Flight stories, flight #4

[Tobus[NL] 28]

Another day, another flight. This time a dusk and evening flight, which I normally like to do ... at night, with the lights in my room out to add to the atmosphere.

I did my normal routine in Skyvector and Plan-G and found it easy enough: no mountains, just straight line navigating, with only SCIM as a crosspoint on radials between two VOR's. Anything else? Oh yeah, no target time. OMG, it's a speed trap . Well, let's rev the Merlin up to temperature and be on our way.

 

The waning sun did spectacular things with the light as I followed the canyon out of SCLD to the northwest. Staying low I stayed in the canyon, turning west south west at the end and riding it until I'd reacht the sea and turn towards the MON VOR, where I'd do my first T&G at SCTE.

 

As I turned out to sea, visibility went down, fast. I was staring at a hazy grey soup with the sun just dying out below it. Weather?? 

Awh crap, I forgot to turn my AS2016 from real live weather to custom setting belonging to this flight. I quickly looked at the weather report in AS2016 and compared it to the settings of this flight. Winds were of the same strength but more southerly on my altitudes. That would mean I'd be faster than expected. It also gave clouds around the expected levels, but on some points there would be fog. Fun! I made my decision and kept it as is, flying the real weather from AS2016 and ASCA, even if it was slightly off from the custom level and showing morning weather on this evening flight.

 

After that, I made sure to get a 360 radial on MOM and ride it in low and slow to SCTE. The fog was thick as soup now, but had a bit of a clearing just around 200ft above the ground. I found the runway slightly off to my right, but as I was already full in landing mode with gear down and flaps 30, I corrected to line up, dropped flaps to full 50 and put her down nicely, be it on one wheel.

 

Now fully dark, I climbed out and set of on a straight run to VLD. It remained foggy but as I approached VLD and SCVD for my next T&G it cleared, the fog turning into more solid clouds and those clouds rising above my flightlevel. SCVD T&G was uneventful in clear but dark circumstances.

 

Now fully dark I set off again. Most pics turn out way too dark so the following are the last: riding VOR VCD towards the small island with SCIM strip, radial 326 for 85nm, while also tuning CAR VOR. Upon touching the 015 radial on that one I was indeed over a small island and headed for CAR VOR and my final landing at SCIE. Every now and then I dove into clouds and some fogbanks, but with it now being fully dark it wasn't the white-knuckle experience it was around SCTE. With the wind on my back end I set MP and RPM at their lowest possible setting to slow to a "crawl" of 180 kts, but in all fairness I think I was too fast on this one. Nonetheless, the fog and dusk start made this a really nice atmosphered flight.

 

 

All full scale pics are at http://fs-snaps.com/album/txRj

Edited April 21, 2017 by Tobus[NL]

[mutley 4,487]

 Another great report Tobus, it must have been noisy in that Mustang!

[Tobus[NL] 28]

1 hour ago, mutley said:

 Another great report Tobus, it must have been noisy in that Mustang!

Hah, luckily one can opt to don headphones in the A2A Mustang civ, so that drowns out a lot of the engine noise. I did worry and curse a little as the world around me turned into a tiny bubble on my descent towards SCTE .

[NobbyNoMates 21]

I have to say, I've been very impressed with all four of Tobus's flight stories so far, along with the photo collages as well.

Also have to say, that's a mighty sweet looking Mustang  !   

 

[Tobus[NL] 28]

3 hours ago, NobbyNoMates said:

I have to say, I've been very impressed with all four of Tobus's flight stories so far, along with the photo collages as well.

Also have to say, that's a mighty sweet looking Mustang  !   

 

Thank you sir!

Although it's not my repaint, you can find it at the A2A forums or in the "show off" thread on this forum.

But yes, I do enjoy penning down my adventures, enriched with pics, to bore others to tears with them. Glad you are enjoying them. I would have thought more people to share their adventures though...

[brett 2,284]

5 hours ago, NobbyNoMates said:

I have to say, I've been very impressed with all four of Tobus's flight stories so far, along with the photo collages as well.

Also have to say, that's a mighty sweet looking Mustang  !   

 

 

Welcome to the forums here Wayne  and thanks for posting.