Haha! Yes, of course I pushed through those thunder clouds.
In real life I would not; I would even not have departed, as I could see the thunderstorm ahead already.
But at FL150, I was above the worst of the weather, and it looked like it would clear up further down the route.
But when descending back through the cloud layer (which, again, is not allowed when flying VFR), I hit a dense, dark grey layer with enormous amounts of rain and turbulence. I found myself at 90 degree bank angles, even upside-down at times
By the time I reached the bottom of the layer, I was in a 45 degree nose down position, doing 200 KIAS, at around 4000 feet, inverted!!! Push the yoke, throttle closed, level off. Then get up-side-up by doing a low level barrel roll ...
At the "bottom" of it all, I hit 500 ft, after which I climbed to altitudes ranging from 1200 ft to 600 ft to stay below that clouds (I got in those clouds again during the barrel roll procedure, which threw me right back down to the watery surface).
By then I had temporarily lost my Airspeed Indicator (due to icing?), and my VOR needle got stuck at 90 degrees, so I probably was out of range at this altitude and distance. Luckily, I had the NDB punched in already, and that gave a reading after a little while. So I could find my way to Ternate. Even though I started as the second one of the group, I landed last, because of my climbing to FL150, and my little course deviations
(I ended up coming out of the thunder clouds in a westerly direction, where the broad course of the leg was easterly ... )
Another thing we noticed was that a hasty take-off leads to errors that may have consequences ... When I initially levelled off at 9500ft, I took the time to check those things I tend to forget: gear up - OK, flaps up - OK, switches; landing lights - Ah, forgot to put them on - no need now any more, mental note to switch them on later, batteries - both on -OK, generators - oops, both off, better switch them on now; transponder on - OK.
Less than 5 minuter later, Peter said he had lost his radio - it turned out that he too had forgotten to switch on the generators
Meanwhile, David told me he could not see me on our website, doing the flight. Is FL recording? Ah, no! I started up XP10 at WAAT, because I had flown the last legs on FSX. So FL did not recognise me at the origin airport. I stopped FL (Flight=> New => ProPilot flight, without pressing the "lock flight" button) to reload at WAMG. And you guessed it; I never started FL again
I think I'll re-fly the leg this evening, or maybe tomorrow evening, in order to have FL record it. Maybe I'll even give FSX a go for that, again, just to taste the difference.
Lesson learned:
Create,
and USE, a check list.
It must be complete, yet usable.
The check list that came with the LES DC-3 is a 4-page one, which is difficult to read. Sure, it adds to the nostalgic feel, if the check list is in a font that resembles an old typewriter, printed on stained yellow paper with jagged edges. But if it is unpractical to use, it will sit on the desk as a stack of paper (as it is with me, for a couple of weeks already). Plus, of course, the checklist does not tell you to start FlightLogger, or switch on your IvAp transponder to mode C
So that's my resolve for the next leg: create a TT tour specific check list...
