Going around the world in the A2A Piper Comanche 250!

[Jeffryintveld]

So, since i picked up flight simulators again after a absence of many years, i want to try out something different than just flying randomly around the virtual world...

I have decided, to take the A2A Comanche around the world! Something i noticed is that i love taking short trips, short in the sentence of 30 minutes to a hour.

So i will be starting from the airport that is closest to my hometown, Rotterdam The Hague Airport (EHRD). I will situate the weather as it is at that moment in the area where I will be flying, i only will try to not do allot of night time flying as this does not transfer well to video's as you mostly will just see allot of darkness. I also will speed half a hour forward in the video's during these trips to get across the long boring moments, this way i can have shorter video's and less bigger output files to encode.

I have to warn you, i am still learning to fly, and especially with A2A planes you have to learn allot seeing its really learning how to fly these beautiful planes! I bought myself the C172 for FSX but after raving about it around friends someone gifted me the Comanche for Prepar3d as a early Christmas gift! I just love to start up a plane with all the stuff that is necessary instead of just hitting the quick start key combination. (excellent job btw A2A on these planes.) I will also be using various repaints to show them off as they are just too great to not show them! First flights will showcase the N5248P repaint from Flieger-Marius!

I have learned myself from scratch how to fly the C172 and the Comanche and the Comanche was my choice for this trip as it holds the nice tip tanks for some extra fuel i will need to cross any longer distances! But be aware that I will be making mistakes and such so don't burn me down on this too much . (Positive criticism or better yet feedback is better. )

Software & hardware that will be used:

-A2A Piper Comanche 250
-TrackIR V5
-Prepar3dv3
-REX 4 Texture Direct
-Orbx FTX Global
-Orbx FTX Vector (Added in video 6)
-Garmon Flight1 GTN 750 (added in video 6)
-PrecipitFX - (added in video 7)
-Thrustmaster T.16000M FCS Hotas

First flight is over:

My first stop will be Koksijde Airbase (EBFN) in Belgium while taking off from Rotterdam The Hague Airport (EHRD), be aware that this area is a very condensed area so there were some framedrops while in the Netherlands, but they pick up after i come near the border (Im still tweaking the settings of the game to get the best results). The flight started in the early morning at dawn so you have a nice sunrise during the flight! I also had some wind pushing me a bit too the right while taking off. Landing was tricky as for some reason a big tree was obscuring my landing a bit on the airstrip of Koksijde Airbase! But it made for a interesting landing.

Weather conditions were clouded, temperature of 11 Degrees Celcius and mild wind conditions.



I hope you all will enjoy these trips as much as i will!

*edit*
Youtube playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... sh0JSItR0s

Interactive map of every airport i visited so far:
https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid= ... 3tWEmuwqv4

[dvm]

Keep your eyes peeled for Amelia !

[Jeffryintveld]

Keep your eyes peeled for Amelia !

Myeah, im not coming near the Bermuda Triangle... Gonna cross through high into Canada via Greenland.

[Wasabi65]

Great plan!
I shall be following your progress with interest.
Will you be doing any of your flights on Vatsim? if so, you could have some of the members here joining you for some of the legs
I would certainly be happy to join you as we are in similar time zones.
Keep the updates coming
Andrew

[Aerodil]

I'd be happy to join as well, if that's an option.

[Jeffryintveld]

Great plan!
I shall be following your progress with interest.
Will you be doing any of your flights on Vatsim? if so, you could have some of the members here joining you for some of the legs
I would certainly be happy to join you as we are in similar time zones.
Keep the updates coming
Andrew

I'm way way to green when it comes to Vatsim, already happy if i land on the correct airstrip at a airport.

[Jeffryintveld]

Second video online:

Koksijde AB (EBFN) to Headcorn (EGKH)
Temperate of 8 degrees Celcius, some scattered clouds but some good moderate winds that gave me trouble at takeoff.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh2kBkkZQLY[/youtube]

Allot of things did not go my way, i don't how many here record footage, but always when i'm recording, things go wrong. .
For some reason when i opened up the Pilot Notes i accidentally cancelled my IFR, did not get a conformation if i really wanted to cancel it. For some reason when i opened my door it kept open and closing constantly when using the quick key combo to open/close so had to start another new recording once again. Applied the last a2a update but nothing was needed to update. And i had a big sidewind that nearly blew me off the airstrip at takeoff and when i pulled up to lift off, the wind blew me down again a bit making my wheels hit the pavement. Than when i was near Headcorn, the damn ATC just made me circle for 15 minutes and did not bother to respond anymore, so i just turned my avionics off and landed that sucker anyway.

[Paul K]

I'll be interested to see if you complete your circumnavigation. A RTW trip is something I've been considering since FS98, but always used the excuse that I had yet to find the ideal aircraft. Certainly, the Comanche is an eligible candidate, so I shall watch and follow your journey. Best of luck !

[Mustang]

I'm in the same boat, Paul. Now I have the Comanche I'm contemplating a RTW trip which has been a long-delayed intention. But it would also be nice to do it in the B377 - there's certainly a bit more to do on the long legs with that aircraft, and it would be somewhat quicker. Back in FS2002 I did get as far as Greenland from the UK in DreamFleet's Piper Archer II... the rest of my trip never happened.

Recently I've been watching 'Dangerous Flights' on Discovery about ferry pilots. That's really put me in the mood to do this soon (even if the FSX scenery won't be quite as stunning).

I've been trying to do a bit more with Plan-G lately with a view to planning my flights more realistically where airspace, minimum en-route altitudes and fuel planning is concerned. Previously I had a habit of using FSX's own VFR/IFR route-planner where I usually pick 'VOR-to-VOR' and just hit the skies. Following the radials on a VFR flight is not quite in the spirit of things, except as a cross-check to avoid getting lost.

So, back to the Comanche as the ideal aircraft... I'm ready if you are Eastwards or westwards?

To avoid lots of night-time legs, I would probably rewind the FSX clock by a few hours and use Active Sky Next with 'historical weather' (synced to FSX-time), meaning my weather will be correct for the day, but just a few hours behind the real-world situation. It's an excellent feature of ASN, I must say Of course, on some days I expect all flying to be off due to terrible weather this time of year.

Looking forward to reading/seeing Jeff's updates here as he progresses on his trip!

[Brett_Henderson]

To add to the fun and interest... after each landing; Google the airport and the town... do some virtual tourism

[Jeffryintveld]

To add to the fun and interest... after each landing; Google the airport and the town... do some virtual tourism

yeah, good idea, will try that.

Btw, does anyone know why they removed the zoom option from P3d V3? You could zoom in and out with the previous version zoom in with the + and - keys, this helped me out allot finding a airport from long distances.

But here is the third trip:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7zrL9nJOEw[/youtube]

Headcorn (EGKH) To Swansea (EGKH)

Weather, cloudy, minor winds but cold temperatures with a minimum of 6 Degrees Celsius at ground level.

During this flight things went well at first as I have slowly start to adjust to the airplane over these flights, at one moment (after the first skip in the footage after the mark of 25:04) I noticed a loss in power in the engine, this was icing building up in the engine, I added some fuel and I opened up the Carburetor Heat and the engine picked up again. The landing almost ended in disaster as I overshot the runway as the ATC made me land with the wind in my back and i had to go around to try again, but in the second try, I had my best landing ever! You barely can't even hear the tires hit the runway.

[Jeffryintveld]

Another flight:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Se3OsD89k94[/youtube]

Swansea (EGKH) To Valley AB (EGOV)

The takeoff had some issues this time, wind speeds reaching storm conditions at the time I took off and it gave me some issues where I could not get enough speed and eventually I even got some icing in the engine, but opening the Carburetor Heat helped me out and I was on my way again! For some reason my recording software stopped recording 80% in so I had to re-record it.

I used a new repaint, the excellent N575IP from Flieger Marius!
http://flieger-marius.bplaced.net/pages ... hp?id=pa24

[Jeffryintveld]

Update:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ad4tEjUYRO0[/youtube]

Valley AB (EGOV) To Baldoon (UK09)

Good weather conditions....

The takeoff had no issues this time, but Baldoon's runway was way to short for my lack of experience in flying so I overshot two times and in the final try I landed next to the runway. But no damage to the plane! That's what you want from a landing! I might record less now as im quite busy with real life and the upcoming holidays

[Tutmeister]

You can still zoom by pressing the space bar and using the mouse wheel so the functionality is still there, maybe check your view mappings?
I use ezdok so have never used plus and minus keys in prepar3d v3 but will check on mine later.

Chris

[Lewis - A2A]

Great post, thanks for sharing your adventure thus far with the community, lovely stuff. I'm like Paul always on the edge of doing RTW and flight time I must have done numerous times but never on a purpose RTW trip.

cheers and Merry Christmas,
Lewis