Next stop Alaska

[Corsaire31 419]

" Looking for a new base

While my two pilots Aaron Slater and Kathy Cook keep on flying the two Cessnas 185 from Prince Rupert (CYPR), I have decided it is time to make a move inside Alaska and open a second base there..."

 

Full story (and many more) at : http://cors-air.over-blog.com

 

[Captain Coffee 2,030]

Love that plane. Only thing that was a problem for me with it was it's GPS..all text, and coordinate based apparently. I ended up having to pop the map out and check position frequently. (I do not actually know how to instrument navigate despite working on c-130 and c-141 instrument systems back in my USAF days, and like a house fly at dusk I find the nearest pavement and cling to it till morning.

 

Then I figured out how to add a Carenado GNS530 as a pop-out window and now all is well...although I still don't fly at night unless it is a full moon.

 

Way off topic...but you all might enjoy this bit of useful info...

 

Re: the fly at night metaphor....I have quite a few odd jobs in the past. One was T-shirt artist specializing in high realism aircraft and rail designs....till I got ripped off and basically gave up artwork. But in that tshirt job ccasionaly I would notice a shit ton of flies in the dark  room where we burned hand cut films onto photoemulsions, the flies usualy the result of a mouse frying itself in the half-arsed installed electrical sockets without covers (my boss was a dumbass)...whose corpses attracted the flies. I discovered that flies can't see red light, and they headed for the nearest wall and cling to it every time the white light went out and the safe light came on.

 

How can you put this info to work for you?

 

The next time you have a fly infestation in your home/room/wherever...shut out the lights, darken the room, or wait till nighttime and use a red led or red film covered regular light to to spot them on the walls. Flick them into an open shopping bag and once inside the flies cling to the bag sides. Then you can seal the bag up, and dump them outside/stomp on the bag...as you prefer. I prefer catch and release myself.

 

I made a bunch of people come witness my fly catching prowess that day...i opened the black film bag I had used to trap the flies...and nearly 45 flies rushed out into the sunlight...pretty damned cool to see actually...ok, the ladies weren't all that impressed. But they were grateful no more flies were coming from the dark room.

 

FLIES are VFR ONLY.

 

We now return you to your regular forum post.

[Corsaire31 419]

Thks for the info !   I don't have so many flies around, probably missing dead mice in the house ...

 

I've been sailing ( cruising and racing) some 35 years and I often was navigator on board because I always loved it (and also specially loved sailing at night, makes navigation easier because you can see reference points - buoys, lighthouses - from far away.) The KNL 90 in the Islander reminds me of the first generation GPS ...  since it is coordinates only for your position, you need the map to figure out where you are and I have a Plan-G map opened on my second monitor with my flight plan on it. It is of course not connected to FSX (it is on my laptop) because it would then become a GPS map. Where would the fun be ? 

 

I have until now only used it in a basic way with only my position and the direct coordinates of destination airfield (sort of a super LOC/DME). I have downloaded the manual from Bendix and will take some time to study it so I can enter a complete flight plan in the GPS. Besides this I usually navigate with VORs and NDBs. Since you have two ADFs, two chronometers and a NAV in the Islander, it makes things easier if you have made a flight plan with bearings and flight times between waypoints. 

 

When I started my european company, I was often flying at night in winter (I fly real GMT time) and I found the IFR flying in FSX with the ATC relatively easy : just stick to ATC instructions (heading/altitude) and they will bring you where you can pick up the lights or the ILS of the runway. And with the modern GPS in the Caravan, I always precisely know where I am.

 

With my canadian company, I usually fly daytime because when it's 19:00 / 20:00 GMT at my place, it is middle of the day there...  

 

[Captain Coffee 2,030]

Nice tip re: letting ATC route you to destination...I'll give that a try...I always assumed their job was just to force me to make random altitude changes.

[Corsaire31 419]

I agree sometime they can be a pita because they change your altitude or heading for 5 minutes, but it is usually to avoid other trafic... or mountains !   On the other hand when you are in a night flight on autopilot, there is nothing much else to do than switching the radio from one ATC to the other and make some of these heading/altitude changes...  and control with Nav Aids and GPS they send you in the right direction !

[Captain Coffee 2,030]

I agree bout sailing and navigating at night. Me and a buddy sailed from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas in a Flika...my first long passage...my first time outside a bay for that matter . The first night 50 miles off shore (where we found the best wind) was a bit scary at first (holy Crap cruise ships look enormous at night all lit up like disco balls...yet you can barely make out their navigation lights in all the glare they put out. They look like they are right upon you even though they are still 5 miles away). Then it became a joy doing the night watch...so peaceful. And the starry skies...OMG. Watching Orion tilt over during the course of the trip as we decreased our latitude was really fun to see. Even though we knew exactly where we were with our chart plotter...i still made hourly position marks on an actual chart...just in case we lost the GPS, we would know where and what direction we were heading from that point...and it was a good ritual to help me with keeping awake at night too. Pity bout my buddy the captain...he never slept during the whole trip other than a few cat naps during the day. I slept like a log out there, and had to be shook awake for my watches.

[Corsaire31 419]

After looking at different places with the Islander, I finally opened my Alaskan base in Sitka (PASI) - 1947 m runway, ILS, lights and a reasonable price.

Already hired a new pilot there and leased a second amphibian C185F to deliver all hydroplane bases.