Post by Dutch Owen on Jan 11, 2015 2:00:29 GMT -5
I've been testing and tonight was an easy one, as long as I didn't find any major new bugs in 1.6.1 RC3. Two nights ago I took an Acme L-1011 down from Anchorage to SeaTac, then last night the DC-9 with a light load of PAX on a charter to KSFO. Tonight was another charter, this time from SFO back up to KPDX. About half full. At least the weather's warmer than in AK.
Three weeks ago, I downloaded a new radar gauge from AvSim. It's different than most. It only works with ASN (ActiveSky Next), but it shows you the location and intensity of actual precipitation, precisely where it is. If you don't know, ASN (like FSCaptain) intensifies the effects of weather so it's something to be taken seriously. A big red blotch (or even purple!) is something to be avoided. Seriously. It's very, very nice to have this gauge and I've installed it in most of my Acme aircraft (B732, B727, L1011, DC-3, C208) - but not the DC-9. I have the Coolsky, and it has tons of panels. About 52 of them. I already have re-arranged things to my liking, and all the SHIFT-X key windows are taken up. Installing the radar in this was a pain and I postponed it. Who needs a weather radar, really?
We left SFO at about dusk, flying the shoreline six SID up to RBL VOR and on to Portland. A beautiful evening in the Bay, calm and peaceful and everything was uneventful. Weather at Portland was ceiling 1600 overcast, wind calm. We cruised, PAX were served and happy, and I was enjoying a point or two of the 98 percent boredom pilots get most of the time.
The sun set over my left shoulder and we turned on the lights. We passed Eugene in darkness as I checked the Wx again. This time, ceilings reported 800 feet, winds still calm. So, we'll be using the ILS mode of the autopilot. Always a challenge in the DC-9 because if you don't approach it just right it won't capture.
We're vectored to intercept the ILS in 28R, approaching from the east. No problem as we descended into the soup. It was a little choppy and Trav flicked on the sign then told the PAX we'd be landing soon and to get ready. We were in the thick of it. The chop got worse.
I noticed light rain. Then heavier rain. Then within a minute, it was hitting us hard. We switched on the ignition and engine anti-ice. Then crack, crack, and the wind starting roaring around us as we were cleared to intercept the localizer.
You may not know the Portland airport, KPDX. If you do, you know that the approach from the east is over the mountains. We were were cleared down to 6,000 feet.
It was rough. The cabin was bouncing and shaking. Heavy rain outside. I remember it clearly, it was less than an hour ago. Just as the localizer needle started moving and I clicked the AP to ILS the airplane twisted and lurched, then started down. 1,000 FPM. 2,000 FPM, 3,000 FPM, 4,000 FPM. The AP gave up. The wind was louder than I'd ever heard it. PAX were starting to scream. This was it, sports fans. We were headed for the hills and not in a good way.
I shut off the AP and fire-walled the throttles just as the GPWS started squawking TERRAIN! TERRAIN! So slowly, we started to break the trend. 4,000, then 3,000, then 2,000 then back to 1,000; all the while bouncing all over the place with the engines roaring and the wind roaring and TERRAIN! TERRAIN! in my ears. Then suddenly, wooosh!!!! We're at 1,000 FPM climb, then 2,000, then in seconds 3,000 FPM up we hear more screams. One of them may have been mine.
Get me outta here!
But where to go, what do to?
I declared a missed approach to ATC and they cleared me back to 6,000 and asked if I wanted vectors. Hell, yes. We fought (and I mean fought) it back to 6,000 and suddenly, the wind eased off and the airplane stopped bouncing and lurching, merely rocking and rolling. In about 10 seconds from that, we broke out of the clouds and there below me was the PDX airport, in clear air, looking calm and pretty.
Deep breath. Order starts returning. I'm kind of shaking. ATC calmly gives vectors to try another approach. But there is obviously a hell of a storm cell of some kind just to the east of the airport. There is NO WAY I'm going through that again! I request runway 10L and they turn us around a few times until we're headed downwind. I can see KPDX out the left window. I want to land there so bad I can taste it. Some urge tells me to just shut down FSX and do this flight again. But no, I won't give up. But I'm really tired. At least it's mostly over. The rest should be routine, right?
Right? We're vectored down and over to another intercept. In the process we enter clouds again. The chop starts again, but that's not abnormal. Any other night I wouldn't even worry about it. Meanwhile the company starts pushing: EXPEDITE ARRIVAL they say. YOU ARE LATE. Yep, about 21 mins late right now and we're not on final yet. The company considers that the airport is calm and above minimums, which it is. And this approach, from the west, is relatively calm.
I expect we'll break out of the clouds, but we don't. When I click the AP back to ILS to follow the beam down, it starts climbing and keeps climbing. We go way over the glideslope! I shut it off and grab the yoke and start to manually fly it down. I DO NOT NEED THIS RIGHT NOW. I do not want to manually fly the DC-9 down the ILS in turbulence. Nasty turbulence. It's already been a night.
I get it below the glideslope and on the localizer, and switch it on and ILS again. Again it ignores everything and just holds the straight and level attitude! Damn! AP is INOP. So we do it manually. The urge to pull the plug on my computer is getting stronger.
Autopilot is off and I'm flying the needles, hoping to break out of these clouds. It's bumpy. What if that storm was headed west and is over the airport now? I have no way of knowing! I may be flying right back into it, and this time without enough altitude to survive a serious downdraft. Or maybe the overcast has closed over the airport and I'll have to land below minimums with no AP. I've done that before. But not as worn out as I'm feeling now. I resist the urge to quit.
I consider diverting. The company says the Wx is just fine at KPDX, no divert authorized. It may be fine at their office, but it's hell on either runway approach. Anyway, if we go missed again I am diverting. There's fuel to consider.
We break out of the overcast again, and I can dimly see the airport and the VASI for 10L. I'm low, but correcting. It's still turbulent, but I can control it. But as we approach to about five miles we hit a band of low clouds and everything disappears again! We bump down on the needles. I WILL NOT MISS THIS. I can't do this again.
Two miles out and I get the rabbit again. Gradually it smooths out, and we touch down nicely in perfect calm. The PAX don't applaud. They should, they don't know how lucky they are this night. I ask for a follow-me and follow him until I get to to the gate. Never been so glad to see a bunch of rampies!
Score 69. Thirty-two minutes late.
But we were a few hundred feet, I think, from never getting there at all.
Now, IF I had not postponed installing that Wx radar, I would have seen that nasty cell and asked for an approach from the west to begin with. On time, good score, routine flight, instead of a pulse-pounding near disaster. Lesson learned.
Never, ever again will I fly without the Wx radar with Active Sky Next unless it's clear skies and daylight! Never.
Most excitement I've ever had in a game, I believe.
Dutch
Three weeks ago, I downloaded a new radar gauge from AvSim. It's different than most. It only works with ASN (ActiveSky Next), but it shows you the location and intensity of actual precipitation, precisely where it is. If you don't know, ASN (like FSCaptain) intensifies the effects of weather so it's something to be taken seriously. A big red blotch (or even purple!) is something to be avoided. Seriously. It's very, very nice to have this gauge and I've installed it in most of my Acme aircraft (B732, B727, L1011, DC-3, C208) - but not the DC-9. I have the Coolsky, and it has tons of panels. About 52 of them. I already have re-arranged things to my liking, and all the SHIFT-X key windows are taken up. Installing the radar in this was a pain and I postponed it. Who needs a weather radar, really?
We left SFO at about dusk, flying the shoreline six SID up to RBL VOR and on to Portland. A beautiful evening in the Bay, calm and peaceful and everything was uneventful. Weather at Portland was ceiling 1600 overcast, wind calm. We cruised, PAX were served and happy, and I was enjoying a point or two of the 98 percent boredom pilots get most of the time.
The sun set over my left shoulder and we turned on the lights. We passed Eugene in darkness as I checked the Wx again. This time, ceilings reported 800 feet, winds still calm. So, we'll be using the ILS mode of the autopilot. Always a challenge in the DC-9 because if you don't approach it just right it won't capture.
We're vectored to intercept the ILS in 28R, approaching from the east. No problem as we descended into the soup. It was a little choppy and Trav flicked on the sign then told the PAX we'd be landing soon and to get ready. We were in the thick of it. The chop got worse.
I noticed light rain. Then heavier rain. Then within a minute, it was hitting us hard. We switched on the ignition and engine anti-ice. Then crack, crack, and the wind starting roaring around us as we were cleared to intercept the localizer.
You may not know the Portland airport, KPDX. If you do, you know that the approach from the east is over the mountains. We were were cleared down to 6,000 feet.
It was rough. The cabin was bouncing and shaking. Heavy rain outside. I remember it clearly, it was less than an hour ago. Just as the localizer needle started moving and I clicked the AP to ILS the airplane twisted and lurched, then started down. 1,000 FPM. 2,000 FPM, 3,000 FPM, 4,000 FPM. The AP gave up. The wind was louder than I'd ever heard it. PAX were starting to scream. This was it, sports fans. We were headed for the hills and not in a good way.
I shut off the AP and fire-walled the throttles just as the GPWS started squawking TERRAIN! TERRAIN! So slowly, we started to break the trend. 4,000, then 3,000, then 2,000 then back to 1,000; all the while bouncing all over the place with the engines roaring and the wind roaring and TERRAIN! TERRAIN! in my ears. Then suddenly, wooosh!!!! We're at 1,000 FPM climb, then 2,000, then in seconds 3,000 FPM up we hear more screams. One of them may have been mine.
Get me outta here!
But where to go, what do to?
I declared a missed approach to ATC and they cleared me back to 6,000 and asked if I wanted vectors. Hell, yes. We fought (and I mean fought) it back to 6,000 and suddenly, the wind eased off and the airplane stopped bouncing and lurching, merely rocking and rolling. In about 10 seconds from that, we broke out of the clouds and there below me was the PDX airport, in clear air, looking calm and pretty.
Deep breath. Order starts returning. I'm kind of shaking. ATC calmly gives vectors to try another approach. But there is obviously a hell of a storm cell of some kind just to the east of the airport. There is NO WAY I'm going through that again! I request runway 10L and they turn us around a few times until we're headed downwind. I can see KPDX out the left window. I want to land there so bad I can taste it. Some urge tells me to just shut down FSX and do this flight again. But no, I won't give up. But I'm really tired. At least it's mostly over. The rest should be routine, right?
Right? We're vectored down and over to another intercept. In the process we enter clouds again. The chop starts again, but that's not abnormal. Any other night I wouldn't even worry about it. Meanwhile the company starts pushing: EXPEDITE ARRIVAL they say. YOU ARE LATE. Yep, about 21 mins late right now and we're not on final yet. The company considers that the airport is calm and above minimums, which it is. And this approach, from the west, is relatively calm.
I expect we'll break out of the clouds, but we don't. When I click the AP back to ILS to follow the beam down, it starts climbing and keeps climbing. We go way over the glideslope! I shut it off and grab the yoke and start to manually fly it down. I DO NOT NEED THIS RIGHT NOW. I do not want to manually fly the DC-9 down the ILS in turbulence. Nasty turbulence. It's already been a night.
I get it below the glideslope and on the localizer, and switch it on and ILS again. Again it ignores everything and just holds the straight and level attitude! Damn! AP is INOP. So we do it manually. The urge to pull the plug on my computer is getting stronger.
Autopilot is off and I'm flying the needles, hoping to break out of these clouds. It's bumpy. What if that storm was headed west and is over the airport now? I have no way of knowing! I may be flying right back into it, and this time without enough altitude to survive a serious downdraft. Or maybe the overcast has closed over the airport and I'll have to land below minimums with no AP. I've done that before. But not as worn out as I'm feeling now. I resist the urge to quit.
I consider diverting. The company says the Wx is just fine at KPDX, no divert authorized. It may be fine at their office, but it's hell on either runway approach. Anyway, if we go missed again I am diverting. There's fuel to consider.
We break out of the overcast again, and I can dimly see the airport and the VASI for 10L. I'm low, but correcting. It's still turbulent, but I can control it. But as we approach to about five miles we hit a band of low clouds and everything disappears again! We bump down on the needles. I WILL NOT MISS THIS. I can't do this again.
Two miles out and I get the rabbit again. Gradually it smooths out, and we touch down nicely in perfect calm. The PAX don't applaud. They should, they don't know how lucky they are this night. I ask for a follow-me and follow him until I get to to the gate. Never been so glad to see a bunch of rampies!
Score 69. Thirty-two minutes late.
But we were a few hundred feet, I think, from never getting there at all.
Now, IF I had not postponed installing that Wx radar, I would have seen that nasty cell and asked for an approach from the west to begin with. On time, good score, routine flight, instead of a pulse-pounding near disaster. Lesson learned.
Never, ever again will I fly without the Wx radar with Active Sky Next unless it's clear skies and daylight! Never.
Most excitement I've ever had in a game, I believe.
Dutch