What have I been doing?

[Rex Galway]

Hi all, I have opened this new heading to provide an obvious slot for members to say just what they have been doing, simwise, that they have really enjoyed doing.  For a starter I must tell you what I have been doing this last week. It all started with a programme on UK TV Channel 4 on Monday called "Concorde's Last Flight" which covered the complete lifespan of that great plane; a very good programme as those who managed to see it will confirm. I realised I had never tried it on flightsim so I started to look for some recent freebie versions on the usual websites and I found two, " xconcorde.zip" for FSX and "concall.zip both from FlightSim. I downloaded and installed both, the FSX version was the easiest, the FS9 version requiring several additional downloads to install it properly, and although by different authors were remarkably similar although I felt, after several trial runs, that the FSX had the edge.   I decided to do a reasonably long flight, for me thats an hour, and try the extremes of the flight envelope.  I started off from Runway 27R at Heathrow; the take off was very easy with plenty of runway left and headed due west, the only problem being avoiding going overspeed. Passing the Bristol Channel and with Skibbereen well to starboard I headed over the Atlantic climbing all the way until I reached 60,000feet and Mach 1.97 before turning back to port descending over the English Channel and the North Sea  turning over The Netherlands to land on runway 18C at Schiphol.  I really have not enjoyed a flight some much for years, I flew manually all the way as befits a dyed in the wool VFR pilot; Concorde almost flies itself, a situation suggested by some of the fullsize real time ex Concorde pilots talking on the TV.  I attach some screen shots of the flight. Regards Rex


Climbing to cruising altitude
 


Still climbing



At cruising altitude of 60,000feet at Mach 1.97



Turning for home



Concorde with landing gear down



Just about to touch down at EHAM



Taxying at Schiphol EHAM



Concorde at Schiphol EHAM

[David Wightman]

Hi Rex
My hearty congratulations! Split these in two: One for a timely defibrillation excercise for the Forum and two for the excellent photo' shots
and none standard VFR Concorde flight account.

Regards

Dave Wightman

[Frank Chessum]

Hi Rex I'm glad to see another club member flightsimming I thought i was the only one???
That's a great flight you've just done with some nice shots of a beautiful aircraft ,
I've never flown the Concord perhaps I will now I've seen these???
As for myself I've been doing a few short flights with one of my favorite the Beech
around the Swiss valleys .





                                     



Ive also done a flight in a Boeing 737 which is a change for me as I Nealy always fly Prop aircraft






                               
B

[Ken Hall]

Rex,

small world

Last week I decided to "have a go" at transatlantic and to learn a bit (?) about "NATS".

Through FSC I was able to download the latest/current nats details and made a plan to cross the pond with a FlyUK 767-300.

The prospect of around 7-hours did nothing for me so I used the facility to increase the sim-rate to 4x.

Remarkably, Radar Contact kept pace with me all the way (although there was not a lot to do once into Atlantic air space).
On reaching 200 nm to go I reverted to Normal sim-rate and landed at KBOS.

The return trip (next day) was flown in Concorde.
I have concall.zip on my system and the challenge I discovered was trying to get away from the "overspeed" warnings. Hello, this IS Concorde.....
I eventually managed to avoid the "overspeed" by settling for 1.97M

Unfortunately, 3-hours was still a challenge for me on that particular day so I increased the sim-rate to 2x and the whole thing went into "revenge" mode with the aircraft turning away from the planned route and I just couldn't get it back

I shall try the " xconcorde.zip" for FSX and see if I have better success with that one.
Thanks for the tip on that one.

Frank - nice pics
Is that Milton Shupe's D18?
I just love flying his aircraft around Alaska

Ken

 

[Frank Chessum]

Yes Ken your right on the ball there it is Milton's and like you say its a fantastic aircraft for flying
around Alaska???

[Trevor O Reilly]

Some nice screens shots tere lads, but of more intrest in the news that Concorde wil grace the skies again  in 2012 for the Olympic games in England !!

[Jon Stratfull]

Trevor,

She should never have been grounded in the first place, unfortunately once the political decision had been taken on the southern side of the Channel that was it. I'm sure BA could have quite happily kept flying up to the aircraft's life limits. Just wait for Branson to put up a big chunk of financing, then for the arguement over what livery it will fly in !

Great to see some atmospheric screenshots, and two very different subjects.

Jon

[Joe Claudio Di Veroli]

Thanks Rex for this most interesting report!

I have had for years Altitude's Concorde for FS9, but never installed it: I keep it for a summer with lots of times (somehow this never happens even when work is dwindling ...) !

Best

Cloudy

PS: If Concorde will fly again, isn't it a case for our PC PILOTS IRELAND club to do some "show" about it? Surely they will do quite a few, but that will be in the UK, guess we have to show them what we are up to this side of the Irish Sea as well ... ;-)