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

The inherent instability of FSX and my new MD-11

Righto, slight change of plan here. I'd got myself prepped and ready to fly the next leg of my tour using the old faithful 747-400 G-DOCU, and started getting problems with this add-on and FSX. Anyway, for some bizarre reason the bird would not import my flight plans from FSX, which is kind of a problem. I have the latest version of this aircraft, so I tried updating the AIRAC cycle for the FMC, and this proceeded to break the add on big time, so that now when selecting this aircraft within FSX I get an 'FSX has encountered a problem and needs to close, we are sorry for this inconvenience' message. All very nice and courteous of Microshaft, however this is now a pain in the bum. So, long story short, I tried a repair of FSX using the original installation DVD, which then put it back to a pre-sp1 state; then I had to re-install SP2 again......anyway. In the meantime, I've bought the PMDG MD-11 and was itching to try this out, so again after a huge caffufle trying to get this to work (some issue to do with Vista and a dodgy install script from my other add ons......) it's one hell of a good package. I spend more time lately dealing with app hangs and bugs in the software rather than actually flying, which is not very much fun at all really. Hey ho, it's just like being in work really fixing servers......

So, as I want to fly my new add-on MD-11 and due to the recent problems I've been getting with FSX and the 737, I've changed my mind and am going to be flying this next leg in the PMDG MD-11; in BA Union Flag livery (don't think they ever flew MD-11's, and certainly not of registration G-BPMD, which belongs to a boeing stearman that's still flying somewhere out there.........) Faux aircraft, but nevertheless a joy to behold. So welcome aboard G-BPMD for the next leg of our journey.
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