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.....
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.....
More eye candy.
And finaly, we're here at the gate with the jetway docked.
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:
Right, again all PAX aboard, bird prepped and ready for pushback and start. We have requested the runway 25 departure, and as there's no taxiways adjacent to the runway here, we taxi to the end of 25 and have to turn around.
We announce ready to take-off (no active ATC at this airfield), and just manage to get the bird into the air before the threshold. Bear in mind it's a small airfield with only 5,000ft of runway, and I'm on a roughly 1/3 fuel load with full PAX......
Climbout over the fjord immediately after departure.
G-DOCU after the slight left hand turn to join the intercept path of our GPS course direct to CYQX.
Looking mighty fine at cruise altitude, nice bit of visual eye-candy in the form of lens flare courtesy of our meddling friends at Microsoft.
Just prior to starting the descent into Gander. Local weather conditions were overcast, and we prepared for a runway 21 arrival.
Descending into the murk. Again, another nice touch in FSX; the wing vortices created by the turbulent air over the tips...... descent rate was over 3,000 fpm with the spoilers deployed -stomach churning for the passengers.
Dirty conditions indeed, and another non-precision approach into the airport. Bit of a naughty cross-wind kept things interesting, but I got her down in one piece, and again G-DOCU is a dependable steed.
Arrival at the gate, elated indeed after a succesful first leg is out of the way; welcome to Canada people!
Well, I will post up the route of the second leg over the next few days once I've decided how I'm going to fly it. In the meantime thanks for flying with me, and here's the pertinent stats so far:
Flight information:
Time of Departure (from 25): 13:00 UTC
Time of Arrival (at gate): 15:05 UTC
Flight time = 2:05
Distance Covered = 797NM
Accrued Distance=2645NM
Total time in the air so far=7 hours 22 minutes
