Example flight 1 - with freeware aircraft
OH MAN!!! What is this??? RING-RING-RING ---- PHONE??? At this time of night?? Who could that be? I'll find out soon. Wait!!!
Great people. I'm back! --- And who do you think you're disturbing me in the middle of the night, it's 2:00 in the morning. Some people don't believe I was in bed at that time. :-))
It was our FOC who had great difficulties finding a pilot for a special flight to Mallorca. Nice, hasn't been on the island for a long time and so I agreed right away. But how else should it be, there is a Handycup! Nothing with a modern plane (Payware) but with one of our freeware planes without all the frills and the best thing, I can still create my own flight plan and last but not least I have to put everything in one pirep.
Well, the boss has a lot of work to do, so... How was that again? |
So if I now have a "few small mistakes" in the execution of the flight, you should forgive me, because I haven't flown a freeware plane for a long time. But I will try to tell you everything that is important as good as possible. Also I will try to convert it for FS9 and I don't have too much experience with that. I still fly FS2002, because I have everything I need there. PSS / PMDG / Dreamfleet --- so BOEING! |
So I sit down at the computer to plan my flight route and I can only recommend you to take your time and if you are one of the pilots who just go for it, flusi on and off you go! Is not! Without a reasonable flight planning no condor pilot flies.
What do we need for that: So first of all I would like to have a look at the environment (ATC, weather etc.) and for this I can only recommend the program SERVINFO. The link here: (no longer available) I first look at the weather from EDDL and there is wind 100@03 coming out, so RWY05R in Düsseldorf comes into question. We note this RWY on a piece of paper (There are people who use an Excel file for such cases. There we can write down everything important we need for the pirep). And then immediately a look at LEPA: There we have wind from 220@08, so I use RWY24R for my landing. And right we even have ATC on our route. Well, we already know a lot, we know our starting and landing airport and we already have the RWY's for our flight. What do we need now, because as it looks now, we still have no airways to the south and that looks like this in my second additional program: Right!!! It's the FSNavigator (now FSTramp) that has accompanied me personally for many flight simulator versions. Unfortunately it is payware, but I think it should not be missing on any computer, because it brings us many advantages. Before I recommend you to change to a payware flight simulator, you should reserve the 35,-- Euro for this program, because it is also fun to fly a freeware flight simulator. The link here: http://www.fstramp.com/ You can test it in 20 flights and if you are lucky, you can get a free version. Zurück zu meinem Auftrag: Unfortunately we do not fly in the Flusi in Europe, GPS i.e. on a straight way to Lepa, but we have to find our flight routes. For this we have a nice freeware program and this is the route finder. LINK: http://rfinder.asalink.net/free/ There we enter our departure and destination airport and we get our flight route calculated for the whole globe, but we only need the flight plan EDDL - LEPA and it looks like this: So then we already had almost everything together and wrote it down for the pirep. What's missing? --- Right! SID and STAR! Many of our new pilots, even those who come from other VA's, have heard about it before, but don't know what to do with it. I always try to explain it to you like this: We know where we depart, we know where we have to arrive and we know that we have to use airways. I like to call the Airways with the motorway network that takes us from A to B. But how do I get on this motorway, because I can't beam onto the motorway at any point, that's why there are driveways, right? Well and this driveway (SID) and the exit (STAR) is given to us from every airport, so that one does not get lost and cause traffic jams. Hope to have made something understandable with this, because many people have already understood this after the explanation. Also you? But now where do I get this information? You could get the charts (arrival and departure charts) of the respective airports, and these can be found everywhere in our network. Or take a look here: • https://navigraph.com/ If you can't find anything there, just enter the search engine with the query and you'll find what you're looking for! I'm sure you will! But I have such a great program like the FSNavigator and it simplifies my question about the Sid and Star in a great way. Just enter the RWY and I am offered a variety of the corresponding Sid and Star's. We have the first waypoint in our flight plan and that is NOR for Norvenich. And there is of course a SID for EDDL! = NOR8Z This will then look like this in the Navigator: We do the same now for LEPA and also there we get a STAR displayed: LUNIK1P This we see as follows. Now just get the VOR's NDB's and intersections in the flusi, you don't want to fly everything by hand. In FS9 we have the possibility to create a flight plan and some people do that, I make it easier for myself and enter the data bit by bit into my popular FSNavigator and I have a flight plan, which can be flown, similar to a FMC of the BIG (Payware). When entering the flight plan in FS9 you have to remember that you have to enter the SID and STAR with the stations into the flight plan, because it doesn't know any SID and STAR yet. We've done a lot of things, haven't we? We're taking notes: RWY's, SID and STAR! The flight level on which we fly is still missing and so we have a look at the point Flight school - Flight preparation - Flight altitude on our page: Flight school - Flight preparation - Flight altitude If we now look at our flight plan, we see that most of the time we fly around 200° and so we come to a flight level of 34000 ft. = FL340. Since there are exceptions for some countries you can have a look at example flight 2, there you will also find something about flight levels and exceptions. Man! A lot to take in, huh? When does it start finally??? Our plane is already ready for takeoff at the gate! I'm gonna take a look at the inside of that thing: and right, the engines are running, but like engines??? What's that thing flying on? --- Fuel - kerosene!!! And how much of this do I actually need? --- Foxglove full, not enough. Tank full? --- Probably too much. And now this too! Now it's time to calculate and with Peter Guth's manual in my luggage it works out fine! BUT!!!! I'm just too lazy to calculate and so I found a small program for you, freeware of course. It is the fuel program ---KEROPLAN--- by Mario Fiebig (no longer available). The consumption the program has given me is 9,79 tons, that should be enough including the reserve. You only need to enter the time and the flight level and the plane will be refuelled. There are nice little things hidden in the program, like an overview of the planes, checklists, conversion tables, the creation of own planes etc. So now we also have this behind us and only a short note from me. MOMENT, first a quick cup of coffee! --- Don't take it amiss, but there should be pilots who don't tell me the consumption in their pireps, but what they have filled up! How could they ??? So we note down the fuel we have filled up and after we have landed and gone through the last checklists at the gate, we quickly note down the remaining fuel. Yeah, and then it seems to hang on some of them. What, they don't have calculators? You only have to subtract the value (rest in the tank) from what I have filled up (amount of fuel) and we have the consumption. Man that is simple! And depending on the flight simulator version (LBS or gallons), I have to calculate a little bit to get the tank content in tons. Conversion table in the pirep. It's easy, isn't it? --- Of course, when you know it. ;) |
Short summary, show you again what I wrote down for the pirep:
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Well! I'm still standing in Düsseldorf and I've already anticipated a few things, of course I can only note the landing time and consumption after landing. And everything else is already in my pirep. -- Man what a good thing I am!
AND YOU??? So off we go, quickly one more check of the machine and already I (who else) sit at the stick of the machine. No sign of tiredness. Early in the morning we finally head south. I spent a lot of time on the stupid flight preparation, but that's the way it should be, no pilot of the Condor-VA flies without a reasonable flight plan. Seriously, for a 2-hour flight you need about an hour of flight preparation. Last but not least, I don't want you to take part in the flight in detail, because that's another story, but I arrived well in Palma de Malorca and so did my passengers. Oh yes! Passengers??? Was that a shock when they got out, I didn't notice anything when they got in! I had to bring some strange soccer club from the Rhineland to LEPA, they are now celebrating their rebirth, and who or what do you think will get out first? A strange creature with horns, some call it a billy goat or a goat Believe me, people, if I had even remotely suspected it, I would still be sleeping in my crib right now. But there are also good things to report, during the next two weeks the machine will be cleaned. And me? I have been invited by this bunch and let me have a good time at the moment at their club expense. --- Hope my neighborhood club won't hold this against me. NOOOO!!! But I won't fly them back, there will certainly be one or the other condor pilot who will take me back with him. When??? No idea! And pireps and so on are really getting on my nerves... and I'm having a really good time. Oh yes, and you surely know what you have to pay attention to when planning the flight and delivering the pireps, right? |
If this thing takes a little longer while reading, I can only give you a good tip. Lies doch einfach nicht bis hierhin!!! But if you've already come this far then I have all respect for you and apologize for the long execution, but as long as it took me to write this, you should take your time to plan your flight and that was quite a long time. And goodbye!!! |