2011 Around-The-World Race Pireps Thread

[arrvoo 6]

Third leg of the race leg of the race, Jock baton holder with myself as wingman. A miserable rainy afternoon soon turned into clear skies and a beautiful trip down from Guyana through Surname and French Guiana to the far north of Brazil. It was soon apparent that my Hornet was a lot faster than Jocks Tigercat and he soon disappeared from view.After a quick descent and 10 miles out from the airport the word came over the airvwaves that Jocks plane was down (computer crash) leaving me a little heart stopping moment as my leg suddenly becomes really important. But a nice smooth landing and quick changeover was satisfying. Only a little time lost due to my superior speed so no harm done

[l_schuiling 6]

Well being not too confident about my capabillities as a pilot haviing trashed serveral good airplanes on beginners mistakes, i finally found what the trouble was. a stuck F7 key did not lower flaps at all, so i was either stalling or comming in too fast.so last minute keyboard give me some room for improvement.I opted as being a Virtual wing to the wing from SBAM to SBSL flying my old mosquito. all went well and the guys even took the polite silence as if i was on the real thing thnx again guys, i made a perfect landing just 9 min after the real wingsee a pic of me ov er the ocean

[CavalierDuck 106]

A newcomer to the RTWR having spectated for a couple of years, I did my first race leg as wingman going from SBAM to SBSL, 486nm, in the F7F-3S. My introduction to the race had been flying (or trying to fly) a leg of the pre-race event, Operation Pina Colada, which unfortunately didn't go to plan to due unforseen controller issues that had me doing doughnuts in a DC-3 on the grass at the side of the runway at TISX! I eventually got flying and all went fine from then onwards, nice flight and landing at TNCM but I believe four minutes after the deadline so it won't have counted, but good to have got the gremlins out of the system.After that bit of drama to start my racing career, the first actual race leg went very well. Took off in daylight and good weather, had a smooth flight at 22,000ft, winds slight; descent, approach and landing went exactly as planned. At first I wondered if it might get dark during the flight and I'd practiced landing at SBSL in the dark, but daylight lasted all the way. Our baton-carrier made it down safely, which was just as well because as I was about 16 minutes behind him but I was fairly pleased with the 351nm/hour average speed I posted.No photos this time I'm afraid, I was too nervous about switching out of FS mid-flight! Maybe next time.

[jt_williams 291]

My first 2011 race leg, backing up Eamonn on a bonus jet leg to SBFN. We both selected PMDG 747's to make the run. I had done one practice landing at the airport earlier in the daylight and had no problems. The actual leg started at dusk and it was dark within 15 minutes of taking off. I could see the reflections of moonlight on the ocean far below but the weather reports coming in from SBFN were ominous. Rain and very poor visibility. The team thought it might be a good idea for me to divert to Natal in case Eamonn had problems landing but the weather cleared a bit when he arrived. I was on final for SBNT when Eamonn announced that he had a green Dueanna. The team asked be to resume my fight to SBNF in case there were any problems with the leg. I was already struggling with re-programming the FMC but did a missed approach and set course for SBNF. The FMC continued to complain about insufficient fuel as I set up for a 20 mile final to the airport. With gear, flaps, and speed set at 10 miles out I could see the red tags at the airport and then darkness closed in and I could see NOTHING. NOTHING!!!! I continued on my approach hoping that the murk would clear. I just caught sight of the runway lights as I sailed over the runway and almost hit the hill off to the right. Firewalled the throttle for my missed approach and go-around. Got the aircraft back under automated flight and proceeded for my second attempt. At five miles out everything disappeared again but I contiued my approach. DC warned me that the hill in front of the airport was 300 feet so I climbed up a bit and then caught sight of the runway edge lights and I was too high and off to the right and off the runway course. I banked to the left, pushed the nose down, cut the throttle, while Betty said something about sink rate. I nudged the throttle a bit and started to flare while putting in a goodly bit of rudder to try to get the nose pointed in the same direction of the runway. Then I heard the mains touchdown. I had already selected full autobreaks and spoilers, but I braked for all I was worth and got it stopped. Fuel Remaining 1%. Time for a dram of Nam Beist.Switched to Daylight to take a picture.

[Eamonn Watson 32]

Hey all,Jeff and I set out on a bonus leg to SBFN in PMDG 747's. Weather leaving SBSL wasn't too bad, a little rain, but mainly ok.. We took off and headed east. As the sun set we were hearing about bad weather in SBFN, low clouds, bad visibility. It was decided midflight that Jeff would head to Netal in case I planted my jet into the trees on approach. As I approached the destination, the weather really turned south, they reported that it was clearing up a bit but i had no visibility and entered the soup at around 7000 feet. As I descended to 2200 feet the weather did not clear up. I knew about the hills on the island and the trees near the runway. Even though I had lumberjack installed, I was a little concerned the trees may still get me. I have some instrument flying training (real world) under my belt (don't have an IFR licence though), so i decided to treat this landing like a non-precision approach. The FMS in the 747 is really handy to create waypoints to assist this. I created a waypoint about 5nm from the threshold and when i crossed it, started about a 700 fpm descent to about 200' agl and prayed i would see the runway.Upon reaching about 2nm and 800 i started to see the pilots at the airport show but still no runway lights. It wasn't until about 1nm and 300feet when i say the PAPI lights and i was right on track. I took over manual control, and brought her in skimming the trees, touched down then hammered the brakes and max reverse thrustHere are some screenshots, one of the clouds as the sun set, and one of the soup before i entered it on descent.Good Flight and good work Jeff making it in.

[l_schuiling 6]

What started as my first flight in a avanti began very well i have a nice pic at 30000 FT1st final all went ok except that i overshot a bit so i decided to go arround well quess the outcomewhen one is pushing the luck a bit too far the result is a crash i decided that i at that poiunt lost the photocamera somehow

[Bryan Rosier 31]

Bonus Jet from Toulouse to Sofia in a behemoth of an aircraft , the A380 with Sven as Wingman in an A321 . We took off in lovely weather , with a little apprehension of reaching Sofia 963 nm, in these not so powerful Airbuses ,within the 2hr limit . Promising winds kept us clock watching for 5-600 miles before we decided whether to divert to our pre-planned diversionary airfield at Pristina (lovely name)in Serbia . The whole route , for me, was showing right on the 2hr mark including time added for an approach to the opposing end runway 27 . Sven ,very wisely, opted to divert to Pristina while I continued clock watching to Sofia . Descended into the cloudy mush around Sofia and skimmed the mountains to set up a nice approach and Land safely with a minute to spare . Lots of snow here :)

[svenks 4]

Sven ,very wisely, opted to divert to Pristina while I continued clock watching to Sofia .

Very wisely, he said....Unfortunately, there a bit more to the story than that. As we had to fly Airbuses from LFBO, I had taken an A320. Not that I mineded that, but I had only done 1 leg in A320 - and that was yesterday.But how hard can it be...???But Mr. Murphy had something in store for me. I realized I was high and It didn't seem like the autopilot would allow a crash descent. So I turned off the A/P and began a hand flown 360. No problem keeping track of the airport with TrackIR, right? - WRONG!!!The sun (the real one) came out, and it turns out that it will reflect in a window on my neighbors house, thru the window in my kitchen - which some 20 ft behind me when I fly. So suddenly TrackIR found this big piece of infrared much more interesting than my trackclip, and the view started shifting up, down, left, right. I didn't get it!!!And all the while I was struggling with this, my airspeed dropped without me noticing, until Alpha Floor kicked in and firewalled my throttle. And apparently there is no way to turn the A/T off when in that mode, so even if I began a desparate climb, I could not prevent a fatal overspeed - rats.Lessons learned: 1) No matter what happens, FLY THE AIRCRAFT. Get it stable somehow, in my case I should used my 2D instrument panel, THEN looked at TrackIR.2) Keep the shade down in the kitchen..........BRGDSSven

[DarkCharizma 10]

It certainly has been an eventful day for Team AVSIM... But first, I would like to post a screenshot I took off Jeff before he landed his 744 last night. It's pretty dark, but I hope it's viewable.Now on to today's action. After Bry landed in Sofia, Harvey and me took off to LTFH, in the middle of Turkey. It was a nice, quick flight in the Epic LT for both me and Harv. It got a little scary on approach when I, after not being able to get my autopilot to follow the ILS, all of a sudden got a major shift in visibility, and couldn't see anything. Luckily, a few seconds later, the runway was in sight again, and I touched down easily, to hand off to Sven going off to Azerbaijan.About halfway through Sven's leg I looked at our requirements tracking sheet and noticed that LTFH was noted as our second Europe airport... That's not right, LTFH is on the Asian side of Turkey! A quick look at the route we took confirmed my worst suspicions, we only did the bonus jet leg in Europe, which obviously isn't more than 1000nm, since it can't be! I mentioned this to the others on TeamSpeak and we immediately started looking at options. We noticed that Azerbaijan (at least the part we were heading to) was part of Europe, according to Wikipedia, which raised a bit of hope. Slightly later we checked the race FAQ, where it is clearly noted that the border between Europe and Asia is the Russian border down to the Black Sea. Oh [insert favorite four letter swear]. We quickly found the best option, to restart from the last airport and head up to Ukraine, but the whole thing cost us about two hours.It seems this was something that was discussed during the night, but unfortunately the information got lost on its way to the Euro team, which combined with a miss in planning where this trap was missed (which I have to take total responsibility for, I feel) led to this unfortunate result.Anyway, the race goes on. Here's a screenshot of the pretty (well, maybe not pretty, but at least cool) Ka-50 completing our little work-around.

[svenks 4]

which I have to take total responsibility for, I feel) led to this unfortunate result.

Awww, DC. Don't worry about it, you have done a really great job on our planning.And were quite a lot of people involved in overlooking the trap - let's call that teamwork too.../Sven

[CavalierDuck 106]

My second wingman leg of the 2011 race was bonus jet leg from UBBB to OAKB in a Beoing 777-200ER.I scouted the route extensively ahead of time. I had two main concerns; even though my approach was expected to be straight in on runway 11, I discovered some 14000ft mountains on the approach just 20 miles short of the runway, which is at 5900ft. The airport has minimal help for inccoming large jets; no ILS or even a VOR or NDB on the airport, not even PAPI glideslope lights, so it was going to have to be a purely visual approach. Oh, and it was going to be a night landing as well, but with the scouting and several successful practices, first in daylight then at night, I thought I should be OK, as long as I had reasonable vis on landing..... oops!The flight started fine, Bry had the baton and left just ahead of me in a Cessna Citation. But just as we reached cruising altitude, Bry reported a loss of power and he was losing speed. In a few minutes I caught up and overtook him. Even though he recovered his speed later in the flight, I was ahead for most of the way.My descent went on schedule, I lined up on the NDB marking the approach to runway 11, and cleared the mountains 20 miles out. Just as I resumed my descent after these though, the vis disappeared. FS weather said 5 miles but at night that didn't look like much. Coming in from 3000ft above the runway I never saw it until far too late and the decision to go around was an easy one. I turned hard right towards the south and away from where I knew the mountains were and prepared to make another approach, this time from 1000ft lower hoping this might get me out of the cloud. Around this time I learned that the baton holder had landed successfully which took the pressure off a little but pride was still at stake. This time I located the runway more easily, turned onto a short final and it looked as though I was nicely lined up, although maybe a little high - and it looks as though this was my undoing. Just as I thought I'd made a successful landing FS recorded a crash, so I presume I put it down on the runway just a little too hard.I guess there's a good reason why nav aids and especially ILS exist !One nice screenshot though from early on in the flight, against the last light of the day.

[Highmike 68]

I feel like I've come of age, at last. Some of you may remember my race form back in 2007 when I first started racing, and some of you may enjoy a little chuckle with the memory because to put it politely, "Man, was I slow!"Even last year, after three years of racing, I was still the slowest member of the team. But, at last I've discovered the secret which is "Performing the somewhat risky steep descent manoeuvre."I used to slow down for the descent and to safely set up my approach, but now I know how this is a waste of time!So, any rookies among you mark my words, perform a steep descent of say 3 or 4 thousand feet per minute, and keep your speed up close to the barber's pole. Divide your altitude by your rate of descent and begin descending when you get to the resulting estimated time enroute.Master this technique and you'll know satisfaction, and you'll be helping your team mates achieve that most prized goal of first place on the winner's podium.

[DarkCharizma 10]

Well, it was bound to happen. It's my 8th race, but so far I haven't crashed on a live leg... Coming into Norfolk Island as a wingman for Bry, on an otherwise uneventful, I needed to slow down. While doing some S-turns, I met Leon on his way out.A few seconds later, I noticed a red warning in my lower right corner. Instinctively, I pushed my throttles forward and tried to straighten out, but it was too late. I had entered a flat spin, and was not able to recover before I hit the water. Oh well, at least I'm glad that my first RTW crash happened as a wingman on a leg where the baton pilot had already landed.Earlier in the day I snapped a nice screenshot of Sven coming in to Launceston, with some time adjustments (on my side, obviuously) so that it is possible to see something :(

[l_schuiling 6]

Well being a bit late for the group event i joined in and really pused the caravan to its limits and beyond :( 3.1 sec in overtime was enough to set the 1000 lbs of sensitive cargo to explode taking the whole plane apart. lucky enough this was a warning to all caravan flyers so that the pilot did not sacrefice his plane for nothing.to not miss the event i jumped in an other plane close by and took serveral picsbtw the noise on final is really appriciated ;)but then again i was not carry ing the batton or anything

[DarkCharizma 10]

Well, I grabbed some really nice screenshots of the team flight that I thought I'd share! :Big Grin:First up is me and Mike M waiting for Eamonn to arrive, eager to get going.Next is the man we where waiting for!And we where off, just as the sun was coming upSven got some real speed into his little Goose and overtook me as we got closer to the airportI want to thank you guys for making this flight extra fun! I had a really good time :(