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Leg 36: St Louis KSTL - Colorado Springs Mun KCOS


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Hi all,

Humble apologies for the delay on this one. :poster_oops: . The good news is that we have been airborne for just over an hour now, and should be landing in Colorado Springs in about an hour. The shots will follow shortly thereafter.

Sorry again; not much longer now!

Dave :-)

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Right, here we go:

Did this flight in an MD82. Great aircraft (Maddog 2006) but the autopilot - in particular the ILS feature - is a bit dodgy I think. It's a lot of work this airplane too, fairly hands on which I like.

Anyway, our noble steed awaits us on a warm June morning at KSTL St Louis.

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After about 45 minutes pressing various buttons, we're starting the short taxi out to runway 30L.

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Forgot the line-up shot, so here we are rotating. The centreline is a bit bumpy at KSTL so I avoided it to preserve the tires. (honest!)

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Feeling the power as we climb out, with some FBO offices behind us.

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View from the office. The left NAV radio is tuned to HLV, our first waypoint, and the right NAV is waiting to pick up the MCI VOR (hence the "VOR FAIL" message)

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Nice to see McDonnell Douglas doing their bit for the environment.

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Just about to reach cruising altitude as we turn at HLV.

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The co-pilot's panel. We're cruising now at an altitude of 35,000ft, give or take a few feet.

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Not much to see, below or above us.

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Now there is though. Ground Environment strutting its stuff as we overfly the MCI VOR and therefore KMCI Kansas City too.

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Weather starting to build up below us as we plow towards TBE.

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TBE just ahead, and we're preparing to descend a little early. WXR painting some light turbulence ahead and around KCOS, but it looks as though we'll just miss it.

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Starting a slow descent for Colorado Springs Municipal Airport.

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Our approach altitude of 10,000ft. KCOS is just off to our left, you can see it in the background.

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The final miles towards our transition at TAKSE, at which point I will fly the approach visually. The ILS for 17L is set anyway as a precaution. A bit of heat haze obscuring our vision.

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On finals for 17L.

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Cleaning the aircraft up as we prepare to turn off. Speed brakes are down, and about to disengage the reversers.

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Taxiing in to the small apron at Colorado Springs.

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I always get a bit disorientated flying into this airpot. There's why - on the ground and at an altitude of over 6000ft. I thought that the approach height of 10000ft was a mess up by ATC but I was wrong.

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The MD82, parked up at KCOS. Disembarking our 10 passengers as the engines cool down. Welcome to Colorado.

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Hope you enjoyed all. Not my usual quality I think, I need to sort out my clouds. I don't think I got any in the shots but some of the further-off ones just look like grey blobs on the horizon, it's terrible looking.

Next leg goes to Ben Davies, taking us to Nellis AFB. I'll let him know.

Cheers

Dave

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Dave,

Very nice. I'm jealous of those who can do e-mail while flying. I can't afford to give up a single CPU

cycle to extraneous tasks, though do keep a browser open for real world weather.

I liked the aircraft. The panel is interesting. You should fly in there in February. Heat haze won't

be an issue.

By the way, Cheyenne Mountain, home of the NORAD bunker is nearby, as is the Air Force Academy.

We visited there once. When you drive in the gate, the first sign you see says, "Visitor Center - 8 Miles".

Anyway, I enjoyed your flight. With only ten passengers, the cabin service must have been excellent.

John

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Morning Dave,

You've done us proud again, I can see a couple of contenders for screenshot of the week! Love the rotate shot and the en-route commentary.

I thought the graphics were great. Flight Environment have some great cloud textures which make them more fluffy so stops the "blockyness". You certainly prove there's a lot of life left in FS9.

I see the door is open in the fist shot have you solved that problem now?

Cheers

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Lovely, just lovely. always liked the shape of the MD 80 series.

Your clouds look fine, unless you mean the blocky 2D ones, which im sure you know are controlled by the 3D cloud percentage slider.

Set this to 100% and they will go, at a cost of framerates.

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