So a couple of nights ago I logged in to IVAO hoping to find some people to fly with following Eric-Jen's 1900z monday suggestion, and luckily Trevor was there, making a warm-up flight around the airfield and having fun while waiting, to tell me EJ had some personal commitments of the party kind
Hope you had fun E-J
While pre checking and making sure everything was fine, which took me a long time cos not long before the flight, ivap had decided it's "weather" was not installed properly. So I had to reinstall ivap, a process which should have been easier, but I found 2 installations of it in my computer for some reason. Uninstalled both, downloaded the latest version again for good measure, installed it and run the weather fix thing it told me to run.
After all check's been done Franz showed up to join us, and when we were about to start up our engines when Yannick showed up. I hadn't met him till now but soon he joined us in chat and as I started my engines up (a lengthy process that might take 2 or 3 reloads of the aircraft, for some reason) the others did their checks and started theirs as well. I started taxiing first cos I wanted to see if the engines were really running. Management gave me the oldest twin otter on the fleet to fly so I have to be sure
At last we were all ready to go and holding on the runway header waiting for Yannick to finish taxiing.
It's me on the foreground of course and from left to right Trevor, Franz and Yannick.
After my takeoff I turned north and started climbing normally, but soon knew things weren't normal cos for the first time in this whole tour I get a BOOP BOOP WINDSHEER that almost gave me a heart attack. Surely enough, IVAO's weather was getting crazy, shoving me left and right like a leaf. 30 knot winds changed 180 degrees with no previous warning. Franz suggested it could be FSUIPC not being registered (and so, not having wind smoothing), but honestly it had never happened before.
I got 5 more Windsheer warnings before I chickened out and descended to below 9500 to avoid chop. At this point I was so worried with flying the thing that navigating it, and following my mates, was very secondary. When things had settled down, I found out I was 10 miles west of where I was supposed to be (where everyone else was). So I leveled out, sort of plotted my course towards the airfield and enjoyed the scenary as my heart slowed down.
My ordeal wasn't over though, when my internet connection decided to give up. I knew at this point my flight wouldn't be submittable as per pro-pilot regulation so I cursed out loud, reconnected, and for some reason I couldn't see anyone else any more on the airplane views. I could chat with them, see them on my TCAS, but just couldn't see them at all. So I decided I'd hold right outside the valley that runs towards the airfield as they landed so they could give me a clear strip for me to land blindly on to.
I thought, by the maps I had seen, that it'd be a matter of following the valley and that alone would line me up with the runway, but right before it there's a huge mountain which I should have checked earlier. So I was surprised to have to climb so close to the final. A challenging approach, always enjoyable and the most fun part bush flying for me.
I came in hot as a meteor in terms of height but trying to keep my airspeed controlled. It was one of my best landings so far with this bird... didn't skip once.
I taxied out of the runway and parked hoping I hadn't parked on top of everyone, as they were still invisible for me.
All in all it was a fun flight although I would have liked to do some more formation flying. d**n you, winds.
Also Yannick reported having crashed due to his landing gear not being down? Do you guys confirm his PP reports him crashing? I thought that was really odd... Hope things get sorted out Yannick, if you sunk into the runway cos of some FS shannanigans, I'm sure management can restore your airplane for you.
One last thing, my pilot profile (the one I access from the main website) says my pilot status is 'removed' (understandably I hadn't flown since July before this wild tour) but it also has my flights logged. I'm sure it's something about these flights not being ordinary ones and as soon as I fly a non-PP scheduled flight it'd go back to active, but just something to look at if someone gets bored some day
I'm leaving for a small tiny mini family vacation in Sevilla, Spain, in about... well 5 hours, so can't join in any weekend flying you guys might happen to have, but it'd be really nice if we could all get together for the last leg, as many people as possible. Let's come up with a day and hour and start spreading the word!
