Where are you taking your Cub

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chacal
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Re: Where are you taking your Cub

Post by chacal »

Cub over Djibouti. Spended 2 years there. A hot place ! A lot to see from air or as diver..
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Approaching Lac Assal, a salty lake lower than sea level. Its also here that tectonic plaques enters in collision.
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Gran Bara desert. No sand there, but you'll find sea shells by millions.. How old are they ?
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Ludwik
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Lewis - A2A
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Re: Where are you taking your Cub

Post by Lewis - A2A »

Brilliant shots peoples 8) 8)
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CV60
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Re: Where are you taking your Cub

Post by CV60 »

Vicksburg MS (KVKS) at dusk. The trip is posted here: https://mutleyshangar.com/forum/index.p ... /#comments

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Hook
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Re: Where are you taking your Cub

Post by Hook »

Back in the Caribbean from Alaska, I picked up the flight I left at Martinique.

I flew to St Vincent, decided to make a side trip to Barbados, Then back to the same spot and down the island chain to Grenada. I flew across to Trinidad then back up through Tobago, Barbados again, Dominica, Antigua, St Barts and to the Virgin Islands, an interesting place to fly. Next I flew west along the south coast of Puerto Rico and landed at Isla Mona just to the west.

Isla Mona is an interesting destination. There is no airport there in P3D, but on the south of the island there is a road running in the right direction across some desert sand terrain. I've been there in several aircraft. I figured the sandy area had too much ground clutter, bushes and such, to land there, so I'd land directly on the road. Gorgeous weather, great flight, interesting destination, good landing and takeoff. I've got a few publishable pics if I can get dropbox to cooperate.

On to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic. I intended to fly to Puerto Plata (MDPP) but decided it would be dark long before I could get there, so I'd land at Samana (MDCY). I got close to where the airport should be, getting into dusk but still good visibility, and there was no airport to be found. I cheated with the Shift-5 map and sure enough, empty ground. My choices were to backtrack more than 10 miles to an airport I'd passed earlier (which did not have fuel), or continue on to MDPP and darkness. MDCY is in Active Sky but not in FS_FlightControl.

I ended up logging 1.0 hours of night flight. The crescent moon gave just enough light to see a horizon and navigation wasn't difficult as I could fly toward city lights.

As I approached the destination airport I saw a couple of planes. I checked the Active Sky map and there was one plane taking off and three lining up to land. I was still a ways out and figured I could fly a normal pattern and land right behind aircraft number three. Something I hadn't seen before: that Orbit Airlines landing lights illuminated the ground rather nicely. I just wish our landing lights were that powerful.

Got landed without incident, refueled, and as there were no civilian aircraft parking spaces at all I parked next to where the fuel truck normally parked. Edit: I just checked and there are some at the far end of the airport.

Currently 168.7 hours in the Cub.

Next stop Grand Turks and up toward Nassau, then the mainland.

Hook

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Re: Where are you taking your Cub

Post by Hook »

Approaching Isla Mona from the east.

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Areas of standing water in desert sand terrain after a rain storm. The road at the top of the screen is my intended landing strip.

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Circling to approach. I had to do some hard slipping to get low enough after this.

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Safely on the ground. You can see what the landing site looks like up close.

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Hook

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Re: Where are you taking your Cub

Post by Hook »

String of Diamonds. Aircraft lining up to land at Puerto Plata.

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Good landing lights on that Orbit Airlines plane.

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Hook

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Re: Where are you taking your Cub

Post by Hook »

Grand Turk wasn't so bad but flying the island chain dead reckoning northwest to Nassau was an exercise in frustration.

The World VFR map wasn't detailed enough, the Caribbean 1 map had the detail but it wasn't always accurate (checked against Google Maps), and even the Shift-5 map didn't always match the details. Finding the distance between two airports so I could calculate my ground speed was problematic as most of the airports had changed designation and it was difficult to tell which airports were which based on the terrain.

If you're flying in the area, for dead reckoning you'll need the Shift-5 map a lot. Better to use a VOR or GPS and ignore the islands. It's possible to do dead reckoning but it wasn't fun on that flight.

As I got closer to Nassau the detail accuracy improved.

Next flight is to Florida and then I'll just fly around the coast and end up in Texas.

Hook

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Re: Where are you taking your Cub

Post by Hook »

The flight from Nassau to Florida was a lot more pleasant.

I took off early morning expecting to encounter rain over most of the flight according to the weather map, but by the time I got to where the rain was, it was gone. It looked like the entire rain area had moved to the northeast.

I had a vague idea that the winds would be fairly light from the south, so flying west I offset my course by a few degrees to the left. My first way point at the point on top of the island showed me drifting about 10-12 degrees to the right. SkyVector had my next leg at 283 degrees and 117 nautical miles so I flew 275 expecting slightly less wind later in the flight and was able to maintain this heading very well.

When I got close enough to see the destination, 07FA in this case, I checked the Shift-5 map and found I would hit 4 miles south of that airport, well within the 10% of 117 nm expected accuracy. It always amazes me when I hit so close to a target, but it amazed Lindbergh as well, especially since he deviated from his plan a bit, had no idea how much the wind had drifted him, and neglected to compensate the compass for the great circle route for several hours. He didn't know if that was just luck, but my experience has been that you can almost fly in the general direction of your destination and still get close enough to find it. The only time I'm off is when I misread the map or compass and end up flying 20 degrees off my intended course. I won't mention how often that happens. :)

The airport at 07FA is a club airport and doesn't have a fuel pump but I figured I could wheedle a few gallons there. I used the "fuel cheat" in other words. :D

Hook

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Re: Where are you taking your Cub

Post by Hook »

When doing a dead reckoning flight over the ocean flying to an island and you see a clump of clouds in the distance in the general direction of your destination in an otherwise clear sky, that's probably your destination. The sun heats up the ground, bubbles of warm moist air break lose and rise and eventually the water vapor condenses into cumulus clouds. This effect is well known to people who fly sailplanes. This helped me a lot when flying to Barbados and Antigua, but don't depend on it to be exact.

My first flight into Barbados the clouds were almost perfectly over the island. The second flight I saw clouds offset about 20 degrees to the right. I figured I had drifted left due to the wind but didn't think it could be that much. I turned about halfway toward the clouds, then when other clouds appeared on my original course I turned toward them instead and hit very close to my intended destination airport. Antigua had a much larger spread of clouds and I simply flew toward the middle of the spread which was on my intended course anyway. Closer to the island the clouds were covering most of the sky ahead.

Having clouds in the direction of your flight is good, because it's a lot easier to hold a dead reckoning course on a feature in the clouds than it is to hold the same course on a compass with a featureless horizon. Keep in mind that the clouds can move so cross check with the compass often.

Hook

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Lewis - A2A
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Re: Where are you taking your Cub

Post by Lewis - A2A »

Ok Ok Hook, what you up too now?

Do we need to rename your forum subtitle as Cub Addict yet lol :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

cheers,
Lewis
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Hook
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Re: Where are you taking your Cub

Post by Hook »

Lewis - A2A wrote: 01 Feb 2020, 19:52Do we need to rename your forum subtitle as Cub Addict yet lol :mrgreen: :mrgreen:
LOL Lewis!

I gotta admit though, I've gotten tired of flying the Cub and fallen in love with it a couple of times already. I'm at 182.4 hours now and I've determined to fly to at least 200. I've got 40 hours on the Hobbes and should go from Excellent to Good on my next flight. I don't think I'll make Fair though, time will tell. It's so bad that I was dreaming about the Cub, knowing I was one flight away from Good, and breaking the prop! I consider it a warning: I'm gonna back up my log file. In fact, I'll go do that now. Thanks for reminding me. :D

Hook

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Re: Where are you taking your Cub

Post by Hook »

Next flight to Clearwater near Tampa.

Distance 135 nm. SkyVector reported 3:30, Active Sky reported 2:30. Well, this'll be interesting.

I took off, flew between two points and timed the leg, then got out the E6-B. 31 minutes on the slide opposite 28 nm on the frame, look for the rate index: 45. Fourty-five knots ground speed! I've got a headwind of about 15 knots. At that rate my 135 miles will take 3 hours. well, it averages the other two numbers I have.

Next check was 30 minutes for 26 miles for a speed of 52 knots. Maybe things are looking up. Next check was 24 minutes for 18 miles, then 26 for 20 miles, both giving 45 knots. Last leg to the destination would be 33 miles so I expected 43 minutes.

I kept hitting clouds at my 1500 feet altitude and had to do some detouring, even though the clouds were reported above 2000 feet on Flight Watch radio. I hit some expected 9 mile visibility about halfway through the flight. I wanted the ATIS at the next airport so I tuned the frequency which I had to get from the FS_FlightControl map as the one on the chart was different. Good visibility, 2600 foot ceilings, about 9 knots ground wind so flying lower wouldn't improve my ground speed much.

Approaching my destination I kept to the left to avoid controlled airspace. As long as I was under 3000 I'd be OK and I was at 1500. Then I realized that over Tampa Bay they wanted me below 1200. Oh well, I kept 1500 figuring the worst that could happen would be a fine. When I landed at Clearwater the FAA wasn't waiting for me so I got away with it.

I was going to follow an inlet near the destination, then fly 014 degrees to the airport. I'd gone to the Tampa TAC chart which was more detailed, and it showed a road running to the right of the inlet going right to the airport, so I followed that instead with the compass on 005 degrees.

Landed without incident, discovered a lot of attractive buildings nearby, not airport buildings. Nice regional landclass in that area. Flight had taken 2:55 from takeoff to touchdown with 3.1 hours logged.

Engine hours are now 43.2 and condition is still Excellent.

Hook

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Re: Where are you taking your Cub

Post by Hook »

Clearwater to Cross City KCTY.

Windy.com showed a 15 knot headwind over the entire flight so I planned for a 45 knot ground speed. This worked well until I got confused by a map feature and thought I was flying faster than I was. Didn't matter as the next waypoint was an airport so I couldn't get confused and the 45 turned out to be correct.

Last waypoint before turning inland was the mouth of the Suwanee River, which you might remember from the song. :)

I saw things in the distance that were likely landmarks and steered toward them, but all turned out not to be what I originally thought. No matter, I was headed in the right direction and saw the airport about where I thought it should be.

Flight was 2:10 takeoff to landing, 2.3 hours logged, engine condition still Excellent at 45.4 hours.

Hook

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Re: Where are you taking your Cub

Post by Hook »

A few random thoughts on flying the Cub.

Previously I've always used a stopwatch (a West Bend digital kitchen timer, actually) to time my flight legs. For the Cub I've started using just the clock. I sync the sim to either the current time or 12 hours off so my real analog clock matches what is in the sim, but having the clock in the sim is useful if I sync to a different time. For some reason this just works better in the Cub than in other aircraft, and I don't even have to write the various times down, they're easy enough to remember. "Next waypoint expected at 10 after the hour." Getting withing 2.5 minutes is close enough for all the other estimating I'm doing.

I've been using the elevator trim to set a zero angle of attack, indicated in an addition to the Shift-Z text. I don't have to use that text a lot because the zero AoA is 1/4 of the way from the third to the fourth bolt on the window frame. Once I get that AoA set correctly I note the speed and use that to maintain the proper attitude. At my loading it starts off at about 74 MPH indicated and at the end of the flight it's down to 72. Not difficult. I use the throttle to maintain altitude and doing it this way, with occasional micro adjustments to the throttle, when I'm flying over water or areas with no updrafts I can maintain altitude within 100 feet. If we've got updrafts and downdrafts then I can maintain 250 feet using the stick with airspeed changing according to how much updraft or downdraft I'm getting.

Last flight I was hitting variable winds, both speed and direction, making the nose of the plane wander side to side and up and down, affecting the airspeed. I mostly ignored the airspeed and kept the plane pointing about where I wanted to go and altitude maintained itself well enough.

When a checklist says "Controls free, correct and full motion" it seems like in the sim it's pretty useless unless the proper failures are implemented. However, it's still essential to do this as what you're really testing is your flight controls. An older joystick can have the center wander a bit or get sticky and this will show you if it's happening. I've had to cycle my aileron trim wheel on the joystick back and forth several times to remove stickiness many times, and I check for proper centering several times during a flight, with occasional nudges to the trim wheel to fix it; observe the joystick in the cockpit to do this.

About all the bitter complaints about the hoops courses in Microsoft flight: You fly a hoops course on every approach, it's just that the hoops are invisible. When I'm transitioning to descent I decide on a point in the sky near the end of the runway that I want to hit, pull carb heat, reduce power, maintain speed, and put where the horizon would normally be (just above the third bolt, remember?) on the point I want to fly to on my planned approach. There's no actual hoop there, but I imagine one.

These are some of the things I think about when flying. Between navigation and actually flying the plane, and composing forum posts :D there's not much time to get bored.

Hook

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Re: Where are you taking your Cub

Post by Hook »

Cross City to Apalachicola Regional KAAF.

Windy.com reported 15 knots of headwind on the first half of the flight, 10 or so on the second half. I calculated a ground speed of 50 knots on the first half so wasn't sure how to estimate the remainder of the flight. I figured with the possible range of speeds, I'd hit the destination between the top of the hour and 15 after. A 15 minute window on a long flight leg like this is perfectly normal and expected for the level of estimation in Cub navigation. In the end I hit about the middle of the window.

As I neared the destination there was a military operations area (MOA) around KAAF with a 1500 foot lower limit. So I descended from my normal 2000 to about 1250. After Tampa Bay I wasn't taking any chances. :D

Absolutely clear skies except for a couple of clouds in the distance after about 1.5 hours. Some minor wind speed and direction changes for a while at one point. I just let the aircraft nose and airspeed wander around and ignored it, changing trim to keep the average airspeed at 72 MPH (indicated 70 to 75). Altitude remained as constant as I could detect on our altimeter.

Note that the technique of maintaining altitude by micro adjustments to the throttle is specific to the Cub, and the first aircraft I've used it with. I certainly wouldn't fly the DC-3 this way, and I'll have to experiment on the Cherokee when I'm flying it again. Most of these other aircraft aren't quite as amenable to an exact zero angle of attack.

The more I fly a particular aircraft the fewer "cheats" I use. I'm talking about anything I can find out that I can't actually get from the cockpit and instruments. In this case I'm down to checking the angle of attack periodically, my exact fuel level, and the actual visibility on the Active Sky map (70 miles through much of the flight). Everything else comes from my instruments and Flight Watch radio, although I may check ATIS or similar at my destination or other airport. I used this at my destination, and the ASOS frequency on the chart was correct this time.

The exact angle of attack isn't really necessary to check. Once you've got it set at the beginning of the flight and determined what airspeed to fly, simply maintain that airspeed. Drop it one knot after an hour, another after another hour or so, and a third at about three hours. This is due to the fuel weight burning off. This probably isn't something you'd work out on your own, but you'd learn about it from the instructor. Every few minutes I drop the elevator trim by one notch to maintain the airspeed, and occasionally I have to reduce the throttle a very small amount.

If Heidi jettisons her heavy breakfast out the open door, that probably won't have much effect. Heh! That would make a good reaction if it had the proper animation. Scott? :D

I seem to remember Heidi needing to use the bathroom on one flight. We had that in the Microsoft Flight Stearman as well. If you landed your passenger would thank you profusely, and if you took too long she'd say, "Never mind." Does she do all that in the Cub? Reminds me of playing The Sims. I could tell stories...

190.1 hours on the Cub, 47.7 on the engine, still Excellent. I expect it to drop to Good at about 60 hours, which means it will say Needs Overhaul at 300 and Must Overhaul at 600. I guess when I got the first drop at 42 hours I'd abused the engine more than I thought. :)

Hook

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