Flying Aircraft On My Computer

[mbauer]

X-Plane is a Flight Simulator that has all of the Earths surface along with airports. It does not include the Poles because of the location of the mapping satelites.

You can get thousands of aircraft to fly from one of their websites. Most are free down loads. The ones you pay for have better flight models and cockpits.

X-Plane is a simulator you can also design airplanes with. It uses real flight dynamics and the FAA version actually allows you to log flight time with the FAA.

You can also spend more money to buy theplanet Mars surface mapping as well.

They say that certain aircraft manufacturers use it to test fly their new airplane designs!

I lost my flight medical back in the late 1990s when I under-went a clinical trial to get rid of a disease I had. The medicine was very nasty stuff and after 34-months of treatment my illness was cured.

This is about the only way I can afford to fly right now.

Although the program is cheap, getting a computer powerful enough to fly using all of the settings costs quite allot! I spent $300 for a control yoke and rudder pedals. You can get by with just a $20 joystick though. I left my yoke and pedals in Alaska so the $20 joystick is what I'm flying for now.

You can fly using real weather updates from the internet or create your own weather settings.

www.x-plane.org is their website

I used to fly Huey (UH-1) helicopters and I've owned a 1974 Piper Cherokee 140 [150hp with long range fuel tanks] . It was full IFR with a Loran-c and a wing-leveler auto-pilot.

In 1991 I flew my kids from Alaska to Idaho to visit relatives. Each way took 22-hours and lots of gas.

Leaving Kenai, Ak we made it to Yakatat, Ak for the first fuel stop. From there we stopped in Sitka to visit a friend. The next day we flew to Ketchikan for fuel. The plan was to leave at 8am but the weather was less than 800ft, sky obscured until after 2pm. Once we got to Ketchikan we re-fueled, ate dinner and checked the weather. The forecast for the next day was thunderstorms and bad visibility.

Flying in Canada after dark you must have an IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) rating. Since I have this I decided to fly from Ketchikan, Ak to Bellingham, WA non-stop that night. The winds were in my favor and the long range tanks gave me a 100-mile reserve.

At 930pm I did a VFR position report, checking in with Port Hardy, BC- right before dark. Within 1-hours time the weather started changing.

We were flying at 9500 ft Above ground level (AGL) to conserve fuel, get the best winds, and the best airspeed across the ground.

By 1030pm clouds were above us, below us and all around us. The moon was out and my daughter still talks about how pretty it was flying past all of the moonlit clouds!

I was trying to maintain my ground track, which was difficult because of the clouds. Paying to much attention to the weather I failed to notice that my Loran-c quit working and all of my electrical navigation radios were doing weird things [like the needles spinning 360 degrees].

My electrical system was malfunctioning and when I finally transitioned to the instruments, there wasn't any! There was a smell of overheated wires!! So, grabbing my flashlight to fly the airspeed and other vacuum instruments, I shut down the electric system to stop it from catching on fire.

To fly my planned ground track, I was having to use a different "crab" angle than planned. We were over Vancouver Island, BC. I wanted to stay over Vancouver Island and not head out to Sea. The clouds by this time completely coverd the ground.

The winds were slowing me down and blowing me towards the Pacific Ocean. At 11pm I finally decided to turn on my radios and make a position report and also find the nearest airport to land at!

The master switch in my airplane had been changed. In the 1974 Cherokee it was a single rocker switch, but somone had changed it to the old split rocker switch that had the ability to run on the battery or alternater.

As soon as I flipped it to "on" the instrument lights would go real bright and then dim somewhat. The Nav radios were still spinning and the Loran display was just flat lines instead of numbers. From the bright to dim I figured it was the alternater that was mal-functioning, so I turned it off.

The lights stopped going from bright to dim and that was encouraging. The Nav radios didn't work and the loran wasn't either. I made some calls on frequencies of some airports I thought I might be near. No answer! So, I turned the battery off trying to conserve power and also let the radios cool down-thinking that they might be overheated from overcharging or something.

While trying to figure what to do, I noticed a ground lite several thousand feet below me. This lite was in a sea of clouds that had dark spots in them. Usually the dark spots are mountains that stick-up thru the cloud layer. This one dark spot had the light in it.

A Piper Cherokee isn't designed for aerobatics, so the only real option I had was the steep spiral (a manuver designed to loose altitude fast without ripping the wings off of your airplane-it is a manuver that is taught to get your commercial pilots license). I lost over 6500ft total altitude to get to that light before it disapeared in the clouds!

Just as I got to it, there was a bunch of street lights that showed up once I got under the clouds. The cloud bottom was about 1500ft AGL.

Those street lights were the sweetest thing I ever saw while flying!

I didn't care that it was raining really hard!

It was 1230am by this time and there wasn't much traffic on the road, just street lights on both sides. I knew there was power lines that crossed the road, but they only cross at the lights so I was thinking of diving down between the lights after passing a pair of them to miss the wire if there was one and land! This was going to be my last option before running out of fuel.

I decided to try the radio again. This time I used the Emergency frequencies for the US and Canada. I tried the Canadian first, but got no reponse. So. I switched frequencies and tried the US. Still nothing.

I was down to a total of 8-gals of fuel (1-hour worth). So, I flew the road looking for an airport beacon, it was to dark to try and read a map to find my location. My workload dodging clouds and staying high enough not to hit any cables was enough!

I tried the Canadian emergency frequency again after doing a 180 degree turn when the street lights stopped. This time I got a response from the Coast Guard ship called the Mallard!!

They had me do some turns, located me on their radar and guided me to an airport. The airport was Comox, BC and is a military AFB that has a commercial airlines usuage as well.

It was shut down for the night, but they contacted the base and within 30-minutes they turned on their runway and contacted me once someone was in the tower. I declared an emergency due to low fuel and did the best landing I ever made! Without turning on my landing light in the rain!

They did not have regular avgas, so we spent the night off-base. The next morning we went back to get the airplane. I had to fly it to a small airport (Courtenay Airpark) to get avgas and also meet with customs.

The airplane did not start and we had to jump it with cables to get it going. Once at the airpark the mechanic there charged my battery and I flew to Bellingham, WA which was an hour away.

I then completed the flight to visit my Uncle that was near Arlington, WA. We finally made it to Idaho for our visit.

I mention all of this because I've flown the route I just described using X-plane several times, with different aircraft. The fastest was in the SR71, the slowest was in a Piper Cherokee. I stop at all of the stops and I dare you to try and land a real SR71 at Courtenay! I've only managed one successful landing there in the SR71 (Very Hard Braking and the chute was deployed) you can see how much runway was left in one of the photos.

X-plane allows you to do things that you just can't do normally! The airplanes really have to crash hard and they don't break-up. They do give options for flap overspeed and gear overspeed. You can set it up to do equipment failures, but the only way you know you crashed on a hard landing is the srceeching/crashing sound it makes.

I've flown all kinds of aircraft and helicopters in X-plane (mostly jet fighters). Flying around Mars takes lots of effort, I've never made a landing yet. Mars has 1% of the Earths atmosphere ( 40-knot indicated is really 400-so you have to be going supersonic to fly and land!)

I find it fun to fly NOE in a F104 down the mountain valleys that I used to fly Low-level runs in the Huey with.

All in all it is a fun way to relax and get your mind off of things, just like paper model building.

I've done things like crank the wind up to 199mph and do vertical takeoffs in the SR71! Adding throttle so you don't go backwards and then doing a vertical landing as well!

You can do screenshots and take Quicktime movies. A few screenshots are attached.

Mike

BTW-The split rocker Master switch was the problem on my flight. THe reason they stopped using them was because it created an 8-watt voltage drop across it. The contacts wore a gap after time and the electricity jumped across this gap. The regulator saw this loss as an under charge condition and proceded to overcharge the battery. THis heated the battery and the water in it boiled off. On short flights this wasn't a problem, but on really long continous ones, well you know the story!

[Kugelfang]

If you enjoy X-Plane you may want to check out FlightGear, too. FlightGear Flight Simulator . It's an open source flight simulator.

--jeff

[willygoat]

X-plane is very nice. I almost got it, by my new computer (4 years ago) wasn't good enough to run it. Ended up getting FSX and putting it on an older gaming computer.

Great story too. I wouldn't want to be flying in that area in bad weather or with low fuel. Yikes

[Willja67]

You should submit that story to AOPA to be published in their "Never Again" column. Glad you made it down in one piece. Glad I have never had a that kind of pressure on me when flying before.

I have X-plane as well and enjoy it quite a bit. I designed my own airplane and it is available over on x-plane.org. It's called the 1-nothing. I'm hoping to build and fly it one day.

[pmbirner]

I have FS2004. Do any of you use these computer flight simulators to help with your model making? I've found them very useful in researching something I want to model in paper, and there are an incredible list of aircraft out there from which to choose--most free. You can look all around the aircraft and also inside the cockpit. You are able to monkey around with all the contols and figure our which way they are supposed to move or just what their function is. Then the frosting on the cake is that you are able hop in and fly it.
Phil

[Don Boose]

That's a great flying story!

Don

[Ashrunner]

Interesting flight story, Mike.

I have both X-plane 9 and MS Flight Sim X. Currently, I prefer FSX because when I take off from the airport here (RDM), I'm not immediately engulfed in a flock of seagulls like I am in X-Plane 8v) Besides, I have been flying with FS for a long time and the find the program slightly more familiar and user friendly.

During my actual "flying" days, I was up in a Blanik L-13 flying around somewhere in the south. Having only been flying gliders for a very short period of time, I misjudged my approach to the airport and came in short. My sudden stop by a large bushy tree turned me about 50 degrees and strained my neck a bit. But the worst part was the damage to the leading edge of the sailplane.

I was 'banned' from flying that aircraft again, and since it was about the only I could get because of my lack of hours, I didn't fly much after that. Actually, I think I flew on my ticket one other time -- in Alaska -- after that.

I'm in a great area for flying now and if I could afford it, I'd look into getting involved once again. But I fear medical problems would be a hindrance.

[mbauer]

Hi Jeff,

I need to burn some cd for backup-my harddrive is maxed out, but I'll check the sim out once I can! Thanks for the link.

Hi Willygoat,
Yikes is an understatement! The only reason why I was able to write about it was because of Dumb Luck! I kept hearing one of my instructors telling me "keep flying the airplane no matter what happens".

Hi Willja67,

Never thought of doing that. I was a member years ago in the AOPA-do they have a website I could submit to?

I checked for the 1-nothing on x-plane.org, couldn't find it. Is it your personal or is there a copy? If it is anything like your paper designs I bet it flies great! How hard was it to learn designing it? Did you find a tutuorial or something you could recomend?

Hi Phil,

Yes, I've even downloaded specifically for a build I was doing. The B58 Hustler which is just about ready to fly! Also internet searches for specs and photos of all builds if possible.

Hi Don,

The great parts I left out. It was the only time my kids and I went airplane camping.

We usually camped on mountain bikes in the wilderness of Alaska. Our favorite area was Ressurection Trail and fishing at Juneau Lake.

We had plenty of survival gear and this looked like a good time to test the tent and liteweight sleeping bags. At Williams Lake, BC a special parking area for the airplane campers.

When we started to set the tent up I noticed that we were in a field of strawberies. They were everywhere and I had to "Force" the kids to clean an aera for the tent... I was so mean, they wouldn't stop clearing the whole area!

I'll never forget the look on my son's face-He Loves strawberies!

Even in their 20's and the mention of Wiliams Lake and they both start giggling!

Hi Ashrunner,

You must have a really powerful computin machine, mine won't do birds without massive fog...

I bent the first airplane I was learning how to fly in. It was a right side wingtip. I had just soloed and was at the practice area practicing emergency "downwind" landings, when the airplane didn't start flying soon enough I landed in a freshly plowed field. 16y/o and no brains! I was 27 before I was able to fly again.

All in all the flight was a real learning experience. I used to blame the airplane switch for most of the problem. After awhile I realized that it was my lack of judgement that was the main issue.

I let the next days weather forecast make the discissionto fly at night, I didn't check an alternative inland route for weather, most of all I didn't ask questions when I made my position reports.

Questions like how long does the flight service stations stay open. They usually close at dark because no one is stupid enough to fly the coast at night!

I learned the last little item while I was waiting for the Customs Officer to show up at Courtenay Airpark. The officer wanted to talk with me and had to make a drive on a very beautifull sunny day... he really was happy to get out of the office though.

One thing I did do after this flight was pay more attention to the compass! I kept trying to remember the correct way to correct for southerly travel in the North.

Thank you for the kind comments, nobody really said anything about my room tempature IQ.

Mike

[Leif Ohlsson]

Mike, Ashrunner, it is good to hear your live & sim flight experiences.

I learned to fly gliders in the 90s at a fairly mature 50 years of age, and kept it up until keeping it up became more of a burden than a pleasure - you really had to work hard almost the whole summer to regain that confidence which enables you to enjoy your flying. Once, overconfident, I stalled an expensive glider on final approach of first control flight of the season just because I thought I was as good as last year. Had to spend some very humbled time to help repair it. It really took longer time each year to get up to speed. So it is now - somewhat sadly - a thing of my past.

Mike, I used to fly X-plane a lot, back in version 6, and designed a couple of good aircraft, like the DC3 and DH Rapide, plus the first jet used in Sweden, the Vampire. That was quite exciting, being able to replicate both long-distance flights like across the Atlantic the Labrador-Greenland-Iceland-GB route, and the very exciting shorter flights resulting from fuel restrictions in the Vampire. It really is something the way those jets burn fuel at low altitude - landing with four minutes worth of fuel left was pretty standard in the airforce during the days of the Vampire I learned from books! I particularly value the realistic blind-flying and navigating skills you acquired in X-plane, as well as being talked-down through clouds fairly realistically in the Vampire (which doesn't have much of navigation equipment).

Kugelfang, I second your tip about the Flight Gear sim. One attractive thing about that sim is that you could probably - with some work - fly your cardmodels as the real thing.

I'm thinking that any cardmodel designed in a 3D-programme could be imported into Flight Gear, textures and all, and someone more computer savvy than me could adapt the flight model so that levers and buttons work the proper way. I am particularly thinking about their DH Beaver model as an example. I have enjoyed flying that around Europe (on the computer of course), and I think it could be changed rather easily into one of the existing colour schemes of cardmodels.

So many things possible...

Leif

[mbauer]

When not doing paper models or browsing, some spare time is spent flying different aircraft using my X-Plane program.

One of the great things about X-plane is the free downloadable aircraft available.

I've downloaded several. Got to thinking why not "hop" a few of them up. X-plane has a design program to invent your own and see if it will fly using actual physics.

Got to wondering how the future aircraft will get a round, the time it will take to go from one location to another. In other words, decided to increase the performance of certain aircraft.

It took several days of testing, but my B-1 Lancer (Bone) modifications allow 150,000 ft cruise altitude and over Mach 40 indicated.

It isn't easy to fly it at extreme altitudes, certain airspeeds and altitude mean loss of controls. Mach 40 and over 180,000 means you leave the earth behind (in a constant climb forever).

Russia/Alaska as seen from 650,000 climbing without control...



Climbing to 150,000 using a JATO system (600,000 lb thrust for 960 seconds[16 minutes]) takes some skill. Overspeed and you tumble, underspeed and you tumble.

If you climb to fast, momentum will take you above control altitudes. If you level off and accelerate to soon, aircraft will tumble from too much speed.

You can't just hit the JATO on take-off, you need to be flying, the B-1 will flip end for end down the runway...

Here are some photo of todays flight from Kenai, Alaska to Enniskellen St Angelo airport. Alaska to Ireland in 0.4 hour X-country!
Pilot Log-Notice I bounced the landing....


Todays crusing Altitude 128,760 ft @ Mach 27.269 [20,218.73 mph]


What the Earth Looks like from 128,760 ft Altitude in X-plane


Track from Alaska to Ireland-Notice lack of North Pole


Enniskillen St Angelo Airport


Gear Down


Braking Action


Full Stop-Almost didn't get it stopped in time!


The air breating engines quit around 100,000 ft, the JATO gives you the speed and altitude, once it shuts down you glide for miles and miles...

Great fun! Takes pratice to fly this simulator!

Mike