When I got online at LSZH, approximately 1740Z, Mariano was already online. We both had limited time for this flight due to real life commitments, so we were eager to start early. Having discussed the weather, route, altitude, runway to use, etc. Alexander, and Andrei had joined, and were soon ready to go as well.
In the mean time, I had realised I still had not installed Flogger 1.4.3, so I did a quick install, and started my booked PP flight. All within 5 minutes, and working fine! A bog thumbs up to Andrei
We got off blocks at around 1810Z.
We chose rwy28, for lack of wind, and optimal direction. A simple left S-turn to join R255 inb WIL, and climb to FL080 on a steep climb path (min. climb reqs. apply here) was our SID. We were flying into a truely beautiful sunset. This is the life!
Once over WIL, a descend to 4000, hdg 245, to intercept the ILS rwy14 of LSZB after that. A pretty simple, small leg. Good for practicing IFR skills
The B1900D found that the LOC intercept angle was not optimum, so quite a large overshoot as a result, but that got compensated well enough in time. I did come in a little fast, so the runway at LSZB got to look very short, in the end. Brrr... But I just managed to exit at Foxtrot.
Within half an hour we all were safely on the ground. Mariano had to leave us, while Trevor just reported to be inbound.
Then, preparations for the second leg began. As I had somewhere to go after this flight, and my wife and the dog were already waiting by the front door
, I started to taxi out early, (sorry about that, Trevor) immediately followed by Alexander. When we stopped at hp A, Trevor came in, landing rwy 32. A tricky approach due to terrain, without an ILS ...
After take off, I found my plane unwilling to climb.
It turned out that I had not turned on the generators, so now my AP (and other avionics) had died on me. I just missed a hill trying to recuperate from that, but with the generators back on, it was a smooth ride all along the planned track. At some point, Alexander and I came close to being in contact, that's how near each other we were. Somewhere near Paris, Alexander had a slightly different route than me, so there we got our separation again.
Leaving the French coast, it was time to contact London Control. Good to have ATC on the final stretch. I had never flown in UK airspace with ATC online before, because I avoided busy airspace with ATC up 'till now. But this time, I let my insecurity go, and went for it! Pretty soon came my first major challenge: "Direct Lima Charly Yankee", an NDB. So AP from GPS to NAV, set ADF to 322, set heading to the direction of the purple arrow (man, does that take long to come on when you're waiting for it to show up!), AP to HDG, and that's it. While descending to FL07 I got a correction on my heading "EHM-2387, fly heading 330"; "heading 330, Harmony 2387". Easy! Descending ultimately to 2500ft, and vectored to ILS rwy09, I got on the steep glideslope with full flaps, and gear down. Even then, throttle was at near idle while doing 110 kts IAS. It would all come down to the flare... There was some crosswind from the left ( 6 kts @ 030) to make things even more exciting. I had a kind of long flare, but ended up with more runway left than at LSZB, so that was just fine.
Alexander soon followed, with Adrei after him. I decided to wait it out 'till Trevor showed up, or my wife would call me, whichever came first. It happened to be Trevor
It was a fun flight, guys! Thanks for the company. Let's do this again
I made an album of all of my screenshots right here:
http://www.fly-euroharmony.com/forum/index.php?action=media;sa=album;in=38Feel free to add
