Leg 3, Segment 1: PAYA - PAOM

Wednesday, 4 March 2009
Welcome to Leg 3! This leg will see us fly from Alaska, across to Siberia and over to Japan. The first leg is from Yakutat (PAYA) to Nome (PAOM). The FS flightplan is as below:


Righto, all aboard the now familiar MD11, G-BPMD for our short flight over to NOME. Weather conditions are not ideal, and there's a bit of snow around as you can see from the screenshot below!

Runway 2 departure has been selected, and mike delta taxis out to the active and turns onto it.


The snow has now stopped which is ace, becuase I can actually now see !! The bird has been spun around at the end of runway turning circle, just doing final checks before take off.


All set, ready for spool up.

Making the left hander after takeoff to intercept the YAK VOR.

Once above the weather, things look lovely in this Winter dusk twighlight........ the reflections of the sun on the water are sublime...

Heading on up to our relatively modest cruising altitude of FL310...

Descending for an ILS Runway 28 approach at NOME. All manner of complicated holding patterns abound and it's one of the most complex descents I've flown.....

Circling to bleed off speed and altitude prior to reaching the APUYO intersection; this should then set us up for an intercept course on the glideslope at DACCA.

Hand - flying her down the approach..... speed a tad too slow; she gets some getting used to flying by hand, reactions to power application through the throttle take a few seconds, by which time you tend to instinctively feed in too much resulting in overspeed....... practice makes perfect, and I'm sure by the time I make it back to Blighty, I'll have gotten used to hand-flying her.


Flaps fully down at 50; spoilers deployed to bleed off some final speed before touchdown.

Just at flare; notice the contrails from the turbulent air at the wingtips.... also, the magnetic headings have changed since FSX was released..... notice the runway sign; 27 - it's adjusted since probably by a few degrees to become 28 by rounding up.... Obviously, the MD11 has updated FMS and AIRAC database, which contain the correct headings.

Nice flight, next stop Siberia! Here's the stats:

Time of Departure (from 2): 03:14 UTC
Time of Arrival (at gate): 05:25 UTC
Flight time = 2:08
Distance Covered = 793NM
Accrued Distance=7331NM

Total time in the air so far=17 hours 56 minutes

Leg 3

Saturday, 28 February 2009

Righto, fresh from completion of Leg 2, here's the Leg 3 routing. It will take us from Yakutat (PAYA), across to Nome (PAOM) before leaving Alaska and going on into Sokol, Siberia (UHMM). From there, we'll be heading across to Japan for our first stop in Sapporo (RJCC), then a short hop across to Tokyo (RJAA), our final destination of this leg which will then open up routes to NZ and AUS.

Leg 2, Segment 3: CYLW - PAYA

Welcome to the final segment of Leg 2, from Kelowna in Canada to Yakutat in Alaska; you know the drill by now, so without further ado, here's the fs plan:



Prepped and ready for a night time departure from CYLW, the PMDG MD-11 looks ace with it's cockpit's neon glow......

Taxiing G-BPMD to runway 16; nice view of the wing strobe lights.


Kelowna tower, looking onto -BPMD as she taxies onto runway 16 for a quick departure.

Climbing out into the haze.

Nice wing view, after a 90 degree right hand turn to intercept our course, you can see the airfield and the runway we've just departed from..

Just before reaching cruise altitude of FL340; all set in the cockpit.

Nearing the end of our descent we're going to do an ILS 11 landing into the wind, which means passing by the airfield on our starboard side before turning towards the beacon that will set us up on our glideslope intercept course.

Setup ready to land; looking out over the expanse of water and trees that is typical Alaska....

On the glideslope, full autoland engaged, so a nice easy sit back for a change :)

View from Yakutat's tower as G-BPMD begins the flare

...... and finaly, powered down at the gate after another flight.

Okay, well stats then.....

Time of Departure (from 16): 05:25 UTC
Time of Arrival (at gate): 08:00 UTC
Flight time = 2:35
Distance Covered = 1038NM
Accrued Distance=6358NM
Total time in the air so far=15 hours 48 minutes



Leg 2, Segment 2: CYQT -CYLW

Sunday, 22 February 2009
Ok, onto segment 2 we will see us flying from Thunder Bay, over to Kelowna near the West Coast of Canada. This will then prepare for our final segment of leg 2, which will take us North into Alaska. Here's the flight plan:



At the stand prior to pushback and start, PAX onboard just final bits of FMC work to do before departure. We are using the full 62,ooolbs of thrust for our TOGA, and I've selected flaps 25 using the dial-a-flap setting, becuase the runway is short here in Thunder Bay.


Just at the holding point of 25, prior to taxiing onto it and right to the end before turning around on the markers to give us an extra couple of hundred feet.


Spooling up, all set, lights on.


Up, up and away just in time before I ran out of tarmac!


Nice window seat view over the starboard wing. The MD-11 has really nice wing flex, even when taxiing and during take off roll. My hat goes off to the boys at PMDG who have really produced a winner with this, even though it's slightly expensive.


Climb out phase, some rather ominious looking cumulous clouds could be an indication of bad weather to come.....


Up at CRZ; FL340. A lovely winter sun sits low in the sky.....



Gorgeous.



Long finals into Kelowna, runway 16 on the glideslope.



Murky, 5 miles visability and a rather moody sky.... airfield in the distance, flaps 25 and gear down.


More eye candy.



From the tower as she approaches



Reverse engaged, slowing down with speedbrakes deployed


And finaly, we're here at the gate with the jetway docked.




Another straightforward flight; it's quite a picturesque approach for runway 16, with the sun low in the sky and coming in over the lakes it looks spectacular. Things have come a long way in this version of FS, so I wonder where we'll be in another ten years? Oh well, here's the stats:

Time of Departure (from 25): 22:25 UTC
Time of Arrival (at gate): 00:54 UTC
Flight time = 2:29
Distance Covered = 1202NM
Accrued Distance=5320NM
Total time in the air so far=13 hours 13 minutes

Leg 2, Segment 1: CYQX - CYQT

Well, here it is, finaly after much to-ing and fro-ing, my flight from Gander, Newfoundland, to Thunder Bay. FS flightplan as below:

There she is in all her detailed glory at the gate prior to departure. APU started, given the wind direction (not bothering with the awful FS ATC any more) I've opted for a runway 13 departure. It's a hazy morning, with cloud cover broken at around 3,000; visibility about 5 miles. Makes for some stunning views though.
Nice details such as the ice spray from the wheels when taxiing. Flaps set to 15 for takeoff, flight time is estimated to be approximately 3:30, with a cruising altitude of 330 initially, although I'll probably go higher once some fuel has been burned off. Take off thrust has been set to 60k becuase there's no need for the extra 2k as the runway is long enough. I haven't de-rated the engines though.

Preparing for departure on runway 13, I think this screenshot speaks for itself. It looks stunning doesn't it. The MD-11 has a unique autoflight mode, in that once it's armed, and the throttles advance past 66% N1, they will clamp and lock, according to the FMC thrust settings which are autoselected for you. You can turn it all off of course, but it flies beautifully. The speed on climb out is adjusted only by pitching up or down more, the throttles will stay at 'climb', so it's up to you to adjust it by the angle of attack (I don't think it will overspeed though, as flaps and slats are left deployed until passing 10,000 at which point we speed up anyway.)

G-BPMD climbs out into the morning haze

Again during the climb out, after getting through the ground haze still a lot of cloud about but it does look very dramatic indeed at this time of the morning.

Passing 10,000 no smoking signs and seatbelts are switched off. Not that smoking is allowed any more on aircraft lol....

At FL330, a beautiful winter's day over a frozen Canadian landscape.

Descending.

Landing gear deployed. I like how on the MD-11 you can opt to not lower the middle gear. As we're not too heavy, I've left this up. Flaps 28, gear down, final turn to align for the visual runway 25 approach into Thunder Bay.

On finals into Thunder Bay; at 160 knots. Flaps 50; spoilers armed and ready for rapid decceleration because that runway's pretty short at only 5,000 feet!

Touchdown.

After arrival at the gate, engines off APU started; waiting for PAX to disembark.
Well, I'm hooked. This new MD-11 is by far and away the most complete aircraft I've had the pleasure of flying on FS. It's very elegant with the way it's autoflight systems work, and is a true joy to fly and very satisfying. Once you know the systems, it's very very easy to fly and vastly reduces pilot workload compared to some of the other jet's I've flow. Righto, here's the stats:

Time of Departure (from 13): 10:43 UTC
Time of Arrival (at gate): 14:05 UTC
Flight time = 3:22
Distance Covered = 1473NM
Accrued Distance=4118NM
Total time in the air so far=10 hours 44 minutes

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