight... I finally broke out at 2 Miles out, still flying 3000 ASL.... Despite the lack of lighting on the Runway, I manage to see the strip since the evening, stormy sky is still pretty bright and since the simulated UV panel lighting does an amazing job at minimizing glare.
Last cockpit inspection before Descent:
Fighting it a bit during the approach, notice the positive rate of climb that was not wanted! :
This was not my smoothest landing, But I did land it, with 29 kts of wind, from 1 and 2 o clock during short final... I was actually more challenging to keep it on the strip after touchdown... had to keep a bit of throttle to increase rudder authority...
So, wanna know what the emergency was?....
A yellow oil filter!! lol! I was part relieved, part surprise to see that a yellow component of the Mustang triggered the shift-9 emergency pause...
So moral of the story, after 20 hours of flight.. start to think about your filters!
Finally on the ground and tied down:
Happy flying guys!
Road, eu.. Plane trip: Canada to Antartica, in Civ Stang
- stephan.cote.1
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Road, eu.. Plane trip: Canada to Antartica, in Civ Stang
Last edited by stephan.cote.1 on 14 Mar 2016, 13:24, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Road, eu.. Plane trip: Canada to Antartica, in Civ Stan
Hi,
Great shots, great trip, thanks for sharing! (Last image link is broken) On the third image, I bet you have the wind blower and cabin heat on max and still cannot warm the cabin at -48C At least it reads cool and steady.
Cheerz,
Will
Great shots, great trip, thanks for sharing! (Last image link is broken) On the third image, I bet you have the wind blower and cabin heat on max and still cannot warm the cabin at -48C At least it reads cool and steady.
Cheerz,
Will
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- stephan.cote.1
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Re: Road, eu.. Plane trip: Canada to Antartica, in Civ Stan
Thanks for the kind word Will! I realize my writing is not the best, especially in English... I read some of the adventure on this forum and they are very well written... I'll post the info on the trip back: had a generator problem! Again, forgot to screen shot since I was not planning on writing a journal, but I'll try to put some details...LZ-WIL wrote:Hi,
Great shots, great trip, thanks for sharing!
Yeah, the outside temperature was hard to keep at bay in the cockpit, full defrost, full heater, no vent... Look at the wind speed also...80 some knotsLZ-WIL wrote:
On the third image, I bet you have the wind blower and cabin heat on max and still cannot warm the cabin at -48C At least it reads cool and steady.
I have a video of the landing I think.. I'll try to upload it to YouTube and post it here soon...
The picture should be fixed now... Thank you.
- Lewis - A2A
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Re: Road, eu.. Plane trip: Canada to Antartica, in Civ Stan
Nice, thanks for sharing the adventure and nice shots
Looks like your really giving the century AP a good workout
thanks,
Lewis
Looks like your really giving the century AP a good workout
thanks,
Lewis
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Re: Road, eu.. Plane trip: Canada to Antartica, in Civ Stan
Thanks for sharing your adventure! The Civ P-51 is so much fun to fly and yes she sure does love the fuel. Can't imagine what the bill would be to journey that far.
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- stephan.cote.1
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Re: Road, eu.. Plane trip: Canada to Antartica, in Civ Stan
Thanks Lewis. Yeah! I was surprised to see how much authority that thing had! The only issue I encountered a few time was purpoising on the altitude hold mode if I was turning it on with too much vertical speed... Other then that, this device is seriously working well! Can't wait to buy the GTN 650 to try that high tech combo in our race horse!Lewis - A2A wrote:Nice, thanks for sharing the adventure and nice shots
Looks like your really giving the century AP a good workout
thanks,
Lewis
Thanks for the kind word there SpaceJunkee.. Well, you can average my trip at roughly 6.3 nm/gal.. 5500 nm one way, pretty much the same distance on the way back.. What's the current price of AvGas in the US? Here it's roughly $8 CDN per gallon..spacejunkee wrote:Thanks for sharing your adventure! The Civ P-51 is so much fun to fly and yes she sure does love the fuel. Can't imagine what the bill would be to journey that far.
So we get: 5500x2 = 11000
11000/6.3 = 1750 gals
1750x8 = $14 000 CDN!!! ouch, that is 1/4 of my annual incomes before taxes!
So roughly 9000 USD...
Jeez our $ took a bad dip this year... Wanted to buy a hotas Warthog to replace my old cougar.. might not be the best timming for online purchase....
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Re: Road, eu.. Plane trip: Canada to Antartica, in Civ Stan
The civilian P-51 is truly the ultimate long haul world-cruiser of the A2A Accusim fleet. It's fast, it flies high, has ridiculous range (especially with the fuselage tank), and enough automation and avionics to handle IFR fairly well...although having only one nav radio can mean a lot of juggling during approach!
I'm on the verge of completing a round-the-world flight that's been a year or so in the making. Started somewhere in California and just decided to head East on a whim...and never stopped. Now, about 135 hours later on the Hobbs, I'm currently flying down the coast of Alaska back towards mainland US.
I'm on the verge of completing a round-the-world flight that's been a year or so in the making. Started somewhere in California and just decided to head East on a whim...and never stopped. Now, about 135 hours later on the Hobbs, I'm currently flying down the coast of Alaska back towards mainland US.
- stephan.cote.1
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Re: Road, eu.. Plane trip: Canada to Antartica, in Civ Stan
Totally agree with you! 4+ hours of endurance at 300+ Mph is a very long set of legs!!! I can't wait for the GTN650 to be integrated...EnDSchultz wrote:The civilian P-51 is truly the ultimate long haul world-cruiser of the A2A Accusim fleet. It's fast, it flies high, has ridiculous range (especially with the fuselage tank), and enough automation and avionics to handle IFR fairly well...although having only one nav radio can mean a lot of juggling during approach!
Wow! My trip to antartica was in the junior league compared to this! Good job man! What kind of maintenance did you deal with? I had to replace the generator, the oil filter and the fuel filter.. within 45 hours.EnDSchultz wrote:I'm on the verge of completing a round-the-world flight that's been a year or so in the making. Started somewhere in California and just decided to head East on a whim...and never stopped. Now, about 135 hours later on the Hobbs, I'm currently flying down the coast of Alaska back towards mainland US.
The Generator was the scariest since I was feet wet and the volt meter was climbing as long as the generator was on, so I had to work the switch to maintained the electrical system between 23-27v.
Cheer!
Stephan
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Re: Road, eu.. Plane trip: Canada to Antartica, in Civ Stan
I don't recall doing much in the way of maintenance, except for the generator (as I said, the trip's been casual, on-and-off for around a year). Personally, I'm fine with yellow filters as this really only seems to indicate they're not perfectly clean, and doesn't seem to have a noticeable effect on performance. Sprung an oil leak at some point but extra oil loss only became really noticeable recently. The generators are the worst, though. They only seem to last somewhere in the ballpark of 50-75 hours and I had two failures/replacements over the 140 hours I flew. (disclaimer: I abuse my Accusim planes. I wouldn't ever fly a P-51 that was gushing oil out the cowling!!)stephan.cote.1 wrote:Wow! My trip to antartica was in the junior league compared to this! Good job man! What kind of maintenance did you deal with? I had to replace the generator, the oil filter and the fuel filter.. within 45 hours.
The Generator was the scariest since I was feet wet and the volt meter was climbing as long as the generator was on, so I had to work the switch to maintained the electrical system between 23-27v.
Cheer!
Stephan
As I said, I did this on a whim so I never even kept track of where I started, except that it was west coast somewhere in California. Just landed at Lake Tahoe a few days ago at around 145 hours on the tach so I'm calling that journey complete, and now I don't know what to do with my P-51. o_O
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